Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Coutts

shrubbery.
    “We’re over here,” Sophie calls, without looking up.
    A man turns the corner. If it weren’t for the hat, Caden might not have recognized him right away. He’s slender, and much taller than Caden remembers, with smooth, expensive-looking skin and sharp green eyes. The hat is wool with a short leather brim, and not at all weather-appropriate. It’s the same hat he wears in the pictures, the pictures Caden used to say good night to. The pictures he used to stupidly ask for help, before he grew up and realized that nobody was listening.
    Caden hears his pulse, his blood a rushing river, flooding in his ears. The woman on the chair is moving. She kisses the side of the man’s neck on her way back inside.
    “Looks like you guys have some catching up to do.” She smiles at Caden before disappearing into the kitchen.
    Caden feels suddenly hot. There’s something fierce and glowing inside of him, like a light or a magnet.
    “What am I doing here?” he hears himself asking. His hand flutters at his side, like a foreign object he can’t control.
    Caden’s father crosses his arms and leans back against the planter. He narrows his eyes into discerning hyphens. “You’re smaller than I was, at your age,” he says, angling his head to one side. His shoulders are too broad for his frame, and his forearms are covered in thick, dark hair. “Shorter, I mean.”
    Caden feels his spine straightening. His breath catches in his throat and the glowing thing inside of him changes, like a flickering flame, though he can’t tell if it’s getting bigger or going out. It’s like a thirst and he almost thinks to ask for water, until he swallows. Tears, he thinks. He feels like crying.
    “Caden, I know this wasn’t the only way to do this—”
    “Do what?” Caden coughs, which is better than crying, though he doesn’t like the girlish squeal in his voice. He takes another breath. “What do you want from me? Why am I here?”
    His father doesn’t move or speak. He stands and stares, just like he does in the photographs, two-dimensional and somewhere else.
    Caden feels his hands moving again, and he stuffs them into his pockets. He’s surprised to feel the jangle of his house keys inside. His house. Where he should be. This is all really happening. He’s been kidnapped by his father. Literally: kid napped.
    It’s absurd. Caden almost laughs. He takes a steadying breath and eyes the French doors behind his father. “I always knew you were an asshole,” he says evenly, a new strength finding him. “But I didn’t realize you were completely insane.”
    Caden shakes his head and pushes past his father, toward the open living room. It’s not a dream, or a movie. It’s real life, and he can leave whenever he wants to.
    Just as he reaches the door, a second man appears from nowhere. Caden sees the watch first, then the man’s giant, solid torso blocking his path.
    “Easy, now, pal,” the man says, holding up a fleshy hand and pressing it firmly into Caden’s shoulder. Caden squirms out of the man’s heavy grasp and turns away from the house, running past the pool, toward a low, stone wall.
    But the man follows, shoving himself between Caden and the wall. He holds his arms wide, like he’s attempting to corral a wayward bull. Caden bolts through a gap in the shrubs. He can outrun this guy, no problem. But his shirt snags on a spindly branch, and there’s a hand on his back, a thick, sweaty arm scooping him at the waist and leveling him, horizontal.
    “Where do you want him?” the man asks. His breathing is jagged, his shoulders shudder as he pants. Caden tries to wriggle free, but it’s no use. He starts to feel dizzy, blood rushing to his head. He stares at the shiny tops of his father’s shoes as the man carries him, like a piece of living luggage, back inside the house.

 
    ZAN
     
    Two things people make time for at the end of the world: free food and a party.
    Miranda has been on the Community