“What're you doin'?”
The voice startled the Raging Fear, causing him to drop his length of string in fright. April stood before him, plastic grocery bags in one hand, the other resting on her hip as she stared intrigued at the grown man sitting at his kitchen table playing with a length of string.
“Nothin'. Just playin' with string.”
April squinted at him, like he might be up to something. “With string?”
“Yeah.” August looked down at the string on the table, snatching it up to dangle like he were holding the tail of mouse before her. “Just string.”
“Where'd you get the string from?” She her grocery bag for a moment. “I just got some more at the store.”
“Third drawer. There's a whole roll of it in there.”
Clunking her groceries on the table, in August's string playing arena, April stepped around the bench and tugged open the third drawer. Pulling the roll of string out she held it in the palm of her hand. “Whaddaya know...”
“Yep. Looks like we got plenty of string.”
April nodded, slightly bemused with the conversation but playing along nonetheless. “So... let me get this straight. That piece of string was on this roll?”
Augie nodded, now studying the string between his thumb and index finger, gently swaying it in amusement to only himself. “Yep. On that roll.”
“You cut a length of string off? Just to play with it?”
“Yeah...” the Raging Fear petered off, realising that he had in fact cut off a length of string just to play around with. “Yeah. I s'pose I did.”
“Why?”
“Dunno.” Monday shrugged again. “Just seemed like the thing to do.”
“As opposed to something else? Like TV? Newspaper? Mow the lawn?”
Monday scratched at his grizzly beard, the sound of his nails against it's bristle sounded more like someone scritching at sand peper. He gazed off into the distance, like he were trying to stare back into the past to figure out why he did what he did instead of something regular. “Didn't think of that.”
April couldn't stifle her chuckle. “String.”
“I was thinkin' 'bout stuff.”
“What stuff?”
Augie shrugged. “Y'know. Stuff. 'bout Winnipeg.”
April got lost in a gaze, thinking about the coming events at Winnipeg and slowly nodded her head as the coming events resonated inside her skull. Scenarios clambered over one another, like maggots on a rotting side of meat trying to writhe for the best spot to feast. Her shoulders sank and she began to nod again, her eyes distancing themselves on her father and fixing on the Strength In Number Championship belt dangling out of her father's as yet unpacked bag from last week.
“I've never held a belt before but...” she tucked a stray whisp of her hair that threatened her vision behind an ear. “Gees, Augie... I never figured a Championships could do this to people.”
August sat up and stared across the table at her. “Whaddaya mean?”
Beginning to respond, April thought better of it and held her tongue. She shook her head. “Nevermind.”
“Whaddaya mean never mind? Speak, Ape.”
“It's nothing. Really. I'm looking forward to Winnipeg.” She forced a smile. “Should be interesting.”
The Raging Fear ran his hand down his face, tugging at his grizzly beard on arrival. He pointed the string as best he could at April, which more a case of looking more like he held it out to her. “You got that right, Ape.”
She left him there, sitting at his table, holding onto his length of string, staring at the place she'd just stood before him. Slowly, his eyes were drawn to the string dangling between his thumb and index fingers and he sighed with all of his heart.
“You got that right.”