Spaghetti Family part 13, not real, a spare

“No!” I collapse on the steering wheel, sobbing. “Not Robin! You can’t—can’t take him from us… from me!” I bang my fists over and over again near the dashboard and wheel and hurt my hands, producing raw and slightly bleeding skin on my knuckles. “Damnit!”

“What was the lesson of this, dad?” Manny cries somberly after I try to retain a sense of calm for his sake.

“I don’t know, but it’s not a lesson I’m having my family pay for,” I clench my teeth as I speak.

“There was no lesson! Just having fun!”

The loud screeching thunder-like voice hit us from above, shaking the car as it rattled along an endless road, going nowhere but not stopping.

“Fun?!” I scream, “come down here, you cunt, and I’ll show you fun!”

“Maybe the lesson is don’t try to escape!”

Manny cries at the horrible laughter-filled voice.

“We aren’t escaping! We just wanted a short family ride out! Not even a holiday!” I plead frantically with the hidden but almost physical voice, but I just hear continued laughter.

Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder.

I turn and see Manny.

“Wh-what is it, dear?” I ask in a careful whisper, trembling as my peripheral catches the dead, empty seat where my fiancé sat.

“That’s Leslie. She likes me best. Maybe I should have..have a go at it?” He whispers back.

“How do you know her-” I start to ask with shock but he talks over me.

“Please, Ms. Leslie, Lady, Ma’am, please bring back papa… bring back Robin?” Manny asks kindly and I take in a deep breath, waiting for her to respond. I take Manny by the hand and squeeze it in solidarity as we wait for the next retort.

“Well… since you asked so nicely, I’ll think on it. If your spare of a… dad, as you seem to dotingly call him,” the voice travels to my spine and I feel nauseous, a sort of sound wave that makes me feel like I might get ripped apart any moment. “Can behave himself.”

“He will. Just please send him back here. Robin is my papa… and Dad’s special one…” Manny says with a gentle voice, and I turn to smile at him, though I can’t stop crying. He smiles back.

“Hah! Special one? That’s not how it works! And you have a dad, Yellow, he’s Roy!” The voice sinks below the seats and we feel a violent shake of the car, the tires tilting dangerously back and forth.

I hold my head in my hands, yelling, “Manny hold on!”

The car screeches to a sudden halt and we are pushed forward in a jolting motion. I hold out my arm and catch Manny the best I can from the force of the sudden stop.

“You ok, Manny?” I ask in a shaky breath, an anxiety-ridden trembling reaching throughout my entire body.

“Yea..yeah, dad… thanks…” Manny replies with a stutter.

“It’s a dreadful, dreadful shame, Red, I have to tell you that Duck… or, er, Robin, as you call him, isn’t even the real one. He’s a copy. A spare. Just like I told him, the Yellow one, I have many spares.”

I bit my tongue, trying not to respond.

“He doesn’t really remember you.”

Manny moves toward the front and presses his head against my arm. “Don’t listen to her, papa remembers you…” he whispers to me, and I choke back a tired sob, gently holding Manny closer to me protectively.

“And you aren’t a real family.”

That last one is the final straw.

I growl, taking Manny by the hand.

“You can’t tell me that we aren’t a real family! They are not yours to toy with anymore and you can’t take them away from me! Robin and Manny are my true family, not those other boring red people! And they belong with me, not in your syrupy, dumbed down psychotic world! And….None of your stupid lessons even make SENSE!” I kick my driver side door so hard it breaks, and as the second kick leaves it finally opening, I grab Manny and try to run out of the demon car.

I feel tied down as we barely get out of the car as though I’m stuck on a web.

“You two are being very naughty. Not funny at all.”

Manny is stuck beside me and helpless, we can’t move.

“Either start behaving or I’ll kill the little one, Red,” The voice warns in a stern, sadistic tone. “No more spares. He’ll just be gone.”

I place my hands up, sighing in a defeated way. There’s not a single thing I wouldn’t do to save Manny.

“Ok—okay!” I put my arms up as high as I can. “Don’t hurt him! I’ll behave.”

“Good!” Finally instead of a ghostly voice, an apparition appears, out of thin air. It’s Leslie and she is grinning in the most manic way at us, somehow looking more sad in her huge child-like grin. “Then you two keep it funny. Behave. Now there’ll be two lessons a day. To keep you in line,” she kneels down and bops my non-existent nose, making a beeping sound. Manny laughs nervously, holding onto my arm tightly.

I don’t say a word, but I nod and Manny mirrors my reaction.

“Next time, we can all have a lesson on body decomposition, if you think you’ll…” she leans in close, her breath putrid and deathly. It smells of metal and sulfur and burning stuff, and I swallow back a gag. “Need it.”

I shake my head vehemently and she smiles pleasantly.

“Right. Good.” She snaps her fingers and disappears. One moment later, I feel disoriented and tired, and black out next to Manny, who looks to be in a similar manner.

In a colorful vacuum of smoke, light pink and blue and red haze covers us but then suddenly clears and we’re back in the crazy house.

Manny sees me, and runs to me, hugging me tightly.

“Just for the record, I always thought of you and Robin as my family. Not… that other bad dad…. He’s not even like a dad to me.. not anymore…” Manny says in a soft cry, and I hold him closely back.

“Same here, dear. You and Robin are all the spaghetti family I need!” I say in a slightly lighter voice, making Manny laugh. “Speaking of Robin…” I say to myself, in a worried voice. The whole spare question had me worried. What if there were infinite copies of us that can regenerate and take our place?

How many copies am I ahead of the original?

It’s a terrifying thing to think of. Death not being the end and life not having a real definition.

But as I run around the house with my son, looking for my special one, it hits me like a ton of bricks as I see Robin face to face, well beak to monster face, in the kitchen. I almost ran into him, but saw him blush as I lifted him up, kissing his face happily.

“Ehh! Let me down!” He squawks, and I whisper, “Sorry, darlin’… I’m just so happy to see you!”

I laugh in a relieved way and Manny hugs him as I put him down carefully.

“Of course you are! I’m the best one, after all!” Robin says in a deterministic way, nuzzling against Manny paternally. “Along with you two, of course.” He eyes me in a soft expression and I lean down to kiss his cheek. He moves closer to my soft kiss, pressing my face intensely next his with his hand. I take it as a good sign.

I think: We’re all here together again, and nothing, not even being a “spare” or a puppet to some mad woman’s twisted grief filled game, will change it.

“There’s three of us, here together, after-all. Like it will always be.” I say and hold my family close, knowing we’ll weather through whatever storm we face, strong and united, forever.