Aug.23, 2007 Tank
Ik doe mee aan een International Story of the Day group op livejournal. Heb ik een tijdje gedaan, toen weer gestopt en nu alweer 2 verhaaltjes geschreven. Korte, maffe verhalen die komen van een titel die de auteur van deze groep bedenkt. Het idee van gisteren was “Tank” en ik kon er niet op komen. Toen ineens was het er, een kort verhaaltje, zo geschreven, zo gelezen.
“Tank”
“Who calls their kid Blossom? He is a boy! You cannot call a boy Blossom, that’s a girl’s name, if any name at all!” The voice sounded panicked, angry and surely the panic was starting to take over. Frank could just imagine himself running down the park after his three year old sun, blond curls dancing on the boy’s head, calling “Blossom, wait for me!” with all the other dads chuckling. “I would not even call my dog Blossom,” he grunted and his wife gave him a solemn stare in return. “Well what do you suggest we call him? All the names we discussed were rubbish and now we have to go and report him to the council, or we’re too late. This is the last day, today we decide.
“I know, I know, I will go down there and I will go and report his name, we can call him Frank Junior, I like that,” she nodded. “Yes, that is a nice name, your name in fact!” she threw a book in his general direction and their argument arose anew. Since the little one was born, a boy, they had been fighting. The doctors had told them he would be a girl, before the birth. The room was painted pink, the cot was white with pink flowers, they were awaiting a girl. Now a boy had popped out of her belly and Elisa was not happy. She was very sad to find that her girl was actually a boy, they had just missed the tiny thing between his legs that so clearly showed his manhood, not a girl.
“I’m going now,” Frank called and grabbed the paperwork from the table, his car keys in one hand and another keeping his head protected from more flying objects. Elisa was crying, she had done so for the past seven days, ever since baby-no-name was born, a boy. She cried and finally drowned her coffee and went to check up on him, he was a sweet boy, cried very little and slept through most of her panic attacks. She would not make the best of mothers, she did love him though and that would probably be enough. Elisa took him out of his crib and shushed him as he started to wake up, she then sat down in the old rocking chair she had gotten from her mother’s and allowed him to feed. Nurturing him was the one thing she liked about the baby so far, he was not hurting her and his eyes were so beautifully blue-gray when he looked up at her.
A few hours later, Elisa woke up with a sleeping baby on her arm, she had fallen asleep while feeding her little one and felt relaxed and calm. It had been long since she felt that way and she decided to remain seating like this for a while longer when the door flung open and Frank appeared, pale as a sheet. “I named him,” he stumbled over his words as he stumbled over the clothes and towel that rested on the floor. “Well good, Frank Junior I suppose?” she said in reply with a deep sigh. He shook his head, “No, not Frank – Tank,” Elisa wanted to scream, cry and pull his hair out of his head. But she did not really, for ‘Tank’ was lying in her lap so peacefully after his feed. He was asleep, the most beautiful boy in the world, her newborn son. And now he had a name, she rose to meet Frank and hugged him, gently pressing their boy between them. “We’re a family now, Frank, Elisa and Tank,” she said and kissed him.
