The Meaning of Colour

I look at it, I know it should, but it doesn’t bother me. The body’s on the floor and I'm looking at it, but I'm not scared. I know it’s a body because it isn’t moving and it is all the wrong colours. It’s blue, white and red. Plus he usually snores when he is asleep, and he isn’t.

I don’t care that daddy isn’t snoring,

I don’t care that daddy isn’t moving,

I don’t care that daddy is blue and white and red,

I don’t care that daddy is Dead.

He made mummy black and purple and blue and some-times red. He hurt mummy and every night she cried. I don’t know why he hit her, mummy didn’t do anything bad, he just hit her and called her naughty names and said she needed to be punished. Mummy only punished me when I did naughty things, but she never, ever hit me. Daddy hit mummy hard and she cried. She wasn’t sad, I know because her eyes were like ice; when she’s sad they’re like the ocean. No, mummy wasn’t sad, she was angry, but she didn’t hit him back.

This time he smelt bad, like the cleaner mummy used in the bathroom, and he sounded funny. He broke a glass all over the kitchen and I don't think it was an accident. Mummy tired to clean it up but he hit her so hard she fell over. I was sad, and scared, and angry; so I hit him.

Mummy says I shouldn’t hit, because it hurts, she never hit daddy. But he was hurting mummy and I didn’t like it, so I hit him because mummy wouldn’t even though he was being bad. I didn’t make him red, or blue or black, because I’m not that strong, but he hit me, he never hits me. That’s the first time mummy didn’t cry, she didn’t even shout, she just hit him really hard. Mummy was really angry. She said you shouldn’t hit, but mummy hit daddy, really hard, and she didn’t stop, not for a long time. I screamed and cried and mummy hit daddy over and over, like I think she had always wanted to. She hit him hard and he went red and black and blue and white and mummy kept hitting him.

She stopped, and she said to daddy “You hit me, say you love me, then you hit me again. Every time you say you love me and I say that I'm sorry and you hit me again, but you NEVER HIT MY BABY!” I don’t think daddy heard her, but I think he understood.

Mummy cried then, she cried so bad she shook and she hugged me, and daddy turned cold and white and blue on our floor.

I don’t care that daddy isn’t snoring,

I don’t care that daddy isn’t moving,

I don’t care that daddy is blue and white and red,

I don’t care that daddy is Dead.

Daddy hurt mummy all the time. He hurt me once and mummy killed him. I don’t care that there’s a body going cold and colourless on the floor, it doesn’t scare me anymore and it won’t hit me or mummy again. I don’t like the colours on mummy; she has red on her face and dark colours all over. I fall asleep on mummy while daddy goes cold and mummy stares at her hands and cries.