Mysterious Skin tie-in
Blue 1981, 1983, 1987
Brain Lackey
The summer I was eight years old, five hours disappeared from my life. I can't explain. I remember this: first, sitting on the bench during my Little League team's 7 p.m. game, and second, waking in the crawl space of my house near midnight. Whatever happened during that empty expanse of time remains a blur.
When I came to, I opened my eyes to darkness. I sat with my legs pushed to my chest, my arms wrapped around them, my head sandwiched between my knees. My hands were clasped so tightly they hurt. I unfolded slowly, like a butterfly from its cocoon.
I brushed a sleeve over my glasses, and my eyes adjusted. To my right, I saw diagonal slits of light from a small door. Zillions of dust motes fluttered through the rays. The light stretched ribbons across a cement floor to illuminate my sneaker's rubber toe. The room around me seemed to shrink, cramped with shadows, its ceiling less than three feet tall. A network of rusty pipes lined a paint-spattered wall. Cobwebs clogged their upper corners.
My thoughts clarified. I was sitting in the crawl space of our house, that murky crevi ... read full excerpt from Mysterious Skin ebook
