Monica

Shortly after that, Monica realized that she knew what everyone was thinking. Until then she was sure it was just children.

Monica sat on the edge of her bed. She hadn’t slept much. She had woken up to the sound of her parents having sex in the next room. She couldn’t go back to sleep.

Who has to put up with this shit? Aren’t they supposed to be sick of each other at this point?

She listened to her dad mumble in the next room. He’s was saying something about the blankets getting all tangled up.

Gross.

Monica could see a little boy. He’s afraid. Terrified. There are older Indian boys surrounding him. The leaders have grins. The lesser are packing. Following twisted alphas.

She shakes it away.

She sits up.

Gotta beat Dad to the bathroom. 

Monica skips across the hall and is half way into the busiest room in the house just as her father enters the hallway.

“Guh-Moring,” she offers.

He says morning.

Monica leaps into the bathroom shutting the door delicately and deliberately.

She can hear him say “Damn” and she hears his bulk turn and walk to the kitchen.

He is going to make coffee so strong that Mom is going to be complaining about it when she gets out of bed.

She reflects on her vision. It wasn’t Dad. It was another little boy. It was somebody he knew. He couldn't stop thinking about it. 

Monica enjoyed going to the bathroom. If the old man could be credited with something it was encouraging a diet that was high in fibre.

She could see the Old Man banging around the kitchen. She pictured Mom sitting on the bed. Her feet on the cold floor.

Why don’t you put on your moosehide mocassins, Mom? The ones that Dad got from his family in Northern Manitoba.

Monica could see the Moose as it spotted the man. 

It had been lied to. It had come to fight.

To stand up for the right. The right to be the one.

Blinding pain followed by thunder and fire.

Bang, bang, bang.

“What are you doing in there? Reading Moby Dick...Almanac of the Dead?”

“Hah!” she replied.

The Old Man loved to make references to Native American anything.

“You can read Almanac of the Dead on the toilet. You just can’t finish it,” she replied.

Her father burst out laughing.

He loved the reference to the Big Chill.

She knew he would.