WednesdayIIII June

Hiding II

He’d harbored a lifetime behind his mother’s net mesh.
The truth showed itself in the packed flat's neat mounds of existence.
They weren't bag-lady crazy piles.
They were discriminate, like their owner.

Books did not sit on the many chairs, they lined the loo.
And battered wooden tables groaned but did not break,
Underneath his collection of geological paperweights.

The hall was full of ceiling-high miles of dog-eared newspapers.
Teetering piles of told news.
Tellings which had struck him so profoundly he couldn't let them go.
Details from outside worlds.
Of worlds he'd never see, didn't want to see.

It was a surprisingly noisy flat
The flat's internal drum.
Beat out to the kitchen clock's tick-ticks.
And a radio's ho-hum played fiddle to the fridge's faulty fan.
He’d measured out the minutes.
Metering his days.
Hoarding time 'til death'd release him from his living grave.