Orange like Australia

When I saw Blake the other day I asked him if he’d been sleeping.

He said no.

I asked him if he’d been eating toaster strudels in the morning or the evening.

He said the evening.

I asked him if his mother loves him.

He said he didn’t know.

“Where is your mother?” I asked.

“She stopped eating.” He said.

I just nodded and we kept playing ping pong.

I saw Blake the other day and I read him a poem I had written recently

About the last few daffodils near the library

And how they looked good in a mason jar, how they looked good when they wore purple neckties, how they

“I wish I hadn’t ripped them up,” I said.

“They won’t live for super long anyway,” he said.

“What would the title of your novel be if you wrote one,”

“That’s a stupid question,” he said.

I think that’s just something people say when they don’t know how to answer.

Blake decided that the world should not care because he does not care.

He began wearing pajamas to school and slept in the attic when he wanted to.

“That’s stupid there’s bats up there,” I told him when he confided in me.

“But you should see it,” he said, “it’s got great carpet,” he said,

So we went up to the attic and spent a good long while walking back and forth in the rafters and felt like raptors, coming down to tear apart their prey, felt like the children in Narnia; how they stole guinea pigs and bathed in pools and came to understand the world as something not in a fog but all wrapped up in a giant’s lair and how they could not put their faith in their own royal kingdoms but in Aslan as he came across the water with his long swooping red hair and his tears and the clouds

“This is a beautiful window,” I said.

“It’s an attic window,” Blake said.

“why is it here,” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Blake said.

The carpet was orange like Australia and all at once I remembered that Blake had planned to go to Australia but could no longer go.

“I’m sorry you can’t go to Australia, Blake.”

I was trying very hard to be sincere. I was trying very hard to make today a good day or something. But it was hard.

Especially because my house was under construction and a whole wall was knocked out. I kept remembering that. The purple walls in the kitchen look so foreign, when you haven’t seen them in a while. There is not even enough space in the walls for a mouse. There is not enough lotion in the world to cover an orchard of dry hands, no matter how dry they are, no one cares.

I saw Blake the other day and I asked him if he’d been sleeping.

He said yes. He said that he was sleeping a whole heck of a lot.

“Have you been dreaming?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Do you want some taco bell sauce?” I asked him.

“NO,” I am tired of taco bell sauce, he said.

“It’ll be ok because if you’re not going to Australia than at least you will have taco bell sauce.”

“sure thing,” he said.

But I know he was just trying to be polite and we both cracked up.

“Do you want to go get donuts, Blake?”

“sure,” he said. I knew that was a big yes because he loves those blueberry donuts.

He told me something then, in the car. He said, “I’m going to Australia after all,”

“Wow” I said,

So now he’s gone and I have not been sleeping.