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FIRE ESCAPE
BY MIKE KITCHELLThe approaching dawn, colored in hues of purple and blue, slowly began toexpose N.’s bedroom-- fall was beginning, autumn air leaking in the cracked window.Our bodies rested in a cold sweat, the residue of endless sex ensconcing our nakedflesh. N. turned to me.“Why is everything always like this?”“You ask like something’s not right.”“Well, you know what I mean. It is, but it’s kind of empty sometimes.”“Do you need it to mean more?”“It’s just– I don’t know. After a while I feel like I’m becoming autonomous. Itfeels like you become autonomous too.”“That means that everything’s right.”We were both silent again. We could hear the slight sounds of a neighborhoodrising. Birds had been prattling for hours, but, since it was a Saturday, the ritual of thefamily structure had begun with one man–
undoubtedly 
a man–beginning to mow hislawn.“You’re hogging all the blankets.”I adjusted the weight of my tired body in order to accommodate N.’s request. Ipressed my body closer, interpreting the question as a request for a reunitedphysicality.“Why did you mean earlier?”“I don’t know. I just feel like this is too easy. It’s too perfect. It’s too, Christ–“
 
”What?”“I don’t know, it’s ridiculous, but it’s too
bourgeois
or something.”“I guess you’re right.”“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know.”“So let’s disrupt it.”“What?”“Let’s fix it. Ask me a question about something terrible.”I looked around the room at N.’s bare walls. Outside, the world had finished it’sclimb into the waking day. The body had been revived. Inside, our world was stillstatic. I had no complaints about our placidity. N.’s room took on a particular ambiencein the post-coital world of my head: the white blinds forced the outside world to take ona physical overexposure; the white intensity provided exclusion, we were shut off.Without the sound cues keying us into the fact that the world hadn’t ended, we wouldhave been wholly alone.N.’s walls were white too, reflecting the blanket of absence that the lightprovided. There were no posters, magazine clippings, ephemera. N. insisted that if aroom is too full, there’s no room to live inside of it. On mornings like this, I assumedthat this sentiment had some sort of validity.N. spoke again.“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
 
THE CHILD IS LOSTTHE CHILD IS HELPLESSTHE CHILD IS NOWHERE
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