Icky

Her curtains actually do stiffen and then billow into a deformity because of the warm gusts of wind which are periodic. The carnations in her vase tremble when it’s their turn, which is poetic. In her beautiful room she is a bit ghoulish even when she is still.

She is also youngish and balding.

She is so lucky because a picture painted by her son in her beautiful room is revolutionary in its scope, scale, and ambition. All of the knowledge her son will ever need to know about ghoulishness is in it.

The son is correct if he chooses to believe that his mother is a ghoul.

He thinks her armchair is as comforting as nobody he has ever known. There are flowers he cannot iden­tify, printed on the upholstery, but their type, he is well aware, is icky. In her beautiful room where he has gotten her riding crop wet, among other things, his mother has stuck his tiny last lost tooth, with glue, onto the frame of her mirror.

A sensational evening is ahead for the boy, even though he is not allowed to bring food or drink into any room outside of the kitchen.

His mother has just asked him to do a couple of odd jobs for money.