A man sits outside to watch the dusk. Scents of rosebuds and freshly cut grass arise. The blades all uniform, standardized. His chair feels cool, like the bottle in his hands. She, inside, creates his favorite dish like muscle memory, the glass door in between them. The children are safe in the shelter he has provided. There is nothing out here.
Only the mind and all of it's heavy storage. The key is always accessible, but he never wants it. Nothing has changed, but nothing is the same anymore. Inside closed eyelids are ghosts of his friends' torn up soccer ball and his father's ***** hands. They smell like earth.
The garden was bare towards the end, but once, a long time ago, he had oranges. There was everything out there.