skonen_blades

The lie came out of the darkness and attacked me. It had long secrets for arms and a smeared photograph for a face. Its body was one giant repressed memory, supported by twin pillars of denial. It was hiding in the closet.

It stopped in front of me with a shouting silence frozen on its blurred, vibrating lips.

It offered me a ham sandwich.

I accepted the ham sandwich. I gave The Lie half of the sandwich back.

The two of us, amorphous dark skeleton-beast and young man, sat on the edge of my bed tasting the mustard and chewing in the midnight darkness.

You’d think it would have been an awkward silence but it wasn’t. It was actually quite comforting. In the small-town distance, I could hear a car go by. Other than that, there was only the occasional squeak of the bed and the click of my jaw as I ate.

I finished my half of the sandwich. I turned to The Lie.

“Are you thirsty?” I asked.

“No.” it said.

I replied, “Do you mean yes? It’s hard to tell, you know, I mean, you’re The Lie.”

The Lie gave me a big gorilla shrug and turned its hazy black and white face back to the closet. It wanted to go home. I had no idea what it was doing outside but it was the sixth time this month that it had charged out like a B-movie monster brought to life and then turned benign.

“Well, anyway. I should probably get to sleep.” I said, with an exaggerated yawn.

The Lie stood up and dusted imaginary dust off of his furry, massive legs. The Lie went back to the closet and closed the door behind it.

I went back to sleep.

As I drifted off, it occurred to me that I was almost starting to look forward to the visits.



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