#I thought of this now because a vividly colored car passed me on the freeway earlier

[marlynnofmany]

Oh hey, fun fact I just remembered: at the edges of your vision, you can see motion but not color.

Seems wrong, doesn’t it? There’s no black-and-white area to the sides. But that’s because your brain guesses and fills it in.

Here’s the test:

Get some squares of colored paper, or anything else that’s all the same size but different colors. Felt pens, DVD cases, whatever. Pick one without looking (or have a friend do it for you.)

Look straight forward, holding the thing out to the side and behind you, so you can’t quite see it yet. Move it forward until you do. Wiggle as necessary.

When you first see something moving, you won’t be able to say what color it is, and it will be maddening. You can guess! But it’s just a guess! Then when you look, you may be completely wrong!

It’s a fun game for parties, and blowing your friends’ minds.

[vote-for-eggman]

Please read this short story for me.

It’s inspired by the premise for Shameless except not written to become tiresome after a while. Need responses. Submitting it for a “romantic evening” prompt. Other requirements were importance of setting and abstract description.

It’s like every breath I take in the house shudders the foundation.

Perhaps my ragged breaths only slipped out so irregularly in the moment due to Sophie’s reckless raking through my hair with the only comb we had. Or perhaps it was nerves for the date.

“Hold still, Rory!” Sophie hissed. Her little hands slipped on some more aged product into my hair; she was clearly struggling to spread it.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I asked gruffly.

Another tug into my hair. “Yes, of course!” she claimed. Then she pushed my head down so I was staring at my bare chest. The chair swayed uneasily on its crooked legs.

Sophie’s young life probably would have granted her naivety if she, like the rest of us, were in a normal life. Therefore, I was musing on whether she was deliberately trying to mess up my hair or if she was genuinely trying her best. I didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop.

“You don’t think I’m old enough to do this, huh?” she teased.

“What? No!” I lied.

She crookedly pulled the comb through my hair again. “I’m mature,” she said. “I walk myself to school. AND I make my school lunches sometimes.”

I turned my head up slightly to make eye contact with the little girl standing over me. “Sometimes?” I questioned.

Her voice quieted. “When we have food at the house,” she said meekly.

The room submerged into a humid silence.

Suddenly, a rampaging and repeating thudding roared around the tight stairwell. “Rory! Rory!” followed the rolling noise descending down the stairs.

I pulled my head up. Callan was now at the foot of the stairwell, which was only feet away from my hair salon.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His eyes looked up and down, “Sophie’s doing your hair? In the kitchen?” Callan put a hand up to the back of his head, stroking through his hair as it traveled behind him.

Autumn, the quiet one in the house, piped up from her work of doing the dishes adjacent to the chair. “Rory has a date and Sophie offered to make him look ‘perfect.’”

“Huh,” he noted incredulously.

Callan shook the thought aside. He got closer to me and confidently smiled. “Guess who is officially in the running for class president in the upcoming semester at East Arm High School.” His voice was light and direct.

Callan didn’t wait for a response.

He pumped his fist into the air and announced, “Callan Renato! The one. And. Only!”

I leaped from the chair, sending the comb swinging into the dishwater. I grabbed him by the hands and instinctively beamed at him. “You did? You really did?”

“Yes!” Callan exclaimed. His face was ruby red. He freed his hands and rubbed one through his charcoal hair again. “I’m… I can’t believe I did it.”

“Not yet, you haven’t,” I pointed out. “But you will. Since when have you ever quit while you were ahead?”

His face hardened and his brow lowered. “Right. The race has just begun.” I could tell Callan was suppressing a smile, even if he was doing his best to portray his focus. Of the four of us, Callan clearly was the one who desired to fight for success and overcome our difficulties. Though, I’d argue we all had our ways of dealing with them.

My brother turned to Autumn, who was fishing out the comb from the dish water. He pointed at her with a confident smile. “You will see me. I’ll be the junior class president and you’ll see ME in the Student Council with you,” Callan declared.

Autumn softly cheered, “I’ll be happy to have you.”

He was about to go back up the stairs, but just as his hand gripped the banister, he said, “Autumn, you might want to help out with Rory’s… situation.” He moved his finger in a circular and pitiful fashion around my hair.

Sophie glanced mischievously up at me. “I think he looks perfect.”

I pulled my wallet out of my pants and grabbed a quarter. I handed it to her gingerly and snootily said, “Why thank you my good madam.” I set my wallet on the kitchen table next to my button-up.

She giggled, snatched the quarter like it were the last apple on earth, and followed Callan up the stairs.

The chair shifted again as I sat back down into it. “Would you mind fixing whatever Sophie did, Autumn?” I requested with a defeated shrug.

With the bent comb in hand, she drifted around the counter and towards me. Her crystalline brown eyes studied me. Autumn was wearing her signature smile: slight, barely-upturned, but replete with an aura of comfort. With her red hair up in a ponytail like it was, she in a complete look.

She looked like Mom.

“I think I can do something with this,” Autumn decided.

But she didn’t act like her.

My head was twisted and turned around the chair as she made quick work into styling my hair into something acceptable. All the while, she was silent, except for the occasional “Tck! No!” creeping out her lips.

A few times she held up a pan for me to check on how I liked it. I insisted it was flawless multiple times, but Autumn would silently continue her work until she was satisfied with the result.

It had been a while I was going out on the date.

When was that last? When Callan was thirteen? How old was he now? Sixteen? Yes! Sixteen.

Dear God, it's not been just a while. It’s been an era.

It isn’t like I’ve had the time to do so anyway. What, with all the meals to cook? Jobs to work? And-

HONK! HONK!

“What’s that?” Autumn asked.

“My date doesn’t start until 8:30,” I noted.

I felt Autumn shift to her left to check the oven clock. “Oh,” she breathed.

My voice went up a pitch. “‘Oh’? ‘Oh’ what?”

“It’s 8:45.”

I could sense my eyes trying to burst from my skull. “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod,” I stammered. I launched off the chair and spun around the kitchen. I buttoned up the olive-colored shirt in a panic. Autumn was still picking at my hair as I tried to finger the buttons through the holes that I was sure kept moving as I tried to push the white buttons through them.

Without thinking, I burst out of the slanted front door.

“Good luck!” Autumn sheepishly chirped as I slammed the door behind me.

I felt the September chill of night tackle through the moth holes.

The Uber at the bottom of the brick stairs was a black so drastic, I was sure if it weren’t parked under the street light, it’d have been invisible.

The window rolled down and a greasy man with leathery skin greeted me callously. “Roark?”

I grunted out “It’s just Rory” and planted myself into the back seat of the car with a shaky sigh.

The back seat had a water bottle and a candy bar wrapper.

“The water bottle and candy bar are for you,” the Uber driver stated. “But you took so damn long, I ate the candy bar.”

“Thanks,” I said deadpanned.

And that was all we said. I relied on the window to keep me company.

Box houses and square porches painted in various shades of forget squeezed together along our street, as if on an execution line. The other street lights had long since been broken and their bulbs were never changed. But, because of this, the stars were clearly visible in this part of the city; they were vividly gleaming at the house. The Uber car picked up speed as we left, shivering from the potholed road and kicking up a little pool of stagnant rain water.

The ride greeted me to familiar trees in uncomfortable poses hanging over their darkened vermillion leaves. I steadily watched as yellowed windows passed by or bruised mailboxes jumped like bats through my view.

The driver took a sharp left onto the freeway to the central city. As we advanced to the city, the lights above us twinkled out of view. My thoughts distorted the closer we approached, but still, the driver and I shared no words.

I reflected on my family.

Was it the job as patriarch that held me back or my fear of living for myself stopping me from going on dates? Or did I just think too much about that sort of thing?

I imagined Sophie next to me.

She would have grabbed the water bottle in amazement. “Whoa! Free water? And we can keep it?” she would have exclaimed. Then she’d jerk up and down eagerly, maybe badger the driver into getting her in the driver’s seat.

Then Callan, if he were here, would say, “I’m sixteen AND I have a permit, so if anyone’s doing the driving, it’d be me.” He’d definitely try to get us there in one piece, but I’m not so sure if he could. The Renato car was beat up in the back from his failures at driving in reverse.

Of course, Autumn would try to keep the peace. She’d probably put a hand on one of their shoulders and gesture to the greasy guy, maybe even fake a smile to him. “We already have a driver,” she’d softly remark. “Why change things now when Rory has his big date?”

Oh yeah.

I was going on a date.

The car was lurching through traffic; its black body swam through a sea of screeching wheels with a worrying grace. I grabbed the underside of the seat, which was slightly torn and bleeding stuffing.

It halted. It sped up. It erratically jutted between lanes. My brain started to swirl.

Finally, the car shrieked and halted with a powerful tug.

I had stuffing in my fingernails.

“We’re here. Good night,” the driver flatly snapped.

“Oh… okay, thank you,” I began but before I could return the ‘good night’ as I got out of the car, he drove off. The back seat door was still slightly open.

I turned around to the restaurant.

The earthen-colored columns held up the building fortuitously. The building itself loomed over me. Unappetized, it looked at me

I uncomfortably slipped in.

The breeze swam again into the moth holes of my shirt as I opened the door. But the smell of baked bread overpowered the chilly feeling.

The hostess at the front looked at me through the sea of people waiting for seats.

“Roark?” she asked immediately.

I stumbled forward. Clumsily, I remarked, “It’s just Rory.”

The girl pulled her hair through her tight locks. “Whatever it is, I’ve been calling your name at each guy who came in for the past fifteen minutes,” she absentmindedly huffed. There were countless waiters bringing out meals much too large for me. I saw a lobster dish that I’m certain amounted to more than what I had in my savings.

The hostess dragged me into a booth seat where my date was.

He looked a little frazzled. Was it worry or frustration?

“Roark?”

“It’s just Rory,” I said for a third time.

He made a stern look towards me. The hostess scurried off.

“It doesn’t matter. I thought I’d been stood up.”

I looked down at the silverware roll, refusing to making eye contact. I picked at the seat. “Oh,” I slurred. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if you did. I was preoccupied.” Cautiously, I looked back up at him; my head was still down.

He put on a forgiving smile. “It’s okay. I’m happy I got to see you.”

I blushed. I turned my head to look out the window, nervously. He held out a tanned hand.

“Are you okay? You seem nervous.”

Nodding, I whimpered, “This is my first date in almost three years.” I looked back him. “And that date ended in a fountain at one in the morning with me finding him drunkenly chasing after another guy he met at the bar,” I bashfully said.

His eyes widened. All he said was a hesitant “O-oh.”

Why is he giving me that look? Does he want me to do something? I thought.

Suddenly, a tall man with mysterious eyes approached us. “Have you gentlemen decided on what you’ll have to drink?”

“The strongest and cheapest wine you have,” I blurted automatically.

My date gulped. “I’ll just have a martini,” he decided.

My fingers rolled along the table. Then again. Once mores.

Seconds dragged onward.

He looked at me with a slight tilt to his head, as if there were water in his right ear and it was just barely still in there. His lips were slightly jutted out but his brow was lowered. He gave the gaze a scientist would to a hyperactive particle.

“You look curious,” I remarked.

He put his head in one hand. With the other, he brushed out a long blonde hair resting on his nose. “I’m trying to understand,” he said, “why a guy as handsome as you hasn’t had a date in three years.”

I shifted my eyes from side to side.

“I’ve been… busy. And…” I paused, “Did you just say I’m handsome?”

The hand that brushed his hair from his face skulked towards mine still rolling its fingers along the table. His pressured expression warmed and a coy grin cracked through his face. “I absolutely did,” he crooned and placed his fingers over mine.

I blushed. I didn’t think of myself as anything special. He was really handsome, too.

“I-I-I…” I blubbered. I felt like I were going through a plight rather than a pleasure.

The waiter returned to us. I swiped my hand back. He brought our drinks on a pristine serving tray.

I looked up at him, screaming for an answer on what to say with my eyes. He stared down at me with a similar feeling of curiosity. But this one felt… cool. Like an autumn morning. We shared a beat of eye contact before he snapped back to the two of us.

“Your drinks,” he stated dryly. He placed the martini before my date. Then, he slowly placed the full wine glass in front of me. It was drearily black. The waiter held that look towards me as he set the drink down.

I hastily sipped at the wine. It tasted like discordance.

My date rolled his eyes.

Nice job, Rory.

“Have you two chosen what you’ll have?” the waiter asked with a fake smile. He was still looking at me.

My date stated plainly, “Well, while I was waiting for you Rory, I figured out that I’ll be getting the pan-seared salmon.”

My face flushed.

I feverishly flew along the menu.

29.99? 43.99?!

I couldn’t afford any of it.

I looked at the appetizers.

Avocado Cucumber bites?

It was the cheapest on the menu.

“The Avocado Cucumber bites?” I stated. Or asked.

I could feel sweat rushing to my armpits.

“You realize those are an appetizer?” the waiter asked. His face seemed half-heartedly agog for my response. The side of his lips twitched.

Was there something on my damn face and he just wasn’t telling me?

Sheepishly, I nodded.

A glint of amusement came through his amber eyes. “Okay then. I’ll have those right for you.”

I took another chug of wine.

Still, I couldn’t keep eye contact with my date.

Just as the waiter took the menus, I noticed something out the window.

No.

A familiar red-headed woman, black-haired man, and mischievous-looking girl were peeping through the window.

I felt sick.

How and more importantly WHY are Autumn, Callan, and Sophie here?

Sophie held up something. It was my wallet.

I had a quick flashback to earlier in the night. I had left it on the counter. My hands rushed to my pocket, feeling for it instinctively.

Callan rolled his eyes and dragged the girls towards the restaurant.

Another imbibe of wine.

“Is something wrong, Rory?” he said, clearly irritated. He followed my eyes but saw nothing. The three were already making their way to the door.

A frog leaped into my throat.

Then, speeding through the waiters pivoting around tables came three children. Sophie led the way, now, wallet in tow. Callan was pulling a hesitant Autumn behind the youngest.

“Oh my shit…” I sighed and finished the glass.

“We can’t let you go anywhere,” Callan jeered as Sophie slapped the wallet onto the table.

My date put a hand up. “E-excuse me?!” he stammered.

Sophie pointed to her brother and cried, “Callan insisted on HIM driving here.”

“Yeah,” he retorted, “because I’m the only one who knows how.”

“I beat you in Mario Kart.”

“When I had a broken arm!” he replied. He pointed to his right arm and squinted, as if to ridicule her.

My date turned to me, enraged. “Who the heck are these three?”

I put my hands to my temples. “These,” I moaned, “are my siblings.”

“Why the hell are they not at home with your parents?” he exasperatedly shouted.

A few heads turned.

My ears stung.

The world caged up around me. I was being watched.

“We…” I bit my lip. “We don’t have parents.”

He slammed his hands onto the table. His face was as red as a crabapple. “God! No wonder you haven’t had a date in three years!” he bellowed. “You haven’t shown a lick of interest in me all night,” he started to list, “you were late, you’ve been avoiding eye contact all night, and, top it all off… you have this freak show family life that you brought!” He pointed his hand towards my siblings.

“Don’t talk about my siblings like that,” I robotically countered.

He snarled and threw his hands up in the air. He pushed Autumn out of the way, then barreled out of the booth.

People were staring at us now.

I put my hands in my head.

“Why couldn’t you guys have just waited for me?” I groaned.

I heard a pathetic cello play out the night, echoing through my head like a concert hall. Empty and dimmed. My heart was painfully morose.

“Sounds like your date really wasn’t going great to begin with,” Callan countered.

I ignored him. “He had it all,” I remarked. I forced myself to compliment the man. “Tall, tan, hot, blonde…”

“Called Anya?” Sophie jested in a sing-song voice. She brushed her hair about as if it were long like a model’s.

Autumn put her hands on her sister’s shoulders.

To top of the night’s calamity, the waiter returned. “Alright, well I got the avocado bites but the salmon has yet to-” He halted.

He looked at the empty booth, then at the children beside me, and finally, into my eyes. “What happened to your date?” His face wasn’t cross. That same autumnal stare pooled through his own eyes.

“Cancel the salmon,” I simply said.

The cello boomed louder. My heart drowned further into it.

Autumn looked between the two of us and piped, “Callan, Sophie, let’s go wait in the car.”

Sophie protested at first but Callan happily took her away from me, probably sensing the tension.

Smart kids.

The waiter watched them leave.

Instead of just leaving, he placed the ridiculous appetizer before me.

He gave me half a smile and glanced to the wine glass. “Rough date, hm?” he sighed.

I only stared at the unfinished martini to respond.

He sat down where my date was and pushed the martini aside. He picked up an avocado bite and popped it in his mouth. I pulled my head up from my hands. I looked at him wildly and stammered, “A-aren’t you an employee here? Can you do that?”

“Did you know avocados are an aphrodisiac?” he dodged.

I turned around.

“Am I being pranked?” I nervously asked to no one in particular. I looked for a camera.

He put his hand on mine.

I froze.

He warmly smiled, “You look like you need a friend is all, man.”

I looked down at his hand. It was a clean white color with hair on each knuckle. The fingers were worn, almost like he punched a lot of things. The rest of his arm was hiding underneath a firmly pressed white shirt. I followed his arm back up to his face.

“I’m going to come back,” he affirmed to himself. “I’m going to take my break.”

The waiter flew away.

I picked up an avocado bite myself. I considered it for a moment and tried it out. It tasted strange. Savory and salty. I ate another.

He came back. His curly black hair was now a little out of its neat waiter-y look; there was a glint of fanaticism on his face. “I had to run and get this,” he whispered. From under his arm, he pulled out a small loaf of bread.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “A waiter stealing from his own job? That’s deducting from your tip,” I snickered and took it from his hands. I grazed his fingers. It was cool to the touch. I looked up at him, eyes wide open. He smiled from the corner of his mouth.

“Go on, take it,” he said.

I did. It smelled divine.

He moved his head closer towards me. His bearded face creased into that same curious look. “I’ve been trying to figure you out all night. Who were those kids?”

I exhaled heavily.

I was enjoying this moment, too.

“My siblings,” I explained and picked up my wallet. “They came to give me my whole,” I continued, combing through the wallet and expelling its content, “seven dollars and… twenty six cents to pay for dinner.” A quarter drearily rolled against the martini glass.

The waiter picked up the quarter.

“Neat. Nevada,” he said.

“Is that enough to even pay for the appetizer,” I sighed, forgetting the cost.

The waiter shook his head. “Not even close.”

I groaned and buried my face into the table.

I heard him put the quarter gently in front of the plate. “It’s on the house,��� he decided.

Immediately, I snapped my head upward. I couldn’t believe someone was paying for my food. The last dinner someone had bought me was a beer a girl gave me before realizing I wasn’t interested around the last Thanksgiving.

“Really?” I gasped.

He snatched back the quarter. “If…” he slickly said, “you tell me what’s up with you.”

I looked down at the unopened silverware roll again.

“...but I really was liking where this was going,” I muttered.

“Well I am now,” he sweetly stated, equally as soft.

Those damn pools of amber.

Another exhale. “Those kids are my siblings even if I’m basically their dad now. Our father shot himself two Christmases ago…”

He put his hands up to his lips. He whispered, “Oh my god, dude, you d-”

I was on a roll.

“My mother was an addict and neglectful at best,” I painfully spat out. “She left us when I was eleven. My dad was never the same. He’d go to work but never speak to us. There was this… haunting sadness in his eyes. For seven years, we lived with that…” I wheezed. I bit my lip, “and then… bam.” My hand was in the shape of a finger gun and sadly kicked back against my temple.

The waiter gripped the quarter.

“I haven’t seen my mother since she left. And I hate her for that. She ruined us. Because of her, I’m now my sibling’s parent. At eighteen, I became a father of three,” I continued. I put up my hands and exhaled, “Don’t get me wrong, I love my siblings to death but… it sucks I’m just in this position.”

I blinked back tears.

“I just want them to be happy, now. My life is already in shambles… but they barely knew Mistral. And they had to grow up only with a distant father and me. They don’t… they don’t deserve this life. I’m no parent… I can’t even keep a date...”

I shook my frustration over the wallet away. I could hear Callan saying “It shouldn’t be your responsibility.” I could feel Sophie’s confused embrace, unsure of most of the situation. I could see Autumn’s knobby fingers pat my shoulder.

It wasn’t Autumn’s fingers, though.

It was the strong fingers of the waiter.

“I checked the reservations because I thought you were cute…” he sighed with a smile. “It’s Roark, right?”

I gulped.

“Yes,” I meekly responded.

The waiter shook his head and chided out, “You deserve happiness, too, Roark.” He firmed his grip on my shoulder.

My heart soared with felicity, but my brain felt crestfallen.

I ate another cucumber bite woefully. I stared at the dish.

“Look at me,” he said sternly.

I did.

I liked looking at him.

“You. Deserve. Happiness.” He said it with a great vigor. “Say it.”

I swallowed the appetizer.

“I… deserve… happiness…” I croaked.

He grabbed me by either side of the head and kissed me.

I nearly choked on the avocado.

He tasted like a cinnamon stick. Warm and enchanting. His dark stubbly beard poked at my chin, tickling my own little bit of facial hair. Then, it ceased. Ended like a fuse that wouldn’t finish.

My mouth was still agape as he pulled away.

“Are you happy?” he grinned.

I let out a faint sigh in response.

He pulled out a receipt. He wordlessly scratched something onto it. He got up from the booth and slid it forward to me. “Let me know if you need more help with your situation,” he said. Then he winked at me.

A guy. Winked. At me.

My mouth was still open.

He walked away.

I looked at the writing. It said, “Here’s my number. You better call it. -Jack.”

Below, his number was hastily scrawled out in blue ink. A smiley face with lines for eyes eagerly sat next to it.

I scrambled to parking lot and to the car, with the bread under my arm.

Callan was in the driver’s seat; Sophie was in the back with Autumn.

“Is that bread?” he only asked.

I slammed the car door, which shook the old car to its core. I leaned against the window and only said, “I got it from a hot waiter.”

Callan widened his eyes and pulled out of the parking space.

As we neared our home, stars blinked back into place. The beat up mailboxes leaped by the window like deer. The multicolored houses along the road stood in line, welcoming me home.

I just couldn’t stop smiling.