There Is No Year by Blake Butler

in his old bed frame, the bed the men in plastic had come to haul away—the bed the doctors said had been infested and was the reason the son got sick. The son knew that wasn’t why he’d gotten sick. It was a bed. No one would listen. The son had heard the mother’s language noises once coming also from a crack in his newer bed but he’d stuffed the crack with gum. The house would sing to him for hours. The son did not try the parents’ door.
    The son had something crawling in his hair that was not of sufficient mass for him to feel.
    The son came down the stairwell with his eyes crisscrossed in blur. They could not parse the light right for some reason. The son saw a haze across the landing. The son held the rail and breathed and breathed. There was a certain smell about the house now, as if someone was in the kitchen burning grease. He could hear some sort of conversation. The room composed around the son. The front door was standing open. In the dead bolt, there was a key. The key had no holes in it with which one could slide the key onto a loop or key chain. The key was large. The key burned the son’s right hand. The son took the key and put it somewhere no one would find it.
    The son walked into another room.
    The son walked into another room, still looking, and another, larger room.
    In each room the son heard movement moving in the room he’d just come from or ahead. In each room, he felt he’d just been in there. He could sense the grace of recent movement. Each little thing just out of place. The coffee-table magazines set out of order—magazines the son had never seen, affixed with dates still yet to come. The son could hear his cell phone ringing, though the tone seemed out of key. The son’s phone’s normal ringtone was from a song his mother had always sung to him inside her, though he only knew that because she said. The son couldn’t remember where he’d left the cell phone. He couldn’t tell from where the ring was ringing. It seemed all around. It seemed inside him. The son continued on. The lights in the room were going funny. The lights spun fluttered. The lights were off.

THE SON
    Through one room the son had to go down on his knees to keep heading forward. At some point he had to stop and rest. The house was brighter when he looked again. The rooms were redder. There were several extra doors. The son kept turning and seeing things from a distance. The son kept repeating the same words. Sometimes the son would come into a room and swear he was coming into the room he’d just come into when coming into the current room from the one before, and sometimes the son would come into a room and swear he’d never seen the room inside the house at all, and sometimes the son would come and there would be nowhere else to walk, and the room would have no ins or outs or exits: windows, doors.
    It took time before the son caught up with himself, there in the kitchen. In the window, he stood reflected. The son’s reflection had his cell phone in his hand. The son stopped and watched him move. His motions did not quite match the ones that he was making. His reflection was a little off-aimed, not quite there. For instance, as the son reached to touch his forehead, his reflection touched his neck. As the son opened his mouth in yawning, his reflection appeared to exhale. The son tried to say his name into him and the room went upside-down.

MIRRYRAMID
    From work, by now, the father knew, there was not time enough to return home. His last trip there and back had required more than a quarter of a day—though really the father could no longer remember how long a day was these days—time was simply time. As soon as he pulled into his driveway, he’d have to turn around and head to work again. He hadn’t even turned the car off, and still clocked in more than an hour late, an infraction for which his wages would be heavily penalized. He’d been so zoned then, that last time leaving, he’d not seen the