The rain splattered on the glass window. Peering through the blurred panes, I made out my neighbor’s porch lights. Flickers of green, blue, and red danced in the cool, gray world. I wished they burned out.


Beside the prerecorded voice of Johnny Mathis, which seemed to accompany me everywhere, I was alone in the living room. The chairs sat untucked, the teapot continued to hiss, and the branches that scratched outside the window thrashed like a ring master’s whip. I stepped out of my bundle and crept to the kitchen, where I began to pick up ceramic fragments off the floor. The pieces belonged to a vase. In its rouse, among the musty, pale, yellow petals, an angelic wing lied. In a desperate attempt to flee, it had split from a down-market figurine.

Within the fragments were ghostly cracks that went unnoticed. Every piece, crumb, and speck of the the broken item was tossed into a plastic shopping bag. After cleaning up, I wrapped myself in my plum blanket again and caught the last bits of the concluding hours of Christmas Day through the television. The sofa bed cranked under my weight; within seconds I plunged into a black sleep.


“Please, let me have some quiet,” my mother implored. My parents had returned home, persisting to argue. Strands of my mother’s thin, aging hair strayed from her ponytail. She remained in her work gear: bleached sweats and worn sandals. My father resigned to my room, where my little brother too had decided to turn in early.

I heard them come in, but remained motionless.
I was huddled, lying down with my face smothered in my pillow. There was a flick of the lights, a small blow to the flickering candle, and the cling of metal in the kitchen. Maybe, I dozed back into sleep because I found her next to me. She was ice cold and the concoction of late night café and Windex lingered on her skin. She was a child. Her thoughts far from this ratty apartment, deep in another milky purple galaxy. Out of impulse, I wrapped her with the blanket and combed her hair from her down face.






I did not need to bother asking about yesterday the following day. I already knew the answer. Everything, everyone was quiet. “Please, let me have some quiet,” I thought. The world was silent. The trees were still, the porch lights were off and the sky was a pale blue. Before packing for school, I dragged the trash out of the bin. It was filled with used towels, spoiled chicken, and ripped mail. I threw everything, but the broken ceramic pieces.