Day-dreamer

_____I came into the kitchen to grab a quick snack—an apple, strangely, I was craving. My mother’s in the kitchen as well, stone-faced, hand-writing my father’s will. My father, in the living room, is watching a game show, sitting on his chair, smoking on his cigarette, coughing his lungs out.
_____The people on the game show seem young, inarticulate, and naive. They’re asked, “In the 1954 film On the Waterfront, who is the actor that famously says, ‘You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.’”
_____The young people look at each other, stumped, and struggle for the right answer. My father nearly jumps out of his chair and yells into the television, “Brando! Marlon Brando!” but unfortunately, he’s here—and not in the game show; the young people decide to use one of their lifelines.
_____My mother, who doesn’t like movies or music or art or books, says, “Even I know that.” (She doesn’t move nor look up from her writing when saying this.)
_____“I know, those dumb kids—must be college students,” my father says somewhat sarcastically, although there’s always, always, a pinch of seriousness whenever he talks. My father inhales on his cigarette, starts coughing uncontrollably again.
_____My mother chuckles, and turns to me: “Yes, or maybe they’re poets.” I don’t say anything. I only take a hard bite out of my apple and leave and spend the rest of the day in my room, flipping through the worn, yellow pages of my aged book—one of my many—to explore, to discover, to escape.

Ernesto Reyes is currently an undergraduate at Fresno State, where he is studying English literature and creative writing. His stories have been published in the San Joaquin Review, Flies Cockroaches & Poets, Subtle Fiction, the Acentos Review, and Brilliant Flash Fiction.