Roundabout the room the pictures fade in and out.
They go white and dim with the clouds moving outside the windows. A black cat (the neighbors call it Shadow but it isn't theirs) watches through slits cut in it's green marble eyes a bird on the wire outside, then loses interest. Without any witnesses, the dust continues to float suspended above the end tables and gather on the furniture. In the upstairs, through the last door to the left, an old man lays straight on top of a made bed, like it's his deathbed. His hands lay folded on his stomach. His chin hairs begin to grow out from the morning's shaving. You can see them if you catch the slanting of the rays just right, like tiny white threads reacting to the day.
He is breathing.
In. Out.
In. Out.
He is a child at boy scout camp, and he has just seen a golden retriever for the first time, and it's slobber is beginning to dry on his dirty cheeks. He looks back to the parking lot at his father, who is proud. His father who wouldn't come back from the last World War. He remembers this, even though it hasn't happened yet, and buries his face in the yellow fur.
In. Out.
In. Out.
He is finally out alone with the girl of his dreams. He's been loaned the car for one night only, and is taking her to see the last free concert put on by the state orchestra for the summer. On the way he passes by the black boys and their idling car tucked into a narrow alley so they can only open one side of doors. He knows a few of them, but more than that he knows the look in her eyes when she sees them. He drives faster, gripping the leather on the steering wheel and trying to find in his mind the grip and pull of the tires on the road, trying to outrun what has to happen. Still she looks back, in the side mirror before he turns the corner, and in silence the rest of the night passes, the stars blocked by solid clouds.
In. Out.
In. Out.
He is in church. He is right, closer, happy. He is outside on the steps. He is wrong, absurd, disheveled. He is on his knees in the hallway between the bathroom and the bed. He is crying, his hands rolling over one another like holy waves coming rising and receding from the shore.
In. Out.
In. Out.
They are fighting the night after her graduation. Her ceremonial gown lies irreverently on her bed, while she is out with old friends. She is yelling and his hands constantly throw up into the air, come down and feel through his hair. The hardwood resonates quickly and with precision to his shoes, and sitting on the stairs she looks through the spokes like prison bars. She looks unhappy. He looks down and fumbles the lint in his right pocket.
In. Out.
In. Out.
He uses the last of his retirement bonus to pay for a down-payment on her first house, and most of her marriage. She is going already showing promise as a resident. She is happy, and fulfilled, and full of beautiful mistakes. He doesn't sit with her mother like he thought he would when the day came, but they exchange benevolent tear-welled eyes, and that means something. That's very big. That's a good way to see one another for the last time before seasons displace and put oceans between.
In. Out.
In. Out.
He is walking the new sidewalk outside the grocery store going home, and across the lot in front of the Target is a marine still in desert camouflage. He is asking for money for a bus ticket home, saying he was mugged after returning from the war. People enter and exit the store without making eye contact, even as his voice begins to strain and his fist clutches around discharge papers, like so many losing lottery tickets.
In. Out.
A wife. A daughter. Thank you God.
In.
Out.
Out.
Downstairs the cat opens one green marble eye halfway.
