A little nine-year old boy was found in his suburban home, apparently abandoned by his parents, who themselves appeared on the surface to be just normal parents. But according to the kid, they are out doing “criminal” stuff and thought that leaving him home alone was the better choice than bringing him along. Whatever it is that they were doing, it’s kind of hard to argue with their logic. 

The kid was a slightly chubby, white kid, he seems to like to wear a lime green color set of cover-alls and was playing with a lime green Buddha figurine when someone showed up to find him alone in the house at night. No one knows how many hours or days it’s been since he last saw his parents. He was found just playing by himself with all of these odd trinkets in the attic of the house. He wasn’t in distress or even aware of how much time had passed. When he got hungry he just went down to the kitchen and made himself a peanut butter sandwich and took it upstairs to the attic to eat it while he played. There were several small plates scattered about the room, indicating that he’d made several sandwiches over the course of his apparent abandonment. 

He didn’t want to leave the attic or his house, but the authorities said that they can’t leave him alone in this house, not knowing when or if his parents will come home. They found that he has an uncle who lives across town, but they weren’t able to contact him based on the nine-year-old’s vague descriptions of the man, making authorities wonder if the “uncle” actually even existed or whether the kid was just making stuff up. He appeared to be quite imaginative, sharing with authorities the names of all the figurines that he had taken from their boxes and had arranged around the room when they found him. The authorities couldn’t tell if the items were arranged like they were  having a tea party or were about to go to war. There were a couple that were broken, but were also in a mutual stranglehold. Odd kid, they eventually convinced the kid to come with them down from the attic, but he insisted on bringing the lime green ceramic Buddha figurine with him. He said the figurine’s name was Bart and that Bart loved car rides. 

The authorities babysat the kid at the station overnight, letting him play with Bart and someone’s cellphone. In the morning they were able to figure out who this “uncle” across town was, but the uncle was also an underaged kid, apparently living alone, but mature enough to feed himself and go to school so no one noticed the situation. And there’s no real way to determine when this kid’s folks disappeared. They were both sent to child services together and the parents never resurfaced. One can imagine that whatever “criminal activity” they were engaged in, it didn’t end well. JBB

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Tags: dream journal, family tragedy, Joe Bustillos short stories, short stories, writing projects

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