landing raze all the eight and sixteen-bit consoles of my childhood are spilling out of the linen closet. my sister says she still dusts them off sometimes. i'm not sure i believe her. i try doing crunches on my waterbed. there's too much slack in the bog beneath my back. orval sits at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the landing. he asks if i'm married. if i've got any kids. if i need a car. i tell him i'm single and childless and there's nowhere i need to go i can't get to on foot. he says his son just bought a sedan named for a dark spirit that calls out at night in a voice too familiar to be real. my mother wishes i would clean myself up so i could eat with everyone else. she's been reheating the meat she made for hours now. it won't wait forever. it'll dry out. i tell her i'll be back in ten minutes after a quick run. i lace up my shoes. i work out one stubborn knot and leave another alone. i step outside and pivot and jog along the right rim of the road. i have no timepiece wrapped around my wrist. but i_am_a_stopwatch. i can keep time just fine on my own. a squirrel with a caramel swirl of a spring coat runs up a streetlight and stares at me. i try speaking to him in his mother tongue. or at least what i understand of it. he says nothing back. at a small parking lot outside a run-down diner, two boys who could be brothers announce their plans to rob me. i empty my pockets. i've got nothing they want. i make it back to the house five minutes later than i said i would. i bend my body like a gymnast on my way down to the basement. the banister that runs parallel to the base rail is my balance beam. a few people are watching tv. my stepfather's sister yells at me to stop blocking the screen when i'm nowhere near it. "sorry i'm late," i say. "two kids tried to hold me up. that's what held me up." "i don't know why anyone would want to hold you up," she says. she means it in a different way. she means arms and strength and support. i watch her watch whatever she's watching. there's no joy in it at all. my feet never touch the floor. 250524 what's it to you? who go blather from