APARTMENT 2AstumbleTuesday, 3:25 PMHis life was sleep.Sudden sleep. Unexpected sleep. Sleep that smacked him in the head like a wrench to the skull. Buckled his knees and sank him to the floor at the most inopportune times. Sleep that felled him like a redwood in a forest, throwing him into a world of dark.His life was waking, curled on the floor, a pile of ash where a cigarette once burned. Of stirring and stretching, rubbing his eyes, the numbers on the clock telling him of moments, sometimes hours, lost.Moments, sometimes hours, when he dreamed. When he lay trapped in a world of pleasant memories. Memories that shifted into horrible things. Things he’d run from while awake. That scrambled from the dishonest safety of slumber to chase him through this life after sleep.“So, let’s see what we have here,” the man with the bloodshot eyes and stethoscope slung around his neck said two, three days ago, his fat finger trailing down the page. “Dexedrine, Adderall, Concerta, Xyr

APARTMENT 2Cstring cord tendril twineTuesday, 3:25 PMThe floor felt like flesh.The tender kind found at sixteen, seventeen. The blossoming, virgin flesh that whispered to him from navel to knee. Longing to be caressed, kissed. Brought to life.Wanting to be touched.And he did.Crawling, palms flat, chest scraping the floor. Groping his way toward freedom. His fingers cinched, lips stitched, eyes blinded by a ravenous, relentless impossibility.All because of her.An hour ago, she’d sauntered, venti double shot light whip mocha in hand—always the same order, always at this time of day, always after school—strolling by his table. Her walk insouciant and daring. Flirtatious, perhaps. The errant thread escaping from her almost knee-length skirt to flutter and land at his feet as she passed.It was red, this thread, though her regulation skirt was navy. A tartan, really. Muted squares of green and yellow blended into the dark pleated fabric. The colors of Our Lady of Lou

APARTMENT 2Ewords ingatheringTuesday, 3:25 PMAnd so it ends . . . the book began.She stopped. Closed her eyes, her hand resting on the page. Listened to the sounds of Eidolon, the life of the building more stealth than surprising. A board creaking. A pipe clanking somewhere distant and buried, the sound soft. The calm hiss of a radiator and the closing of a door down the hall.It was rarely the stomping of a neighbor’s feet or the sharp, heated conversation of a quarreling couple. On Eidolon, it was always the building that spoke. And it was in the quiet behind closed eyes where she could hear it best.If she chose.Today, she did not.And so it ends, she read again.Days ago, she’d paused, the tome nestled in the crook of her elbow, thumb planted on the page. Days ago, she’d waited, aware the old guy lingered near, on the periphery. Like a shadow or a stain.He’d given her this bone-white gift, the old guy, armed with the toothless grin of a man who’d long se