Nine Seconds of Jason

Alright. Cut me some slack because I haven't edited this rubbish or checked the formatting, but I'm fucking tired and lonely and talking to myself at this point. I thought this would be shorter and that I would finish sooner, but it wasn't, and I didn't. So you'll have to wait for more. That's if you're here. That's if you care. That's if you exist. Anyways. Thank you.

Nine Seconds of Jason

I — Work 

Mei was tired, and the problem with being tired is that if you tell anyone that you’re tired they will always one-up you, just like Serena was doing right now. 

“Look, it’s not that I don’t understand,” Serena was saying. “It’s just that we all get tired from time to time.”

From time to time. Mei choked back down the snipped words that threatened to escape her and formed a more pleasant response. “I know. We all do get tired. I guess I’m just feeling it a bit more today.”

Serena rewarded Mei with a smile, but somehow it seemed confrontational / condescending. “I understand.” Lie. “It happens to us all, doing all these crazy shifts.” Lie. “I can totally empathise.” Lie.

Mei’s phone rang with a startling TING that simultaneously woke her up and gave her relief — Serena finally had an excuse to leave. And as if on cue, the perky blonde waved with just her fingertips, turned on her Nike-clad heel, and departed down the cubicle lined hallway with the grace and pep akin to those in middle-fucking-management. MFM Mei said to herself, which always sounded like a B-rate radio station. 

Mei answered the phone and even if it was a memorable call she wouldn’t remember it within the hour. That was her life — call after call, complaint after complaint, shift after shift, change after change. She worked through until midnight (which was when she had been waking up the week before, and when she had been half-way through a shift the week before that, and when she had been deep in REM the week before that) and clocked off without eating her lunch. Mei exited the shiny matrix of glass and marble that was her workplace building and wondered how many of her lunch containers had grown old and festering in the cafeteria refrigerators while she clocked on and off without ever asserting herself and taking the breaks she was entitled to.

No point wondering she thought. The answer was All.

II — Home 

Mei caught the late train back to her apartment (or was it technically the early train), heaved herself over the arrangement of junkies on her front stoop, and bundled up the stairs to the emptiness that awaited her. Shift after shift left her a ghost. Perhaps that’s what she wanted to be. More likely it was just what The Man needed from her. Telling the difference was becoming harder and harder. People like Serena who worked nine-to-five pretty much every week of the year were different. People like that — people like Serena — who had consistency and regularity and most importantly normality, they didn’t know what it was like to be a ghost. An imprint of an imprint of an imprint of yourself. 

Mei walked through her apartment and found it to be just as lonely / empty as she had anticipated it to be. Todd had left more than six months ago but she’d still found herself expecting him to be there each time she got home. Who would stay she asked herself now, as she undressed and (barely) lifted her limbs into the shower. The water ran over her and while Mei wanted everything to wash away, it never did.

Mei was lost inside her head when someone asked her something.

“Hello?”

She jumped, righted herself, listened harder. Was someone at the bathroom door?

“Hey.” The voice again, but closer this time.

Mei felt her stomach lift in fear and her heart double it’s pace, but she knew that she’d heard the voice. Perhaps one of the junkies had come in through the front door after her, while she wasn’t paying attention.

“Can you hear me?” the voice asked. It was right above her and too loud — startling her and catching her off guard.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” it shouted this time. Mei turned too quickly, grabbed the shower curtain without thinking, and fell painfully onto the bathroom tiles like a sack of potatoes wrapped in a wet plastic bag. 

Fuuuuuuck. Her back smacked hard against the immovable floor. The cussing continued in her head as the wind had been knocked out of her and the pain clouded her mind — perhaps she had instantly forgotten all the words that weren’t Fuck. Or perhaps it was just the only word that she could remember right then and there. 

By the time Mei scraped herself off the tiles and got to a sitting position on the toilet she’d come to the conclusion that she had hallucinated. Wouldn’t have been the first time. On rotating shifts it was easy to forget where you’d been, who you’d seen, what you’d said, what you’d heard. Some days she would get to work and not even remember putting her uniform on, or getting on the train, or clocking in. Yep, that was it — just a hallucination. 

Mei stood and looked at herself in the mirror. There was already and ache in her back and the bags under eyes were those of an unseasoned international traveller. Still, she opened the medicine cupboard, took a pair of painkillers, and made eye contact with herself. “You’re going to brush your hair, paint on some eyes, slip into that blue dress, and go get a fucking drink.”

Her reflection frowned back. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look you lazy whore,” she scolded. Her reflection shrugged and smiled. A drink it would be. 

III — The Bar

The blue dress fit a treat — perhaps the shift work had helped her shed a couple of pounds — and Mei felt a little more comfortable behind the heavy makeup and the perfume and wad of twenties she had withdrawn from the cash machine a couple blocks back. 

The bar wasn’t seedy but it wasn’t too classy either. Mei hated classy. Seedy was fine but it wasn’t what she was after the day she’d had — she needed to feel good about herself, and if not good, then at least a little better. Definitely not seedy. The bar was just right and she could tell by the light. Not too dim (seedy), but not too ambient either (too classy). It was just a little more than ambient and made her feel a little woozy even before her first drink. She headed to the bar as she tried to ignore the pain that lingered in her back.

“Vodka tonic, with lime please.”

The bartender said nothing and nodded. He prepared her drink quickly and took her cash courteously. She told him to keep the change on a tab and keep the drinks coming. But also the water she added, hoping none of the other patrons would hear her. Getting home was something that she needed to do tonight because, of course, there was a shift awaiting her.

IV — The Toilet

Toilet — “You’re drinking.” 

Mei almost fell off the toilet. “What the fuck!?” 

It was the voice again. “Woah, potty mouth.”

“Dude, who are you?” Mei looked around the filthy bar toilet stall as if she expected to see someone in there with her. “Were you at my house earlier?”

“Yeah, that was me,” he said, and it sounded like he was right in front of her / above her(???).

“Um…okay.” Mei wasn’t really sure what else to say to the disembodied voice.

“You’re drinking,” he repeated.

“Uh, well, technically right now I’m peeing.”

“And on a school night.”

“Okay, mum. I can drink if I feel like drinking.” Mei finished up her business and hiked up her knickers underneath the blue dress. “Wait, can you see me right now?”

The voice was quiet / silent. 

Mei flushed and felt her cheeks flush with colour. “Fuck. How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long have you been able to see me?”

A pause, and then… “Not long. Since yesterd —”

There was sudden silence. “Since yesterday?” Mei asked the air in the toilet stall. There was no response. “Hello? Voice? Are you there?”

She shook her head (mostly to herself) and figured she either needed another drink or to go home to bed. She opened the stall door and washed her hands in the grimy sink / basin. She wondered if this was the kind of thing she was supposed to tell her therapist. Not that she had a therapist. Not that she had money for a therapist. 

The bartender, as requested, had another drink reader for her when she made it back to her seat. Mei drank it fast and then cut herself off, leaving the guy a generous tip before hightailing it back to her apartment. The night was still early but her lower back was starting to ache from the fall onto the bathroom tiles, and the Voice was right. It was indeed a school night.

V — Sleep

It was only a three hour shift change this time, but each one took it’s toll. Mei was awake, staring at the pale morning light that was only barely strong enough to push through the window. She wasn’t thinking of anything other than a strange dream she’d had during the night.

“You’re awake.” The voice didn’t startle her this time.

“And you’re not a dream, then.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You think, therefore you are.”

A pause. “I doubt.”

“Uhhhhhhrg. Gross. Do you correct your mother with that mouth?”

A laugh. Mei felt her ears twitch up in a smile of her own, and she too laughed. They were that way for a moment and then he was gone again. “Hello?” she asked the air. “Where did you go this time?”

Not long Mei thought to herself. 

VI — Work

It was late in the day and unfortunately for Mei, it felt late in the day. She’d had a double shot coffee before leaving her apartment but 7PM was no time to be starting anything other than an expensive multiple course meal. The train was full of people on their way home or on their way out to something fun. The only good thing would be the noticeable lack of Serena.

When she got there the office wasn’t empty but it was certainly filtering out. Ricky from HR stopped at Mei’s cubicle as he passed by. “Just getting in?”

Mei shrugged and clicked quickly through her login screen. “That’s life on rotation.”

Ricky looked legitimately concerned. “When was the last time you had AL?”

“I don’t know.” And it was the truth. 

Ricky scratched his beard, thinking. “Okay. Let me talk to Serena in the morning.”

Mei grimaced. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.

He smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her it’s come from the top down. They hate when you have too much stocked, especially if they have to payout a resignation.” Ricky left with another smile and Mei was relieved when she realised that she was the only the one left on her level. Before she could enjoy it her phone rang.

VII — Jason

It was 1AM when the voice returned. “Hey.”

This time Mei wasn’t shocked or startled. She took off her headset and put a pause on her incoming calls. “Hey yourself.”

“I’m Jason.”

“Mei, but you probably already knew that.”

“Kind of, but not really.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“You should be asking better questions. / You’re not asking the right questions.”

“Oh my god. You’re pretty fucking pretentious for a ghostly voice, Jason.”

“You think I’m ghostly?”

Mei laughed. “No. I don’t know why I said that.”

But then there was no response. He was gone. Jason was gone. 

“Hello?” Mei felt lonely and stupid calling out to the empty air. Her screen lit up with incoming phone calls as she logged back in and adjusted her headset into place.

VIII — Home

It won’t surprise you to learn that nothing is open at 3AM except Mickey D’s. Mei didn’t particularly like take out food, but she stopped either way and grabbed an egg wrap and a coffee. The egg tasted of rubber, and the coffee of luke-warm chemicals. Seventeen minutes later she stepped off the train behind a few still-drunk sports fans and —  with bleary eyes — trudged up the road to her apartment. 

Once inside she turned on her coffee machine to make something actually drinkable and pulled out a leftover frozen lasagne. The microwave was still buzzing, it’s internal plate rotating, when her phone rang. It was Ricky, from HR.

“Listen kiddo, Serena is being…well…Serena. She’s cut me off at every angle, but she’s agreed to let me give you the next two days off. I know it’s not much but —”

“Oh!” Mei couldn’t stop herself. “Dude. Dude! Are you kidding me!? That’s amazing. That’s…”

“Don’t thank me just yet. I have no idea what she’ll do to your shift schedule after those two days. But at least you can sleep, right?”

Mei’s face hurt from the smile that had set up camp on it. Her ears twitched with happiness. “I owe you Ricky. I owe you a big one.”

He chuckled on the other end of the phone. “Just think of me when Christmas gifts are getting handed out.”

“I will,” she promised. 

Mei looked at the wall clock and noted that it was just past 5AM. Ricky must have worked on that shit overnight and then called her as early as he could. She didn’t just make a mental note, she took out her diary and wrote a reminder to get him something good within the week. There was an interesting desk piece she’d seen on the internet — perfectly carved crystal likeness of all the planets in a mahogany setting. Most people weren’t kind. But when some were, Mei dug deep, and that’s exactly what she would do this time. Ricky had gone out of his way. She noted the website and made sure to transfer some of her savings out to her credit card. 

She was half way through her coffee when she heard Jason. “Hey, you.”

Mei couldn’t stop her smile as she adjusted on the couch and faced where his voice had come from. “Hey yourself.”

“I didn’t think you’d still be awake.”

She hesitated. “I was waiting for you.”

“Were you now?”

Mei felt embarrassed. “Maybe. I don’t know. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re cute when you get nervous like that.”

“I’m absolutely not cute.”

“You work weird hours.” It was a statement but still, he sounded confused when he said it, almost as if it was a question. 

“I know. No need to remind me.”

“What if you —”

But he was gone again. 

Not in the mood to finish her coffee and full to the brim with reheated lasagne, Mei spent the rest of the morning reading and catching up on personal paperwork. Now and again she’d stop and listen and wait for Jason, but he was never there and eventually she realised that all she was doing was torturing herself. 

~~~ more to come...

Soundless

Soundless

It was so much easier to be loved than to have to do any of the desperate work of loving.

Patrick Ness — Release (a novel)

Soundless

I whispered

And you whispered back

I think it was morning

Wrongly, perhaps

And the light filtered through windows

They weren’t mine

Demands and flames

Hot memories of you

Quick pressure, you knew it would work

On me, at least

Such weakness

Such submission; only ever yours

You were on top from word go

Just what I wanted

Marks burnt

Remnants of our mess

The fire that we started with fever

So quick to appear

All of it ruined

Fast and dark

Extinguished before the light returned

Perhaps it was morning

I whispered 

And you whispered back.

Lymantria dispar

Lymantria dispar


“My baby Benny!”
“Ma, please don’t call me that,” Benny said as he attempted to simultaneously hold the phone between his ear and shoulder and sweep the front porch.
“But you’re my baby,” his mother protested.
“I know that Ma, I just mean…I’m a grown man. Can I perhaps stop being your baby now?”
His mother laughed heartily and then broke into a fit of coughing. When she was done she managed to say, “Of course not. Never!”
Benny rolled his eyes to himself. The goddamn rain had created a paste of mud that was layered thickly on the wooden slats of the porch. He didn’t have time for his mother’s protestations right now.
“Have you heard from Mia?’
“Ma!”
“I”m just asking, sweetheart. Maybe if you let her come back she —”
“Jesus,” he said, cutting her off. “She’s not coming back here. I won’t let her back here.”
“My baby Benny, she was the best thing that ever happened to you. She just made a mistake. Forgiveness is God’s way.”
Benny stopped sweeping and rubbed his eyes, “Ma. That may be God’s way, but it’s not mine. What’s done is done and I won’t discuss it anymore.”
“But…”
“No. Ma. She broke our vows and it’s done.” She broke my heart, and it’s done.
“Hm.”
“Hm what?”
“I’m just wondering what you will do now, my baby Benny.”
Benny shook his head to himself, “Ma, I’ll be fine. Trust me. Hey, I have to go. I love you, okay?”
“Okay. I love you too, my baby Benny.”
Benny ended the call before he said something he would regret. He finished sweeping the porch and went inside to pretend like there was something in the fridge for dinner. There was nothing in the fridge, and the whiskey bottle was empty. He stared at it. Nights like this, they — he and Mia — would order pizza and then forget it to cool on the kitchen counter while they had sex on the edge of the bed or up against the bathroom wall. Nights like this had been perfect. Late, lazy Sundays,where they’d stumble around half dressed, toss the pizza in the fridge and then fall onto the sheets like they were still newlyweds.
Nights like that had been perfect. Until they weren’t anymore.

Benny hung in the hall a moment before he grabbed his keys and wallet and left his house to linger without him, cold. Their house. Without her.

“Missa Benny!” called the tiny bespectacled girl behind the cash register, “you want shor’ soup and black bean?”
“Yes ma’am, and pork dumplings tonight please Leena.” Benny felt embarrassment at the fact she knew exactly what he would order. He also felt a mild ache when he had noticed, a few weeks back, that Leena had stopped asking where ‘Miss Mia’ was. He admired that she continued to serve him with a smile devoid of pity — something most people around him failed to accomplish.
“Be five minna, Missa Benny. We slow tonight.” She did a thumbs-up and stuck out her tongue. The girl was adorable.
Benny felt better already and took a seat in the corner to wait. He liked to watch the neighbourhood drift by outside the dirty glass windows. When his hand had strayed to his pocket more than three times he stood up abruptly and called back to the kitchen, “Leena! I’m just going to Alberto’s across the street, be back in a jiffy!”
He got an Okay, Missa Benny! from somewhere behind the stove vents and pushed out of the swing door. It was cold, coming on dark. Alberto’s was deserted.
“Benny D. Long time since I’ve seen you here kiddo,” said Alberto from behind his long marble counter.
Benny smiled, “Al. Good to see you. Guess it’s been a long time since I needed to be here.”
“Fair ‘nuff,” Alberto looked back down at his book and left him to peruse in silence.
Benny trailed his eyes over the racks of imported cured meats and tins of spices and packets of dried chilli. When he came to the liquor, he gingerly fingered a dusty bottle of Pendleton. He didn’t hang around to change his mind.
“That’s twenty-five, kiddo.”
“Shelf said thirty-five, Al.”
“No doubt it did, but I know a woman-shaped hole when I see it. Know it now, when I say it boy…ain’t no cure for that.”
Benny felt himself close to tears and slapped a fifty on the counter before he left without his change. Alberto was trying to be nice but it was no use. The night closed in tight around him as he stalked back across the street, to the warmth of Leena’s domain. It was time to get the food and go home.
Just as he was about to call out to Leena, his phone binged in his pocket.

    hey

It was Mia. Fuck. He didn’t respond. He put the phone on the seat next to him and clenched both hands into fists. He wanted to scream. He wanted to set the ground at his feet on fire.

    just thought you might feel like talking?

Benny felt his breath, unsteady and shaking in his chest. He didn’t feel like talking, not at all. He felt like yelling, cursing. He felt like hurting her. He stopped the spiral and brought calm to his heartbeat. He looked up to see Leena’s broad smile.
“Missa Benny, you all good to go.” She held the bag out to him and winked.
Benny gratefully took the bag and retreated to his car. Inside, his phone binged again. He turned it to vibrate and jammed it in his pocket. On the way home he could see nothing but the pale, naked hips of his wife on top of their neighbour, Marty Stills. Ex-wife.

The porch still looked pretty dirty but it was too dark by then to do anything about it. He dumped the Chinese takeout on the kitchen bench and poured a finger of the Pendleton. Benny looked around — everything was as it always had been. And everything was different. The kitchen was okay but the bedroom was an absolute no-fly zone. He could smell her in there. And in the upstairs shower, which sucked because the downstairs shower was cold as fuck and didn’t have heat lamps or a decent shower head. Not to mention, jerking off down there made him feel like a teenager. He’d been sleeping in the living room for two months. He couldn’t remember to eat breakfast. His back hurt. His beard was scrappy. And then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

    baby, you know i still love you, right?

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. Benny calmly turned the phone on do-not-disturb and placed it face down next to his dinner. He sipped the Pendleton. It had cooled considerably — time to put the heat on. Taking his pork dumplings to the couch and turning on the tv and the AC, Benny felt marginally better but still found himself going around in the same circles as always. He wanted to ask Mia everything, but he didn’t want to know. He wanted her to say sorry, but he didn’t want to hear it again. He ached to look at her and touch her, but he couldn’t stand the sight of her and actual contact might drive him to do something awful.
Everything was shit.

He glanced over at his phone resting on the kitchen bench and that was when he saw it — a soft, grey and beige winged moth — it fluttered across right in front of him before darting up toward the living room lightbulb. Benny watched it smack into the bulb a few times and then he lost interest, there was a new episode of Law & Order on one of the channels.

Ah hour later, he was a third of the way through the bottle and had his feet tucked up underneath an old blanket on the couch when he heard a knock at the door. Benny hauled himself up and wondered who could possibly need him right now. He opened the door.
“Benny,” Marty said, giving a half smile.
“Marty.”
“I uhhh, I never got the chance to say sorry. I…”
“Forget it Marty. I get it. But sorry won’t really fix anything.”
Marty was about the same height as Benny, but a lot wider; bulkier. He probably had a better cock. A nicer cock. He probably knew more tricks. He probably made her…
“Benny, I…we never meant to hurt you. We just, we got carried away.”
Benny moved to close the door, “Clearly.”
“No, really,” Marty pressed his hand against the wood.
“What do you want, Marty? You want to come over here and make yourself feel better? Fine. Feel great. Because you fucked my wife. And now she’s not my wife anymore. Good job Marty.” He said it all very calmly, but Benny could feel the anger brewing in him. He needed to close the door and get another drink.
Marty took his hand away from the wood and retreated. As he did, a soft, grey and beige winged moth looped out from behind Benny’s arm and slipped through the door before he closed it. Benny found himself pressed flush to the gate at that point. In the kitchen he fumbled with his phone and hurriedly replied to Mia.

    i don’t love you an inch anymore. don’t come for your shit, i'll send it. don’t msg me anymore. i’m done.

So many don’ts. Benny felt like an asshole. The tears finally came then. They were silent, slightly drunk tears. Hot, fat drops of why and why and why. He wanted to throw his phone out the window. He wanted to pretend he couldn’t feel his wedding ring up in the bedroom, making a circular dent in the side table with all it’s awful weight.
As the tears fell, he thought about Mia’s soft lips, her thin fingers, the way she did her make up for work — thick black eyes and long black lashes. He thought about the way it was always slightly smudged when she got home. He thought about her breasts, the left one always brimming out of her bra, and he thought about the smooth, pale cheeks of her butt — they were so smooth, so soft and touchable. Touched by Marty.
Everything was shit. Everything was ruined. Whisky and Chinese takeout wasn’t even close to a bandaid.
He wanted to get his phone and message her again. He wanted to say sorry for being angry. He wanted to invite her over. He wanted to fuck her, one last time. A moth landed on his knee, left a powdery imprint on his work pants and then flitted off toward the kitchen.
Benny didn’t move, he only blinked. Once, twice — he was aware that this night had happened at least a dozen times since he’d kicked her out. It certainly wasn’t the first night and it wouldn’t be the last. Don’t get it wrong, he knew this was a downward-spiral-kind-of-night, he was just a little too far past tired to really give it his all. Seeing Marty had been the nail; hammered home.
Benny couldn’t place it; was he not there enough? Did he not love her enough? Was he just not enough? After another glass he came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter, not really. His downward-spiral-kind-of-night had lost most of its momentum and his phone battery was dead. Probably good luck at that point.
He made up his couch-bed and turned the heat down a bit.
Putting the leftovers away he realised that tomorrow was the weekend; he could sleep in.

He didn’t sleep in. Benny was up at five and dressed by five-ten. It had turned him around to wake up on a weekend without her again, without her mouth pressing kisses….No. Don’t.
He made coffee and ate a crumpet with honey. The day would distract him.
And it did. He went out to work in the garden, it was easier out there, away from the house and in amongst the greenery and vegetables. Benny found himself humming thoughtfully and completely lost in busy work. It wasn’t until he heard Marty’s front gate squeak open that he noticed anything other than the chatter of the birds. He looked up and the two of them made eye contact for only a moment before it broke. Benny bit the inside of his cheek and dug down into the cool earth with his spade. Marty’s truck started in the drive and peeled out into the street with a rumble. Benny didn’t look up. He had that image in his head again. He only barely noticed the soft, grey and beige winged moth that flitted across in front of him and back towards the house.
Two hours of work later he was worn out and ready for lunch. Benny put the kettle on and finally plugged in his phone to charge, he hoped there weren’t any messages, but when there actually weren’t, all he felt was disappointment. She had done what he had asked and not responded. A moth landed delicately on the handle of his coffee cup. He shooed it away and stirred in the sugar and milk. His phone ringing on the bench startled him.
“Ma?”
“Baby Benny! Where have you been? I tried you last night but you didn’t answer.”
“My phone died, Ma. Everything okay?”
“Yes..”
He could feel her holding something back, “What is it Ma? Tell me.”
“Mia called me last night.”
“And? What did she say?”
“That you were…done,” his Ma deflated on that last word. “She said she wanted to say goodbye. And that she was sorry.”
“It’s true Ma. I don’t have anything left for her.”
Ma sniffed, “Baby Benny, women aren’t bad creatures. Even though God says so, girls are not awful. We make mistakes but we are just as real as you are, and just the same amount of human as you are.”
“Ma! I know that. I’m not a sexist fool.” He said it angrily, but his Ma had a way of putting things more clearly than she was aware of. Benny was only upset because Mia had come to a point where she couldn’t tell him of her unhappiness, she could only show him.
“Benny?”
“I’ve got to go Ma. I’m sorry. Mia won’t call again.” He hung up and dialled Mia with the phone stilled plugged in to the wall.
She answered, “Benny?”
“Hi.”
“Everything okay?”
“Please don’t call my Ma. She gets upset about this stuff. I know you guys are close but you’re verging on meddling, okay?”
“Okay.”
“This is done. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
He was desperate to ask her to come over. It was almost on his lips, “Mia...”
“Yes?” she asked.
“Goodbye.” He said it and hung up quickly. He didn’t want to let himself say anything more.
Benny kicked off his boots and abandoned them before he climbed the stairs. At the top he unzipped his jacket and draped it on the bannister. The day was still quite cold. It was only eight o’clock. The clock in the bedroom told him so. He could see it from where he stood outside the door. A moth danced by in front of his face and into the bedroom. Benny gave in.
On the edge of the bed he felt absolute comfort. He lifted his legs and slipped them under the covers. Despite her absence, he realised he had missed this place. He had yearned for it. And now, in his bed for the first time in a long time, Benny rolled over and enjoyed the feel of actual sheets and a decent pillow. Sleep took him quickly.
His growling stomach woke him — it was craving the lunch that he’d never cooked. He sat up, eyes still trying to focus, and saw that the clock said six-fifteen. PM? Jesus, he’d slept for a good ten hours. He got up and opened the closet door for some fresh clothes, only to have a swarm of at least twenty moths bloom out from the coat hangers and tie-racks.
What the fuck?
“Where are these goddamn moths coming from?” Benny asked himself out loud. He turned to watch them flutter off soundlessly out the bedroom door and towards the stairs. He padded to the bathroom, relieved himself, and washed his hands in the basin. As he shut the water off, a dozen grey and beige winged moths emerged from the drain grate and brushed past him, out of the bathroom and into the hall. Benny stumbled back, shocked, but coming up to the edge of annoyance.
It must be some kind of infestation. That made no sense —  he’d only had the house fumigated a couple of months back. As he stood swaying between the bathroom and the top of the stairs, a new bloom of moths emerged from one of the heating vents and swirled a little before taking off downstairs, towards the kitchen. In his haze, Benny hurried to follow them. Where were they going?
When he got down there they’d disappeared and he was starting to doubt his sanity just a little bit. His phone was lying on the kitchen bench and he couldn’t help but check it.

    benny, i still love you. i always will. i’m sorry it ended like this xx

He dug his fingers into his palms and struggled to keep in the tears that were so close again. He thought about how smooth and cool Mia’s skin always seemed to be under the tips of his fingers when he got home from work. How her eyes closed, so slowly, when he…
No. Don’t.
He hadn’t asked her all the questions that he’d wanted to ask. All the awful things that he never wanted to know but would still haunt him as long as he continued to not know. Like how many times? Like what did he do to you? And what did you do to him? And did you kiss him? And was he better? Mia hadn’t offered it up. Benny hadn’t asked.
He put his phone gently back on the bench and blinked his eyes over the image of Mia and Marty, just as another bloom of moths spiraled their way up out of the drain in the sink. Benny threw open the doors under the sink and grabbed the bug spray, immediately letting loose on the small swarm above his head. He had to step away from the suffocating mist and as he did so he realised it hadn’t really affected them at all. He tried again as they spread out to a thin layer and started landing on the ceiling but it was no use. They all just sat there, inverted above him, flicking their wings now and then. What did he do to you?
Benny opened the kitchen window in the hopes that maybe some of them would fly out. The cool night spilled in and he retreated to the living room with the leftover Chinese food and a scowl — he’d have to call the pest control guy in the morning, no way were these moths a good sign if he wanted to sell the house. He needed to fix the problem, and quickly.
The leftovers were good, but halfway through the cold black bean he heard Marty’s truck pulling into the drive next door. How many times? 
Benny suddenly lost his appetite and went to flick on the television. It wouldn’t work. He pressed the button a few times and then went around to the power point for an inspection. He jumped back from the wall. Did you kiss him?
The entire back of his flat screen was covered in a layer of undulating wings. Was he better?
Benny retreated for the bug spray only to find every wall of his kitchen lost to the moths. He couldn’t see his phone and the messages from his Ma, Mia, Marty — it was under the light brown, powdery blanket of insects. He got the broom from the pantry and started swinging, smashing into the walls, knocking tins off the benches, and sending glasses shattering to the floor.

* * *

“Son, is this your house?”
Benny blinked, “Yes. Yes, sir.”
The cop wrote something in his notepad, “Okay. And the paramedic is telling me you’re not hurt. Are you feeling alright?”
“No. I’m…the moths…” he trailed off.
The cop nodded, “Okay. He’s also saying you told him that you set fire to the house. Is that correct?”
Benny was staring into the flames. There was a blanket around his shoulders.
“Son, can you tell me what happened tonight?”
Benny shook his head and watched the fire eat his house.

Slumbering Boy

 
I'm so afraid.
I've forgotten how to function; how to breathe.
My lips are red and dry, and as cracked as my will.
Statues would blink, turn their heads, speak words
That could never be
as we passed by. You and I; impossible
With frenzy in Elysium and then
In the early evening autumnal, auburn light, all this truth
makes me slaver.
My pupils blown with thirst
Who am I to enjoy such fresh hope?
Each night, lying next to your warm ghost.
I tremble,
Filled with cornflower-blue dreams
And maddening, hopeful needs.
Sunlight and snow; beautiful; unavoidable opposites
That draw nearer with each touch our lips don't make,
And with every embrace we never share.



If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew,
just go right along and you'll start happening too.

~ Dr Seuss