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- [00:09]
A
Hello, friends, and welcome to Sleeptight Stories. Cam is sitting by the lake thinking about all the things he doesn't want to do. He doesn't want to go to school. He doesn't want to go to soccer. He doesn't want to go to his after school classes. Cam sits quietly near the lake and watches the people around him until he looks at his watch and sees the time. Cam. At the lake. It was so hot that even the trees didn't help much. Cam sat by the lake feeling sweaty and sticky while flies buzzed around his ankles like they were excited to see him again. He didn't want to go to school. The school he could see peeking over the trees from where he sat. He didn't want to go to soccer. He didn't want to go to the after school classes he was for forced to go to. He just wanted to be somewhere he felt like he belonged, which was pretty much anywhere other than school or the soccer field. On the weekends. He just liked to run and run and run around the lake. Though it wasn't really a lake anymore. The grown ups were managing it, which meant it looked more like a muddy swamp. Flies everywhere. They liked the dark wet patches near the reeds and they liked Cam, especially his ankles. But he knew the hiding places at the temple. Little pockets behind the tall grass and between the old banyan roots where the flies couldn't find him. This was his spot, not a secret from people. The old ladies knew he came here, and the old men who walked in circles probably knew too. But a secret from the flies, which was what mattered. Sometimes Cam would draw in the sketchbook his daddy got him. He was drawing a comic right now, actually. He was the hero. He could fly, which was very useful. And he went to faraway places where there were kids who looked just like him, which was maybe the most useful thing of all. Sometimes in the comics the other kids had spaceships, sometimes just bikes. But they always had curly hair like his. He set the sketchbook down and watched the old man making his slow loop around the path. Ham thought about this a lot. Why walk in circles when you could walk in a straight line? Straight lines brought you to things. Ice cream shops, juice stands. The fruit cart near the east entrance where the lady gave you extra lychee if you asked nicely. Straight lines brought you to the mall, which had air conditioning and toys. Toys Cam wasn't allowed to have except at Christmas and when he did well on tests, which he didn't, which didn't seem fair. He didn't like to go to the mall. Much other kids got toys. He mostly watched them, unless he was forced to go, which was basically every weekend. He did like the movies, and the theater was at the mall, so maybe he liked the mall after all. The chairs vibrated during the loud parts and they had sweet popcorn. Daddy said movies and popcorn went together like butter. Cam didn't like butter, but he liked the movies. He looked at his watch. It was huge, his watch, very humongous. His friend Bert had one, almost the same size, that could do video calls and play games, which would be very useful during math class, which. Which was easy and boring. Cam's watch just told time. The time it told right now was not great. He needed to go. If he left now, he could still walk, which had some advantages. One of the old men would stop and say hello and talk to him like he was a baby, which he wasn't, and he would have to stand there while they asked same questions and he gave the same answers. But the old ladies by the benches were nicer. They sat and danced sometimes instead of just walking in circles. And they would give him watermelon. They always wanted to touch his hair. He didn't like his curly brown hair. He wanted different hair, but like toys, that seemed impossible. He looked at his watch again. Five minutes. He stood up and started running around the lake, which smelled like mud and old water and something chemical that Cam couldn't name but had always been there, past the reeds and the flies. The flies went for him, but he was faster today. Past the spot where he once saw a snake. And the snake was there again, same spot, like it lived there, which it probably did. The stray dogs helped his speed as they nipped at his heels. But today he was too fast for even them. The old ladies didn't see him go. The old men were too dizzy from the circles across the street, two cars, three scooters, one woman on a bicycle with a basket full of something covered in newspaper. None of them hit him, even though some of them seemed to try. Past the convenience store, the one with the good Japanese ice cream he didn't have money for today. Into the lobby of his apartment building. Up the stairs because the elevator was slow and he was already two minutes late. Two minutes wasn't terrible. He wouldn't get in that much trouble. But his mother worried. He heard her on the phone once, talking about cars and snakes and kidnapping. He had thought about that. Who was going to kidnap him? The old ladies with the watermelon. They would pinch his cheeks. They would mess up his already messy hair. That was about the worst of it. He came around the last turn in the stairwell and saw the light from his floor, shoes off at the door, jump inside past the dogs who always were happy to see him. And there was his mother, standing at the window, pretending not to be looking out for him. She wasn't very good at pretending he was home. And that is the end of our story. Good night. Sleep tight, Sa.