that song

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

He doesn’t share his room, his home, with a toddler. It’s a monster, but one that shits in his bed rather than grab your vulnerable foot from the edge of the covers and pulls you down, down, down.

You know how they say there’s only trouble when there’s silence? Dave doesn’t know silence much anymore. At the tender age of 12 silences don’t exist anymore. The grave can’t be as peaceful as adults say: every waking or unconscious moment is steeped in a song, looped over and over until you’re forced to use a q-tip, like you aren’t supposed to.

Charming [if you’re 3 and only hear the sound of your own wails], cartoonish voices and the vague trumpet of instruments babies aren’t familiar with yet. They’re afraid of their own farts, after all.

Oh, but not his bad boy. He runs, he falls, he shits and he cries. Sometimes simultaneously. He’s going to teach the little fuzzy haired ginger how to be cool, to be hard boiled, to—

“Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, it’s fine, it’s fine…gimmie a minute,” Dave chants a mantra as fingers slip along the over-worn vhs, unsure if it’s part of the film that’s wrinkled or caught, or if its an ol’ blowie in the actual vcr that needs to be had.

During this, 3 year old Badou begins to fall apart, lower lip wobbling like a bridge in an earthquake, cheeks flushed redder and redder.

He peers up at Dave, expecting everything to be solved by now, impatient, tiny high pitched whimpers caught in his throat. The older Nails tugs at the fragile film, a heart rendering tear renders the air, he freezes. His entire soul leaves his body when those big blue eyes meet the ruined tape, and its culprit.

Those tiny whimpers increase in volume until Badou’s full on bawling, baby blues squeezed shut. Dave dives for him, scoops him up in his arms to press him to his chest.

“Come on, bad boy, don’t be like thaaat! You know I didn’t mean it, yeah? You’ll be over that thing in like a week, just like girls’ll be over you…” As annoying as it is, as futile as it is, he can’t help but feel a pang in his heart.

David Nails, 12 years old, sighs like an old soul. He begins to rock his brother back and forth, softly mumbling,

“This is the song that never ends…it goes on and on my friends…some people started singing it, not knowing what it was…”

The baby gradually calms, sniffles and snuffles and pokes his drippy nose into the warmth of Dave’s neck which, great, that’s super cool. But his heartbeat thunders between them, in such a small body, Badou’s truly alive and thriving and Dave has helped that.

Well, he hasn’t forgotten to feed him today, which is much better than a pet rock. So Dave will go through endless loops of this stupid song and Badou will fall asleep with his face smushed into his brother’s chest, and will eventually wake up to button marks on his cheeks. Dave really needs to stop wearing button ups, but they’re so cool, dammit.

Anything for the little bro.