fingernail diner

the boy at the desk, facing a computer, and tapping two-fingered at a keyboard, is eating fingernails for dinner and sipping from a warm glass of cigarette smoke. he does not want to turn around and look at the bed, because there will be no warm, naked person in it. he does not want the record to end, because he will hear the whirrr of his sick stomach. he does not want to look out of the window, because it will be a cat on a fence and a limp sun and a tired wall and a blue window like a sheet of silence. he does not want his time to be over, because it will just be him, facing a computer, not typing two-fingered at a keyboard, and nothing else, nothing else, nothing else.
no fish in the stream,
or flames on the candles,
no teeth in the child's mouth,
or spokes on the bicycle wheel.
the record begins to jump, the watch fizzles and dies, and the boy at the desk types, two-fingered, forever.