Read Online Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) by David Estes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Estes
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out.
His finger moves closer until it’s all the boy can see out of one eye, the clear curved object shining like a teardrop. His father pushes it into his eye, and he can’t stop himself from blinking furiously.
There are bugs crawling all over his eyeball. “Ahhh!” he cries, scrubbing at his eye with the back of his hand. “Get them out!”
“Son…SON!” his father barks, grabbing his hand and pulling it away from his face, pinning it against the couch. It’s the loudest voice he’s ever used on the boy, and for a moment the photo of his father from the holo-screen appears in his mind: the frowning, angry man with the name ‘Michael Kelly’ pinned beneath him. For the first time he really believes they’re the same man. Denial falls away like a discarded robe, leaving the boy feeling naked and vulnerable.
The bugs continue squirming and crawling beneath his closed eyelid, but the sensation lessens with each passing second. The boy’s eye flutters open, feeling like normal again.
“If anyone asks you, your eyes are light brown, like the wood on our door,” his father says.
His world is upside down. Light brown? No, that makes no sense. His eyes are ‘as blue as the sky, glittering with turquoise gemstones,’ as Janice always told him. He’s seen them in the mirror, which doesn’t lie. Only humans lie.
“Okay?” his father says.
The boy shakes his head, not okay at all.
His father holds up a mirror and he almost faints. One eye is blue and the other brown. He wipes a hand across the glass, smearing the face in the mirror. He still has one brown eye.
“Okay?” his father asks again.
The boy nods numbly, sitting on one of his hands to resist the urge to jab his fingers in his eye to try to remove the unnatural brown color that his father stuck in there.
As if reading his mind, his father says, “This is all to protect you. These devices are extremely rare and hard to get. You’ll have trouble getting more. No one can know who you are.”
The boy wants to scream. Even he doesn’t know who he is, so how would anyone else? And anyway, he doesn’t know anyone else , except for Janice. The suit is hot and starting to itch. There’s a buzzing in his head, as if the bugs have moved into his brain and are unpacking their things, making themselves at home. His father is the man on the holo-screen, a stranger, not someone he’s known his whole life. And he’s got another clear, curved ‘device’ on his fingertip, floating it in the direction of his other eye.
Instead of screaming, the boy opens his eye wider. Device in, he blinks furiously, bugs crawling, resisting the urge to rip his own eyeball from his skull…
It’s over. His brown-eyed reflection in the smudged mirror makes him gasp. He throws the mirror and it smashes against the wall, silver shards tinkling to the hard floor. Tensing up, he waits for the rebuke from his father, but it never comes. Instead, his father only looks sad, and the boy wonders if he’s screwed up, if his actions will force him to watch his father break down and cry yet again.
But no.
His father shoulders a pack from the table and scoops the boy into his strong arms. The boy knows he’s too big to be carried, but he allows it, because despite how little he really knows about the man carrying him, his touch is still as familiar as the pungent smell of wet grass in the backyard after a rainstorm.
For this one time, his father carries him to the door in the fence, which is already open—strange—and down the path to the river. Hiding from a stiff wind, the boy nestles into his father’s chest, intuitively realizing something his brain has yet to comprehend.
What is it? What am I missing?
When they reach the riverbank, his father sets him down, but the boy clings to his father’s waist, like he used to do when he was three years old and afraid of everything. The drone of the food-maker. The shadows in his bedroom closet. The kites soaring over their
His finger moves closer until it’s all the boy can see out of one eye, the clear curved object shining like a teardrop. His father pushes it into his eye, and he can’t stop himself from blinking furiously.
There are bugs crawling all over his eyeball. “Ahhh!” he cries, scrubbing at his eye with the back of his hand. “Get them out!”
“Son…SON!” his father barks, grabbing his hand and pulling it away from his face, pinning it against the couch. It’s the loudest voice he’s ever used on the boy, and for a moment the photo of his father from the holo-screen appears in his mind: the frowning, angry man with the name ‘Michael Kelly’ pinned beneath him. For the first time he really believes they’re the same man. Denial falls away like a discarded robe, leaving the boy feeling naked and vulnerable.
The bugs continue squirming and crawling beneath his closed eyelid, but the sensation lessens with each passing second. The boy’s eye flutters open, feeling like normal again.
“If anyone asks you, your eyes are light brown, like the wood on our door,” his father says.
His world is upside down. Light brown? No, that makes no sense. His eyes are ‘as blue as the sky, glittering with turquoise gemstones,’ as Janice always told him. He’s seen them in the mirror, which doesn’t lie. Only humans lie.
“Okay?” his father says.
The boy shakes his head, not okay at all.
His father holds up a mirror and he almost faints. One eye is blue and the other brown. He wipes a hand across the glass, smearing the face in the mirror. He still has one brown eye.
“Okay?” his father asks again.
The boy nods numbly, sitting on one of his hands to resist the urge to jab his fingers in his eye to try to remove the unnatural brown color that his father stuck in there.
As if reading his mind, his father says, “This is all to protect you. These devices are extremely rare and hard to get. You’ll have trouble getting more. No one can know who you are.”
The boy wants to scream. Even he doesn’t know who he is, so how would anyone else? And anyway, he doesn’t know anyone else , except for Janice. The suit is hot and starting to itch. There’s a buzzing in his head, as if the bugs have moved into his brain and are unpacking their things, making themselves at home. His father is the man on the holo-screen, a stranger, not someone he’s known his whole life. And he’s got another clear, curved ‘device’ on his fingertip, floating it in the direction of his other eye.
Instead of screaming, the boy opens his eye wider. Device in, he blinks furiously, bugs crawling, resisting the urge to rip his own eyeball from his skull…
It’s over. His brown-eyed reflection in the smudged mirror makes him gasp. He throws the mirror and it smashes against the wall, silver shards tinkling to the hard floor. Tensing up, he waits for the rebuke from his father, but it never comes. Instead, his father only looks sad, and the boy wonders if he’s screwed up, if his actions will force him to watch his father break down and cry yet again.
But no.
His father shoulders a pack from the table and scoops the boy into his strong arms. The boy knows he’s too big to be carried, but he allows it, because despite how little he really knows about the man carrying him, his touch is still as familiar as the pungent smell of wet grass in the backyard after a rainstorm.
For this one time, his father carries him to the door in the fence, which is already open—strange—and down the path to the river. Hiding from a stiff wind, the boy nestles into his father’s chest, intuitively realizing something his brain has yet to comprehend.
What is it? What am I missing?
When they reach the riverbank, his father sets him down, but the boy clings to his father’s waist, like he used to do when he was three years old and afraid of everything. The drone of the food-maker. The shadows in his bedroom closet. The kites soaring over their
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