stubbled jaw lead to? What were the micro and macro details of that road? Of a morning begun that way? Of a night that ended that way? Would it be better? Worse? Worth it?
Would it fit me?
Two weeks. Just two weeks and Johanna would be asking for my thumbs up or thumbs down on all I’d never had and so much I’d always wanted. But then, like Sally’s rope, was what I’d always wanted been the equivalent of the incremental crafting of something colorful and intricately detailed, but ultimately rather deadening?
It never occurred to me that the Next would include such a paramount fork in the road.
My heart beat faster at the thought.
I closed the curtain as the Beached Whale dozed.
Marzoli was right. It was not a nice name at all.
Goodnight, lady.
Oh, fuck it. My feet never could be laced into goody two-shoes.
Goodnight, Beached Whale.
Perhaps I should go back to sleep too.
Chapter Eleven
The right side of Dad’s face melted as the flames increased…
I woke up with a soundless scream in the black of my curtained cave. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air.
Since when did I start needing air?
What the fuck was going on with me? For decades, I couldn’t remember a goddamn rat dropping about my past, and now I couldn’t shut my eyes without the worst of those fuckers creeping back.
I opened the curtain and then opened the window. The metal hinges squealed from disuse. The air was icy and wet.
Not a single twitch of activity happened across the courtyard. Just shades of shadows and a frozen distilled peace at three in the morning as the sensible people of New York snoozed. Why, then, was I feeling so uneasy?
The curtains remained closed in the Perfects’ bedroom.
As if nothing had ever happened.
A thought began to creep under my skin as horrifying as the fecal paths of a scabies infection. It undermined my understanding of everything. It carved out the very volume of my eyeballs. It disintegrated the reliability of taking for granted my past as my own factual experience. It eroded the potential for any positivity in the future.
Did I imagine everything?
Did I have one factual piece of evidence that anything had actually taken place hours earlier? I stuck my head out the window and looked up. My ears immediately stung from the cold of the air. Light was coming out of Ruben’s window. I pulled my head back in and glanced at the computer screen. It was 3 a.m. Ruben had to be hard at work obsessing on something to be up this late.
Nathan’s pale skin was shaking violently as I pulled his window shut.
Stop. I had nothing to substantiate this creepiness. No four-eyed tentacled monster lurked under any bed or closet. Ruben was upstairs, busily taking his million-dollar trust fund for granted, and all was quiet on the Perfect front.
And yet…
And yet Nathan had been killed. Marzoli affirmed this.
But…what if….
The late night graininess was dousing my brain with doubts.
Had Marzoli been imagined too?
I searched for his card on my desk…where was it? It had to be here! It had to be! Was I going crazy? Was he real? Did I say what I said? Did he say what he said? Did I feel what I felt? Did I see what I saw?
I heard the boy growl to me, “You did not see that.”
I could barely grip the branch any more as the blond boy stood underneath, grasping his Swiss army knife. My palms were sweating and slipping. My forearms burned.
Run, Paul!
“You did not see that! Repeat that!”
I was in too much desperation to utter anything, let alone what he was commanding. My forearm felt as if it was tearing in two. I could no longer hold onto the branch. I scraped past spiked broken branch bases as I plummeted toward the gleaming knife.
“Leave him alone!” I heard Jessie shout, but was he near or in the distance?
I couldn’t tell which sensation came first or hurt more, the blade slicing into my rib, or my back slamming onto the ground. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see anything except red cut with
Would it fit me?
Two weeks. Just two weeks and Johanna would be asking for my thumbs up or thumbs down on all I’d never had and so much I’d always wanted. But then, like Sally’s rope, was what I’d always wanted been the equivalent of the incremental crafting of something colorful and intricately detailed, but ultimately rather deadening?
It never occurred to me that the Next would include such a paramount fork in the road.
My heart beat faster at the thought.
I closed the curtain as the Beached Whale dozed.
Marzoli was right. It was not a nice name at all.
Goodnight, lady.
Oh, fuck it. My feet never could be laced into goody two-shoes.
Goodnight, Beached Whale.
Perhaps I should go back to sleep too.
Chapter Eleven
The right side of Dad’s face melted as the flames increased…
I woke up with a soundless scream in the black of my curtained cave. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air.
Since when did I start needing air?
What the fuck was going on with me? For decades, I couldn’t remember a goddamn rat dropping about my past, and now I couldn’t shut my eyes without the worst of those fuckers creeping back.
I opened the curtain and then opened the window. The metal hinges squealed from disuse. The air was icy and wet.
Not a single twitch of activity happened across the courtyard. Just shades of shadows and a frozen distilled peace at three in the morning as the sensible people of New York snoozed. Why, then, was I feeling so uneasy?
The curtains remained closed in the Perfects’ bedroom.
As if nothing had ever happened.
A thought began to creep under my skin as horrifying as the fecal paths of a scabies infection. It undermined my understanding of everything. It carved out the very volume of my eyeballs. It disintegrated the reliability of taking for granted my past as my own factual experience. It eroded the potential for any positivity in the future.
Did I imagine everything?
Did I have one factual piece of evidence that anything had actually taken place hours earlier? I stuck my head out the window and looked up. My ears immediately stung from the cold of the air. Light was coming out of Ruben’s window. I pulled my head back in and glanced at the computer screen. It was 3 a.m. Ruben had to be hard at work obsessing on something to be up this late.
Nathan’s pale skin was shaking violently as I pulled his window shut.
Stop. I had nothing to substantiate this creepiness. No four-eyed tentacled monster lurked under any bed or closet. Ruben was upstairs, busily taking his million-dollar trust fund for granted, and all was quiet on the Perfect front.
And yet…
And yet Nathan had been killed. Marzoli affirmed this.
But…what if….
The late night graininess was dousing my brain with doubts.
Had Marzoli been imagined too?
I searched for his card on my desk…where was it? It had to be here! It had to be! Was I going crazy? Was he real? Did I say what I said? Did he say what he said? Did I feel what I felt? Did I see what I saw?
I heard the boy growl to me, “You did not see that.”
I could barely grip the branch any more as the blond boy stood underneath, grasping his Swiss army knife. My palms were sweating and slipping. My forearms burned.
Run, Paul!
“You did not see that! Repeat that!”
I was in too much desperation to utter anything, let alone what he was commanding. My forearm felt as if it was tearing in two. I could no longer hold onto the branch. I scraped past spiked broken branch bases as I plummeted toward the gleaming knife.
“Leave him alone!” I heard Jessie shout, but was he near or in the distance?
I couldn’t tell which sensation came first or hurt more, the blade slicing into my rib, or my back slamming onto the ground. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see anything except red cut with
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