Blaster Master

This is what has been left to us. I don’t remember what I saw: the peeking out of legs from a hole we dug in the backyard, the wheels, the mountain. I live in the shadow of a mountain: colossal — a volcano dormant: something waiting to fill our heads with ash, to make us reconsider what heat is. We used to dig in the yard: at first with our hands and then with small spades and shovels. We would cut through the frozen ground, dirt under our fingernails, our pants damp from the melted snow. We would dig until we could see the other side of the earth. We would dig through the core of everything: we would feel the fire and the snow would melt — our beds would no longer be cold from the chilled glass, the windows surrounding my body as I slept. We would dig until we could touch the bottom of plants in another world: plum flowers and Chinese lilies. It would be a secret — flowers long dead from the snow pulled forth from some magic elsewhere, a hole in the ground marked by a piece of wood used to measure the height of the tomato vines, vines long since shriveled and iced over. In the hole we put reminders of ourselves: here is a newspaper. Here is a piece of chocolate. Here are instructions on how to build a table — we will need all of these things when we are older. We will dig them up when our parents have gone, when another family moves into our house — lies on our floors, spits in our sinks. They will have painted the shutters. They will have replaced the door.

When you are gone, who will drive the car. Who will turn the wheel, who will know where to turn. Who will draw the maps — straight lines fading into sharp curves: all things to scale, all things considered. When I was a child I read all of the books. I read about countries that no longer exist, worlds that never did. I read about a boy like me gone missing. I read about how he would leave words scrawled in chalk for his mother to find; to let her know that he is still alive, hiding in the garden, hiding in the river. Here is everything I have. Here is the sound I will make, the song I will sing to let you know that I mean what I say. I am learning the patterns of words because I cannot imagine you gone; I cannot imagine what you have left. My car will not move: it will sit still for days because I do not know what to do. You have taught me, but I do not know what to do. I know the wires, red and black, I know the patterns and the orders but I need you to tell me. I am a frog. I am a frog, motionless. While I was learning to live without you, someone pushed me into the road. Someone pushed me into the road and laughed — my white shoes you bought for me caked in mud. Who will buy me new shoes — I will go on without them despite hating the look of my feet. I will cut each toe off, one by one, left to right. You will not be there to stop me and there is nothing I can do. When I was learning to live without you, someone released the brake. The car rolled down the hill, backwards, away from where you sat. The wheel over my leg left no mark but the ground did — red where white used to be, pieces of gravel stuck in the wound. This is not what I wanted to take with me. I could not take you with me so I took the ground instead, gravel harder than early evenings in winter. I saw you hunched over the sink, crying for my lost skin, and I turned away. I saw you again, eyes blue like mine, and I told you that I was okay: that if I die, don’t put me...