I was Born in a Thunderstorm

I cannot remember my mother’s face. The realization, albeit not new, stung nonetheless. Ruu motioned to toss the sketchbook away but stopped himself, scanned the shaky lines and blurry edges one last time, allowed for the realization to give way to frustration and eventually sadness, and then closed the notebook. Somewhat harshly. He knew the blame did not lie within the pages and by exclusion decided he was to blame.

Outside the room’s window, thunder’s first warnings echoed through the night. The electronic alarm clock by his bed displayed 2:18. There is no point trying. He breathed in that room’s dreary air, surrounded by four prison-like walls. The thunder grew heavier. Through those insomniac nights Ruu’s hatred for his father, for the city, and for the ruthless world he had been born into, culminated into a loathing for himself and for everything he represented. And he especially hated his ineptitude at remembering a face he had hardly ever seen, but longed for nonetheless.

Jeremiah only ever spoke of his mother through mockery. Ruu had learned quickly to never question that man he could not even call a father. As faint lightning flashed in the distance, Ruu set aside the sketchbook and allowed himself to lie down. He liked to imagine, sometimes, that maybe, just maybe, he had been born during a thunderstorm such as that. Some cataclysm had accompanied that unhappy affair, serving as an ill omen and cementing his birth as a tragedy. Ruu took a last breath of that stagnant air. He pushed aside that thought before the fantasy could develop itself. In the thunderstorm, Ruu wished he had never been born.