Safe House

Inspiration from Unravel by Bjork.

The door was unlocked.

Patrick told me not to mind it, though. It was the one room in the apartment we weren't supposed to open. For a while I just thought it was a junk closet, the kind that causes an avalanche of old pillows and extension cords stuffed in together over the years, brimming over the moment you open the door. While Patrick was out, I never bothered to test this theory until I ran out batteries in my television remote. So I decided to open it, thinking that a pack of AAs would be lying on a shelf somewhere.

I saw a boy on the ground, around my age. He was crying quietly, gripping at his heart over his bare chest, the other hand tugging at his shaggy brown hair. I wondered if this was another one of the house mates. I asked him if he had fallen and hurt himself, but he didn't reply. I asked him his name, but he didn't reply.

So I went inside and knelt down next to him, setting a hand on his upright knee. He was a beautiful man, I thought. His bloodshot eyes were a deep grey, shimmering beneath his tears. Finally, he said, in a pitiful voice, "He collected it."

I didn't know what he meant and I didn't ask, as he still seemed to be trying to say something.

"He'll never return it," he continued gravely. "We have to make . . . more. We have to make new, more."

"More of what?" I asked after several minutes had passed and he resumed sobbing. He leaned against me, then in my lap. "More of what?" I insisted, but he still didn't reply. I stroked his hair slowly, matted with some sort of thick paste. He leaned up against me, gripping the pull string of my sweatshirt.

He grinned at me. Past his head, I could see Patrick close the door and lock it from the outside.