The Establishment

CHAPTERS 1-3

Tyler Nolan shuffled about in the dark tent, attempting to find warmth within the threadbare piece of material that some would refer to as a sleeping bag.  He frantically delved deeper until his numb toes touched the bottom. He sighed, recognising that his father’s night in the wilderness was a failure. 

It was all his fathers fault. Tyler’s father had always wanted to take part in the sort of father - son bonding activities that his father (Tyler’sgranddad) had apparently deprived him of, whether Tyler wanted to or not.

Accompanied by his father’s loud and monotonous snoring, Tyler reclined into his sleeping bag and watched in awe as and astonishing array of shadows and silhouettes danced around the tent, encouraged by the dazzling full moon. 

Tyler then closed his eyes and listened to the mysterious howling of various neighbourhood dogs, as if suddenly remembering their ancestors were wolves. 

All the beautiful oddities of the night presented Tyler with a distraction from the cold winter. Yet after a while the symphony of nature stopped, and a thick fog had covered the moon.

Suddenly, everything seemed to go silent; even his fathers snores seemed to have morphed into something that resembled little more than heavy breathing.

Tyler was just about to fall asleep when a faint snap of twigs rang out, intensified by the otherwise silent night. Tyler opened his eyes long enough to write it of as some sort of nocturnal animal. Probably a possum or something- wait, thought Tyler, were possums nocturnal?

Tyler pondered this long enough to hear another snap, this time accompanied by an angry series of mutterings. And although Tyler felt extremely tired he decided he might as well check it out.

He had always been somewhat paranoid of what goes on in the dark of the night, one of the many reasons he didn’t want to go camping with his father in the first place.

Tyler unzipped his sleeping bag as slowly and as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake his father. Then again, nothing could wake his father apart from the smell of a cooked breakfast wafting into his room. And because there was no bacon or egg in sight Tyler proceeded to edge over his fathers sleeping body and open the tent.

As soon as Tyler was out of the tent, and had safely zipped it up he noticed three things, the frosty winter’s night, the squelchy mud that festooned his feet and finally, the immense darkness.

 He couldn’t see a single thing apart from a dim light in the sky which he presumed was the moon, frustratingly covered by a thick curtain of cloud.

Tyler blindly stumbled around the dark garden; suddenly he once again heard whispers and the squelch of mud under heavy boots. “Hello?” he whispered quietly. Nothing happened.

Tyler sighed and wrote it of as more paranoia.

The first thing he noticed when he walked back into his tent was the fact that the zip was undone. He remembered closing it after him so the cold air wouldn’t wake his father.

He sighed, and then entered the tent, yet when he clamoured inside stumbled on a tent peg and fell right on top of his father. Tyler swore loudly and began apologizing frantically to his father before he realized that he was talking to nobody but himself.

Chapter two

The dream ended in blood, and tears. This one did anyway. Even after several years Tyler couldn’t let it go. Each and every night, the dream followed the same exact path, Tyler had memorized it word for word right up to the bit where Tyler left the tent. Every night a different scenario played out in his unconscious mind. At first they were cheerful, matching his now deceased innocence.

But as the months flew by the dreams changed. The endings were now filled with gore and blood.

Tonight’s dream had ended with a bear attack.

The dreams used to make perfect sense. But now, as a fourteen year old, when Tyler lay under his filthy bed sheets all he could do was cross analyse every dream with the logic with made him the much tormented teacher’s pet. In a weird way it gave him closure.

All Tyler could do was give a small melancholic laugh at his latest dream. A bear, who had no fingerprints and left absolutely no DNA, had abducted his father.

 Tyler lay in bed, pondering the latest dream until he knew it was time to get up. He sighed as he heaved himself out of the comfortable but grimy bed.

 Ever since that fateful night, Tyler’s mother, Cynthia had been little more than a reclusive in his family.  And by family, Tyler just meant the two of them.

Although he was called a ‘cynical creep’ by his peers at school, Tyler always tried to think on the bright side.

A hopeful Tyler thought to himself, that maybe this was the day that his mother, his real mother would return and he would no longer be forced to live with the sad creature that he called ‘Mum’. 

But it was no use, ever since his mum had pretty much given up on life; his old house had literally fallen apart.

And because of his mothers ‘let’s sit in bed and mope around’ approach to life, their old house had been quickly sold by the bank, leaving them with the little money his mother hadn’t squandered away. They quickly moved into a dingy flat where they had ‘lived’ until they were evicted. They had continued this pattern of despair, until no landlord would take them and they decided to move into a low budget motel.

Tyler predicted they would be evicted in less than a fortnight due to the unpaid rent, and condition of the place.

At first Tyler tried to help out his mother in her time of need, but as the months disappeared so did Tyler’s respect for her. Now he just saw her as a washed up being who was too scared to face the world.

He despised her. Sure, he had obviously been sad and depressed but he got back to life and faced the world!

But then again, Tyler hadn’t been the main suspect in the police inquiry.

Tyler finally got out of bed, plodded over to his closet but stopped himself before he took out his school uniform.

It was Sunday. Even though he was certainly not popular at school he dreaded weekends. In his opinion, the less time with his mother the better. This worked out quite nicely for him, as he hardy ever saw her.

He walked out into the filthy hallway, feeling the crunch of deceased insects under his feet, this used to disgust Tyler, but now he simply accepted it as part of life.

His mum’s door was firmly closed, nothing new there. Another thing that had nothing new was the fridge and pantry.

He grabbed a twenty dollar note from the cracked, porcelain bowl. This strangely always had a twenty dollar note in it.

This always puzzled Tyler as it meant that his mother actually did leave her bed. One of the few odd gestures to show Tyler that she still cared. And even though Tyler despised her, he still cared too.

In a uncanny sort of way.

Tyler grabbed the crumpled note and exited the crummy motel, jogging to the nearest dairy.

Tyler walked into the shop and grunted what could be perceived as a greeting to the stone-faced shop keeper. He grabbed a box of wheat bix and a two litre bottle of coke.

Tyler then surrendered his money and collected his change.

He tried a smile at the keeper as he exited the shop and sighed as he confronted the icy winter’s morning.

Tyler raced back to the nearby motel, ate breakfast and walked back into his bedroom. He stared around the plain room. A pile of homework lay on his laminate desk. He wouldn’t do it; at the school he attended currently homework was pretty much just given out and forgotten. Even then, he was still a teachers pet, but at the moment teachers pet simply meant he actually came to school and didn’t get involved in gang fights.

He sighed as he confronted the bland yet filthy room.

When he was younger Tyler would try and make the best of the situation, but life had toughened him up. He knew what could be thrown at him and he sort of knew how to deal with it. Much unlike his mother, who seemed to have just woken up.

Not that it meant much. All she ever did was lie in bed, luckily Tyler didn’t have any friends because he couldn’t imagine coming up with a valid explanation of his ‘situation’.

Not that they would have cared anyway, kids in his area grew up in very troubled environments, troubled, but much different to Tyler’s. Today however Tyler felt an uncertain need to greet her.

When was the last time he had seen her? Tyler thought back but he could not remember it may have been last week, or last month.

But all apprehensive thoughts escaped Tyler’s mind as he twisted the cheap and dusty door knob and entered his mother’s equally cheap and dusty bedroom.

Chapter three

Tyler entered his mother’s room with stealth, but he may as well have stomped right in.

Due to the constant dim lighting of a dirty motel unit combined with the blinds constantly drawn down, his mother’s eyesight had weakened to the point where she needed glasses to see more than large coloured blobs, but her hearing seemed to have improved to an almost superhuman level.

Not that she had ever done anything about it; the only time she ever left her enclosed space was when they got evicted. Even then, after about half an hour in the new flat she would be alone in her new room again.

The heavy coating of dust that masked everything in the room was an obvious hint that nobody ever visited her. And as Tyler’s eyes adjusted in the dull light of her bedroom he could make out the lonely shadow his mother had become.

She sat up slowly and took in a large gulp of air. Then, she stared at Tyler with a confused and venerable look on her face.

“Tyler” she stammered, as his appearance was an odd one in her bedroom. She was more or less lost for words. “Did you get the... money?” she stammered.

“Yes, yes I did get it...” said Tyler who was just as lost for words, he cursed in his mind. Why had he been so foolish! Walking in there like nothing had happened. They had an unspoken agreement that had sort of worked for both parties. “I just wanted to say hi” he continued, flabbergasted at his own naivety.

She looked at him right in the eye, and only then could he get a real good look at her. Her hair hung limp around her head like inky black silk. Underneath her lifeless eyes were a pattern of dark circles.

Although she had not worn makeup for as long as Tyler could remember she still looked striking, in an odd sort of way.

A beautiful, yet depressed widow.

She wore a tattered velvet gown that had once been a milky white colour. Although Tyler was no clean freak he shuddered at the thought of the bugs and dirt that inhabited the gown.

She awoke him from his trance, “Please Tyler, leave”

Tyler dimly nodded, walked out and left.

After shutting the door securely behind him he walked over to the wrecked and grimy couch and took a seat. He observed his depressing surroundings. The dusty kitchenette, having never used it Tyler hardly went near the cracked linoleum surface as Tyler had always run out to grab whatever the closest and cheapest takeaways had on offer. He then tilted his head to the window. It was streaked and dirty. The depressing vision of a lower class suburban nightmare confronted him; he then got up and simply stood.

His very presence felt useless and unnnessercery.

It never used to be like this, thought Tyler. He remembered a time when he would wake up in the morning with glee and happiness. He would spring out of bed, and after going to the bathroom he would race into his parent’s bedroom and jump in between them. He would cuddle and rest there until his mum looked him in the eye, smiled and told him to come and get ready for school. He would run to the kitchen table, where a bowl of his favourite sugar filled cereal would be waiting.

After devouring the treat, he would go and brush his teeth with the special toothpaste his mom bought for him. After he was ready for school he would walk to the nearby primary holding his mum’s hand. She would then kiss him on the cheek, and wish him a happy day at school. Tyler would wave her off and run forward to a day of fun with his friends.

Tyler forced himself to stop thinking of the past. Although it momentarily made him blissful, afterwards he was left in a dumpy motel, with a mother who never even got out of bed.

He had the home, the loving parents the wonderful school. And as cheesy as it sounds, just an overall wonderful life. Now all of it was gone. He sighed and sat down again. He had nothing to do. Nowhere to go.

In the end, he decided to go to the nearby park that backed onto the motel. He opened the door and stepped into the cold winters evening.

After walking down into the park Tyler looked around him. The view that confronted him was rather unordinary. Nobody was in the park; he walked across the muddy grass to the dilapidated swing set. He took a seat and began to rock his body back and forwards. Soon enough, the swing moved in a slow and depressing movement, which matched his state of mind.

Tyler thought back to the night ‘it’ happened. He barley mustered up enough courage to even think about it. The night that ruined his life. Suddenly all the anger filled up inside of him and he felt the need to jump of the swings and scream profanity into the prematurely dark winters afternoon. He stopped himself from doing so- it was obviously time to go home and get some sleep.

After retreating back through the park and into the unit Tyler went straight to his bedroom, where he quickly undressed and walked into the grimy shower where he turned the water on. It blasted onto Tyler like thousands of icy daggers. Of course, he thought, his mum hadn’t paid the power bill, it was lucky they still had running water. After he felt content with the time it had taken him, he left the room and grabbed the same towel he had been using as long as he could remember.

The only difference now was that he used to wash it, but nowadays it lay in a dirty, smelly heap outside the dated bathroom. Tyler then got dressed into his flannel pyjamas. Which were equally grubby. After changing, Tyler went to brush his teeth. He squeezed out what was left of the almost empty tube onto his dirty toothbrush and thoroughly scrubbed, trying to scrub away his problems.

And then, because they simply could not afford a television Tyler got under his bed sheets and went to sleep, anticipating yet another one of his dreams.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE...