Boy-man takes control, wants the power, has it. The
room is stifling for the rest of the adults as this goes
on and on. Something in Japanese plays loudly in the
room that is normally so quiet nobody notices anything
except breath. “What this room needs is a girly-gal,”
mumbles the Grandpa, half-asleep. Once, as he sat in the
worn reclining seat in what was once called a den (there
was a gas fireplace), he’d have the control – the mechanism
by which a thing called a television could be switched from
station to station. But televisions went out of fashion long
ago, then out clean out of existence. A bit of drool at the
left hand corner of Grandpa’s dry lips falls like a teardrop
onto his bare leg. The chair no longer reclines. Boy-man
laughs at a scene in Japanese. Japanese laughter is quite
unique, thinks Grandmother, who sits on the most unworn
portion of the long sofa, directly across from the gas fireplace
that can no longer be lit, no longer warms, warmth being so
completely unnecessary. She is moving her arms around. It
is an imaginary blanket made of yarn that she thinks she is
building. The crochet needle had been used years hence to
eliminate Man-boy’s mother and father. Did Grandpa do it?
Did Grandmother? Maybe neither knows. Maybe both know.
