Miles Davis

A child doing her thing, dad in the settee doing his. There is nothing left of the sky. The five windows are dark rectangles, not really black. Again she wonders at the difference between darkness you can't see through and black. She has looked at the sun through one of her dad's empty beer bottles. The solar eclipse was a disappointment for her part. Day didn't become night at all, not even dark really. Such a disappointment. They stood with empty beer bottles in front of one eye seeing nothing but bottoms of bottles, sticky beer running down their faces.
- Are you tired tonight, she asks.
He turns his head, smiles, at nothing.
- Do you hear that sound? That's Miles.
She nods.
- He is the Master. You must know your Masters. That's all you need.
In front of her she has got a book, a pencil, scissors and glue.
She cuts out words and glue them on to a piece of paper, picks the words she likes such as "conversation" because of the ation-sound, mouse, mix, moth, mouth, something about the m in short monosyllables. Like sweeping the kitchen floor, so wonderfully filthy and in the end smooth and shiny.
It brings luck when she finds her age on a page. Every book has a page 8. And page 18, 28, 38. But that doesn't count. 288 is pretty though, but it still has to be in the text to count as luck.
- Dad?
Something is wrong with the roof of his mouth. She has told him. His sound has changed and there is a yellow blot in there, a bit swollen.
You shouldn't listen when I sleep, he would say. You shouldn't look either. It's not nice to look at people when they sleep.
In fact he doesn't answer, so she can't ask why it's not nice.
She could cut out the name Miles, it's in the book, somebody is called Miles. She doesn't. She hates Miles. It always gives him that blurred look at his face and the same sentence comes out of his mouth: Do you hear that sound?
- Dad?
She gets up. There won't be any more answers until tomorrow. She lifts the pick-up and puts it back in the little catch, then takes the record and breaks it into two, much easier to break than she would have thought. She puts the two halves back on the disc and pushes them together.
She has stopped that sound once and for all.
Then she tidies up the table. When it's beer he drinks out of the bottle, no glasses.