Blake Butler - There Is No Year

For years the air above the earth had begun sagging, suffused by a nameless, ageless eye of light. This light had swelled above the buildings. It caked on any object underneath.

This light, unlike most other light, outside itself could not be seen, could not be felt impressed upon each inch of air and body. It had no length, no temperature, no speed.

Each day the light grew gently thicker, purer. Each day still felt the same. Its presence rode in ridges on the faces of the hours and in silent hair all down all arms.

At night the light would be called dark. Among the dark the people staggered, aligned upon the air with hidden halls. In hidden halls they bumped and built their homes.

Each of these homes, no matter how small, held at least several outlets, doors, and bulbs. In each home, as well, several people, each fit with further holes inside them too.

Through these holes the light could enter, thereby: naming, thereby: age . Inside the light and homes the people made more people. The light, unlike the people, went on and on.

The father and the mother sat close together without touching. They weren’t sure which way to aim their heads. They remembered recent rooms from other buildings. The house still felt so new.

They’d been sitting on the sofa for a long time. Neither felt sure just how long. They’d come downstairs to watch a movie — both with a certain one in mind — something they’d each seen once, somewhere, though not together. Now they could not remember.

The father felt too warm in this small room. He put his left arm around the mother, felt uncomfortable, took it back. He tried resting the arm on his knee or on his belly — still not right.

What if he could remove the arm, the father wondered? If he could remove the arm, he’d do it. This was the arm the father used most often to take his son or wife at certain soft times by his or her own arm, or other times to masturbate himself or eat.

The mother wrung her hands and flexed her neck and saw the ceiling. There was something about the ceiling . She hummed a song — a certain song — she thought she was making it up but she wasn’t.

The father stood up.

The father sat down.

The father picked up the controller for the TV. He held it parallel to the floor. He turned to a channel that came in slanted. He turned to a channel that was not there. He mashed many other buttons, angry. The buttons’ digits formed a certain sequence. The father turned the remote toward his head.

He pressed OFF . He pressed OFF . He pressed ON . He pressed OFF . He pressed MUTE . He pressed OFF . He pressed OFF .

The father had bought the house with paper money. He’d worked for years and years. If asked he could not say for certain what the work was. Mostly all he did all day any day was look into a blank screen flush with light. Sometimes the father looked at porn or ads or sports scores, but mostly just the light.

In the nights before the new house, the father walked up streets peeping through glass. He’d seen the light in other houses. He’d seen people in their beds — sometimes moving in the darkness to the bathroom or the stairs. He’d seen so many bodies fuck. In one house he’d seen someone reading about a father at the window in a book. All the houses touched by wire. The grain in the glass in the windows in the frames in the walls in the rooms in the houses on the yards along the streets aligned for miles.

The father wanted a certain kind of life to give his family. He wanted a house described by all of who he’d been — though who he’d been, to him, would not stop changing.

The father washed and washed his hair. He tried. He concentrated.

He had not asked the mother or son what she or he thought before he signed the family name on legal lines. He could not remember where he’d found the listing. He could not remember what he did not remember — nor would he want to, would he ever.

There were many things the father did without his wife’s permission — things like seeing, walking, aging — things he could not name.

From outside the new house looked like many other houses.

When the family came to live inside the new house, they’d found another family already there. An exact copy of their family — a copy father, mother, and son. The copy family members stood each in a room alone unblinking. The copy family would not speak when spoken into — though they had heartbeats, they were breathing. Their copy eyes were wet and stretched with strain. Their copy skin felt like our skin. Their copy hearts beat at their chests.

The father flicked the copy father on the arm there by the window in the kitchen — the window where on so many coming days the father would look out onto the yard — the yard where once the copy family had surely moved and laughed and dug and thought and fought and seen the sky change color. The father watched the copy father flinch. The copy father’s big ring finger had thirteen copy rings on. In the copy father’s copy eyes the father could read his other’s current scrolling copy thoughts:

This is my house.

This is our house.

This is where I am.

The family took the copy family and they set them on the back porch. The father carried the copy father and the mother the copy mother and the son his. The skins of the two families smushed together grunting. Their sweat became commingled. The copy family members did not wink or speak or cause commotion. They did not jostle in their stance.

The only thing that made the family different from the copy family was instead of teeth the copy family’s mouths were lined with mold. As well, the copy son appeared exhausted, sticky. He had dark meat around his eyes. The copy family’s breath came out cold and made no sound.

The son wanted to play dress up with his copy body but the father smacked the son across the head. The father hated when his son played girl games. The father bought the son a new neon football for Christmas and his birthday every year. The father also bought the son a football on the father’s birthday, a form of begging. Sometimes he found he could convince the son to come out into the yard, though no matter how soft the father threw the ball or how close they stood together, the son could never catch. Even right there. Even touching.

The son’s hands and fingers always itched. Sometimes the itching spread into his knee. Sometimes the only thing about the son at all was all the itching. The son was older than he looked.

In the new house wrung with coarse light, the father locked the doors and sealed the eaves. He had the family play Pretend To Not Be There. They waited to see if the copy family would simply disappear or go away. They waited several hours, peeping. Later, they hooted and shook their arms, made fire. The copy family would not retort.

The mother found the copy family’s TV dinners in the freezer and off the floor the family ate: defrosted veggie medley, veal cordon bleu. There was even a little cheesecake wrapped in black plastic. The family felt run through. They felt their bodies rumble, squealing. The copy family outside in the night. The father, mother, and son each with one wall between them and their copies, eating.