Bill Alton

Voices whisper at me. They’ve been coming for a while. I don’t know when they started.

One day it’s quiet. But then I have company. Like a fat man at dinner. Uninvited.

My voices don’t like me.

You’re going to die, they say.

I didn’t used to believe them. Now, I don’t know. I don’t know how to tell with these things.

Outside, it’s quiet enough to hear the stars. Quiet enough to walk across town and back.

I walk slowly and I walk fast.

Mom’s waiting in the living room.

Where are your shoes?

I go to bed.

The sun comes up like a dying cat.

Today, we’ll dissect sentences in English.

I’m sleeping, only I’m not sleeping. I close my eyes and count the hairs on my arms. It’s hard. Shift and the hairs move around and I start over.

One hundred. Dad’s home. Mom’s locked the doors with new locks.

Glass breaks.

Now he’s cussing and kicking dents in the garbage cans.

All the noise cuts into Mom, whittles away the flesh of her face. Skeletal knuckles rap the tabletop, counting something. One hundred raps. One breath.

She’s quiet under all the racket.

Cops come with their lights, run Dad off. Cops come to the door with questions.

Everything okay?

Mom nods and wipes her face.

Fine, she says. Tired.

If there’s a problem…

Yeah.

She lights a cigarette. I get her some coffee. She holds my hand.

Is he coming back?

She shakes her head.

Not this time.

Dust and heat in a white sky. I’m young. Barefoot. Shirtless. Next door, an empty house. Yellow grass and packed dirt. A stone chimney leans into one side. No one sees the rock come loose until it’s too late. It lands square on my head.

I can’t see right. My legs won’t work. My head wobbles on my neck. My skin is too thick to move.

Doctors say my skull’s fractured. Ear to ear. There’s nothing they can do.

Mom sits in the chair by the window. Sometimes she sleeps. Sometimes she goes out for a cigarette. Sometimes she just holds my hand and waits.

You’ll get better.

I’m not sure I believe her.