| I. There is a boy. He sits, watching television shows. His family is with him. II. A boy changes channels. He decides, and sets the remote on the coffee table. His family wanders in. They each have an opinion about the show. They do not talk. III. A family sits watching television, mother and sister both sharing a couch. The boy is on the floor. His father is in a chair to the left. The television screen’s light blurs the family’s faces, blue connecting them all with a hovering ribbon of electricity. IV. A boy’s family sit in their familiar places, couch and floor and chair around the television. Holding the remote, the father presses a button with the index finger of his right hand. The hand and remote hang in space, suspended by invisible twine. All eyes are fixed on the screen as it flashes on and a woman sells diamond rings. V. A boy’s sister sits next to him. She is slouching on her family’s couch, right leg extended out as the bulk of her slight frame rests on the left hip-bone. A flash: the television is on. Family and son are watching a movie. She reaches down behind the couch for their dog. The dog has been dead for a year. Some of the dog’s hair comes off from the fabric onto her fingers. VI. A family watches the news without their son. He is not home. A friend hands the boy a glass of water from his kitchen. Feeling the glass in his hands, the boy smiles as warmth rises from palm to wrist to forearm to elbow. They are seated around a television that is not turned on. The window is open, and between phrases the sound of cars rushing below brushes the silence. VII. A family (not the boy’s own family) sits around a dining table. Dinner has been served. The food is passed around the table, counter-clockwise. Turkey travels from father to son, father to son, friend to boy, boy to mother, mother to daughter, daughter to grandmother, mother to daughter, sister to brother-in-law, husband to wife, wife to father, and again rests at the head of the table. The turkey no longer has its legs. A bare ribcage is showing from beneath its flesh. Bones on a porcelain plate; and chewing. VIII. Family and television are sleeping. It is late, and moonlight does its best to warm the carpet through the window. A boy walks home in this moonlight, which is bright enough but very cold. He shuffles his feet. One hand is resting in a jacket pocket, the other behind his head. He looks down. The jacket is too small, and in the moonlight it is apparent to the boy and to the stars. The boy does his best to look down. His feet kick at the snow, whose shards gather upwards into unseen clouds. He stops—a full moon—and begins to cry. IX. A boy and his friend sit outside for a while. Upstairs, the boy’s family watches a rented film, and their laughter climbs down the escape ladder through an open window as the boys’ cigarette smoke drifts up, into the trees. Both boys watch as a leaf falls, its peculiar path leading to their feet. Across the street, an old woman is sitting by the window with her television on. It is already the second half of the game show. The woman leans forward, whispering answers to her cat. X. A boy is awake and in bed. A television is on, turned to a channel where dogs process across the screen. As the dogs wag their tails and pant, tongues hanging low in pendulum pinks and browns, he turns away onto his side. Hours pass, as do the quiet images being broadcast. Neither rest: awake for the moon to rise and set beyond the window. The boy’s friend is cold and pulls the blanket over him in sleep. XI. Another evening, another family. The same but different. A boy rests his head on two hands. The family a chorus, standing by the wings of his stage. An audience (gathered at the couch at home) expects the boy to sigh and sit on the edges of their seats. Tears will not come. He stands up. The crowd quietly disperses. XII. Friends are not friends. Family as police. A boy is confined to his room. The window cracks open; a hand rests on its sill. The clouds outside are especially large, trailing shadows down the street. The shaft of sunlight flooding into the room disappears. XIII. A mother sits alone. Her hands folded together, as though in prayer. The blurred television casts shadows on her grief. Supper must be prepared at last. She stands. XIV. Hospitals are clean. Fathers are strong. Mothers and daughters tend to the house. Boys love. XV. The moon has risen early. Evening rakes through the leaves. Look down. |