Waiting

Quiet, quiet, quiet - buzzing in his ears. So old a silence he forgot. Names. Language.

Little sister, squalling in the corner. Harsh, a sound he couldn't know. It was all he remembered. Poor little sister, crying on the floor.

It was red. The floor. Cracked and peeling, like paint. Not red - dried - on the floor, in the dark. Was it night?

It was always night.

Red, but not. On their skin, cold and dead and parental. Too quiet to know names. Little sister, little sister. Red on her, staining black hair. What was her name?

Little sister.

Like his name, if he remembered, soft on the sand, he'd left. Leave the house, leave the dead, decaying bodies, the blood.

On his hands?

Maybe if he knew, had the words. But it was quiet in the desert - shifting, strange sand beneath bare toes. He was waiting, for that long dead man who'd promised.

Father?

Questions. But it was night, quiet. How could he know?

A beam broke the hollow black, unmelted glass desert. His dirty clothes were chipped, dull brown. And his hands - itching. He wanted to scratch, but not to bleed. They were already family.

The light was a car. The long dead man.

Golden. Like eyes.

Legato had been waiting.