Door by Grace Kim
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It's late afternoon. From this angle, the view is incredible. He
lies there, on his back-gravity takes a hold of him. His fat spreads out,
making his stomach flattened. As soon as he gets up, the television goes
on, along with the computer, and the stereo. The shades are drawn. It's
always dark in his living space and full of noise. Last night was full of bad dreams. These images circulated over this small suburban city, in tiny dust particles. It seeped in through windows, through crevices; no house was safe. Yet, some forgot these dreams. They just woke up and took on the day. However, the chemicals in his head would not let him forget. He experienced heart palpitations, sweating, and could not go back to sleep until the comforting sun would come up again. At the local Buddhist temple, people are being lined up with incense to pray to a golden statue. Down the street, a lady is buying lottery tickets. Squirrels are mating in the park. "Hun, there's food in the fridge, just microwave it for 3 minutes. I'm running late," his mother says, she kisses his cheek and walks out the door and gets in her vehicle. She leans her head out the window and asks, "Could you please check the mail, and water the front yard?" "Sure, no problem," he says and waves slowly as she pulls out the driveway, the sunlight reflected off her SUV makes him squint. There's a strange odor, the strong, musky perfume of an old woman. He quickly shuts the front door, and goes back to his room to watch cartoons. His mother is off to save the world again. Emotionally teaching about the polluted ground waters to the little people with the futures in their hands, now it's off to clean the river. She's the founder of the organization that cleans the underpass every Friday. After watching cartoons for a couple of hours, he begins to work on electronic music. He could never finish a song, because everything he made he thought was shitty, and not because they were really shitty, he just never thought that anything he could create would be good. If not television and music making, it was time to learn Japanese, or play videogames. This is how he would spend his day, everyday. Except for Meals On Wheels, [read on] |
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