He considered himself relatively tall, slouching just over six feet. Every morning when he woke, he was happily reminded of this as he stretched, ankles resting on the chipped wooden bedframe colored black as was his hair--as was his clothes. He would relish in this fact since seconds before, every single day, his mother would carefully open his door, sit by the edge of his bed, and remind him that everything else about him was, at best, average.
It was summer with the glint of cars parked for Sunday concerts, the fresh smell of eucalyptus trees, toxic, mixing with scents of pine, the dogs playing with the grass, languishing in the unearthed memories of spring now singed by the constant rays of sunlight. He awoke amidst a flurry of chirps, birds, resting on branches and power lines, singing the sacred melody of afternoons past, lazy afternoons where purpose had no place and things simply were. His black hair seemed a small shrub against the white of his walls as his mother greeted him with blue, black, straw and raspberries.
"How are you this morning dear? Did you sleep well?"
"No, unfortunately."
He scratched his black hair, half-thinking, half not.
It had been a month since he enjoyed any true rest.
It felt wonderful. He bounced his ankles against the rickety wood. He had finally woken up before his mother and...
"What do you look so happy about?" spoke a voice, soft and dense.
He stopped bouncing.
"Never have I seen such a lazy person in our family. Nor have I ever seen someone so happy to be failing summer school after failing his last semester of college."
He gathered, feebly, those last few remnants of logic left to him.
"You should know you are wicked."
She grinned, softly, slightly, vile.
"I do what I must."
Time passes and all things pass with it, bound to this immovable power, freed by its eternal, unchanging, solitude.
He got more ill every day. The colors she brought him in the morning began to fade to black. And sometimes worse, they would fade to gray. He was told to sleep more, but he grew tired in his dreams. As he dreamed, he seemed to wake in another body much like his own, with no control. What worried him the most, was that the dream only changed by minute degrees, like daily routine. He would wake late, not to reds or blues, but to cold, terse, and pained. He watched himself game and eat. He watched himself sit, mesmerized by static and noise, invisible strings attached to his increasingly heavy limbs, watching, watching, watching. He watched himself burn.
She sat next to her son and saw his eyes flutter.
"It's summer, dear, not spring. Please wake up."
The people had gone home, only ghosts of tones remained in their ears.
The dogs wandered back to their owners, leaving the grass to soak in the sun's last few warming rays.
He sat up.
And smiled.
