In his bedroom room, long after midnight, the boy holds a small flashlight over his comic book, trying to read himself to sleep. He hears his father snoring in front of the TV in the living room. He hears his mother's Book of the Month Club selection fall on the floor as she dozes off.

*

In his parents' bedroom, the boy finds three quarters on his mother's dresser—heads, tails, heads. He closes one eye, stands each one on edge and flicks them with his middle finger, until all three spin at once.

*

Now, his father gone on a long sales trip, the boy finds a crumpled piece of paper with a smear of ink where he has written a secret message, but then blotted it out after committing it to memory, like a spy on an urgent mission. He recites the message and rips the paper into smaller and smaller pieces, throwing them into the air—graffiti showering over him.

*

In the kitchen, he finds the bright sun, his mother's plant on the sill, a blue window—so much empty space he wonders how he can ever fill it.


.





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