Now as he sits, his shadow stands tall lurking behind him as he ponders how he got himself here.His gaze fixed on the tilted lampshade casting its glow on the crack in the wall. It reaches all way to the ceiling. A crumbling monument itself. Gilded corners, spot lights half hung out of their sockets.

The traffic noise from the open window whispered a simpler life, but he did not hear this. All that echoed in his head was the tic-tic-ticking of the grandfather clock crowding the hallway and mocking at the passing of time never to be regained again.

His heart pounding chaos in his chest, his throat seized, rasping for air. For all his stillness a clump of goo fell out of his hair

and caused the hammer to fall out of his grasp.

Hed forgotten he had it. The sound of it hitting the floor shook him awake and as if for the first time, he gazed mesmerized by the sticky red on his hands…

Down the hall by the grandfather clock a door opened and shut. He heard the slow tapping of heels on the linoleum followed by a mellow voice;

“Oh Johnny, not again.”

A gentle hand straightens the lampshade.

The hammer is picked up and disappears off.

The long arm of the grandfather clock is stilled and silenced.

A dishcloth rubs his hands clean, picks under his fingernails and cuts are bandaged.

His hair is smoothed back, and a trenchcoat cast around his naked body.

Bright red lips, black hair, black nails. his eyes strain to adjust their focus on her sharp features. He feels enthralled by her,

or at least, that he should be.

Who is she? How and what does she know? But, even more a pressing question

Who is that(was that) slumped over the kitchen table with half their brains now in the dinner plate?