Nightmares

Eight year old Marquez lies warm and slumbering on his soft bed. His mother watches him for a moment before she switches off the light, a smile playing on her lips, wondering what little boys dreams off. Cars...guns...lego sets? She laughs softly and shuts the door.

Marquez is dreaming. A bald man with black sunglasses follows him, gun in hand. Marquez is running, as fast as his short eight year old legs can carry him. In his dream, he runs into a parking lot, filled with cars. He wriggles underneath a car. Minutes pass, and a pair of shoes come into view. A face bends low, peering underneath the car, but Marquez is already worming his way out. He runs and runs. Sweat courses down his face, trickles down his face. Marquez looks over his shoulder, into the barrel of a gun. He looks ahead, and the landscape changes. It's beautiful, like a picture postcard: gold-toned sunset and pink clouds over a calm sea. But he's still running, and his feet sink into the soft beach, sand reaching up around his ankles. He stumbles and picks himself up. But the effort is too much for his eight year old heart, beating to burst. I can stop this, Marquez thinks, I can stop this, I can stop this. He looks back, and sees the bald man, sunglasses reflecting the setting sun.

Marquez wakes up. He's breathing hard. He whimpers and looks up. The bald man stands before him, his gun pointed at Marquez's chest. He fires.

Marquez is hiding in the cupboard. He's still hiding the next morning, when his mother comes in to wake him up for school. But she runs, screaming out of the room. Curious, Marquez steps out of his hiding place. He sees himself, lying in his bed, hole in his chest, red blood darkening the bedsheets and his spiderman pyjamas. His father runs in and stops, aghast, staring at the bed. Marquez waves. He screams at his father. But he doesn't notice. He tugs at his father's hands, but his hands pass through. Marquez's father shivers.

Marquez continues to live in the house, but no one sees him. Months pass. He watches his parents grieve, fight, and go through the motions of living. He watches his mother cry in his bedroom, tears coursing down her red cheeks. His father reaches out to her, but she pushes him away, beating him with clenched fists. He holds her closer still, presses her head tightly to his chest. Gradually, she stops fighting him. She's still sobbing - heavy, horrible, animal sounds. He kisses her slowly and pushes her onto Marquez's bed. He kisses her everywhere, slowly first, and then faster. He pulls off his clothing, then hers.

Marquez screams, Stop! Stop! I'm still here. But his parents don't stop. And he starts to cry.

Marquez's father clutches the headboard to steady himself. He thrusts into her, pushing so hard that it hurts her. She whimpers, then moans. The bedsprings creak to a fast, frenetic tempo. Their shadows, larger than life, bounce and jerk on the bedroom walls. Finally, he rolls off, and they both lie together, spent.

Unknown to them, a new life has begun to beat.

The next day Marquez's mother, still crying, packs her suitcases. For the last time, she fights with her husband, and then storms out of the house, unaware of the zygote that divides and multiplies in her womb. When her lover comes later that evening to collect the suitcases and boxes left behind, Marquez's father tries to fight with him too, but his wife's lover refuses to be provoked. He sits on Marquez's bed and pours himself glass after glass of scotch. He falls asleep, curled up on Marquez's soft bed, drunk but not dreaming.

A week later his secretary moves into the house. Marquez watches, horrified, as she puts away his ninja turtles, train sets and computer games into boxes that are taken away, and clears for her own daughter. Pink dresses, barbie dolls and coloring books appear in Marquez's closet. Marquez's father begins to feel happy, although he slams down the phone when his ex-wife calls to invite him to her wedding, and tells him that she's having a baby as well. He thinks of selling the house, every room is host to old, sad memories.

Marquez is angry because he realizes that they are beginning to forget him.

The house is sold to a bald Russian mafia man, who pretends to be a grocer. He likes to wear his designer sunglasses even at night, in pitch black darkness.

And Marquez is forgotten.