SHANE FALLON - RETROSPECT

Shane Fallon writes when he can and types when the cats stop trying to sit on his laptop. He has a BA in Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz. His work has been published in Barking Sycamores, an online literary magazine focused on Neurodivergence.

​RETROSPECT

​Late night, high-flyin’. Hydrocodone daze creates a layer between me and the bed. Nice cushion, some fluff.        
            Just another bottle of dip-spit under the bed. Can’t smoke, gotta get your fix somehow.
 
            Cartoons, or Spanish soaps. Check that channel I’m pretty sure is Korean, some kids in a swim club. Seems tense, my antithesis, abstraction aside.
 
            Lo, mom’s up. Calls my name, Joe or Jim, maybe Dean. Real name redacted. Too painful or an invasion of privacy. Everyone involved wonders how out of touch with reality that guy is.
 
            Walk across the hall and she’s propped up on pillows. One too many morphine pops, but who’s to say?
 
            She’s watching static on TV. Mumbles something about windows, and for a second you’re pretty sure.
 
            I mean, your mind is dynamic static, dulled and numb and wanting for coherency. The TV is the window and she’s watching you try to make sense of it. She’s looking out the living room at the overgrowth eight years from now and the flakes of siding peppering the driveway. The little plants that pop up through the pavement.
 
            Her decay tapped into all the disappointment you’ll deserve after she passes, and she called me in to warn us.
 
            But I’m afraid we’ve already stagnated for too long.