OnDusk

An occasional short in three parts. I. Icecream I didn’t really have any spare time on my hands but when he asked me if I would help him with his homework I said sure, I am free on Sunday afternoon. I’d wondered how he divided his time. I knew roughly what he did when I saw him outside of his room, but I wondered what time felt like now that he wasn’t counting down to a release date.  He’d had plenty of those. He’d done the sums out loud for my benefit. Juvenile homes, jail, more jail, longer jail, then a jail sentence on the way to being endless. By my calculations he’d spent about five years on the outside spread jaggedly over a generation. I could tell you, that with his institutionalized skin and muscles he could have passed for 35. But he surveys the free world through ancient eyes. He would see straight through my weakness. Even after decades spent reading everyone he came into contact with in his block and on the other side of the ...