Still I am here, confined in my prison of eroded leather and rusted coils.
Oceans of yellow-gray fur glisten lifelessly around my tired, time-soaken feet.
More shining dust leaps out per every passing moment, as if reaching for freedom, only to find itself grounded in a muddled swamp of suicide.
Such is its existence.
Such is mine. I know very little about the time I spent before Qualm.
Such memories are forgotten.
Then again, some memories are best left forgotten.
In this room, time itself fades.
It is a vault of dust, of which I will soon become.
The dust waves to me sometimes.
It swirls and scatters and dances in victory before it dooms itself to the inevitable.
Alas, it seems gravity prefers a yellow-brown carpet.
The drapes too.
It seems I have forgotten the last time the carpet matched the drapes.
There’s one window.
I know not what lies on the outside of it.
It is a place I don’t deem worthy.
For what purpose does dust serve outside of these prison walls?
The Boy comes every so often.
Not that time matters.
The clock-face has frowned and judged me as long as I remember. Its broken hand beats back and forth as if it were some melancholic metronome.
The pounding heartbeat of the clock is halted only by The Boy. He is quite a curious boy.
He doesn’t seem to age, though perhaps it hasn’t been quite long enough to tell.
Or perhaps it is I who has simply forgotten what aging looks like.
The Boy tells me tales of love, of a girl he has found.
He spoils her.
I once had a boy like him, but through my tranquil insanity, it seems he I have forgotten.
I once held him, though.
He was but a small child.
A smooth, softly crowned head that radiated possibility.
Yes, The Boy reminds me of mine own blood-kin.
If Mine Own had lived to see him, what would he say?
I have not a name for myself.
I have long forgotten how to string letters together and what a sentence looks like.
The Boy knows, though. For as long as I have seen him (which of course I know not), he has called me by a name that I have long forgotten the meaning of.
The Boy is curious, indeed.
The name he gives me is not the name as what they call me.
It is warm, and sings of a tranquil flame and soft bed of which I have long forgotten.
It is like a firefly of emotion in my corroded universe.
The Boy’s handiwork is miraculous, I do say.
The needle with which The Boy stitches letters is of ivory bane, and the thread of luminescent gold.
The Boy is clever.
He tells me tales of brains.
Long ago (or perhaps within the hour) The Boy would tell me of studies.
He would read me stories of glistening raindrops and heaven-bound sunflowers from a glossy green textbook, and would ask of me how numbers collided and combined.
I would take his hand.
It was soft.
It was warm.
It reminded me of my own blood-kin.
What would Mine Own’s hand look like if he could come to see The Boy?
It seems I have forgotten when The Boy’s ******* questions ended.
Why did they stop?
Why were there columns of water falling from his cheeks?
Columns that supported none but a weary neck of childish ignorance.
Columns that were polished by sandpaper.
Columns that gleamed with a lifeless luster.
Columns that were silent, yet spoke of nothing but demise.
The Boy no longer tells me tales of brains.
It seems I have forgotten the stories of mournful raindrops and hellbent sunflowers from the faded green textbook.
He tells me tales of sorrows of a boy of an all-too familiar name.
Of a boy who reminds me of Mine Own.
No, in fact, The Boy says nothing.
It is his columns that sing of Diego’s caterwaul.
For what does The Boy mourn?
Is it not his studies?
Is it not his plentiful future?
The Boy has but nothing to mourn.
He touched my hand, I remember, and apologized (for some event I have seem to forgotten) through merciful cries and heart-wrenching sobs.
My hand.
My time-soaken hand, worn from years of labor at the needle.
His hand is calloused.
Was there a time where The Boy held the same hands as mine own blood-kin?
Did they ever stare each other in the eye and wonder, "How would God see me?"
I fear I must have misspoken, for when I mentioned this to The Boy, he fell.
With an eloquent shame The Boy stitched the most beautifully morbid quilt of words.
His voice echoed hymns of remorse within me.
The Boy mourned.
But for what?
Is it not his own tears that collide with the yellow-gray dust?
Is it not he that stands with a prideful cowardice above me, judging me with the same heartbroken eyes as the metronome clock-face?
In fact, could it not be The Boy whose ashen tears litter this corroded floorboard?
Could it be my own?
For what am I mourning?
The clock-face grants me an apathetic stare, or perhaps it is The Boy.
Could it possibly be The Boy whom I am mourning?
For if it is not him, then where have I come from?