“It’s our house now. Come on, time to sleep.” “How long will it be our house?” “A long time.” “Forever?” “Forever is a long time. Do you want the light left on?” “How long is forever?” “A long time. A long, long time. I’ll put the light on low.” “OK.” You think about forever. You think about the hours and the days. You decide it is time to leave. You pass back through each room, each scene, the many moments combined into this single dreaming moment through which you have wandered half-lost, half-found. Outside you take a last look up at the house. You used to live in a house just like this. Everyone you knew lived somewhere similar. Across the road, right around the corner. Now it is boarded-up and empty, all the stuff gone. What about all the love and all that is not love and all that is love but shows itself differently? Where does all that go? You notice a half-moon of broken mirror glinting in the overgrown grass. You pick it up. You see a face in the tainted brown surface that is not your own. Podgy, lined. A sense of something absent. It’s almost as if you are made up for a film in which you play your older self. You throw it back, and as it turns in the air the world inside tips giddily. Everything slips to one side. You feel the ground falling away, your footing unreliable. You feel suddenly nauseous. Afraid. You blink, and you put your hand out to steady yourself. It takes a minute. Then you walk to the car in the low red light that burns truest at the end of the day.
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