It could have been hours that I sat with my strands of grass, I could have woven a wreath if I had known how and placed it on my head before I let the reverberations lull me into fitful slumber. Jack could pass by the window and put his palm flat against it to steady its nervous twitching, and absorb all of the mindless energy emanating from the place, drink it all in in one great draught, and stumble elegantly back down the walk with marionette arms dancing according to their own agendas, head upright and chest coquettishly exposed. It could have been hours, but it was probably thirty minutes before a figure appeared on the shingled, very gently sloped roof. It took a few moments to recover from the shock that there were other people in this universe out into which my companion and I had haphazardly rushed from below; the phantom concept of Dallow within was the closest thing to another human I had considered. But once that absurd notion—really just the poison of loneliness seeping through every capillary, convincing me that I was not just completely lonely, but also that I was completely alone, a common element of the melancholic cocktail—had dissipated, I focused a bit, taking to my feet out of politeness and curiosity. The figure was, because why wouldn’t it be, Moist, having apparently scampered over from the other side of the roof, and now seated with legs akimbo before her, short green dress particularly striking against the textured black shingles, waving to me enthusiastically and calling out. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask as the sadness had overpowered my more incisive impulses:
“Isn’t it hot up there?”
“It’s hotter inside, honestly, especially upstairs. Did you come in yet?”
The phrasing of her much more natural question smacked me upside the head. Through no fault or lack of consideration of its asker, the question labeled me an idiot and a romantic, it wanted no part of me and it spat me on the pavement. The only thing to do seemed to be to sit back in the grass. There was nothing to be gained by standing, and my knees ached from the earlier tension. Moist’s smile seemed to drop away, a change in countenance which is especially notable, so broad and versatile is that display of teeth and upturned lips. That smile could be angry, which it certainly was not at our greeting, or it could be joyous, which is closer to how it felt then, or it could satisfy any other of a range of functions—shield or sword, analgesic or acid. I suddenly had the distinct sense that I needed to shout an apology, but the house did it for me with a grand groan, sounding almost as though the earth was ready to gape and consume the place with a gasping long string of vowel sounds. Moist did not appear afraid up there, and in a phenomenon which certainly did not match with vibrational dynamics, the top of the house seemed somehow more stable, a conclusion which perhaps she’d also drawn in scrambling up there. But she looked a bit sad too, perhaps an empathic connection between a diminutive woman on a roof in a green dress and an isolated man in black pants sitting on green grass below. I certainly did not want to draw her into the figurative muck in which I sat, and she did not seem especially concerned up there, or at least put on a convincing brave face if she was. She had not asked anything of me, just waved and smiled. She may even have had more to say, but I had nothing to offer, so after a few more minutes observing one another, I just waved again, and she responded in kind, this time clearly in farewell. I hoped she went to the other side of the roof rather than back into the hotter upstairs, and that there was someone more fitting to greet her. I can explain how I was not immediately and pointedly concerned for her safety only by a combination of her unconcern and my distractedness.
But the prize was soon upon me anyway, and I felt vindicated despite no one having contradicted me when I saw Jack’s visage through that window. My eyes had dropped back to it at Moist’s departure, concentrating, fixating, zeroing in, attempting to discern the particles of sand which held onto one another for dear life as they threatened to come apart. The surface still seemed to ripple in tiny sand dune patterns, as the house had settled back into a low hum after the mournful moan of a few minutes ago. I tried to hum along with it in harmony, but it couldn’t be pretty, it wasn’t allowed to be, the harmony created a resonance in my skull which made my nose itch until I sneezed, and there was Jack who waved out at me. Or so I wanted it to be; as it was, I could not make him out well enough to tell which direction he was gesturing, but he was visible, and that was what mattered. The specter of Jack pointed and might have taken a drink from some vessel, might have handed it off to someone else, might have intoned to himself that all was well and thank Jesus for that, and might have been unharmed when something of a sonic boom smacked against the adjacent wall. But he did disappear, and a window did go out from higher above, tumbling down to the gangway and smashing on the ground below with a satisfying payoff. A twenty rat-a-tat salute followed, the house proceeding to recede back into its hum, and it was all I could do to harmonize with it in solidarity with my again-absent comrade. We may have even threatened to make a melody, the house and I.
