In the light from off his forehead, the son still could see his hands. The dinner plate was larger than he’d imagined. Some of the dishes were labeled with square brass placards, many of which, by handwriting or in translation, the son could not at all read: pink meats and bruised fruit, slaws and sauces, all soft enough to eat without the teeth, and such reek.
Several other unlabeled items were the ones that tasted best. The son stuffed his cheeks to bursting. The son ate so much it seemed his teeth themselves were also chewing with other tiny sets of teeth—as if eighteen people lived there inside him—people in people—on and on. There was a drink that tasted like one thing until he wished it tasted like something else and then it did. The son ate everything on every plate. The more he ate the more he wanted.
This house was excellent, the son decided, spoke in a voice inside his eyelid. Whenever the girl showed up the son was going to ask if he could move in, or at least if his dad could get a job with the girl’s dad.
Completing this thought, the son tried to go on and think the next thing and felt the same words thereon repeat: This house is excellent—his screaming eyelid!—Whenever the girl showed up he was going to ask if he could move in—yes, please, now—or at least if his dad could get a job with the girl’s dad—he needed.
And the thought again. The thought again, rolled in warming foam inside his head. A tone. He could not shush it. It numbed his gums—the food gluing all inside him, singing, a blank recurring unto exhausted, fat-full sleep.