Dead Languages Don’t Soften the Blow
Posted on | August 12, 2009 | No Comments
Nights were the hardest. After the sun settled behind confection homes, dark seeped in like monoxide and him here alone in a house full of mirrors again. The bourbon cap: another kept treasure lost, now only to physical reach. White-collared shirt undone two buttons down and his tie with slack, pressed against the back of his neck and around and hanging off the loveseat like a haphazard suicide he was too exhausted to complete.
Sprawled out there like a squatter in a familiar condemnment—the cable out, the phone line cut, the food rotted, spoiled, festered, putrefied—he alone with his thoughts and all of these goddamn mirrors. And the bottle (empty) and the mailbox (filled):
Letters from friends, from family, why haven’t you called? how are you handling? are you OK? and all the love and the guilt trips, you’ll get through this; late, second, third, final notices followed by notices of discontinuation of service; the grocery store coupons and notifications of subpoenas ad testifacendum and notices of court determination upon defendant’s nolo contendere plea. Outside there was a stack of papers hidden in tin and dictating in reverse chronology the past to which he’d refused to commit as far back as the first unopened postmark, dated July, 23, 2003.
That was when life stopped for Ever Brennan, almost three months back, and he fell into the same wasted position on the same piece of furniture on an evening as dark as this and him too.
The playroom was still littered with the toys his girls played with and his sink was still filled with the dishes his wife had stopped washing and his doorbell was still ringing with the lazy pleas of his prostitute for him to get off your fucking ass and open this fucking door ’cause I’m not coming through the window again.
Comments
Leave a Reply
