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The fact remains that Felix cannot sleep alone, no matter how hard he tries; he has slept in a double bed beside a woman (Frances ) for just under half his adult life and the cool space beside him, the solo performance of his own lungs, the dark dark room is all very frightening because he now must pretend to ignore the shadows, or else listen to what they suggest.
They suggest, very frankly, that he should die.
After all. What is his life without Frances? Without his children? His apartment, the Art Deco lampshades from Mexico, the indomitable upholstery? What will he do;
He walks into the bathroom to avoid the shadows and their vile suggestions.
It's a sin to kill yourself, he reminds himself while he scrubs scrubs scrubs his hands in the sink. Then you couldn't go to heaven. Couldn't see your wife or children in the afterlife.
It's a sin it's a sin it's a sin
The shadows
are sort of like blueberries. Blueberries aren't easily cleaned. If you smash one, crush it in your fist, gnash it between your teeth, the broken fruit flesh will leave behind a stain, as if out of spite.
Purple fingernails. Purple tongues.
Crush a shadow, that is-
-and Felix will remember why it was there in the first place.
Purple soul. Soiled with sin.
Felix looks in the mirror for a long time. He has wrinkles on his forehead, just a few of them. He is in good shape, though. Fit. Strong. He looks in the mirror so long that the shadows come back. They fill the sallows of his face, creep up the slope of his high set cheek bones and pool like ink into the bags under his eyes. He will have to answer these shadows someday. They do not appreciate being ignored for this long. Once they have filled every crevasse of his body, the creases of his skin, every stitch in the fabric of his skin, each singular strand of oatmeal brown bedroom carpet, and the pink fluff of insulation in the walls;
Once they have done this, Felix will have to answer them, and from there, he will will will will will
He'll wait. Good men wait.
Cooking makes him feel better. The next thing he knows, he has a griddle full of bacon spitting fat at him and a bowl of blueberry pancake batter ready to be poured into neat circles in the second pan. It is not even four in the morning.
The food sizzles and snaps. It smells delightful. He tries to memorize, nose hanging above the bottle, the scent of maple syrup. That's something he would miss, absolutely. That, and coffee. Early morning coffee with half and half and doing stretches while the sun rises through the windows in his bedroom. The shadows recede, disappear. He will not sin tonight. But they will be back. The shadows will ask more and more of him everyday.
An arm slides around his waist. A chin on his shoulder. Felix continues to cook diligently.
"That smells nice, Feel," Oscar says quietly. There is a touch of sleepiness to his voice.
Felix loves Oscar so, so much. If he concentrates, he can feel the thrum of his heartbeat against his own back. It makes his heart crack in two.
But Oscar is not Frances. He and Oscar do not have children. And that makes this one of the worst sins he might have committed. Oscar cannot fulfill Felix's duty to God, to his genes, to the sanctity of living a normal life and doing normal things that will bring him to a desirable afterlife.
That doesn't mean, he thinks, leaning back into Oscar's heartbeat, that every cell in his body isn't on fire at this very moment. He loves Oscar and it feels like lead shooting through his veins.
"It's for you," Felix responds morosely.
Oscar shakes his head. "Let's go to bed."
"You're right," he says, watching the breakfast hum wistfully. "You're right. I'm tired." Felix turns off the stove. The pancakes and bacon slowly fall silent.
"I know." Oscar kisses Felix's cheek quickly and tenderly. "Come on."
They go to bed and Felix sleeps until noon, the shadows temporarily in flight from the high summer sun.