Chapter 1 - THE WEIGHT OF RED LEATHER
In a warmly lit American diner with red booths and retro stools, a distressed elderly woman with messy gray hair, wearing dirty, tattered clothing, sits crying in a metal wheelchair.
Beside her, a young boy in a dusty beige t-shirt stands crying with his hand on her shoulder.
The camera is static, capturing a medium shot of the two characters in a sad, emotional state.
The diner smelled of burnt sugar and hot grease.
It was a thick, heavy scent that coated the back of the throat.
The ceiling fans spun lazily, pushing the warm air around the room without ever cooling it.
Neon lights buzzed outside the large glass window, casting intermittent streaks of pink and blue across the black-and-white checkered floor.
The boy’s fingers gripped the worn rubber handle of the wheelchair.
His knuckles were pale beneath a thick layer of street dust.
He dug his small fingernails into the rubber, anchoring himself to the only solid thing he had left.
The grandmother’s shoulders shook violently.
Her spine curved forward, collapsing in on itself like a hollowed-out tree trunk.
Her tattered flannel shirt hung loosely over her fragile frame, the elbows worn down to a web of loose threads.
A single, jagged tear dropped from her chin and splashed onto the rusted metal wheel guard.
The boy swallowed hard.
His throat clicked audibly in the suffocating warmth of the diner.
He looked at the people sitting in the adjacent red leather booths.
A man in a business suit was cutting into a thick slice of cherry pie.
A drop of red syrup fell from his fork and stained the pristine white porcelain of his plate.
The man did not look up.
He just kept chewing, his jaw moving in a steady, relentless rhythm.
The boy felt a hollow ache behind his ribs.
His stomach twisted, tightening into a hard, cold knot.
He pressed his hand flat against the grandmother's trembling shoulder.
Her bones felt sharp through the thin fabric, like broken glass hidden under a sheet.
He needed to fix this.
He reached into the pocket of his dusty beige t-shirt.
His small fingers scraped against the rough cotton seam.
He touched the cold, rigid edges of metal.
Three coins.
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It was all the gravity they had left in the world.
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