He watched them yawn,
become distracted by petty discomforts
and pointless arguments.
He could have explained away
or entertained their pain and anguish,
borne light on comedic wings,
proved the futility of senseless diatribe,
but always the same taboos would arise
to quash every spark of interest or curiosity.
He tried to raise new interest,
imagine other possibilities,
create new toys from the old,
and bend old ideas into new ones,
but each day as the sun climbed
they yawned, dissolved into common discourse,
gossiped with mouths full of food,
and grumbled over likely outcomes
with dreary, everyday sameness.
He could have turned their ordinary light
into strobes of magic lanterns
and made the mundane come to life
in a curious new way, sliding the shade aslant
and dimming the light in a paper bag,
but always the cautions, the do's and don'ts,
the dire consequences and apprehensions prevailed:
"You mustn't, you're crazy, that'll be bad,
no-one does that, how can you say that?
Who needs to know those things? Who cares!
For God's sake, don't tell them that!"
He watched, he talked. He waited patiently
for moments when dead air begged
to be filled with strange imaginings,
when only sylphs and moonbeams
could turn the self inflicted boredom
into life's awakening spell, when only
rockets to the purple planets and beyond
could change an idle perspective
into extraterrestrial living rooms.
He talked wildly at times,
made demonstrations out of pillows
and spoke into reverberating waste baskets,
put coat hangers on his head
and made up language to fit the furniture.
He interjected, whispered secret thoughts.
He leapt, surprised. He shocked, got angry.
One afternoon he cried as he watched them
settle into chairs and churn in their sleep on couches.
Walking past the snoring bodies
he left that day and never, ever returned.
