The Prodigal Effect

Day, heaped with day. Month, on month. A life souring in the black, a soul rotting. Light in the semi-darkness. Then tar returns. Cole lit up again.

Getting high was the only way he could escape life for a moment, a moment that has lasted almost two years.

It wasn't his fault that he is like this, though. His father sent him away from their suburban home after finding a stock of cough syrup hidden in the box springs of Cole's bed. It was lucky his dad didn't look in Cole's pillow cases and find the 100 dollars of dope hidden there.

His Dad just couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the pressure, the weight of teenage life. People like him didn't have TV's, and if they did they probably gathered around to watch Leave It to Beaver. They couldn't understand the burdens thrust upon kids here and now. The feeling of dirtiness that couldn't be wiped clean. He hated his father for not understanding. For not giving him a chance.

And drugs were so good, so capable of clearing away everything, everyone.

Staring at the perfectly planed ceiling, the charcoal colored encasement, Cole thought of Lee's face when they found his stashed Robitussin. Three years her senior, it wasn't easy for Cole to watch the disappointment color his little sister's face. They had always been close. Sharing each other's secrets, talking about what life had in store for them. She was so...real. So happy and joyful in her life. Comfortable. Now...now they both knew what lay in store for them. For one denial, refusal, bitterness. The other held pleading, and more disappointment.

A backhoe shattered his reverie. If there was an upside of living by a landfill, it was finding useful stuff among the refuse. Partly broken TV's and ragged clothing were a common find. But the ultimate discovery was the inconspicuous snowglobe.

Inside the globe a child puttered around a perfectly crafted snowman. The child's face bore an expression of joy, half hidden in a tightly wound red scarf.

Cole always saw himself as the little guy. Joyously wandering about, finding hidden happiness around him. Procuring glee from the gloom of the attic nooks. Loving the snow. At least, he used to.

Lee said he was changed. He was not joyful. Not exhilarated. Maybe she was right. Maybe years of sloth have paralyzed him, making the thought of happiness unbearable.

That couldn't be true though. He was happy when he watched the styrofoam snow fall onto the hardened snowman. He was happy when he looked into the child's gleaming face. He was happy in this cold hard room watching the cold hard winter through his cold hard window. He was happy when he lit up.

A knock at the door missing its hinges. "Cole?" and anxious voice called out. It was Lee on her daily mission of proffered deliverance. In the two years of Cole's absence, Lee never missed her weekly visit. Usually they would sit on his grubby sofa and endeavor to think of a few chatty words to communicate to each other. And they always failed. It consistently ended with Lee bursting into tears and begging for him to come home, to escape this sty, to find their love. "I know Dad misses you. Your breaking his heart slowly and torturously. Mom cries every night and Dad can't comfort her because he feels the same way. Your tearing us apart. Why won't you just come home?" And Cole just stared with a slate face at her misery. "Is this what you get from your drugs? Ignorance! How can you do this to us!" And with that Lee would leave.

She, of all people who could, didn't understand. She was like all the others. She didn't understand how much hurt he felt. How he couldn't show it. How he didn't want to.

Again, the persistent knocking, now more insistent. "Cole? Cole! Open up. I know you're there. Cole!"

Not today. Not again. He would let her beautiful voice be disappointed.

Cole curled up on the dirty sofa and cradled his snowglobe. He stared at the shiny snow, the shiny painted face, the shiny happiness. He couldn't stop the shaking. So he tried to flow through the spasms by rocking gently back and forth. And soon, he could not hear the knocking anymore. The joint was completing is purpose. Absolute indifference.

"Cole! Cole, if you can hear me, listen to what I am saying. I'm not coming back. Ever. You did what you set out to do. Mom left. Dad's not talking. I don't know what to do. Can't you help me? Comfort me?" Her voice was more frustrated. More saddened.

Silence.

"That's what i thought. I came to say goodbye. I can't forgive you anymore.

I can't wait for you to catch up. I can't wait for you to break my heart, too. If it already hasn't happened."

With that, Lee passed a note under the door, turned, and never came back.

Cole peered at the little boy's face. He was unhappy. The snow had stopped falling. It was piled around his feet.

Cole shook the sphere, but the snow wouldn't fly up like it always did. He shook it harder. Then harder. Finally, with a shout of frustration, he lobbed it at the closest stony wall. It shattered into a thousand little specks of snowy glass and water. The snowman didn't survive the fall, but the little boy did. He lay on the floor staring at Cole with the little black dots that were his eyes.

He was angry with Cole.

"What! WHAT!! What do you want from me! What can I do!"

He rolled off the couch and stumbled to the child.

"I hate you! I really do!"

He crushed it under his shoe. Then started sobbing.

He crossed to the note his sister left.

It was written in big neat letters:


Cole,


I hope you are happy.


Happiness was not what Cole felt.