Perception - 1. Chapter 1

It wasn't long after she arrived that the clouds rolled in. Like knights wearing rusted armor on black stallions, they rode into the night sky with the speed of a powerful locomotive. The spine-tingling whistle of the engine pierced what had been a comfort blanket of silence that covered the city. Stepping out of a cab, her leather boots-- made from a bull she had skinned herself-- crumbled the damp gravel beneath them. With a wrinkled nose in the air, beady black eyes surveyed the house in front of her. She had brought no luggage. Kicking the rugged gate open with the tip of her boot, the bull that was sacrificed to make them winced from beyond the grave. As she made her way up the steps, warped wooden planks creaked.

By morning the lightening was on its way. Although jagged bolts were out of sight, quick bursts of light illuminated the outline of the clouds and jumped across the sky like bombs exploding from a war in the heavens. If one was to listen carefully they could hear the ever constant rumble of thunder. "Get your nose away from that window." Danny jumped off of the window seat just as his mother's cleaning rag slapped against the window seal, leaving a wet stain.

"Damn mom, watch it."

"Don't you curse at me. I've been slaving around this dump all morning trying to get it in decent shape for the party tonight and you haven't did anything except stare outside."

With a roll of his eyes, Danny jogged upstairs. Alice dropped her rag into a mop bucket of brown water. The additional volume of the torn rag caused water to seep over the edges of the bucket. Pulling back one panel of the curtain, with an envious eye she glared at the house across the street. Previously vacant, someone had taken up residence over night. She couldn't tell what looked different about it, but it was obvious that in the wee hours of the morning that somber had been doing work fixing it up. The brick looked as if it were new and the mortar was such a smooth and beautiful gray it appeared to have only been placed and dried that very day. Replaced were the windows where neighborhood childhood had thrown rocks at the abandoned home. Alice's stomach turned and rumbled. Later that afternoon guest would be arriving for her husband's birthday party and the thought of them admiring a neighbor's house instead of her own made Alice sick.

Upstairs, Danny could look outside without being scolded by his mom. 'Imagine,' he thought, 'being 19-years-old and treated like a little kid.' He remembered what Alice had said about their home being a dump, 'If she thinks our place looks bad she must really give the house across the street a hard time.' Indeed, whoever had recently moved must have agreed to take the dump off of the landlord's hands.

He was there again- the young man around his own age that Danny had spotted earlier. He sat down on the edge of his bed to watch the boy who was pulling clothes out of a drawer. Danny smiled as the boy removed his shirt. His was body was more chiseled and beautiful than the Apollo Sauroctonos statue. Slowly, Danny slid his hand under the wristband of his sweatpants.