It is dark outside, and raining, just like that night twelve years ago. (He wouldn't have known this if Mildred had never told him.)
Two figures in the room lie in the fluorescence of the light flickering overhead; one is surely asleep, snoring in a manner that did not fit his minute figure, the other remains motionless but his eyes are wide open.
Lewis could never explain it, but he was always stricken with this mysterious insomnia whenever it rained at night. He would awaken immediately at the first thunderbolt flashing across the velvet night sky, and stay awake until the rains abated.
He never told anyone, but lately he had been having nightmares where he's falling, falling, and he can't see where to.
.
In those sleepless hours, he would think of his mother. What she looked like – did she have blond hair like he did or dark black hair like those women in Peter Stimpon's Penthouse? How she dressed – he fantasized her in a periwinkle-blue night gown telling him stories at night, of beanstalks and fairy dust. Whether she smelled like oranges or apples or vanilla or whatever perfume makers decided smelled good on a woman.
He wondered, at times, if he had ever accidentally bumped into her. Last Thursday, when he was at the grocery store, could she have been the one behind the counter who handed him his change, smiled and wished him good day? Maybe she was sitting two seats behind him on the bus, and when he alighted their eyes could have met for a second or so. They could have even spoken to each other on the phone before. No, I'm sorry; you must have the wrong number. It's funny to think of the many times they had crossed paths, and still not known what they were missing.
Goob rolls over and yawns widely. He notices Lewis, sitting on his bed, staring out the window into the murkiness of the night.
"Lewis? What're you looking at?" he mumbles drowsily.
Lewis thinks for a while as he gazes at the raindrops speckling the pane, blemishes on his reflected face. Every second a new stripe, a new comma, parentheses. He no longer saw himself, merely a fractured soul.
"The same thing," he replies quietly, but Goob has already fallen asleep.