Fractures

Scholastic Silver Key

Excerpt

“Delightful indeed,” Oscar replied, though the words were equally empty as the small container where the chicken had been packaged. Before the first thin slice of white meat could pass between his lips, Oscar’s brain had directed all functions away from his taste buds and towards the growing appeal of sleep. It was in such a daze that he brushed his teeth and stumbled to his room, that he failed to notice another deep crack winding around the antique writing desk sitting opposite his bed.

~ ~ ~

On the second day, Oscar awoke to find the cracks circled around his bed, snaking down the staircase and marring the bathroom linoleum, which could be seen through a large fracture cleaving the bathroom door. Each crevasse cradled the same heavy painful darkness within its depths. (The exception being the one in the bathroom door, which was the product of poor maintenance and woodworms, and held none of the foreboding the others did.) His wife stirred, pushing herself up beside him. Though the room looked nothing short of pristine in her eyes, his told a different story, and when she caught them as a prerequisite to a loving good morning, she saw the deep grooves and torn-up room reflected deep with his pupils. For a moment, when did it get this bad? Floated among her thoughts, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what “it” was and resorted to giving him a warm smile which he returned somewhat diminished.