Erik

The roses dried up a long time ago. After the brownish-yellow, wilted leaves fell onto the table and the cloudy water started to stink, Madeleine had finally found the energy to clean up the entire kitchen table.
The freshly emptied ashtray is already full again and has long been overflowing. But the rotten toast and the old newspapers have found their way into the garbage container along with the roses. New, old newspapers are piled up on the small corner bench.

Erik sits at the kitchen table, which is now half tidy. A plaster is stuck over his chin. The day before, the elevators in the house broke down again, and Erik still doesn't know exactly how it happened. He probably missed a step or one of his feet got stuck. In any case, he tripped and fell so badly with his chin on the edge of the stairs that he came home with a small laceration.
The scabs on his hands, knees, and cheeks fell off weeks ago, leaving behind soft, pink skin.

His mother is not at home. She currently works as a cashier in a small supermarket. She had lost her job at the petrol station due to too many unexcused absences. But what could she do? There was no way she could say she was taking Erik to the doctor every time after another fight. So she was simply absent.
On other days, she just couldn't get out of bed. Then she sometimes missed a whole week. Even then, she didn't manage to get a doctor's note. The shame was too overwhelming.

Erik shifts restlessly back and forth on the small bench. He stares at his extra tasks. He's actually long past individual letters, but his handwriting is barely readable so he has to practice extra tasks. Finally, he stands up, his bare feet pressed into the foam of the bench. He is still looking at the exercise book. He holds a pencil in his left hand. “Hmmm,” he mumbles, looks up and draws a ‘B’ in the air. Then he looks down at the notebook again.
“ SIT DOWN!” comes a shout from the living room. Erik turns his head towards the voice. The man is sitting in the armchair. The boy can't recognize the face.

He knows that the man who is not his father has been here for a long time. He has forgotten exactly how long.
He knows that the man who is not his father often hurts him.
He knows that the man who is not his father often hurts his mother too.
Nevertheless, he is there.
He doesn't go away.

Erik sits down again and stares at his schoolwork. The pencil trembles in his hand. His thoughts are heavy, blurred. He tries to copy the letter, but the letters flicker before his eyes. He holds his attention for two, maybe three letters. Then he lies down on the small bench and stares at the ceiling. Small animals and clouds form on the wallpaper. They dance across the wall, blur and reappear.
The boy begins to giggle as the animals jump through the clouds in his imagination.
“ Why are you laughing so stupidly?” growls the man's voice, suddenly coming closer.
Erik sits up with a jerk. He looks briefly in the direction the voice is coming from, then back at the notebook. The pencil in his hand feels heavy. Did he want to write another “B” or continue with the “C”? Is the man who is not his father still there? The boy feels his heart beating faster. A loud SCCCHRT signals that a chair is being pulled back. The man sits down. “Use your right hand,” he growls. ”Only idiots use their left hand. Do you want to be a moron?”

Erik stares at the paper. He slowly shakes his head and changes his hand. Completely tense, he holds the pencil and tries to trace the “B”.
“Redo it!”
A “B” that doesn't look like a “B”.
“ Again!”
A “B” that doesn't look like a “B”.
“What is that? Are those tits? AGAIN!”
A “B” that doesn't look like a “B”.
The notebook is pulled away, the page torn out.
“Redo it!”
The boy nods, his hands are soaked with sweat. He nervously slides back and forth on the bench.
He writes. Erases. Writes. His face hangs close to the paper. He tenses up. He desperately tries to get it right. The pencil feels wrong. Everything feels wrong.

“Try harder!” the man comments. “Erik, I swear, I'll make you rewrite it until you do better.”
The smoke from the cigarette blows towards him. Erik coughs, wipes his burning eyes, then his crooked little nose. The room is getting smaller. Too small.
Until the evening, the man, and Erik, sit at the tasks.

The notebook becomes thinner and thinner until there is almost no room left to write.