We both look at his hands. Blood under the fingernails, dripping down his fingers.

[Ghost Orchid - Clyde Butcher]

Through the kitchen window. Loves sugar. And blood. Preferably mixed, a swirl, a rich high, dense and crackling. The kitchen dizzies him, each time. He stands in the doorway, bone-thin, hip at an acute angle. Blinking, pale eyes zooming from wall to counter to window.

I’m flipping his pancakes on the stove. His favorite breakfast: pancakes drowned in maple syrup. Funny, I can’t see myself clearly. Sun dazzling through the window, slices right through me. As if I’m a shadow in undershirt and torn jeans. I must have been there: who else made his pancakes?

-Ruth Knafo Setton, The Shiver Test