Nano 2004 - Untitled

Merk began life as a simple boy.

His parents were common people; they lived in the suburbs, working their jobs, raising their two children. Their home was a cookie-cutter ranch-style abode, with it's three bedrooms - four, if they didn't want a rec room - and two and a half baths. Their yard was fenced in white picket and a big, old oak grew in the backyard, where the children had youthfully encouraged their father to put up a tire swing and a tree house.

From where Merk stood, it wasn't all that idylic. But it wasn't a horror, either.

It was just plain boring.

Every morning that Merk woke up, he could look out the window of his bedroom and see the big oak in the backyard and hear the birds chirping away. He could see the sun slowly rising to brighten the day. He would push back the covers on his bed, swing his feet over the side and find his slippers without opening his eyes. There were days that Merk accomplished his morning ritual without seeing the sun until he was seated next to his father at the breakfast table - quite an accomplishment when you consider that not only did he have to get out of bed, but he was expected to be fully showered, including scrubbed nearly raw behind the ears, dressed and shaved in later years, by the time his mother set the plate full of eggs, bacon and pancakes in front of him at 7:45 am sharp.

Merk would tell his friends at school - who were never allowed over to the house, in case they should upset something (or someone) - that you could set all the clocks in town to the way his parents ran their house. "There's a time and a place for everything," his father would say when either Merk or his twin sister Nannie wanted to do something that wasn't 'normal' for their family.

As they grew up, both Merk and Nannie came to realize that their world was drastically different from what almost all other kids they knew had to deal with. Late at night, Nannie would sneak into Merk's room and they'd discuss how wonderful it would be to have a single parent, or what it would be like to eat pizza, or be spoken to as an equal by their parents. They knew that nothing would ever change for them living under the same roof as their parents, so they bided their time, reading and researching as much as they could about the world outside of their home.

By the time they had finished high school, Merk and Nannie thought they'd learned all they needed to know about the 'real world'. Their first big step into that world was telling their parents they were moving out.

It happened the day after their graduation, during their typical Wednesday night supper. Wednesdays were the days when their mother worked late at her 'mad money' job at the local cash-and-carry store, which left their father in charge of whipping up a meal that wouldn't result in a visit from the fire department.

It was almost 6:30 when their mother walked in the door. Opal Baley was in her mid-40s, but didn't look a day over 35. She was meticulous in keeping up her apperance and bought all the latest creams and masks to keep her skin looking radiant and supple. She secretly envied her daughter Nannie for looking better than she herself did at 18. Opal would soak her feet in an epsom salt bath every night while she let a mask of the most expensive cream she could get in their tiny town soak into her face, giving herself a manicure at the same time. "All Nannie has to do is scrub her face with that attrocious hand soap and use a bit of hand cream," Opal would think while she plucked the imaginary stray hairs from her chin.

Opal came through the back door - "The front door is only for guests," she'd firmly tell the children anytime they tempted fate and tried to enter the house through the double oak doors that gave the house a warm, cozy feeling - and hung up her purse on the hook.

"Peter, dear, I'm home." She peeked around the door frame and nearly dropped her keys from her hand. Merk and Nannie were in the kitchen, finishing the preparations for dinner.

"Hello, mother." Nannie went over to her mother and kissed her lightly. "Welcome home."

"Well, this is quite the surprise. Come over here, Merk." Opal waved her hands at Merk like she hadn't seen him for years and desperately wanted to hug him.

"Um, yeah, mo...ther. Nan and I wanted to do something special," Merk said to his mother as she hugged him. Nannie stood behind their mother and silently motioned that their father was about to join them.

Merk managed to wriggle out of his mother's grasp in time to greet his father as he came down the back stairs. "Dad... um, supper's almost ready. Why don't you and mother go into the dining room and Nan and I will get everything together and we'll be in there in a sec. Um, yeah. Do that now." He put his hands on his parent's backs and pushed them towards the dining room door. Once it closed, Merk turned to his sister and let out a deep sigh.

"I know. But how else are we going to do this?" Nannie was putting the food she'd prepared into serving bowls, careful not to spill any on the counter. "Grab some bread from the pantry, will you?"

Merk opened the pantry and took out a loaf of bread. "I don't know. Do you think they'll let us, though?" He took an empty bowl, lined it with a tea towel and set the bread on it. Nannie had started gathering her dishes on to the cherry serving cart her mother preferred they use to serve meals in the dining room on.

"Merk, do you want to keep living like this? Like it's some weird, twisted really-fucked up perfect world? I know we have it way, way better than some people, but come on - we keep doing this, and we're going to end up just like them," Nannie pointed at the door separating them and their parents.

"Yeah, but... I don't know," he sighed. "I just... you know... I don't want to hurt them."

Nannie walked over to Merk and put her hands on his shoulders - quite the accomplishment as he was a good six inches taller than her - and looked him directly in the eye. "If they honestly, with all their hearts, thought we'd stay here for ever, then we need to get out more than ever before." She stepped back and clasped her hands. "Here goes nothing."

They walked through the dining room door, Merk pushing the cart and Nannie carrying the tableware. Once the serving cart had been unloaded and the candles lit, they took their seats, opposite each other at table. Their father said grace and began passing around the meal.

"So, Opal, how was work? I suspect fairly quiet with it being the end of the school year and all," Peter asked as he scooped out a pile of potatoes.

"Oh, dear, it was dreadful. Simply dead. I did, however, accomplish quite a lot of my latest word-find book, in between helping customers," Opal said as she carefully chose two small cuts of the ham that Nannie had slaved over during the afternoon. "And then there was the visit from the police."

"Oh, really? What did they have to say?" Peter was carefully dishing out vegetables on to his plate, making sure that they didn't touch anything else on it.

While their parents bored each other with trivial tidbits from their respective days, Nannie and Merk ate in silence. Once the main meal was finished, they both jumped up and cleared the dishes. Once safely in the kitchen, they thrust their fists into the air.

"Oh. My. God." Nannie was holding her head in her hands, stomping her feet as quietly as she could. "I don't understand how we - " she pointed at herself and Merk, "could come from them. Are we that bloody boring?"

"God, I hope not," Merk said as he leaned against the counter. "I tell you, though, I've developed my tuning-out abilities quite well in this house. Don't know what I could use them for, but I'm sure it'll come in handy some day."

Nannie tiptoed over to the dining room door and pushed it open a bit. "Well, looks like they're ready for dessert." She turned back to the granite-topped island in the middle of the kitchen. "Hand me a knife, will you?"

Merk opened the knife drawer and handed his sister the desert knife. He leaned back against the counter and thought about what his parent's reaction might be to the announcement that their children were moving out. He smiled to himself when he thought about how much crying his mother would do.

"Hey, wake up. Let's get this show on the road." Nannie held on to a tray with four plates containing small slices of a chocolate cake. She backed her way through the door and set the tray on the table to serve their parents.

They ate in quiet. Every few seconds, Nannie and Merk would look at each other and quickly look away. Once the last crumb had been eaten off their plates, Opal stood up and began clearing the table. "Um, mother? I can do that." Nannie tried to help her mother but was forcibly pushed back into her seat.

"Oh, no, dear. Your father and I would like to do this little bit for the two of you, after you prepared such a lovely meal. Peter, go get some wine from the cellar." Opal continued clearing the dishes and followed their father through the door.

Merk leaned forward in his seat and whispered hoarsely to Nannie,"What the hell was that?"

"What?"

"That." He pointed to the door.

"Um, nothing?"

"No. Mom and Dad never clear the dishes or give us wine."

"Well, maybe with us finished school now, they think of us like adults." Nannie shrugged her shoulders and picked some fluff off her shirt.

"No. That's not it. There's something up. That's so not normal for them." Merk sat back in his chair and brooded over his parent's actions while Nannie played with the shadows the candles cast on the walls.

After a few minutes, Opal and Peter rejoined them, carrying a carafe and a bottle of wine, respectively. Opal moved over to the china cabinet and removed four wine glasses and four tea cups, setting them on the sideboard. "Well, Peter. Shall you do the honours, or shall I?"

"Well, dear, I supposed I could. I mean, I am the man of the house, after all." Peter moved over to the sideboard. Merk glared at Nannie across the table, wide-eyed and made panicked motions. "Ah, here it is." Their father turned around with his favourite corkscrew in his hand. "Now, Merk, you are a fully-grown man now. I should be letting you do this, but this bottle of wine was a gift. Now, let me see..." He put the corkscrew in and slowly opened the bottle.

Opal was standing at his side with the glasses on a tray. They looked at each other while Peter was pouring the wine, as Merk and Nannie looked at each other. Once the glasses had all been filled, Opal presented each of them with a glass and then set the tray back on the sideboard. She took her seat as their father strode around the room, seeminly distracted.

"Well, my babies. You're all grown up," Opal began, tearfully. Peter moved quietly behind her and handed her a tissue. "I never thought this day would come." Sniffle. "I... I can't do this. Peter..." She looked up at her husband and wiped away another tear.

"Ha-hem. Nan, Merk... your mother and I have something we'd like to discuss with you."

November 5 - up to 4,201 Chapter 2

Merk Sterling Baley and Ann - or as she's known now, Nannie - August Baley were welcomed into the world 18 years previously, to their joyous parents, Opal and Peter.

Opal had been raised in a well-to-do family, the only girl out of four children, where there were more forks than people at the dinner table most nights. She was named homecoming queen and prom queen and knew that when her time came, she'd marry the most popular handsome man available to her. Peter was from a stable middle-class family where he was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, right into a career in accounting. He was a normal child who played the normal sports, had the normal misadventures and had a normal family. He was the oldest of three and was expected to provide protection to his younger siblings.

Peter and Opal met by complete accident. A favourite hangout for young people at the time was an sand dune (more a gravel dune, really) on the outskirts of town. Peter and his friends would head out there with their half-bottles of various alcohol every Friday night. Opal had never been there, but as an impressionable 18-year old who'd just finished high school, she decided to go out there one night with some girlfriends.

Stratdale was a large enough town to boast two high schools - Stratdale High School for students from families who really didn't have much hope (or money) for them to continue on to college and Radcliffe Collegiate for students who were expected (and often did) go on to college and succeed.

Peter attended Strat High, as it was called, finishing with average marks; Opal had been student body president at Radcliffe in her final year. Their paths had never crossed and so when Opal appeared that night at the dune, Peter was intrigued.

Opal was a shining beauty with her dark hair and creamy, dew-kissed skin. She stepped out of her car - a top model that her father had bought a few weeks previously - and walked over to Peter's group.

"Hey. My name's Opal. You got anything to drink?" She held out her hand towards Peter. He took it and shook it lightly, all the while staring into her eyes.

"Um... sure." He handed her the half-bottle of rye they'd been swigging out of.

She took it and held it to her nose. Opal had never had more than a glass of wine with supper and now she was facing the prospect of taking a drink out of a communal bottle. She'd been brought up better than that and demanded a glass to at least pour some into. While the boys scrambled to fulfill her demand, Opal turned to her friends and giggled. They watched the boys tear their cars apart looking for a cup for her and her friends to put their drinks into.

Eventually one of Peter's friends found an old coffee mug in the backseat of his father's pickup he'd borrowed and brought it over to the girls. Opal took one look at the mug and sighed. "I'm not even going to bother asking that it be cleaned out because God knows how much longer it'll be before we get a drink, right girls?" She shook her head and laughed. "Now, you said your name was...?" She turned to Peter and offered him her cup.

"Um... Peter. Peter Baley." He poured half of his bottle into her cup. "I've, ah, never seen you around here before. Are you new?"

"No. I've lived here my entire life. How 'bout you?" Opal moved over to where Peter was leaning up against someone's car.

"I've been here my whole life, too. Funny, that."

"What's funny?"

"We've both been here our entire lives and never met."

From that moment forward, Peter and Opal were inseparable. Opal went to a college a few hours away, while Peter completed his diploma in business at the local university. Once they graduated and Peter had found a respectible job, they married. Two years later, Merk and Nannie were born.

Shortly after the twins were born, Opal was recovering in her hospital room. She'd had a tough labour - her doctor had failed to mention anything about twins during her entire pregnancy and once Nannie had emerged into the world, Opal tried to take a break. "No, Opal - you've got another one - keep pushing!" It was all Peter could do to keep Opal down on the bed and from strangling her doctor.

Slightly sedated and completely exhausted, Opal tried to get in a small nap. A nurse - who had just graduated from nursing school the week before - came in to check on her.

"Mrs. Baley?" Nurse Edwards whispered.

"Mmm.. yes?" Opal opened her eyes and looked at the barely-over-22-year-old.

"I need you to fill out some forms." She tried handing Opal a clipboard.

"What? Isn't there some other person to do that, like my husband, or a better time?"

"Uh, no. He's not ready to do this right now."

Opal sat straight up in her bed. "What do you mean he's not ready to do this right now? He's not the one who pushed a watermelon out of his bloody nose."

"Mr. Baley is sedated in his room - he passed out shortly after your children were born." Nurse Edwards stepped back from the bed in case Opal decided to take a swing at her.

Opal sighed and laid back down. "Well, nurse, I'm kind of sedated, too. You'll have to fill out the paperwork for me. Just ask me the questions and I'll answer them"

"Okay. Let's see here..." Nurse Edwards flipped the pages and found the one she was looking for. "I need to know what you're naming your children."

"The girl is Ann August - Ann for my mother, August for my favourite month. The boy - there is a boy, right?" Opal looked at Nurse Edwards questioningly; the nurse nodded. "The boy will be... Mark Sterling - Mark is such a strong boy's name and Sterling is my maiden name."

Nurse Edwards wrote down the information and set the clipboard on the side table. She fixed the pillows behind Opal's head and straightened out the blankets. "Now, Mrs. Baley, get some rest and we'll bring your babies in to your shortly." By the time she left, Opal was sound asleep.

Opal and Peter didn't know about the mistake the nurse had made for a few months, until the children's official birth certificates arrived in the mail. Rather than deal with more paperwork, they accepted Merk's new name.

Merk and Nannie had a relatively incident-free childhood, as was the plan their parent's - more or less, just their mother, really - had created before their hospital bracelets had even been cut off. They were rarely allowed outside, never had friends over, watched television or played games. They were quiet children who knew that disrupting their parent's lives with trivial issues would result in being punished.

Punishment for the Baley children was usually one of two things - for less meaningful crimes like not putting toys away or not finishing homework on time, they were forced to sit in the corner and, in their father's words, "think good and hard about what you did"; for more meaningful offence, such as speaking out of turn or leaving the house improperly groomed, their mother would sit them down in a dark room and speak in a monotone voice, explaining how hurt and troubled she was by their actions.

By the time Merk and Nannie reached junior high, they were considered 'oustiders' - they had no friends, except for each other. When Nannie came home from school crying one day, Merk had to explain to his parents what the problem - as he saw it was.

"Well, Nan and I don't have any friends. So nobody talks to us."

"I don't think that's true, Merk." Opal stood up from her chair and walked around the room, considering what her son had said. Was it possible that in her aims to make her children perfect that she'd done irreperable damage instead?

"But it is, mother. At recess, Nan and I sit on the bench and watch the other kids. They never ask us to play with them."

"Have you ever asked to play with them, son?" Peter was very troubled by this news. He wanted his son to grow up properly and have a crowd of friends he could always count on.

"Yeah. They say I'm not allowed to and then they ignore us."

"Well... I never. Tell me who those children are and I'll call their mothers right now." Opal moved towards the phone, ready to dial the number to whatever name Merk gave her.

"Why bother? You'd have to call all the parents of all the kids in that school. We're bloody freaks, mother! And it's all because of you!" Merk stood up and ran out of the room.

Opal had convinced Peter early on that her upbringing was the best of their personal experiences as children, and that it was going to be how they raised their children. However, Opal, in her compulsively obsessive ways, went a few steps too far and was finally seeing the results. Secretly, Peter was pleased that Opal had been proven wrong.

The next few days in the Baley household was tense as Nannie and Merk went about their lives barely speaking to their parents. Eventually, Opal came up with a plan and approached her children with it, in hopes of mending fences.

Merk and Nannie were sitting on the company-only sofa in the front room, a room they'd only been in once before. Opal sat in her favourite armchair with a pad of paper in her lap.

"Children. I have a proposal for you."

"What is it?" Nannie leaned back on the sofa and crossed her arms.

Opal breathed deeply. "I want you to make friends."

Merk looked at Nannie and laughed. "Isn't it a bit late for that? We're 12 years old - if we haven't made friends by now, it's pretty unlikely that we're ever going to."

"He's right, mother. I mean, how silly of an idea is that?" Nannie snapped her bubblegum and twirled her hair.

"I'm serious, children. Your father and I are going to loosen up the perverbial apron strings and let you two do whatever you like - within reason, of course..."

"Within reason?" Merk exploded. "You say you're going to let us be kids but you want us to still do as you say? Bullshit... bull-s-h-i-t."

"Merk! Well, I never..." Opal pulled a tissue out of her pocket and fanned herself with it.

"Please, mother... Merk." Nannie put her hands out towards each of them. "Mother, I don't understand what you mean by this. Please explain."

"Well, your father and I think it's time you were normal children. You need to live your lives to the fullest right now before everything gets more complicated. You need to have some fun, really."

"Oh, and how do you propose that?" Merk stood up and walked over to the bay window.

"Well, I don't think your father and I can really come up with a plan for that. We just want to get the ball rolling and let the two of you carry it from there."

"Hmm. Well, what do you think?" Merk turned from the window and looked at Nannie.

"I dunno. I guess it could work. How do we make friends?"

"If I knew, I'd already have one, stupid."

"Now, now, Merk. There's no reason to say something like that to your sister." Opal stood up and went over to the children. She put a hand on each of them. "I know you two are intelligent, sweet children. You'll come up with something." She turned and left the room.

"What do we do now?"

"To hell if I know. Let's get out of here, though." Nannie pulled Merk with her as she moved to the front hall to grab a coat.

They eventually figured out how to make friends, but were never really part of the best crowds. Nannie had a few close friends and Merk had his friends from the teams he joined, but neither of them were ever invited to the cool kids' parties or out to the dunes.

In their final year of high school, they both had relationships that probably would have developed into something 'more' if they hadn't both still been dealing with the insecurities that had grown out of their odd childhood.

So it came to a dinner the night following their graduation - what emotion-evoking news did their parents have for them? Were they really not brother and sister? Were their parents not really their parents? A death in the family? Nannie and Merk sat waiting patiently for their father to break the news.

"Children, you know that your mother and I love you very much. And now that you are... ahem... fully grown adults, we have a proposition for you."

"Dad, the suspense is killing us," Merk said as he leaned forward on his elbows. He put his thumbs to his forehead to try to stop the impending headache he usually developed around this time every Wednesday.

"Fine, son. Nannie, Merk, your mother and I would like you to move out of the house. We see no need for either of you to remain here."

Nannie flew out of her chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor. "What? You're kicking us out?" "Yes, dear," Opal said as she put the chair back in it's regular upright position.

"Merk - say something!" Nannie's eyes were flashing, like they were sending some undecipherable message to her twin.

"Um, why? I mean I understand the whole 'you're an adult, we'll treat you like one' crap, but this is a little unexpected, I think. Or maybe it's not." Merk stood up and walked around the table to stand next to his sister. "Think about it, Nannie. How much does this really, honestly surprise you? I'm not so sure it surprises me at all, really. It's not like they just threatened to kill us or anything; they just told us to get out."

"Yeah, but, I would think they'd have wanted to keep us under their thumbs for as long as possible. They've been these controlling nutcases our entire lives and now - bang! - out of left field, they decide 'Hey, they're adults. We've fucked them up as much as we can legally, so let's be rid of them.' Somehow, I don't think that's it, Merk. But you believe whatever you want, you usually do." Nannie stormed from the room, leaving Merk and his parents in silence.

"Now, Merk, do you have anything else to say about this... proposition your father and I have come up with?" Opal came over to Merk and put her hand on his arm.

"No, mother. I don't. I have to get out of here." He turned to leave and stopped in his tracks. He walked over to where his father was still standing, with his wine glass in his hand, at the sideboard. "When do you want us out?"

"Your mother and I..." he began.

"NO!" Merk shouted. "When do you - not mother - want us out of here?"

Peter hung his head rather than look his son in the eye. "As soon as possible, please. You must understand, Merk, that your mother and I have discussed this to great lengths and we both believe that this is the best for both you and Nannie."

"I'm sure you think so. And I can safely say that I speak for Nan as well when I say this - thank you very fucking much for speaking to us about it as well. I know you two are our parents and you're supposed to care for us and look out for us, and we're adults - heck, we're all adults here - but we're still your children. I'm just... I don't know. I'm either really sad or really angry - the line between the two is so fine right now I don't know which I feel more. I'm outta here." Merk left the room much the same way Nannie did, with his parents looking at his retreating form through the door.

On his way through the kitchen to the stairs up to his room, Merk noticed that Nannie's keys were still hanging on the hook by the back door and figured that she was upstairs in her room, packing at the most, crying at the least.

He made his way upstairs and saw a light on under her door. Softly knocking, he entered to what would best be described as the aftermath of a tornado. Nannie had thrown most of her possessions onto her bed, where they fell to the floor once the pile grew to be to big.

"Hey, Nan?" Merk carefully stepped over a pile of clothes and pictures that were quickly being surrounded by more clothes.

"What the hell do you want? I don't even want to see you right now," Nannie said from behind her closet door. "You're a traitor and a pussy and just a shit, you know? You still can't stand up to them."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"That bullshit you pulled downstairs. Oh, I'm sure that once I left, you made your feelings very clear," Nannie said as she came out of the closet with her arms full of clothes. "I can just imagine what you said. 'Oh, mommy and daddy, I love you so much. Please don't make us leave. We need you.'" She set the clothes down on her bed and made kissing sounds.

"No, actually, I didn't."

"Whatever. You kiss their asses every chance you get. I'm surprised your lips aren't permanently attached to their butts. Like, come on, Merk... you know as much as I do how fucked up this is. This is so not normal."

"Yeah, I know." Merk pushed some of the clothes to the floor from the bed so he could sit down.

Nannie came around to sit beside him. "Look. We're fucked. We're so fucked it's not even funny. So, why don't we just leave?"

"I don't think this is a reverse psychology thing."

"Sure, and monkeys will fly out of my butt."

"No, I'm serious. After you left, I went right up to dad and said, 'When do you want us out?'. He started to say 'Your mother and I' and then I demanded to know when he - not them - wanted us out. You know what?"

"What?"

"Somehow, I don't think this is mom's idea."

"Whatever. This is definitely a 'mom idea'." Nannie stood up and started making organized piles of her possessions. "Either way, I'm leaving. Are you coming with me?"

"Where are you going?"

"I know some friends who have a cabin at the lake."

Merk sighed. He leaned back on the pile of clothes on the bed and put his hands to his face. "Nan, we might have to actually find a place here in town. You know, get jobs and all that shit..."

"I know. I hate being an adult. All the crap responsibilities."

"Yep. So, what are we going to do?"

"Leave."

"To where?"

"I don't know."

"When?"

"Tonight?"

"No." Merk stood up and went to the door. "We'll wait a couple of days - not to see if they change their minds, because you and I know that there's a snowball's chance in hell of them changing their minds - and then get out of here. You have some money saved somewhere, right?"

"Yeah. I've got a few hundred in the bank."

"I've got about the same in the bank, too."

"So, I guess going off to college is out of the question now, right?" "Do you think they're going to pay for us to go to college?"

"No," Nannie laughed. "Yeah, no."

"I'm going to my room to try to figure something out. Later." Merk left Nannie to sort out her things and walked across the hall to his room. He closed the door behind him and kept the lights off. He went over to his bed and laid down, thinking about the evening events.

No matter what, he and Nannie were on their way out. He couldn't actually forsee a future relationship with his parents, no matter if they stayed or left, either. He had been mulling over the idea of leaving by the time college started in the fall as it was, but he was afraid to discuss it with Nannie. Their own relationship had been awkward for the last few months as it was - Merk had no idea why, but Nannie was more angry and more distrustful of him than she'd ever been before. He chalked her attitude up to facing the end of an era in her life, but maybe there was more to it.