still

Cold and empty decorated the room; tiled floors and a light bulb on a string. A kind of grass colour mixed from three cheaper shades of green climbed the walls. Two windows sat side by side like huge glass eyes.

The eyes of a man.

I thought how this house of a man was just as much a prison as a head of a man would be if we were stuck there … and how if we were in a head we would at least have something to talk about and maybe something to do. For a while. But we weren’t.

My brother and I sat still – behind the plated eyes, on a slab of worn out box springs – and waited for our mother to tell us we didn’t have to anymore. Because nothing could be believed or known or taken for granted for the sake of how things use to be.

Not even moving.