Free Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King

you
shouldn’t
be up this early on a Sunday?”
    â€œEvery day is Sunday,” I say.
    â€œOh,” she says. “Why are we dropping out of school?”
    â€œDon’t say
we
.”
    â€œI think I have a right to know what you’re doing with my future,” she says. “Or at least why you’re doing it.”
    â€œHave you met twenty-three-year-old Sarah?”
    â€œHave you?” she asks.
    â€œWe turn out okay,” I answer.
    â€œYou following Earl again today?”
    Alleged Earl should be able to hear this. He doesn’t take notice. I consider that maybe Alleged Earl is deaf. Who knows? I don’t. All I know is a bunch of ideas I made up in my head—like ten-year-old Sarah did with the fish in Mexico. We all do it. I bet thousands of passersby have decided why Alleged Earl ended up where he is the way ten-year-old Sarah used to decide what those fish said to her.
    Alleged Earl gets off at 16th and Lombard. I follow him. Ten-year-old Sarah follows me. We just went in a big circle, really.
    â€œWe’re a block from home,” ten-year-old Sarah says.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œHe’s walking us home,” she says.
    â€œI see that,” I say.
    As we walk by our house, ten-year-old Sarah crosses the street and heads for the front door.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I ask.
    â€œI have to pee.”
    â€œYou can’t just walk in there and pee.”
    â€œIt’s my house,” she says.
    â€œIt’s—” I have no idea how to finish this sentence. I’m talking to a ghost or a hallucination. I don’t know what I’m talking to. Alleged Earl can’t go too fast; we won’t lose him if we stop to pee.
    So I cross the street and walk in the door ahead of her just in case.

Loser
    â€œYou know what you are? You’re a loser, Chet. You’re just a loser.”
    â€œThen you married a loser. How’s that my fault?”
    Ten-year-old Sarah closes the downstairs bathroom door behind her. I can hear her peeing. Hallucinations don’t pee.
    â€œI’ve always been a loser.”
    â€œWell then, why don’t you try
not
being a loser?”
    â€œYou won’t give me the chance.”
    â€œJesus Christ! So now I have to give you a chance to not be a loser? I just worked a twelve-hour overnight. I need to fucking sleep. Figure it out yourself.”
    When ten-year-old Sarah comes out of the bathroom, I go in. Our downstairs bathroom at the end of the kitchen is smaller than an airplane bathroom. Now that I’m tall, I can’t close the door and sit on the toilet at the same time. So I watch as ten-year-old Sarah wanders around the kitchen.
    She says, “They changed this. It looks nice.”
    â€œI don’t know why we’re doing this anymore!” Dad screams upstairs. He says something else that ends in the word
divorce.
    I say, “Yeah. A pipe burst and the old kitchen got ruined.”
    I finish and flush and when I come out of the kitchen area, I find her looking at the old painting behind the piano no one ever plays.
    â€œStill my favorite,” I say. It’s colorful and abstract. When I painted it, I said it was flowers, but really I didn’t know what it was when the paint was going on the canvas. That was when Dad taught me about the muse.
The muse is a made-up person who gives you the images in your head when you paint
was how he put it. I don’t know where my muse is now. Every time I look at any old paintings, that’s what I wonder. I wonder
Where the hell is my muse?
    â€œI did it in second grade,” she says. “Mom bought me canvas and acrylics. She painted one, too.”
    â€œJust get out of my room and let me sleep, will you?” Mom yells.
    Dad comes down the stairs and we’re still standing in the study looking at our painting of abstract flowers. He storms past us and into the kitchen. He opens the back door and then