The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [91]
At times there is the sound of his father's voice in the halls. In the past, his mother's voice as well. Now his mother's voice does not leave its room.
His father never says: "I have written poems, and this is what they mean."
His father says, "Brey, I am not here for your benefit. I am your father, but I am other things besides a father. I will help you as I can, but I will not sacrifice myself to you."
His father says, "Let's speak frankly. Do you think collecting keys is the best choice for you, Brey?"
His Kitchen.
His kitchen is a room panelled in white plastic, panels stretching from ceiling to floor. Where two panels meet, a metal strip covers the crack. The walls, when soiled, can be wiped clean with damp cloth.
Each sheet of the wall hides a pantry. To reveal the pantry, one must grasp the metal strip at a designated point, pulling outward. The pantries are expansive. There has always been enough food for Brey and for his parents.
His father says of the stove in one of his poems, "Once it was a great truth." What this means, Brey does not pretend to know. He is not privy to the truths of a stove.
The faucet handles of the sink have sheared off, but the gaskets remain relatively intact. Water drips slowly from the cracked spigot. Beneath the spigot, Brey has placed a pewter cup. When it fills with water, he pours it into a canteen.
It takes several hours for the cup to fill. As his journeys through the halls become lengthier, the cup sometimes overflows and water is lost. He collects a cup of water when he leaves to walk the halls, a cup when he returns to sleep. He does not know if his father and mother drink from his cup while he is gone. Brey is not dying of thirst by any means, yet he is often thirsty.
There is a table in the kitchen. Under the table is a paper sack. When the sack is full of garbage, Brey surreptitiously dumps it into one of the hallways.
On the table are stacked four books: The Rat, Rats: All About Them, Our Friend the Rat, and How to Build a Better Mousetrap. His father's name has been written inside each front cover, though Brey has had the books as long as he can remember.
Brey has read these books, studying the pictures carefully. He knows the rat. He is prepared.
His Tiles.
The floor of the bathroom is covered with thousands of identical square tiles. Brey has transformed this floor into a map, placing scraps of cardboard at the intersections of the tiles. He has found one hundred and twelve sets of keys traveling to the terminal wall, one hundred and twenty-nine more traveling along the terminal wall. Assuming that the halls form a quadrangle, there are a minimum of fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-eight sets of keys in the halls. Of these he can expect to collect five hundred ― approximately three and one-half percent.
He wets his finger in the bowl of the toilet, rubs it against his skin. Dirt and dead skin flake away. His father continues to warn him against using the toilet in this fashion. "Sanitation, son, is not a game." Brey sees no alternative.
His Windows and Walls.
His windows line the terminal walls. They are textureless, black, opaque. He has tried to scrape their darkness away with his keys. The keys slip from the glass without leaving a scratch.
He pounds on the glass with both fists. When he strikes the glass, it vibrates. The vibration is not unlike the sound of his boots striking the floor.
He stops pounding, presses his ear against the glass. He hears nothing.
Brey has seen pictures of windows in his rat books. He has seen windows with rats nestling upon their sills. He knows the purpose of windows. They are for rats to look through, a sort of transparent wall. When rats tire, they draw drapes.
He raises his hands to pound on the windows. He feels a hand on his shoulder. He lets his hands fall.
"Brey?" says