Oracle

You stare at the ceiling, the black mold sprouting in the corner, seeping into the veiny fault lines that sprawl across the alabaster paint. Wrapping around the seam between wall and roof, a garden filled with cherub babies dance, mocking you, whispering, snickering. Their voices harmonize with the fan that is caked with the dirt of the past five decades, aqua net as a sticky base for the cigarette smog and fly carcasses. You focus in on a fly that’s twitching, clinging to life. Or maybe, it’s the breeze from the fan that momentarily revives the earthly being. Something wet hits you on the peak of your skull, sliding down the back of your neck and trailing down your spine until it finds a rest stop in the dimple of your tailbone. The micro hairs that cover your body stand straight as you realize how bitterly cold you are. A deep breath in and out to regain your composure releases a cloud of condensation. You look through the fog and remember when you were a child how you used to pretend to be a Mobster when it was cold enough on the playground, smoking a pipe and blowing it into the faces of your peers who failed to finish the job. Another drop taps you, is anyone home? You look up and stare into the face of a shower head, its last few tears pulled down by the weight of the atmosphere. It’s hard to move right now, but your eyes freely scan the bathroom–as long as a grown man’s wingspan and half that in width. The walls are finger-painted in red, a trail that spirals and cascades like the skies of Van Gogh. You stop, frozen. The cold has taken over your body solid as you stare at your palette covered in crimson, the clock behind her reading 3:32AM.