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“No! I’m not dealing with your shit anymore! We’re done! Fuck you! Fuck off! Goodbye!”

A door slams shut, rattling the frame. Silence follows, cold, unfeeling silence, the kind of silence that is more of a prelude to a terrible storm. Devon soon hears the car start, and swiftly drive off. The trinkets on the wall hang low, both his head and feet heavy.

Some minutes later, Devon finally looks up to see his mountaineering gear, splayed across the floor, next to it on the ground, he sees a photo of his mother, free of its glass cage which is spangling the floor like stars.

Devon cries, he cries till the sun comes up. Grabbing the broom and dustpan, he, slow from the weight of feeling, sweeps up the shards of glass. After he is done, Devon languidly flops onto his bed, thinking long and hard, and finally, something breaks the silence.

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A siren, distinctly police, blares in his ears, he can feel the lights blinding him, he closes his eyes as if accepting his fate, thinking, The neighbours must have called them, he finishes closing his eyes.

The sound is gone now, replaced by a cold wind, the searing feeling of the dichotomy of the sand on his backside, hot scorching sand, compared to a biting wind. Laying there Devon hears the ethereal noise of Shifting Sands, by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, in his head, then halfway through it changes to Jimi Hendrix’s most popular work, All Along the Watchtower.

Every song Devon has heard and thought he has heard plays in his head at the same time, giving him the feeling as though he is in the mother of all fever dreams, everything he knows piles on top of each other, then, it stops, at the drop of a hat, on a dime, like a snap. The mess that is Devon’s mind fits itself together like a puzzle, but he can’t help but feel empty, like one piece is missing, then some moments later, it slots in.