Climbing down the stairs, through the dead living room, out a missing front door.
Outside… where it is simple, yet intense, torn between silence and buzz.
Both show brightly. Both are masked.
Here, he grips nothing in his hands, squeezes them together as tight as they can clench, to feel the pressure, the strength of it, the life of it.
Above him, the sky is swathed in gray, mundane as if waiting for movement.
The sun is there, peeking through clouds.
If only he could see it move across the sky, he could reason with it.
Tell it about the way he walks.
If only she could move closer. He could reason with her.
Tell her about the way he is.
Jessie wonders if this is when time stands still. Is he missing how the world moves?
Does he misinterpret signs and speech patterns?
He looks keenly at the clouds, trying to see what is behind them.
The sun must have a meaning today beyond any other day past or coming.
As he looks down, the grass appears as a carpet of swirling chaos, fallen, but quickly vanishes.
He yearns for a powerful voice, but fears what he will do once he hears it, scared about answers that will drill a hole inside him.
Answers…
About loving someone that has a sickness.
Then, he must love sickness.
Doesn’t that stand to reason?
And he should be blamed for that, right?
Does he just accept that everything and everyone is cracked in some form or another? Or is it because he believes he himself is crazy, or at least on the spectrum of something never diagnosed, perhaps undiagnosable?
Just for a second, he thinks he sees a beam of light touch down amongst the grass.
He will tell her what he’s thinking. He knows she won’t understand. He doesn’t understand himself, this voice, her voice, all voices.
Maybe it is a strength and he’s weak. Maybe it is a weakness and he’s strong.
Maybe the world makes no sense at all.

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