She whines and stiffens, becomes a bare nerve, a live wire. His face is silly, quiet, slightly frightened but trying not to seem so. They skirt around the issues. Every now and then I hear someone protest in a tone that says, “This is a secret, this is something I can not explain, please don’t ask me anything else, I am frightened and upset by that.” Mother screams out sentences and Father deflects them, but even here, behind this closed door, so thin it’s as though they are in the room with me, I can feel her crying. Then silence, like an edge, the feeling of throbbing train tracks against the back of my body, I hear the thunder of the train, see its’ face… Someone slams a door on the way to retreat. The train has HIT. Beatbeatbeatbeat beat beat beat …beat. Each acceleration wears me down to a bit more nothing.

Mother echoes in the bathroom, cries amplified. Time does not end for her, every injustice is still a fresh wound. Will this happen to me too? Her words are like maroon leaves, scratching across my headstone. Nude and awake I am waiting. Do I dress and go to her? Beat beat beat BEATBEATBEAT…

I put my boots on and slip out the window.

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