Author: jmassat

The entire world was dark…no, that was just the back of Adam’s eyelids. They peeled open to reveal…a dark world.

And the Brown House was their backdrop, standing tall like a trophy. The sun rose and lit it like a lamp. It was bronze like a treasure unattainable; bronze like an amazing hope.

“You can’t tell me this is the U-S of A, pops.”

The door let in a flash of yellow-red light; it banged back into place, and she looked up, wearily, to see Robert. His jaw was set, for he had determined not to say anything in this moment of their meeting.

Clearly, what assailed Adam was more than mere starving and sickness, and neither could it be aptly summarized as “a sickness of the mind.” It was his continued coming-into-being, the jumbled thoughts.

The sun embraced the city too busy to sleep, too busy to hate, that dared not stop, claimed never to close its eyes.

The monster set the wood alight and stepped into the fire. Soon to come was the end of everything: of suffering, of self-pity, and, most anticipated of all, of loneliness.

“It was nothing but a night fright.”

“These monsters, these weaknesses, this stake-stopping papyrus…none of it…”
“…Makes any sense?”

“You may go anywhere you wish in this castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. My ways are strange ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.”