Parents Declutter Me Right Out of Existence

In our house, owning a single unnecessary item is considered shameful. My room is bare, like a model home. It doesn't even have an extra chair. There are always only three sets of clothes in my closet. If I want a new pair of pants, I have to cut up the old pair myself before I can keep the new one. Every time I bring something new home, I have to get rid of something old. That includes my favorite pair of shorts with the little robot prints. Dad calls this "decluttering". He says it prevents the soul from becoming weighed down by objects, keeping it pure and light. Every time I grow a little taller, Mom's frown gets a little deeper. "Eddie, you're taking up too much space," she says. "The house feels crowded because of you." From then on, I do everything I can to make myself smaller. Even when I sleep, I curl myself into the tightest ball I can manage. I just want to take up a little less space. Then one day, a truck driver stops in front of me. He smiles and tells me his truck has a huge cargo compartment, big enough to hold all the things nobody wants anymore. I quietly climb inside. "Mom, Dad… I won't take up any space now. You'll finally be happy, won't you?" Chapter 1 I tucked the thick kindergarten graduation yearbook into the deepest pocket of my backpack, hoping no one would notice the bulge. The other children held their copies against their chests like treasures. I, on the other hand, carried mine home like a thief slipping past a guard. Mom had always taught me that anything without practical value was nothing more than visual clutter. Did this yearbook qualify as clutter? I suppose it did. It was bulky, took up space, and wasn't useful to Mom or Dad in the slightest. My stomach churned with dread as I walked home. I was terrified that the moment I walked through the door, Mom would feed it to the shredder. But I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. It held photos of my best friends and me. I opened the front door to find Mom already in the middle of a purge. She was tossing the family's only potted plant into a garbage bag because some of its leaves had fallen and made a mess on the floor. Edging along the wall, I tried to slip unnoticed into my room. "What's that bulge in your backpack?" Mom's voice echoed through the spacious living room. I froze, then slowly pulled out the yearbook. "It's my graduation yearbook…" Mom took it from my hands. She didn't even flip it open before dropping it into the pile of discards by the front door. "Only people who can't let go of the past hold onto things like this. We live in the present. Get rid of it." "But…" My eyes filled with tears. "My friends are in there…" Dad walked over, carrying a black trash bag. "Eddie, friendships don't last forever. Too many attachments will only weigh you down. Learn to let go—that's how you'll grow into the person you're meant to be." He swept the yearbook into the bag, along with the old toothbrush I'd replaced that morning. I felt the sting of tears behind my eyes, but I held them back. In this household, tears were considered a plumbing issue more than an emotional one. I became an expert at breathing so softly that I could probably have snuck past a sleeping cat without waking it. The one thing I couldn't stop was my own body. I kept growing, and it terrified me down to my bones. The first of every month was Space Usage Evaluation Day. I dreaded it. Dad would stand with a measuring tape and call me over. He measured my height, the width of my shoulders, and the length of my feet. When the numbers showed I had grown, he clicked his tongue and frowned at the tape as if it had betrayed him. "Eddie, you've grown nearly two inches this month." He sounded disappointed and worried. "Do you know what that means?" I stared at my bare feet, too afraid to answer. "It means you're taking up more vertical space. Your shadow is getting bigger." He rolled up the tape and looked around. "To offset the extra confinement you're causing, we'll have to get rid of the single armchair." That chair was where Mom always sat to read. I couldn't bear to meet her eyes. Because of me, she would lose her only spot to relax. "I'm sorry…" I whispered, feeling a sting in my nose. "Apologizing won't undo the problem. You need to learn to control your desires, including your desire to grow." Dad's face was grim. "If the soul is weighed down by an increasingly heavy body, it can never truly transcend." That evening, the armchair was carried away. Without it, the living room felt even more barren. Every sound bounced off the walls like a stone on glass. I curled up in the corner, wishing I could fold myself into a piece of paper and slip into the narrow crack between the walls. If I could do that, maybe I would finally stop existing in the way that bothered them. Chapter 2 The school's art room was my favorite place in the world. It was a wonderful, glorious mess. Paint jars lay open everywhere, brushes stained in every shade were scattered across the tables, and crumpled drafts formed little mountains. The air always smelled of turpentine and creativity. Ms. Diana Stone was a plump art teacher. Whenever she smiled, her eyes narrowed into thin crescents, and even her belly jiggled with laughter. She wasn't thin like Mom. Her hugs felt warm, soft, and wonderfully reassuring. "Eddie, you have an incredible sense of color," Ms. Stone always told me. After I won first place in the city's children's art competition, she presented me with a flat metal case. When I lifted the lid, I was met with a rainbow—48 watercolor markers lined up like soldiers in brilliant uniforms. They were colorful and beautiful, but to my parents, they might as well have been illegal. If I took them home, Dad would call them excessive, and Mom would dismiss them as visual clutter. To keep the peace, I never brought them through the door. Every day after school, I hid the case behind the fire hose cabinet in the hallway. It became my secret studio. Before my parents came home, I'd crouch under the dim light, drawing on scrap paper I'd fished out of the trash. I drew rooms bursting with furniture, beds drowning in stuffed animals, floors covered in thick carpets. I drew chubby dolls in bright, mismatched clothes. Page after page, I filled them with crowded, cluttered spaces that felt warm and alive. It was the fallen, imperfect world I imagined. And to me, it was the most beautiful thing I could picture. For several days, I stole little moments of happiness like that. Then one afternoon, I got home later than usual because I'd spent extra time collecting scrap paper. The moment I stepped through the door, I knew something was wrong. In the middle of the living room floor, where there should have been nothing, sat something foreign. My heart skipped a beat when I realized what it was—my marker case. The lid was open, and all 48 markers were on display. Against the stark black-and-white palette of our home, they looked painfully out of place. Mom sat on the only chair left, staring at me expressionlessly. "Our neighbor, Ms. Emma Sawyer, told us you've been making a mess in the hallway." "It wasn't a mess," I mumbled, blinking back tears. "Ms. Stone gave them to me as a reward…" "A reward?" Dad let out a cold, mocking laugh. "Eddie, how many times have I told you? Material possessions breed impurities in the soul." He pointed at the neatly arranged markers. "Look at all this. Red, green, purple—they throw off our home's balance." He stood and walked toward the case. "To cleanse your soul, I must help you remove these distractions." He picked up a red marker. "No! Dad, please!" I cried, lunging forward. Dad simply sidestepped, and I went tumbling onto the hard floor. Pain shot through my knees. Just then, a sharp snap echoed through the room. The red marker broke right in half, and its ink spilled out across the floor like a little pool of blood. "How filthy." Mom frowned and wiped it away without a second thought. I watched helplessly as Dad snapped each marker in half. With every break, he dropped the pieces into the garbage bag. I lunged for the bag, trying to rescue whatever I could, but Mom grabbed me before I could get there. "Because of you, we had to get rid of the armchair," she said coldly. "Now you want to hold onto this garbage? Are you trying to make me throw out the one chair we still have?" I stayed on the ground, paralyzed with fear. With every crack, I felt like I was the one breaking, not the markers. Even the beautiful metal case didn't survive. Dad picked up the garbage bag and looked down at me. "You've disappointed me, Eddie. Your obsession with material things has gone too far." That night, I had a dream that I was one of those markers, lying in the case with all the others. Dad broke me in two and threw me away like I was nothing. Chapter 3 The suffocating atmosphere at home continued into the next morning. Over breakfast, Dad delivered his verdict coldly. "As punishment for your unhealthy attachment to unnecessary objects, and to thoroughly cleanse our living space, we'll be carrying out a deep decluttering this month." I bit into my tasteless whole wheat bread without a word, keeping my eyes fixed on the table. This so-called "deep decluttering" meant that even the most essential items were at risk of being discarded. Dad pointed at my desk. "That piece takes up too much room in the study, and its dark walnut finish weighs down the entire aesthetic of the study." My chest tightened. Grandpa had built that desk for me before he died. On his deathbed, he'd held my hand and said, "Eddie, study hard here. I'll be watching over you from heaven." The tabletop still bore the crooked little airplane I'd carved into it as a child. "No!" I cried, throwing down my bread as I wrapped both arms around one of the desk's legs. "Dad, please! Grandpa gave it to me! If you throw it away, I'll have to do my homework on the floor!" "Memories are burdens," Dad said flatly. "Your grandfather is gone. This desk is nothing more than a piece of furniture that wastes space. Eddie, you have to let it go." I screamed, "No! I won't!" It changed nothing. Mom and Dad lifted the desk together. They were both thin, but whenever it came to throwing things away, they seemed to possess unbelievable strength. They carried the desk out the front door and dumped it beside the neighborhood recycling spot. One of the legs hit the concrete and snapped clean off. I ran after it and threw my arms around the broken desk, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe. Behind me, Mom and Dad casually dusted the dirt from their hands. "If you insist on clinging to that pile of trash, then don't bother coming home," Mom said coldly. Then she took Dad's hand and walked away. Just like that, they were gone. I stood alone in the cold fall wind, hugging a broken desk. At that moment, a large green cargo truck pulled up to the curb. The driver hopped out. When he saw my tear-streaked face, he paused for a moment before flashing me an easy smile. "Hey there, kid. What's got you crying? Nobody wants this desk anymore?" I nodded through my sobs, then shook my head. The driver patted the side of his enormous truck with a grin. "My truck's got plenty of room. It'll fit anything nobody else wants." I stared up at the cargo compartment. It was enormous, dark, and so deep I couldn't see the end. There was more than enough room in there. Our home had always felt too small, and I knew it was my fault. Mom said I had grown too tall and taken up too much room. Dad said I breathed too loudly and disturbed the flow of the air. Perhaps I was the one who didn't fit in that house. If I simply vanished, Dad wouldn't have had to throw out the armchair. He wouldn't have had to toss Grandpa's desk either. I was the clutter that needed to be cleared away. If I weren't there, would the house finally feel big enough? Would Mom and Dad finally be at peace? Chapter 4 The truck driver busied himself with a pile of discarded cardboard nearby. Mom and Dad had already gone back upstairs. They were probably wiping away the footprints left from carrying out the desk with disinfectant. No one was watching me. I let go of the broken desk and tried to climb onto the truck. However, the cargo bed was too high. I couldn't reach it. Then I noticed the green metal collection bin by the roadside. A label read, "Used Clothing Donation." Beneath it was a small opening. It was too narrow for an adult to squeeze through, but I could. I was petite. I had spent my whole life learning to take up as little space as possible, and now that skill had found its purpose. I fished a crumpled supermarket receipt out of my pocket. I didn't have a pen, so I bit the tip of my finger and wrote a few crooked words in my own blood on the back. It stung, but I didn't mind. "Mom and Dad, I'm sorry. If I throw myself away, you won't have to throw anything else out anymore." I thought about leaving the note under the doormat, but I knew they'd only see it as more unnecessary clutter. I didn't want to upset them again, so I tucked the receipt into the crack of the broken desk's drawer. Then I climbed onto a stone bollard and squeezed through the opening in the collection bin, landing on something soft. It was completely dark inside. The smell of mildew and mothballs filled the air. It wasn't pleasant, but somehow it felt safe. Clothes surrounded me from every direction, pressing tightly against my body. It felt like being wrapped inside an enormous, warm embrace. I curled myself into the tiniest ball I could, hugging my knees and pulling them tight against my chest. This was how I had learned to sleep—tucked into myself, taking up as little space as humanly possible. I closed my eyes. I wasn't afraid—just really, really tired. … I had no idea how much time had passed before a huge rumbling noise shook the bin. The whole thing lurched, and I was tossed around like a leaf in the wind. Light flashed in for a second, then I was dumped into a bigger, darker space. More clothes came crashing down on me, pushing the air out of my lungs. A rumbling noise started up, and the walls around me began to close in slowly. It hurt so much. The space was getting tighter and tighter. I could feel my insides being forced upward into my throat, and my skull throbbed with so much pressure I thought it might split open. Something warm dripped from my mouth, then from my nose. I touched it. It was slick and smelled of blood. Before long, the screeching outside seemed to fade. I pulled my knees tighter into my chest. Instead of terror, I felt a strange thrill. I was being made smaller. Soon, I would no longer take up any space.