Best

Man those floorboards were smooth weren't they? Blonde and beachy. Old, but not so old they crumbled beneath our growing feet or we fell between the cracks. Those tiny faces staring up at us from within their growing memories.

It was real cool down there. Not as humid as above, halfway up the grey room that reminded me of a 1970's two-toned wagon spray painted on a day when indecision stuck up its middle finger at the world, just like you, your favourite expression in a laughter-beat. Who cares? you always said.

The small square window beside the green front door shows us that the world out there goes on. Moans on through wet skies and water washing along the gutters and down the drains. It's true the rain has had its way with us over the last three days. Your wig has come off — an odd thatch of a matted root thing — as your head topples on its neck, a tube of veins word-searching over your throat. And yet. The floorboards where we used to play stay cool, don't they? That's why I've got my skirt hitched high to my thighs, cellulite pressed against them as your swollen yellowwhite bandages bleat against the stinking liquid dripping from your liver and kidneys. They have taken their final bows.

I watch your horns grow as their pink and Prince purple forms wrap the air and all the secret things we always said, smacked on the walls, the furniture and the floor my amazing Best. I wrap. And sit. And wrap your liquidlogged legs as I spit at the gentle breeze blowing from beneath the door.

You are my Best. My four-letter Best. My very Best I tell you. In silence.

My very Best.