The son followed the
long string down a
hallway without a
ceiling and without
doors.
The walls along the hall were wet and mirrored and left grease on the son’s hands, slipped in slats of gold goo underneath him, trying to stick him in one place. There was a music playing somewhere, by a band that did not actually exist.
blank music washed on and on and all through the house like blood bombs dropping, like skin peeling off of trees in sheets, women becoming horses becoming dogs becoming light—a whole slew of awful sounds that were not really sound exactly, but sound as an idea
The son could feel the sound against his chest and where his bones joined, meeting, vibrating his canine teeth.
The son could sort of see.
The son
went up
a
stairwell
and
down a
stairwell,
the string
now
burning
in his
hand—
the string
singing
along
and on
and on
into the
house.
For long stretches rooms would repeat—the walls and width identical from end to end. White light in wash, from overhead: projectors. Locks without true doors. Doors without true locks or knobs or seams.
A small eye in some pink wood watched him from underneath the floor.
Hairy curtains. Gold glass in windows, looking out onto long unblinking fields.
Black chandeliers with yard-long candles. Coffee tables made of water.
Bees.
The son in one room sat down for some time in a recliner, hearing his cells spin or moisten, softly jostled, coming open or awake.
The son walked.
The son found a charcoal-colored elevator that would not go up or down, but had one button for each year.
He found a room filled almost full with one white cube, around which he could wriggle, pressed at both sides, breathing in.
He found a voice behind a wall—the voice of his voice, older, slowing—some time gone.
And another stairwell, and another, each one wet and rattled in its own way. Some of the conjunctions between stairwells would have huge holes in their floors—wide-open mouths down into further house or houses. Some landings would have four or fifteen stairwells leading from them, lending the son a choice of which to take, but for each the string would keep him clinging, rawing at his palm.
The rooms went on each way around him there forever, not a music.
The son walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.