As if to make a point...

i.

The spaces between steps narrowed until I could no longer stand. Crawling, I squeezed into the remaining space, listening to the muffled conversations upstairs.

The stairs have already squeezed me to a point. I wondered where the candlelight was coming from.

ii.

The last owner of the house had to go far away, she said, so she gave it to me. “Edit my house,” she wrote me in a letter, and sent me the address.

But the guys from the football team wanted some space, and offered to remodel it. So off we went on this pointless journey.

iii.

Crossing the street toward the entrance to the courtyard, I saw a shadow of the broken boy. He turned his back, but his fingers shook and pointed in my direction, as if accusing my innocence.

iv.

The hallway had no photos. The football guys were still crossing the street, perhaps getting hit by cars, I don’t know.

I was alone with the words on the top of the ceiling, printed in 12-point Times New Roman. “Editing starts here.”

v.

And now, the stairs have spiraled into nothingness, yet the voices continue beyond the candlelight. Faintly, I could see my name on a white note posted on the wall next to me, but the writing was too small to be seen in the dimness.

Here, in the dark, finally, were the images.

“I’m going far, far away. Don’t miss me too much.” The previous owner of the house laughed, and drew a picture of an angel above the words.

Cards from her friends mourned in bright colors her ascension to that unreachable place upstairs. Crimson white neon lights.

The football team laughed outside as I sharpened the point of my pencil.

vi.

And so the editing begins.

Knowing the team would continue to laughingly wreck the bathroom mirrors to hang a picture of the Lady, I held the eye of the broken boy at the point of my dagger and screamed goodbye.