The Bad Fight
by Jason Windham

The way the sun shines, uncaring, a fireball of ever-glowing light. Yesterday Charlotte's parents had been little help. They had slept or stayed in bed until two pm. They couldn't care less about Charlotte or her babies. With each passing day they proved their indifference, still the sun shined, immune to human tragedies, a punishing god. Of course, for Charlotte, it all came to a head.

They stayed in bed until 7 pm. When they got up, they yelled. The baby girl, Samantha, had puked all over her Blue's Clues doll and all over her self. Then she vomited powdered milk through her nose. Charlotte wiped her off and held her close. She was burning. It was Mom and Dad's fault, they had been complaining of a stomach virus. They had infected the baby on purpose. Disease, sickness, pain, those were the only gifts they gave their granddaughter.

Charlotte put her baby boy, Sam, into his crib. Then she gave Samantha a bath. Sam cried the whole time that Charlotte was bathing and dressing his sister. He woke up Mom, who came out of her bedroom with red eyes and spit flying from her mouth. "Bitch!" she yelled at Charlotte, "You only let that baby cry to wake me up!" She snatched Sam and carried him into the living room. Charlotte tried to explain that she was worried about the baby girl, but her mother wasn't interested.

"You need to load the goddamn dishwasher." she shouted.

Charlotte refused. "Can I go to the bookstore when you get up and moving?" she asked.

"You never do anything around here; anything to help me!" her mother screamed.

Dad got up.

"Why can't you get along with anybody?" he growled.

Charlotte reminded him that she had spent all of her money on the groceries because they didn't have any money.

Everything settled down, the sun ran it's course across the sky. The sun shined all day. In the evening the moon rose in the sky.

Charlotte took a bath. There came a loud knock on the bathroom door. "Get out and take care of the babies." her dad boomed. She got out, got dressed, and told them that she was taking the babies to their dad's house.

Her father threw her across the room. "You'll never prove that I did it." he said. "Nothing has changed since you were a kid, I can beat your ass all over the house and talk my way out of it. No one will ever believe a junkie anyway."

Charlotte tried to explain that she was clean and had been for months before that one time.

Then Mom ran into the room. "I'll get Calvin to testify against you in court. Get out of my house."

Charlotte left to stay with the babies' daddy. He called a lawyer. She called her mother and begged her to let her come back to at least hug the babies. She said no. She said that she was putting all of Charlotte's things outside the house. Charlotte spent the night at friend's house. The next day she blew her brains out.

©2003 Jason Windham

Jason Windham has had stories published at Dark Moon Rising, The Outer Rim: Mercuric, Suspect Thoughts, The Writer's Hood, Blood Moon Rising and he is a regular writer for Demon Minds.