it might be too late

He`s sitting in his room, on a lonely faux leather sofa, the colour of an elephant, and it`s creased too, deep lines of pressure, folds in time. Shadows fall even from flat things, he thinks, and it doesn`t console him, that thought. Nothing escapes the laws of nature. Stars fall too, comets blaze and chunks of things tumble. Everything comes down, in the end. His hair is brilliant with pomade, white in places, around the temples, snowy as the Hokkaido mountains from whence he came, once. Sometimes he`s not sure he ever did. Come, that is. From anywhere. Almost like he`s always been just where he is. That hair, the lines drawn by the comb he uses, too perfect for this world. No, it`s not a wig, he thinks, when people look at him too long. The trivial things, he still lingers on them, even though his life lies shattered about him, brittle like the old photo plates they used once, and as gloomy, smoky. He remembers them, saw them when he was just a kid. A life crunches and crackles underfoot. It`s that fragile. His nose is straight, aquiline, unusual, gives him a hint of nobility that does not exist. His mouth turns down, that`s time too, dark rifts that leave him looking disappointed with what he sees. The eyes though are almond brown, flecks of a blacksmith`s sparks there too, and force, they once possessed belief, maybe even passion, long ago. That`s there too. Loss. He looks like flesh and he looks like bones, but inside him there`s nothing but wire and cellotape, and outside he`s paper. He feels that thin. One sharp move and it`ll all come tumbling out, they`ll find nothing but wire and paper and a pair of good trousers and damn fine hair. Monogrammed socks. Yet still he smiles that smile just when he should, when he knows they`re watching. You`d never know. He looks about the box in which he sits on the elephant sofa and folds his hands together and he thinks to himself something he has never before allowed himself-

How did it come to this?

And the tears come. And they come and they come.

63 years ago he was thrust into this world. He does not know by whom. His earliest memory is of a room, it`s nicotine yellow, the paint is cracked on the walls and there`s a white patch where a picture must recently have hung. There are twenty beds in the room, and upon each bed sits a small figure, and upon each small figure`s shoulders is a head, and upon each head is a face, and upon each face is a look that says nothing but

I HATE

Nothing, but nothing, escapes the laws of nature. Above each little face twisted by hate is a frame, and in the frame is a name. He realizes that the names belong to the beings that hum with vibrant loathing beneath them. Like little neighborhood generators. He can almost see the barbed wire. The warning signs. So many volts of unhappiness. Distrust. He wonders what happened to the boy who sat and hummed beneath the space above the bed he`s sitting on now. Alone. He looks up at the white, empty space, feels it smiling at him like black pebbles on a wet beach, the coldest smile, cold to the bones. A void full of ugliness. Convicting him.

`He died,` says a voice, flat as can be.

A man in a green suit. Old. Smells of mothballs, and cigarettes, and liquor, and disappointment. All that in a whiff. The measure of a man in one breath.

`He died and now you are here. Don`t give me any trouble, you hear?`

The skin around his eyes crinkle when he talks, as though it pains him to communicate. He turns and he walks away, and his cheap rubber soles squeak on the linoleum floor.

There in that room, was memory born. And so too the boy.