No memory of falling asleep. His skull was granite and empty, a mortar and pestle. So dizzy and scooped out, he might as well have pulled an all-nighter with Al and the skinnies. At least feeling this hollow meant the looming threat of a weeping fit had gotten flushed out with the rest of him. As he stirred awake, his brain seemed to short-circuit. Couldn’t be sure if he’d only dreamt of barreling into the onyx surf, or if this was a glimpse into a future that had already happened, maybe some premonition he’d almost forgotten.

The morning was bright and the house desolate. Strange, since Papa rarely left the house on the weekend, and if he did, then not till sundown, only venturing out for errands during the last few minutes stores were open and crowds had thinned. Still though, traces of Papa’s morning routine were strewn about. The Saturday paper had been retrieved from the driveway and was sitting in its plastic bag at Papa’s dining table spot. The coffeemaker was off but still warm. The computer was on, opened to a MapQuest page listing the directions to a small town a ninety-minute drive away.

All the modem’s buzzes, clicks, and digital groans echoed as sharply in his rib cage as they did through the living room. Once he was online, silence resumed, broken only when he dragged the arrow to his inbox—click.

Nothing. Empty as him and the house. When he went to compose a message, his fingers fell limp, eight pigeon feathers over the keys. He sat there, slumped, watching a slender column of pixels shade from black to white into the stripe-then-ghost of the cursor. The fan inside the machine whirred away the minutes in a resigned, continuous sigh.

The computer screen said 10:15, which he corroborated against the analog dial on the wall. Hard to believe the clock’s arms had already come full circle since last night’s ambush. But after all this ticking and turning, what had changed? Papa had still won, Michelle hadn’t written, and Mom was still dead and gone, forever and then some.