605

The condo has hallways like in Kubrick's The Shining. Geometric patterns in the carpet the color of different kinds of diarrhea. Wallpaper orange and brown stripes with some kind of gold thread woven in. It's all very warm like embers, no clue to how cold and white and stark the actual dwellings are. At least Ellen's place is. So pearly white and hard and shiny. Spatters of blood will burst out on it's surfaces like a hernia. I never noticed the gold in the wallpaper and can't say why I'm seeing it for the first time now, as I wait in front of Ellen's door, my eyes licking the numerals, 605, that have pirouetted in my dreams thousands upon thousands of nights. Sometimes scraped into my back, which is what I see when I look into the mirror in my dreams. The elevator dings, and a lone boy emerges, wearing glasses and swinging his backpack from side to side. As he approaches, I notice it is a Pokémon backpack, and I remember with embarrassment the Star Blazers paraphernalia my mother spent her hard earned money on, and try not to follow that thought with the same pulled thread of little hurts.
The boy is about eight-maybe younger. Too young to be alone and too young to be wearing the cable net scarf that is wound around his neck like a boa constrictor. He stares with determination as he passes me, still swinging his bag. His mud-black eyes popping through the lenses at me. He slows, bringing the stuff of his boots-also Pokémon-to a halt.
"What are you doing?" He asks me.