As with all children, Frances made plenty of noise. Her daily songs could be irritably observed by the neighbours who had sacrificed themselves for the sake of hush, but the sound diffused into the fine suburban air of celestial smugness. It could often be imagined that within this clogged heartache lay a multitude of real hearts, all beating quietly within a spectrum of life and death. But one could never be sure. This was home sans lumière. Yet Frances, unconscious of her neglect, buoyanced through with an oblivious will. Her favourite, a concerto masterpiece of her own dawdling, was revived with a heavy intake of girlish breath;
“Je suis un champignon……”
Frances liked especially to cut her own hair. The stillness just before the chop, and the gleam of the scissors from the corner of her eye, excited her in ways she could not resist. Dark locks blocked the kitchen sink. She expressed a healthy curiosity in the dramatics, dressing up in her parent’s clothes with the careless consideration of a child. She played the hero and heroine, the don and the clown, the king and the pauper. She watched her own image like a cat with a mouse, playing simple games of hope and destruction. Frances would wait until she was sure of darkness in the house before exerting in her favourite activities, and could usually be found, among the clutter, singing and dancing and cutting her hair.
It cannot be discerned whether Frances loved her parents for they were hardly there. Frances would tell stories of their wondrous adventures together; mother up top manning the deck; father beneath wrestling killer octopus, and she, with sword in teeth, climbing the mast to scout for pirates. But her parents, having survived the plane crash, discovered the gold and slain the dragon, could but find the strength to make it home.
Frances, while enjoying the benefits of her small stature, could exercise her imagination within the confines of her bedroom. Peeling away wallpaper became a point of discovery, revealing shades and patterns of other people’s memories. Frances obliged herself as an admiring breed of archaeologist, digging into past lives of floral faded creams. It was easy to dream of them, the young families nesting.
As Frances grew older another world seduced her. Retired memories of her deserted home proved a platform for more worldly exploration. Alone and unbridled, Frances frequented the night with silent curiosity. To see her at dark, one might be reminded of a large cat. She moved with natural, predatory ease, slowly roaming over domestic shrines of the contemptibly snug. Light-footed and agile, Frances travelled with intriguing precision and speed. Her dark hair hung long and with a woeful air, two pale ears peaking through the overgrowth. She developed the habit of examining strangers whilst in the act of making love. Crouching outside bedroom windows, she sat and observed union upon union; lovers crying out their bliss into the deadening night.
This heroine tutored herself in the intricacies of our society through an innocent design of petty theft and voyeurism. Familiarising herself with hula-hoops and TV sets, Frances studied the graces of what defined her generation and longed to be part of its ornate institutions. Among fragments of torn wallpaper, Frances dreamt of sequins and ice creams, and could imagine nothing greater then the sound of someone echoing her own laughter. She conjured up innumerable stratagems of ensnaring companions and acquiring their ways. Nevertheless, lacking their converse and façons, one was fated to look on as an infant might.
_______________________
I am Tobias. Thirty-eight and five-four precise. I am reduced to a first person narrative. Yes, because I am lonely. Mother dies and I sit on her bed. I have lived with her always till now. They left the door open when they took her away. Call my father Le Boucher, tell him so. When I look in the glass I see black spots but I’m told it’s a circumstance of my anxiety. So sadly désolé.
A neglected design such as I am. This is the only way to be heard nowadays; prising myself into some tale or other.
And so here I am in yours.
“son ennuyeux… son typique.”
I check the bed for bugs and sleep with the light on. I am sexually mort. I play piano to an exceptional degree. Vous comme un compagnon?
In his younger days he looked much the same as he does now. His character was composed deliberately so; that everyone might see what he became. A fool in healthcare glasses. Tobias might have been a C average but he was home schooled. Mother took care of all that. In a world like this, said mother, who needs division and Daurat? She tutored him in the language of music and he was her protégé. Her incarnate. In the afternoon hours of his childhood they dwindled away Bach and Debussy, always listening for Le Boucher’s key in the lock; the man was not obliged to their music. “Quand la mère meurt je joue sa musique toujours.”
It is Monday morning and Tobias will practice. The sounds of the keys create a sterile imposition in the quiet house. It is peaceful, but even, a stagnant singularity to the harmony of companionship. He plays at major melodies. It is a bad fit and he open a Berlioz favourite. Melancholy drifts sweetly through his lungs like the song of a castrato. The open window lets through a draft making his manuscripts flutter and he can taste, from outside, the smell of August rain.
Last night I dreamt of Le Tour de la France. I dreamt I was the photographer’s lens and I caught everything in my mouth. I tasted happy crowds and the thrill of the race. It is like mother’s milk.
_______________________
I can sit on my hans and make them feel funun but they go back to normal to be sure if I count ten or sumtimes twenun. I claps my hans and cach dansun bugs but most time I misses on purpus becase I dont like the way it was las time wen the lickle bug didn’t dans anymor. An I feel sad when the dansuns stop an it feels like I am very qwiet wen its juz me. There is somewon I can sea and he stays in the home necs to me and I can sea him inside to. When I get scard in my room I wants him to tak to me and I sneekun grab the things inside and throw them outside with a crash they fall. He can sea me over an over becase I am throwing forks and cloths and litel runaway rocs from the street.
Tobias wakes up in some anonymous hour of the day. He has lately acquired the habit of sleeping in his mother’s berceau[viii] since her death, and he now shares the diminishing scent of her pillow. He awakes with savour for breakfast; remember his mother’s perfume overpowering the fumes of brewed café d'économie. Tobias smoothes his retreating hair and breathes deep. A tear brews behind his eye and it is blinked back. Le Boucher had distilled a small resilience out of his son, and had unknowingly exchanged it with a sweet grain of hate; something that creped foundations in his heart and flourished in his head. “Ces boulettes de viande dont sentent des choses réellec,' Le Boucher had announced.
Tobias rises and looks out into the neighbourhood. It is early evening and the lamps are just giving birth to a new arrangement of tones in the street. Silhouettes dance within homes and beneath travelling cars, resembling busy notes; a score come to life. Tobias sits at his piano and observes the salt and pepper keys with a glossy eye. The streetlamps lend a tender drone to Tobias’ ear and a train rattles rhythmically in the distance. Tobias closes his eyes and makes contact with the keys. Recalling the Bach Sonata as if it were his own, he allows himself to drown in nostalgia; the sweet music reviving the day he played this piece, for the very first time, from start to fin;
Le Boucher was gone from the house as was his usual practice during the day. Mother too, had deserted her boy to attend a message from the bureau de poste. Tobias was his own infantile image at the piano stool; small, feeble, snivelling and arranged in ill fitting cord; barely able; an unimpressive oddity. He imagines looking up as a child, into the intricate plaster patterns of the ceiling, urging his fingers to feel their way across the ascending octaves. Découverte. Succès!
He imagines feeling the vibrations through the walls as the front door is hurled open, Le Boucher’s panted breath like a fetid storm surging through the small home, his mother silent and strong. Le Boucher’s voice is electric chaos, sending tremors through the keys beneath Tobias fingers; playing a song of their own. It was a dance they did, his mother and father, on frequent occasion when she was away too long or perhaps laughed at another man’s joke. Tobias habitually played audience to their violent ritual, a fearful spectator awaiting the crescendo. He remembers this.
Today I find small litel things and hold them in my pokets so they wil bee safe becase outside is not sow nice. It is a scary bangin for the litel things and the sky is mad lik a big cros fase hot cros fase! And wen I am scard I runs inside and qwiet smal litel mowse like into my bed lik a speshal secrit cave with sparklun rocs and crinkun bobs an bitsun bugs! but my frend is not sow hapy and he hides from the inside and the outside. I spise him from my hidun plase and he loks sad lik a smal sad frog with a small sad fase! he loks into the windos but he dosnt sea me.
Tobias makes coffee and stirs in the milk. The tone matches his complexion. Too much milk. It is reaching dark and he draws curtains on the outside, where somewhere, his father would be securing a steel cage across his store. Tobias thinks he threw away the key. A light is switched on in the bedroom and Tobias takes a place acquainting the antique mirror. His hand reaches for the familiar spot on the dressing table and, to his face, he lifts a brilliant red. It kisses his lips like an old friend, a lover. He glows like a Monroe. Immortal image, indestructible. He recalls the discovery of his mother’s garde-robe. The way it stood tall above his little boy frame, the way its great wooden arms could be tugged open into a fraternal embrace. Et dans lequel les trésors se trouvent?![xii] Tobias, wrapped foetal in his mother’s furs and sequins, umbilical hacked by Le Boucher. Tobias regards the clown’s immortal face.
In their little home Tobias and his mother kept house. He assisted her in all things domestic and trivial, so obliging the demands of their keeper. His mother assumed care of cleaning, dusting and the necessary dinner preparations; fretfully toiling over a rare and bloody hack. Tobias would be assigned to window cleaning, mopping nervously and with head twisted downward as to avoid the glance of a passing neighbour. Draw the curtains once finished as Le Boucher liked. They worked to a minor key, with a slow and quiet harmony. Dancers in the dark. Tobias can, even now, induce this sensation at a whim; a private tribute.
i am tikling a birdun an kep her in my hans and lets her go free away and we hops arown and al the litel grases ar monster tres and i am the dasheling prins giant so bigun tal i can splam tynun tynun pepel an howses with my giantfeets an i can here them crying. i am sneekun to hide and wach my frend behind a wal becase i am a tynun litel mowse with litel sneekun iys peeping to a hole and he cant sea me and is crying and he puts his fingers in the mud an pushs it up and is hiding a sparkelun treshur in the magik mud! i am a litel mowse sow qwiet an a hevun feeling herting in me sow i snugun to sleep in my plase inside. i hav sum mud sneek in my mowth an its like wachin my frend cry. i wonders ats the sparkeluns.
In one particular hour of the day Tobias will perform his customary routine Doloroso. He will wash with unscented soap and brush his teeth with a regulated sum of toothpaste. Being left handed, he will pay natural attention to the right molars at the back, brushing with rigorous sincerity; one eye open, the other closed. Tobias, since discovering the companionship of hair to his cheek, shaves with his father’s omnipotent blade; trembling fingers reaching clumsily around the weapon. While shedding a fresh deposit of manhood, he will escape the face in the glass; he will think of other things.
He recalls another movement. Another day in the life of ten-year-old Tobias. It was during dinner when another fell out. He could taste in his mouth the salty sediment, his little boy blood. His tongue discovered the newly vacant space and the tooth swam in his mouth. This had provoked Le Boucher before, when mother had played fée de dent. L'argent inutile, temps inutile. Tobias, pardoning himself, tore to the garden, retrieving his hidden corner. There in wet soil, he buried the burdened tooth, and with it, the last enamelled peace of childhood.
I dreamt I lost my teeth. They broke away and found new homes in my body. My orifices smiled and gnawed and bit gleaming white. But my mouth was empty.
_______________________
my frend! frend of me plees helo! I likes my frend if they please sea me an I wil thros again my treshure from my windo plees helo! I am glooming to sea yu my frend! we can bild a tunnel from yu to sneeks in my hiddun plase don’t bee sad my frend we can maks invisabel brige to meet at qwiet nite an I wil maks yu a home. We can maks a shyn-a-lite we can maks a grans advenshure an sail on wings made from walapaper
In the evening months of winter, the time of day where the sun was swallowed whole by neighbourhood rooftops, Tobias would become prisoner of his chamber. Le Boucher’s hours lessened at the store and evenings would be spent in pursuit of masculine activity; inhaling cigars and clocking his woman’s work. Still, puckered eye, sucked smoke. Like a macabre painting that might watch you, assuming its invisibility. A quick wind circled the quiet neighbourhood, moving along overdue children and weary commuters with the last of autumn leaves. Tobias, breath against the pane, would watch this orchestrated close of day and score his latest work on the misty canvas. It was on a very day like this that Tobias might have saved his life. Might he have averted his eyes to a darkened window, cast low by years of neglect, he would have caught a shadow; the shadow of a most brilliant friend, like the day before a blissful summer.
Tobias records his voice. He plays it back in repartee. He listens to sucré crescendos and decrescendos, free to dance on pitched steps. He wonders why he would whisper; being alone in the house, but something mutes his throat from inside. Tobias thinks of things to say, words that sound better than they are, than he is. Words that breathe more life than they deserve.
“petite voix.”
Tobias will think and wait and breathe and pause and cautiously it floats, a sound, wafer thin. While he thinks he picks a scab. A red snowflake design on the right wrist, close to a blue vein. It is a cracked-mirror; glistening skin, like candy stuck to flimsy tissue. It outstays its welcome, but Tobias knows it will die away if he leaves it alone. Just like love.
Please. Tobias speaks it without a note or sound. Please. He will not look at his reflection; he hates to see his face twitch. He wonders to the piano. It seems to take the time of a passing day, and as he sits in muffled stillness the day turns to blue, turns to dusk. Famished, frail, familiar hands tremble to the keys but he hasn’t the life to play. Instead, he accompanies the virtuoso dark with the ringing in his ears.
There would always be the cinéma. The day Tobias touched another soul in the dimmed arena. He recalls the heavy smell of sweet maîs éclaté and sticky toffees, the hot air circulating through rusty vents and crimson carpet walls, the faces of strangers out for pleasure. Behind each wall another escape; a collage of blank-lit faces. Weighty doors were drawn ajar for his mother’s beautiful face, assertive hands ushering into some dark pavilion, smooth gloved white. He and his mother took their places near the exit sign. He relaxed to the green halogen buzz. It was on one of these habitual outings, remaining secret from Le Boucher, that Tobias had experienced a resonance inside of himself. His mother had loved the theatre, a rapture that would at once, stimulate her every sense. She supposed there was something of the majesty of the décor, the splendour of the screen and the bouquet of confectionary that she, indulging in a black and white romance, could not resist. She would close her eyes to augment the echo of heroines’ coy melodies while Tobias stared into the dark. He stared once into the back of a stranger’s bare neck. He narrowed his eyes to the delicate flesh and imagined Le Bucher. He observed the stranger’s hairs carelessly stretching from the loose weave, as if flowering towards his stare. He penetrated the skin with his child eyes, piercing into nerves and veins and a subconscious voice.
Vous comme un compagnon?
The lights returned to the darkened room as the movie embraced its finale. People stirred, brought to life as if by a switch. There was the gentle murmuring of people collecting coats and bags, retrieving items, clasping the last remnants of cinéma fantaisie. The colossal screen hushed back into darkness. The stranger herself turned to Tobias’ now illuminated, blinking face. She was old and restricted to a quiet, elderly pace.
‘Qui’.
Maybe.
no no no no yu must hav tee my frend litel rosun frends an all! plees sits yu down an hav som tee but carfulo yur fluf-n-stuf! Its messy moo noty fluf! heehee I donts needs him becuse I gots yu frends to play an dansuns bibs an bots with me and yu smilun al the time with big rosun fases. yous ar happun warever yu ar cus ins the gardn I fownd yu al cold and dark but yu with yur big red hatses were smylun aneways not lik him with sad old fase n dropsun eyes sow sad. I cants sea him ne more sad old frend. oh my frend.
He lifts the instrument lid slow and careful. Careful not to make a noise and break the calm. Beneath the lid Tobias observes the glossy colour; as if encased in mirrors it glows unnaturally. It does not grow on trees, oh unnatural pleasure. Tobias takes with both hands, fingers poised for an explicit twist. He brings it to his mouth, tasting strawberry notes, drinking rouge rhyme. Tobias marvels at the piece through fingers outstretched. He does not look directly at his own design but caresses the soft soprano lip. And so the busy lines do not confound him; the lined score, down and across in musical stratagem. Tobias’ face is scored with age and blushing.
Following the incident at the cinéma, Tobias experimented in his capacity to communicate sans discours. Being a sole companion, he spoke silently and incessantly to his mother, beginning small and unfolding into his deepest, childish desires.
Mother, I love you. If you hear me, take a sip from your glass. Mother I am lonely. If you understand, smooth your hair. Mother! Mother!
Tobias wondered why she chose to listen at times, and ignored his confidence at others, indiscriminately complying with and then dismissing his only gestures of intimacy. He grew desperate and perplexed in his attempts to establish contact with his mother. When she refused to respond, he gave her silent ultimatums, wordlessly threatening acts of violence in exchange for her oblivious complacency. One morning Tobias practiced his arpeggios. He longed for his mother’s embrace, her face. He kicked against the piano’s firm oak and mewed aloud. His mother, her back to Tobias, asked for his patience while she finished her chore at the sink.
If you don’t love me I will hurt myself.
If you don’t love me I will hurt myself.
Si vous ne m'aimez pas je me ferai mal!
He pressed it into her back, into her neck and nerves. He pressed his threats into her with silent violence and silent words. Still, there was no response. Tobias stood abruptly from the piano, his legs thrusting the stool to the floor. His heart pumped into his ears, into his mouth. His chest was heavy and full. He climbed the carpeted stairs wringing the banister with child-like fury, reaching his bedroom, his bedroom window, the window latch, the window ledge. Tobias balanced precariously upon the ledge, gazing through saltear blurred eyes to the grass below. Thinking of his mother’s eyes, he let go.
A noise outside drew her from the kitchen sink.
Plese qwiet now for captin prinsess of the fary oshans! Arrrrggghhhh matuns whers be the magik sanwichs of casel munkun fase! oh yu wil never get yur hans on thems magik sanwichs ever ever! grrrrr grrrrrr and yuls never cach me cuse im fast as a sneeksun mowse with fary wings pshhheww! come bak here yu trixun rabit - noooo rabit speedun foots come baks with the magik sandwich! haahaa gots ya munkun fase now yur mine and cuse I gots speshal trixun rabit sppedun foots! pow pow!
Wondering from room to room, Tobias decides to settle by the upstairs window of his mother’s untouched bedroom, watching through the dusty pane, his childhood neighbourhood. Houses are like family members, decaying at such a pace, that regular patrons would never have noticed the gradual ruin. Bricks would crack, shutters would rust, lawns would die and the old dwellers would wither with the flowerbeds. Tobias thinks the houses in his street are ugly, old ugly friends with no love and no life. Tobias thinks they are like people who hurt you and then want forgiveness when they are dying. Le Boucher was like a house on his street. Tobias grows cold. He thinks that he is old and ugly. He thinks of his mother and the flowerbeds, how he misses them both. He attends to the cracks of white paint on the windowsill, picking destructively with blunted fingernails. It becomes painful but he persists in the unearthing of yellow beneath the smudged white. Tobias thinks if the colour beneath yellow is red he will kill himself today. He continues to scratch at the white, then yellow counterpoint shades. Tobias’ nails, already bitten to the stub, begin to ooze a brilliant red. Compte-t-il? Tobias continues to scratch, slowly exposing, with an exhale of breath, a faded maroon.
Coda.
they canot cudel me by themselves an they canot talk to smil or dans with me. and I saws him my frend the las time an he was trys to fly away like me! he was sow carful on the edge on tippi-tow and sow much trys to fly but sillun frend! he has no wings! He flys and falls on the grass and he crys but I wil maks him wings to! I can gets sissers and the prittun starrun payper from my magik wal and cut wings lik wen I cut my har al prittun like a prinses carful I wil mak wings for yu.
Today Tobias walks to his local supermarché. The trees which line the quiet neighbourhood are blank with the promise of winter and the day is mildly warm. Tobias steps onto his porch and secures the door; lock and latch, behind him. He wears a thick blue duffle coat, the one with a bright orange zip and corresponding pocket linings. It is an awkward fit and his arms reach out further than the sleeve, exposing his curious pale fingers. One fingertip is wrapped carefully in a plaster, concealing the congealed red nail beneath. An anonymous injury. On his head he wears a plain black cap which hugs his head with nervous affection, and in his pocket he fingers, with the unblemished hand, his dead mother’s bank book. Tobias walks, head bowed, at a determined pace, crushing autumn leaves that dance about his feet. Tobias walks like a failure, away from a displeased audience. He works himself into heavy breath, steaming up his healthcare glasses with every defensive stride.
He passes the empowered electric doors that blast him with regurgitated heat. His warm coat becomes hostile as he steps into the supermarché isles that routinely replaced the quaint trades of his childhood. The pâtisserie was the first to go. Le Boucher, he remembers, was one of these marching colloquial puritans. How he raged. How he cursed as he bolted, for the last time, those rusty steel gates which contained his barbaric rituals of slaughter. They watched together the cobbled walls undone by modern-man-machines, him and Le Boucher, gripping the back of his son’s neck. When his mother returned with food from the new development they made music like thunder; cans crashing violently to the floor with complex rhythms. Tobias would guess their contents. C minor….tuna. B flat…beans.
In and among the isles of packaging Tobias explores his options, clutching the rubber grip handles of the basket with two hands in front. On ill-fitting carpet shoes he shuffles behind his basket, being bent forward by the weight of canned meats, a quart of milk, and a six-pack carton of eggs. Tobias wonders at the many displays of colour on the shelf. They remind him of the women who looked out at him from Le Boucher’s book; alluring, glossy looks, longing to be consumed. They said so with their eyes.
Mangez-moi.
Tobias swallows hard and hurries forward. The packaging crinkles in delight, they hiss and coo to his salivating mouth. Buy me. But Tobias cannot, out of fear for the dead, taste a chocolate siren. Le Boucher could never tolerate food that was so far removed from his own flesh. Unnatural pleasure. Packaged requiem.
Around the corner Tobias stops abruptly. He spies an old acquaintance, the local doctor, selecting carefully from the assortment of meats on display. Tobias remembers with a sinking heart, the doctor’s intrusive knowledge of his medicated life; wet sheets, twitches, nose bleeds, discharge, muteness, lethargy, insomnia, paranoia, outbursts and Le Butcher, finding eleven-year-old Tobias, in his mother’s silk stockings. The doctor is grown old and bends over to the demands of gravity. He observes the world through fragile spectacles and always with a frown.
Tobias has a conversation:
- Hello dear doctor, how are you?
- Oh…Tobias, is that you? All grown up? My goodness, hello dear fellow.
- It’s been such a very long time, its lovely to see you again. I trust you are well?
- Indeed, very well, thank you. Couldn’t be happier. Audrey and I are taking a holiday soon you know.
- You don’t say! How very lovely for the both of you. Heaven knows you deserve a well rested retreat. Where do you intend to visit?
- Well, we are to be taking a cruise you see. We will be taking in all the sites of the South Riviera. Quite expensive but we’ve been saving away. Audrey is so good with money, such a clever little thing. And how is your father?
- Oh dear doctor, well, he’s been dead quite a while you know.
- Oh I am sorry.
- Its quite alright, he passed away in his sleep. There was a complication with his heart. It seems it was missing.
- Ah yes, very common in men of your father’s disposition I’m afraid, it is usually brought on by loathsome children you see. And how is that immense feeling of isolation coming along? I do hope you’ve been practicing. Together with your ridiculous awkwardness and insecurities, you’re growing into quite a young man. Your mother will be proud yes?
- Oh yes, thank you doctor.
But this does not happen. Tobias turns and walks to the door. He stands in line. He pays. He leaves without saying a word.
_______________________
i hops yu wil wait for me my frend and be happun cuse i’m helps yu an maks wings for yu and we fly away so far away! I’m making wings and has to cut it oh so carful with magik payper and magik sissers lala! snip snip snip la la la I maks wings for yu yes I do! And were wil we go my frend? we can go to the mity mowntins and sneekun spy on the goblins with there big piksun ears? Or we can go fly to the sea and cach magik fishes wat can give us wishes? Or we can wish to sea the trixun rabits play and jumps arownd in the farun castle…
It is the same as any other day and Tobias wakes up feeling the cold. He stumbles into the hallway, still lit from the previous night, and acknowledges his mother’s bedroom door, closed as it always is. Placing his glasses in their familiar groove, Tobias walks hesitantly and stands as if eavesdropping outside the plywood door. All is still. It whines and unearths dust on the cheap, faded carpet as it creaks to Tobias’ touch. He remembers now, her tonic smell, merged with the must of elderly motherhood. He remembers her warm pearls and evenings spent watching for Le Boucher from her neighbourhood window. He crosses the room and examines the street below. A few barren trees bend with the wind and the sun is stretching through a lightly bruised morning sky. The street is livening with commuters; dark cattle drawn to the end of the street and out into the world. Tobias is in no hurry. A cyclist trundles by and snaps him from his hazy gaze. He spies the eight-thirty school run. Women rush, little figures checked in wool trailing behind. They babble and question and bleat to their mothers. Two girls gossip and gabble aloud as they strut their way. They pass beneath Tobias’ window, simply unconscious of their listener.
Tobias stands still as a rest.
The sun passes high, muffled by the wintry awning of clouds. Tobias stands furthermore at his mother’s windowsill, watching the day pass by. Soon enough it is dusk. Tobias anticipates the children’s flight from school; running, jumping, heckling the world with stretto harmonies. Tobias thinks he will kill himself if the streetlamps are not switched on in the next ten minutes. He waits in his mother’s increasingly dark room. Like a backdrop, it becomes vacant to the stage outside, composing Tobias as audience to his fate. In a matter of minutes a glow is christened in the neighbourhood, cascading in cannons from the rusty post at the top of the street, past Tobias’ gaze, to the end. A broken lamp flutters in hope and lapses into darkness. Tobias leaves the room to make dinner for one.
Down in the kitchen a metallic tray rotates and hums its insincere drone. Tobias looks sleepily into the orange glow of the microwave, into what is becoming his dinner. He misses his mother and her nervously prepared meals. She would begin in the morning, defrosting a cut, abrading the hack under the hot tap in the kitchen. Tobias felt uncomfortable as a boy, watching his mother thrust her hands over and over the meaty joint. The image would always return to him later. Le Boucher would return from the shop as the neighbourhood was settling into dusk and in the evening months of winter, dried leaves would flutter in, dancing around his heavily loaded Butcher boots. His mother would, as required, attend Le Boucher at the door; hanging his coat on the wall and kissing his cold cheek. Tobias, as a boy, noticed his father’s indifference to her warm touch, as if frosted forever in his abattoir. He himself was a dying breed, a dangerous, endangered kind of man, exhaling fumes into the thick faded curtains of their dim lit salon; striking matches just as he did his wife. “vous garder sur vos orteils”.
But eaten from the inside out, Le Boucher was consumed by the cancerous cells which danced inside him. Few attended his funeral; Tobias had not sent out invitations. He had stood, dressed in black, against a bright blue winter sky. That day someone from the store had given him Le Boucher’s master keys, and they remained in his pocket that afternoon. Tobias recalls the cold steel, weighing down in his cheap, polyester suit pockets. He had touched them periodically through the sermon, assuring himself of their chilly presence. He was glad his mother was dead enough to miss this.
Ok ok is almowst redy! I has the prittun papers and I cuts them in nise shaps for the wings they wil be the bestest wings ever to bee shur! Oh here is crudluns bare, yes yes yu can come tu crudlins and we must taks sum snugluns cloths and lotsa fuz hats and a map for to find the treshur and a speshal magiks spoon to see war we ar going at nite time and ooohhh….a sanwich! Yes we must gets it al together the wings an snugluns cloths an hats an crudluns bare an spoon an sanwich and ty it up… here we can use this prittun sash and rap up the wings! Ohhh plees come my frend plees hurrun…
