Facility of Division (Comments Welcome)

The room was silent, with floodlights piercing through the 2nd story window. My parents filled the evening with their heated arguments. That was 4 hours ago, 4 hours of animosity seeping through the house like mustard gas. Nobody can sleep in this deafening environment.

Quitting on this effort, I sit up and reckon that water might help. Sharp shadows hit the wall, painting only two colors, black and white. One step from the bed generates rolling creaks. The dissonance flows through the floor after each step. The door finally stands before me, another disfigured relic from the world of two colors. Palming the metal knob, I see if anyone else decided to calm their mind tonight. The footsteps of another life form echo through the house, stopping for the bathroom before returning to their domain.

After ten minutes of waiting, I walk outside to the rough cut carpet of the hallway. Faint fixtures morph the walls into ones of sulfur yellow. My distinct shadow turns into a blob. I can feel the heat coming from the vents; almost bringing myself to a sweat akin to humidity. Traveling down the stairs, I peer around the corners to make sure the house is a lifeless zone. The kitchen reeks of rotting dinner. Milk that went sour sits with the off-white stain on the level mark. The rotisserie chicken lies with signs of scavenging. An caustic stench of smoke damage lies in the black coals of mashed potatoes.

I get a glass and start filling it with water when a pitter-patter from the basement startles me. It was my brother’s calico cat, Nietzsche. He was taken from the outside world about a year ago, yet refuses to learn the ways of his new realm. He lovingly rubbed against my leg, which was surprising due to his usual violent nature. I depart from my mission in order to take advantage of this change in attitude. As I pet the rust colored cloud, vibrations of delight come from his body. After a while, he became uninterested and started to make his way back, yet he didn’t rush. Instead he sauntered to the door, turning back to look at me. He wanted me to come down there, and his hypnosis worked. I found myself walking down.

He brings me into the laundry room, showing me what he was so proud of. A centipede flailing to escape his no man’s land and scurry back into darkness. I came to the assumption that centipedes don’t have sight, because he laid split in half. His exoskeleton was covered in red goo from his other half, yet he continued to try and escape from his demise. His legs that were thrashing back and forth started to lose their life. His back falls onto the cold cement. I could only watch as the creature slowly faded. At last his body rests, with all the legs in acceptance