He took the maple leaf in his hand. For an unexplainable reason, William felt a rage building up within him. It was like smoldering coal in his stomach and chest, the steam of it filling his face and making it hot. He wondered why it came to him. Why then and for what purpose other than to antagonize and taunt him. He imagined the words it would say if it could talk to him in that instant.

"I come from a place you can never see. A place you will never know. I've come to say hello, but I will surely die soon. And so, will you."

William threw the thing out of his hand and it went into the air. Even with all the anger behind it, it fluttered lightly like it had freshly come loose from its branches. Down it went, a path unpredictable. He watched as it twisted and twirled as if in slow motion before it made its landing beneath the table.

A feeling of powerful guilt rose in him, taking hold of his anger and tossing it out to make way for a new emotion. As confusing as it was for William, it settled under his bones like the leaf under the table had done moments before. He started to crawl for the leaf, reaching outward, before he noticed something strange. Underneath the table, he noticed a nail had come loose. It stuck almost halfway up through the leg of the table.

"How is that possible?" William thought.

He could not think of any rational reason that a nail could come loose from the floor. A nail would never move on its own from a concrete floor, even with decades behind it. He could have never pulled the furniture with enough force to accomplish such a thing. William sat down, pondering the cause.

"I have this room memorized. I'd notice the slightest crack in the wall." He thought.

William pondered for a few minutes longer.

"I mean, I haven't looked under this in a while. But how?"

He pulled back the covers of his bed and his shoulders made a popping sound. Any time sleeping on boards surely won't do wonders for the body. He stared between the space of the boards at the leaf. After what seemed like ages, William draped the sheets back and looked around at the nail. He got onto his belly and crawled beneath the table. With both hands, he tried in vain to remove the nail from the floor. There was no use. As hard as William pulled, it wouldn't so much as budge from its position. He tried again, that time attempting to pull the nail out with the leg of the table for leverage.

Standing up, he pulled the loose end of the table upwards, trying to force it out of its concrete burrow. He heard something. Kneeling again, he saw that the nail had slightly moved. That was all he needed to know.

William made sure the table was back in position and returned to his bed. Father would be coming in soon, so this was no time to disturb the order of things. It's almost as if William could feel the rebellion within in him stirring up without restraint. He knew that he must escape or at least try, and he may have finally answered the question of how. The thought of escaping brought him an uneasiness, not so much about the actual escape but of a life full of unknowns that may lay beyond those surrounding walls.

As William laid down on the hard and uncomfortable surface, he started to remember the few times in that place that were somewhat pleasant. Most disturbing to him after all, was the thought of leaving Father. Nothing in the world brought such pain and anger to William as Father did and yet, simultaneously, Father was all that he knew. He taught William how to read and speak. A somewhat decent vocabulary was necessary in Father's eyes and though William hadn't seen a book in years, the memories were still there.

Why would Father teach William anything if only to hold him prisoner? William thought of this endlessly over the years but with no justification ever coming from it. To read and speak were undoubtedly reserved for people who could use these things for more than simple dialogue between captive and captor. William remembered Father, altogether vividly, with his deep and crackled voice, speaking to William with his crooked grin on a narrow face. There was always a roughness about him. He would read to William the English alphabet and then ask for him to repeat it back with correct pronunciations.

Then, another memory crept in. About the times when Father would allow William to sit next to him and watch movies. They were mostly older films, of the black and white variety. They were always to do with cowboys and the "wild west" and, being that they were the only films ever seen by William, they completely enraptured him.

One day, Father gave William a hat that looked exactly like the ones which were worn by the cowboys in those movies. Father placed the hat on William's head, sloping down to a then-young William's height, and said the words,

"Talk low, talk slow, and don't talk too much."

William recalled those words, clear as day, from their favorite Western film. They had stuck with him always, even after so long.

A memory of Father laughing was also very striking. It happened a few times over the years, but one instance in particular was remarkably dramatic. Father was sitting in his dark brown, leather chair, which was still there to that day, a little worse for wear. William was in the kitchen area. So excited was William to receive an ice cream from Fathers callused hands, he had run and tripped, seemingly on nothing but air, and fallen down. He continued into a half-flip onto his front side, facing the opposite direction he was running. Father let out a burst of deep and uncontrolled laughter that William had never heard before nor since. He remembered not being in much pain and felt that Father was simply laughing at the situation and not at the boy's suffering.

At the end of his laughter, he walked over to William, grabbed his back with hands on either side and lifted him onto his feet.

"What changed?" said William, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

William opened his eyes and grabbed his left arm, which had five distinct scars. They were not all from the same time, save for two of them, and were a permanent reflection of William's ability to sustain beatings without an urge to guard. The scars seen with eyes were only really a small glimpse of the abuse. He finally took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

William slept until dusk. He had done more physical labor and exhausting thought than any previous day in the last several years. When William opened his eyes, he realized he was still sitting up. He had a sharp pain in his neck from the slouched position it had been in. The door to his room was open. Standing at the end of his bed he saw two legs and two feet dressed in brown, worn jeans on top of muddy, black boots. Above them was a black T-shirt with no discernable features save for some wear and tear and the grimacing face that hung above it. Wiry, grey stubble laced his face. Lifeless, brown eyes that were nestled on either side of his rough and worn face peered directly into William's. His eyebrows were somewhat bushy, and he was thin in the lips. His chin and jaw were notably pronounced outward. The unexpectedness of this caused William to jerk up out of surprise.

"Father... I must have fallen asleep. Forgive me, I'll get up." said William with a shaky voice.

Father lifted his head back and inhaled air through his nose. His eyes thinned away under his eyebrows and yet somehow became even more glaring. William felt his Sunday become ever more out of his grasp. The guilt swallowed him as he wished he could have just stayed awake. Being on time and alert for Father's arrival was part of the deal for getting a Sunday, after all, and William didn't hold up his end of it.

"Sorry, boy. You missed your chance. You'll have to wait 'till next time," Father said with a tone of disappointment.