The fluorescent lighting stings my eyes. I’m sweating in a cold room, fully dressed in business attire and emotional layers. You are to my left, pretending to be happy we met, and our dog is in the room next door, barking his fucking head off. The kids are out of sight, but we know they are outside, huddled under the porch, talking about sex and saying things they overheard when the two of us fought in the supermarket last weekend. We don’t care, we don’t have the stamina to help guide their minds towards health and eternal happiness. Let them shape their own perceptions--we certainly did.

Then your father walks in, and he tells me what he thinks of me. His assessment is partially accurate, partially unfathomable, and partially complimentary. You seem more uncomfortable with his opinions than I do. He paces and our eyes follow his figure lazily. He is right in front of us, but he still shimmers with indistinctness, always peripheral. He leaves us feeling indifferent and vaguely irritated.

When my brother appears, you stand up and offer him a drink in slow motion. His hair is different, dated, and he looks younger than the alcoholic lawyer I now know to be my kin. He laughs and accepts your offer, and you smile for the first time. Glowing sunlight fills the room, and we speak of happy memories that never happened, and we trick our minds into contentment and warmth. When he leaves, you see him out. I am immobile, for reasons unknown.

When you get back, you stand in the doorway and stare at me with inscrutable, fiery eyes. Our sex feels topically numbing, and you work furiously on me, rhythmically pumping as I stare into space. The energy we produced is palpable, but I can’t quite keep it for myself. I can’t seem to find a means of harnessing that sexual energy and channel it into my batteries. I can only watch helplessly as the static is expelled into space.

The kids come back, and we are dressed and ready. They feel the breathless heat of love-making, but are unable to see the feeling for what it was. You turn to me with pleading eyes, begging me to teach them, but I’m as frightened of intimacy as they are. I shake my head in cosmic negation, and you see me for who I am. You have glimpsed my true self before, but only in flashes and through cracks in my walls. Faced with the truth, you and the children burst into tears, and I feel myself rise with the sounds of the sobs.

Our station wagon feels stale as I sink into the drivers seat, and the vehicle smells like dead skin and insulation. As I press my foot to the gas pedal, an explosion of light and noise pours across my face, covering my body in local activity. I’m suddenly back in the house, and as you began to ask me how work was, wooden frames take their places over moments and thoughts and images, and everything starts fading back to the end, which I realize was the beginning, and I wonder what would have happened if we had been in love.