excerpt from untitled project

He snapped his fingers, the lights clicked off. He cleared out a place for his glasses on his nightstand, then flipped his radio to any station that was playing music. Tunes were the only thing that allowed him to wade past the transcendental half-sleep phase and into an actual sleep.

The boy settled in on his back and brought the covers up. A few minutes passed and he had sunk into that phase of half-awareness. The clock struck 11. The news guy on the radio said so.

He always wanted a grandfather clock so he could know what time it was on the hour. He knew someone who had one, but they weren't really friends. He just went to his house once and liked his clock. The news guy seemed more tolerable, anyway. His parents would have bought him one if he ever would have asked for one.

More shootings. A stabbing. Two house fires. A car crash. People were dying. He shook that descending phase and laid awake. Staring up at the ceiling.

"ROBIN!" he screamed, but not in fear. He didn't hear anything. He wasn't okay with waiting. "R O B I N!"

She came running across the hall. She was wearing those curls that she was in every night. She smelled of lotion which reminded him of honeysuckles. It was nice, but the boy knew she got it on sale. The boy suddenly realized how much he enjoyed that aroma.

"What the hell took you so long?" Roscoe said, annoyed.

"I was in bed, swee--"

Roscoe cut her off.

"People are dying," Roscoe exclaimed, as stoic as a teenager can be. The news segment was over but he gazed into the dim blue light of the alarm clock. 11:10.

"It's almost 11:11. Shut up."

Robin stood in the doorway. She looked disappointed, but she had to be there. Roscoe liked to think she signed some sort of contract saying she would wait for his 11:11 wishes. Roscoe broke the silence when the clock flipped to 11:12.

"There's something in the corner," Roscoe pointed towards his computer. "Go look."

Robin waded though his dirty t-shirts and pants with belts still in the loops -- he never took them out of his pair jeans unless he needed to. He usually just bought a new belt.

Robin couldn't see much, but "ROSCOE'S WETSUIT" bounced about the screen in silver block letters which helped light his desk. Roscoe set that as his screensaver because it was usually the default screensaver: what old people used. Old people were interesting to him. He had never even worn a wetsuit. Sometimes he laughed when he pictured his grandma in a wetsuit.

"There's nothing there," she said.

Roscoe lifted his head.

"Wha?"

"There is nothing over here."

"You aren't looking in the right places," he said as he buried his face back into his pillows. "Go look in the other corners. Then look again."

She looked around the room, trekking through the dirty laundry and CDs that laid across the floor.  Her bare foot stepped on something that wasn't the floor. She wished she could take the step back right when she laid her foot down. There was a loud squeak; the sound water can make when it makes contact with naked human skin in the right context. She brushed it off, then she started leaving.

"You need to clean your room. Good ni--"

"You need to clean my room," Roscoe said, words muffled by his pillows. "Look. Again."

"I have looked everywhere, Roscoe! You're too old for this. I can't be here for you forever," she snapped, and she kept walking out.

She looked back before she shut the door. She started to say something, but decided to leave it cracked instead.

When she went back to her room, Roscoe got up and closed the door. His door had to be closed. He couldn't let anyone in without at least the closure of knowing their voice.