Tag: children

Jason…

On By Jerry BrothertonIn flash, Short Stories2 Comments

Janice has withdrawn into herself again. She’s setting there on our yard sale couch staring into a TV that isn’t even on. With the old quilt, that our grandmother made, wrapped tight around her; though it’s eighty degrees in our trailer. Her face is sunken and her skin hangs lose from fragile bones. Like all the emotions have been sucked away from her and left her deflated.

I sit down next to her and she leans into me, resting her head on my shoulder. We set for an eternity in our silence just staring at the floating specs of dust in the sunshine. It’s like we’re frozen inside a snow globe.

“I hate Fridays,” she says to me. I smile because I know she’s trying to push away the ugliness that is shrouding her.

“I know Jan.” I tell her, because really I do.

It was three years ago on a Friday that I found you huddled in the woods, just off the path that we used as a shortcut from school. We took that path everyday together…except that Friday. That Friday, I wasn’t there for you because that Friday I tried out for that fucking school play. I found you there, shaking so hard I was afraid your bones would shatter. Your head was in your hands and the tears burning the scuff marks on your cheeks. I heard you whispering between your sobs, “No, no, please no.”

You were only twelve years old and collapsed into a pile of flesh and bones. Left discarded in the woods like some wounded animal. I found you there, with your clothes covered in your own blood. Your innocents ripped from your soul. You wrapped your fists tight into my sweater as I picked you up. Your eyes squeezed shut because you never wanted to look at anything again. There would be no beauty left for you in this world. I carried your trembling body in my arms. Your convulsions were so heavy that you vomited onto my cloths; your tears so large they washed it away again. Your short wisps of breath floated into the night sky along with all your dreams. All I could do was tell you that it was going to be okay…but I knew it never would.

While you searched for some answer, you cried, “Oh God, why, why?”

I don’t think God will ever give us those answers my dear sister, but I will always hate him for taking your childhood away.

Let’s name him Jerry…

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short Stories2 Comments

A whisper into my mother’s ear by my fifteen year old brother Lawrence ‘Dean’ and she proclaimed me Jerry Wayne Brotherton. Old English in origin; a diminutive form of Gerald (The Ruling Spear).

In 1941, 1.3 percent of the population held the prestigious name. But for some reason, with World War II came the nickname for German soldiers…Jerries. Starting a downward slide that nearly drove the name to extinction and it’s never recovered.

I was born 16 years after the name peaked in popularity. Setting the tone for what would become my life’s motto…a day late and a dollar short.

Time

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Free Verse, Poetry5 Comments

You silenced the calling out of children

Across empty lots and down twilight alleyways

You stole the summers of innocents

And the friends and lovers of forgotten days

 

Long ago, you teased me with your possibilities

Filled me with hope and fantasies

Then jerked away your promises

And left me with want and empty dreams

May 1st 1957

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Non Fiction, Short Stories5 Comments

It was 51 degrees in Carrollton, Missouri when I took my first breath that began this incredible journey called life. Although I have no recollection of the first 4 years of it, so I can safely say that in my mind, my life started on one warm spring day…you know what, let’s save that for another time.

It just took a little bit of one finger typing into Google to easily bring me up to speed on those early years. It was 8.40 PM on Wednesday when doctor Everett L. Smith slapped me on the ass and proclaimed me a healthy baby boy. By that miracle of childbirth, I took my place in the world as the 7th son and the 14th child born to Arlie and Sylvia Brotherton. At least that’s the official information from my birth certificate, but there will be countless times over the course of the next twenty years or so that I will swear that I was adopted.

My Zodiac sign is Taurus (the bull headed), ruled by Venus (beauty and creativity). My mythical Animal is the (Rooster), my life Path is #1; supposedly that makes me a born leader who insists on making up my own mind and demanding freedom of thoughts and actions. My birth stone is emerald, my flower is the Lily of the Valley and my perfect match, January 7th, 1961.

According to the internet, my psychological profile says I am bound to think, study, reflect and develop inner wisdom. In a past life, sometime around 950AD, it seems that I might have been a judge in France. My strengths were the talent to understand ancient texts, magical abilities and perhaps I might have been a servant of the dark forces.

In this life though, to my family, I was merely the fourteenth competitor for the attention of my parents. To the rest of the world an ordinary baby boy, nothing more than just another name among the 279,640 children born on that day.

Summer Days

On By Jerry BrothertonIn Free Verse, Poetry2 Comments

Heavy air on breezeless days
Push you into shady corners
Sweat stained ball caps
Cover red leather faces
Adonis boys display their prowess
To bikini clad Aphrodite
Blood runs hotter than the sun
When darkness hides their passion