Insurgence

Insurgence

You enter his room, an heirloom of bravery and endless triumphs. The bed—weaves and ebbs un-slept in. There is nothing here to soothe you, not even his smell—the winged freedom of Blue Stratos overpowered by garlic skulking from an empty twenty-four-seven pizza box.

Perhaps if you squint into the late afternoon light carousing through an open window, a hair might float on a sun-shaft, you can snatch it to your breast as though he still inhabits the strand.

You notice the bookshelves, full and glossy, much like him, full and glossy beyond logic. If the car broke down you were meant to walk, gardens intimate with spring were best seen on foot. When the hens stopped producing eggs it was time to give the vegan thing a go, and the daughter's boyfriend couldn't help inheriting genes that produced the look of a brutish lout.

This morning his reflection in the bathroom mirror was not pasty, merely fluorescently over-lit, the gauntness in his cheeks defined as effective gluten free.

How do I look? He had asked, God forbid you should lie; instead you kissed the top of his head, wound a woollen scarf around his neck and drove to places perched on the edge of normality. Tool shop for one more spanner, latte in the town square, beyond the urban boundary the reservoir where fresh water mermaids offered salaams in ripple code.

Then back to this room—turned now like you to anarchy.