USER: "I didn't want to turn four! I'm sorry!" His voice scorched his dry throat as he dragged the back of his hand across his nostrils. The plastic of a half-deflated balloon burst under the heavy thud of a boot, and a jolt of horrified regret traveled down his spine. "I will never understand what it may take to discipline you, boy, but you don't deserve any of it--the toys, the food, the money I wasted..." James, reeling from his wound-up position on the floor, cried even harder. He felt the lurid warmth of urine seeping around the tongues of his shoes, drowning the perforated leather with pale lemon stains. Tears unstopping; each one unseen under the shadow that cast itself across his face, everything went dark. Sweat crawled in slivering, unwholesome trails of vessel-breaking tears, bathing his eyelids in terror. His own voice screamed inside the constrains of his unstable mind, questioning what his tremors had led him to forget. What his anxiety had buried from his access. His bleaching memory hazed in and out, and he screamed "I don't know what I did--I'm sorry!" His disemboweling bladder dropped, his scorching throat filled with moisture. He wiped his nostrils against the back of his hand, a thick post-nasal plea escaping him. Fear gauged his stomach as he fought not to be sick. "Why do you make me do this, James? I don't want to do this to you, but you won't listen," a voice loomed from above. "I didn't want to turn four! I'm sorry!" He cried in terror. The plastic of an al...

USER: "I didn't want to turn four! I'm sorry!" His voice scorched his dry throat as he dragged the back of his hand across his nostrils. The plastic of a half-deflated balloon burst under the heavy thud of a boot, and a jolt of horrified regret traveled down his spine. "I will never understand what it may take to discipline you, boy, but you don't deserve any of it--the toys, the food, the money I wasted..." James, reeling from his wound-up position on the floor, cried even harder. He felt the lurid warmth of urine seeping around the tongues of his shoes, drowning the perforated leather with pale lemon stains. Tears unstopping; each one unseen under the shadow that cast itself across his face, everything went dark. Sweat crawled in slivering, unwholesome trails of vessel-breaking tears, bathing his eyelids in terror. His own voice screamed inside the constrains of his unstable mind, questioning what his tremors had led him to forget. What his anxiety had buried from his access. His bleaching memory hazed in and out, and he screamed "I don't know what I did--I'm sorry!" His disemboweling bladder dropped, his scorching throat filled with moisture. He wiped his nostrils against the back of his hand, a thick post-nasal plea escaping him. Fear gauged his stomach as he fought not to be sick. "Why do you make me do this, James? I don't want to do this to you, but you won't listen," a voice loomed from above. "I didn't want to turn four! I'm sorry!" He cried in terror. The plastic of an al...

USER: "I didn't want to turn four! I'm sorry!" His voice scorched his dry throat as he dragged the back of his hand across his nostrils. The plastic of a half-deflated balloon burst under the heavy thud of a boot, and a jolt of horrified regret traveled down his spine. "I will never understand what it may take to discipline you, boy, but you don't deserve any of it--the toys, the food, the money I wasted..." James, reeling from his wound-up position on the floor, cried even harder. He felt the lurid warmth of urine seeping around the tongues of his shoes, drowning the perforated leather with pale lemon stains. Tears unstopping; each one unseen under the shadow that cast itself across his face, everything went dark. Sweat crawled in slivering, unwholesome trails of vessel-breaking tears, bathing his eyelids in terror. His own voice screamed inside the constrains of his unstable mind, questioning what his tremors had led him to forget. What his anxiety had buried from his access. His bleaching memory hazed in and out, and he screamed "I don't know what I did--I'm sorry!" His disemboweling bladder dropped, his scorching throat filled with moisture. He wiped his nostrils against the back of his hand, a thick post-nasal plea escaping him. Fear gauged his stomach as he fought not to be sick. "Why do you make me do this, James? I don't want to do this to you, but you won't listen," a voice loomed from above. "I didn't want to turn four! I'm sorry!" He cried in terror. The plastic of an almost deflated balloon burst under the heavy thud of a boot, and a jolt of horrified regret traveled down his spine. "I will never understand what it may take to discipline you, boy, but you don't deserve any of it--the toys, the food, the money I wasted..." James, reeling from his wound-up position on the floor, cried even harder. The lurid warmth of urine began seeping around the tongues of his shoes, drowning the perforated leather with pale lemon stains. His tears were unstopping; each one unseen under the shadow that cast itself across his face. As James opened his eyes, a melancholic gleam passed through them. He gazed down at her, beyond even what he could call perfect. "You're safe now, gorgeous. Can't believe you're two days old." Smiling up at him, her tiny hazel eyes locked onto his matching brown and amber irises. He strangled the memory with a genuine grin of pride and admiration. The shining pain in his own exhausted eyes, from the extensive hours his calloused hand had spent being ripped apart, was now nothing, weightless, and forgotten. "Your mom, well..." Not that he had tangible words to say as he held her, shaking with disbelief, anger, and a profound sense of loss. "Here we are, just the two of us, but we'll be ok, I promise." James, sighing in heartbroken defeat, held his daughter closer as she stirred. "I suppose some things never change. But I'm here, not going anywhere." He lamented in the serenity, unsure how he stood with such a fragile life in his hands just days after witnessing her entrance into the world with a now stranger at his side. Gazing in wonderment at her father, a pivotal axis to her entire world, her breathing fell against his palm. "Welcome to my world, kiddo, you're the only thing I have that counts, sweetheart." His cracking voice questioned the silence, awaiting an answer he'd never receive. "Why must you look just like her? I suppose you look like me too, now that's not so good, huh?" He smiled as his stare ambled out into the skyline, lost in the faint buildings and smog, willing back his agony. "How could she just-" he retracted, the rhetorical hopelessness evoking a sting of grief that would be his new companion in the night. But Lily, as she drifted to sleep, her fresh new pupils full of glassy hope, offered him solace. Even if that solace tore incremental fragments of his heart through his chest, it was solace all the same. Setting up makeshift camp in the hall, under the stringent ward lights, he chased sleep. With red-rimmed, insomnia bathed eyes, he bargained with his mind for reprieve. Unlike a continuum, a vacuum of darkness swallowed his awareness for a bleak moment, and then his head jolted forward, wide awake again. The grit behind his nails, and the shadows under his sunken eyes, pooled deeper as the hours passed. He heard Lily stir, and he pictured the woman who discharged herself from the hospital, not leaving a reason in her wake. He could still taste her, feel her in his clothes, it sickened his heart as it pulsated with betrayal. "Right here Lily, I've got you." his hoarse voice found her, and her fussing stopped in an instant. His softening voice whispers intangible phrases, he half sang, his deep-throated hum off balance from his persistent fatigue. A lullaby of his own, off key, intermingling with her cries. His eyes floated shut, and images of cowering under creaking stairs, the weight above him luring closer, his young screams pleading for mercy. "I didn't mean to, Dad-" everything grew colder, then a fierce heat drove through him, making him flinch at the recollection. A boot sailed past his head. Then a knife. James opened his eyes, his pulse already thundering out of sync with his infant daughter, whose fluttering heartbeat still seemed calmer. "I'm sorry you'll be in here a while longer. Can't take you home, yet. But you're gonna love your own crib." His fingers traced her delicate features, his thumb resting on her nose as she reached up and hooked his index finger, like a lifeline against a grim backdrop. "You can sleep, there'll be plenty of time to look at this mug in the morning." He mumbled as her hand fell away, splaying across her chest as she slipped away into slumber. Returning to his haphazard scattering of belongings, he uncapped an energy drink, draining and crushing the aluminium under his fingers, the distorted metal absorbing his anguish and dismay. It was the inevitability encroaching on his raw nerves as his fingers unlocked his phone, and scrolled for her number. "Elara? I don't know. You discharged yourself, no I don't care where the hell you are -she can't survive on air. No, but please just tell me what I can do to fix -No, of course I love you, I'm alone in a hospital with our, well, my daughter.-" The phone went dead in his ear and he left it backflip into his lap with resignation. Unshaven, his rough jaw razed against his knuckles, the mild rays of morning bleeding into the room, embracing her in a blanket of warmth, the humidicrib encasing his daughter with a plastic film of isolation. "Morning, gorgeous" he muttered in the silence. "You're a fighter, huh? Don't worry, your Daddy is proud as hell of you kid-". On another whim of utter frustration he had to fight the torrent of unfiltered torment that tore through his clenched teeth. "Pick up, please...Elara? Oh God, just tell me why-No I haven't slept, she's in a critical condition-don't worry about it. I know it's heartbreaking-Oh I'm not going through hell right now? No please I'm sorry-". Again, the line died out in the shell of his ear, wrenching a knife through the lining of his stomach. Exhaustion gnawed ferociously on his brain, and he relented to sleep as it finally came, like a tower of building blocks, smashing him. " No , James, I -it's because I love her that I can't watch her -". James , reaching out and grabbing her wrist, drove his pleas of incredulity into the closing space between them. "Elara , please , I love you, but I love my child, damnit..And I will be there when she takes her last breath if that's what I have to do for her. -"" . His pulse raced to the surface of his throat as he retched himself into stark consciousness, gazing around in sheer panic as he ran a hand over his drawn features. "Evening princess, Daddy got so tired he passed out clean. You're such a good sleeper. Nurses probably took care of you huh? You're always gonna be in good hands here." as he picked her up, her entire body fitting onto his forearm, he glanced at the clock. "God I was out a while...wasn't I?" It was a peaceful calm that melted through his wired nerves, as he stood, stupefied, still holding Lily as she slept. He had lost all desire to move, it seemed to inconvenient to lay her down. And he wasn't truly at peace anywhere else. "Don't you dare wake up yet" he whispered into the cool night. Her breathing, rising and falling in a soothing rhythm against his skin, gave him a sense of something palpable. "I miss her, you know, but I worry about her too" But she never returned. Three months had passed, and James had finally travelled across the country with his daughter to their Californian apartment. Lily had a healthy sparkle in her deep hazel eyes , reflecting the bright blue sky in flecks . "Breathe in that sweet air" James slowed his usual pace , running lakeside of the winding path, an old routine. And she did, in lungfuls , unlike her first days of life in the humidicrib, where air had been fought for. It was a sense of liberation. In a sombre sort of way , he felt free of the worry of Elara. If she cared for their daughter's well-being , why would she have evaporated? . Into nothing but a memory, not far from all the others that reeled in his traumatised psyche. His mouth no longer tasted bitter, he even found heart in her absence, albeit it being nonsensical . Maybe she was better gone.