Elbow Room

He yells in his sleep these days. Makes those mumbling incomprehensible noises as if talking to someone in sleep, rebuking someone mostly; its that angry berating tone. I stir in my sleep in the next room. It's a gnawing depression. When he laughs, I hear not mirth but a desperate vulgar all-too-knowing attempt to escape, if only for a moment. His conversations are gabbles. Forced, too. The other day, he sat cross-legged, hair ruffled, still in his pyjamas from last night, having just woken up. It was afternoon. He had eyes that have dreamt more than they have slept. He lay on the sofa. Cans of beer stood on the table.

Something inside somersaults painfully, revoltingly. Not at him but for him. Yes, its his fault. He wasted his life away. That one golden chance at it. What must he feel looking back at it? And I know his life at 48 is already a backward glance, now a regret, now a blame. The deathly stillness of the air is broken by the variant drone of channel-surfing.

We watch a lot of television here.