lamp

For someone who has a way of lighting up every room, I feel like I'm left in the dark on a lot of things. Ignorance is bliss, sure, but pure and utter confusion is less than appealing. I would love to ask a few questions to these people, this family. I would love to ask why the man always sips his morning coffee with a frown on his face and dark bags under his eyes. I would love to ask why the woman gingerly tiptoes around the house like a thief and clutches cleaning supplies to her person like a knight would clutch a shield. I would love to ask why the girl always drapes herself in hoodies and scarves, baggy clothing always sagging off her body even in blazing summer weather. Hell, I'd even shoot a question at the cat about lounging purposelessly for hours on top of the television. However, casting doubt is like casting shadow and neither is my job. For all my curiosity, I am still just a lamp.

Still, I wonder about their peculiarities; the man was the first to pique my interest. He's always the first to come down the stairs every morning and I've never seen wearing anything other than crisp business suits and a bad attitude. To my knowledge, a smile has never graced this man's face: the closest he's ever gotten was an ill-suppressed grimace when the in-laws came to visit last year. Otherwise, it's just an irritated scowl only slightly sobered by an abominable amount of caffeine. He storms out of the house every morning as if looking to pick a fight, his empty coffee mug still spitting out hot steam.

By the time he returns late in the evening, the rest of the house is pitch-black. He stumbles around the living room in the dark, discarding his jacket and tie at the front door. I can't sense much of anything, but I can tell that from his movements that he's definitely inebriated. The cat startles from the sound of muffled groans and scraping feet. The man usually collapses on the couch for a moment, panting loudly as if the walk from the driveway alone had completely exhausted him. He shudders a belch into the crook of his arm before slowly, slowly rising to his feet and disappearing up the stairs to his room. From there, I wait in the darkness for hours until the cycle repeats. Over and over again, every single day and night.

I know slightly more about the woman. She doesn't have a full-time job like the man so I often see her cooking and cleaning around the house for much of the day. I'm truly fascinated by how she manages to polish an entire two-story house from top to bottom while barely making any noise. She slinks about almost as gingerly as the cat, humming softly under her breath as she obsessively wipes down every surface once, twice, a third time. It's as if housekeeping is a drug and she's an addict: no one can know what she's doing because she might break down if someone asked her to stop. If I'm to be completely honest, I find her actions to be the most disturbing--the most unpredictable. Every morning, her hands linger over the man's empty coffee mug. I wonder how he would react if he knew about her secret.

It takes me the longest to learn anything about the girl. She looks a lot like the man, her face constantly strewn in the same scowl. Ironically, most of her day is spent directly in front of me: in between bouts of the woman's incessant cleaning, the girl will jump onto the living room couch and spend hours tapping at the screen of her phone. Her face always remains taut but her eyes dance across the screen with uninhibited astonishment. It's actually quite incredible how fixated she is on her electronic device. Accounting for the occasional subconscious outburst or mouthing of song lyrics to her phone, I've never actually seen the girl speak to another human being, much less a lamp. I would love to have a conversation with her one day and ask her about her family's strange way of life. I feel like we'd both learn something that day.

I didn't realize that there was any true romantic affiliation between the two adults for a long time. I could see almost the entirety of the first floor from my brooding spot but I've never seen the two even touch each other. It seems like a given that a man and a woman living in the same house with a young girl would be partners; however, the depth of their relationship isn't fully revealed to me until, one day, the woman comes downstairs in the morning and just sits all day on the sofa. No cooking, no cleaning. The television is turned on for a distraction, at best. I see the woman's face but her expression is unreadable. Cast under the glow of the setting sun, her eyes glint with something ferocious.

It's as if a depraved spirit has been released into the home when the man returns in the evening. He barely has time to toe off his shoes before the woman is screaming directly in his face, shooting from the sofa to the front door in one stride. Her phone is pressed into her hand and she turns the screen towards the man with another shout. Something tenses in his stature; he's seemingly sober enough to recognize that she's discovered something of his that perhaps should've stayed buried. The woman screams again, tears streaming down her face, and throws her phone to the ground. Her fingers circle around a glittering ring on her left hand and she jerkily tears it off. This snaps the man out of his drunken haze, him lurching forward with a yell of his own.

The woman throws herself at her husband. For a moment, I think it's in retaliation to whatever he said--but then I see their faces press together. The man leans into the kiss like a deprived animal, wringing his hands into the folds of her apron. There's screeching from the cat as he sprints out of the living room to his intended cat tower. Unlike him, however, I can't escape the sight of what's unfolding in front of me. Articles of clothing are flung off in every direction, lacy pantyhose floating through the air to rest on my neck. For once, I'm quite happy to be deaf. From what I can gather of their fervid movements and blissed-out expressions, I'm sure the sounds I would be hearing would be extremely grotesque.

They sleep on the sofa that night. In the morning, the man doesn't rush out of the house in a suit. Instead, he lays by his wife and holds her to his side as they watch through a marathon of daytime television together. My eyes must betray me at some point because I even see a smile decorate his face. I see the daughter peek her head down from the top of the stairs and inspect the scene in the living room. Her face immediately turns beet-red, hand shooting to her pocket where her phone is undoubtedly located. The cat purrs lazily from its post on the television stand and I just drink in the sight of everything in front of me. The woman's wedding ring remains discarded on the ground.

For all I've witnessed, I still don't know why the girl wears such baggy clothes; in fact, I've yet to see an inch of her skin from the face down. Perhaps it's just the fashion of the time? However, there are occasions when she invites this one mysterious boy over and he never dresses like that. Furthermore, whenever the two sneakily make their way upstairs, the girl always returns with a new heftier, scarf wrapped around her neck and a small smile across her face. I can't imagine what horrible offense would incite such self-torturous behavior. What a strange family that decided to adopt me into their household. Now I think I can understand why the cat wastes its entire life away slouching around like an oaf: perhaps ignorance truly is bliss.