I left the maths homework till last – it was my favourite subject until there were more letters than numbers in the questions, and all my hopes of passing went out the window. I know I’m not going to get it done. I bet the whirring fan in my room knows the answers, and if my mum wasn’t yelling at the telephone so loudly downstairs, I would be able to distinguish the whispers of solutions coming from the revolving blades.
I find myself asking why questions a lot. Why won’t the fan speak up? Why is mum always shouting? Why is mum always crying? Why is a constant which is determined by ex, the man who left her last month and split our family into little fractions. Why is an algebraic term I will never be able to wrap my head around, no matter how hard I try, or how much more homework I do. Ex is just another man my mum found using the trial-and-error method after my dad died.
Ex rearranged the equation of our family, and although I never really liked him, not like I loved dad, he was always there, always a number. Now he’s ex, and I have to watch as the things in my life turn from numbers to letters, knowing that I will never be able to solve the questions I need the answers to.
Peter Ormerod is a writer who dabbles in flash fiction and resides in London. He recently started writing creatively and hopes to continue coming up with interesting concepts for future stories.