MAIN LINE by Alex Behm
Alex Behm MAIN LINE His voice is scratchy with sleep and a virus. I ask how he’s feeling. What’s wrong, my father interrupts through the phone. I’m just thinking, I say. Again. My father is in another state, trying to sleep, whereas I am in a dorm room with high ceilings and all of the lightbulbs blaring, even the desk lamp. I like to let the light in; my family lives in a river valley where I have never seen the sun set beyond those mountains that press us inward, nearer to the heart of what land is left. My father walks down a flight of carpeted stairs, and they crack under his weight. He doesn’t want to wake up my mother, my sister, my brother. I hear him flick the light switches in his office. It is full of filing cabinets and antique toys that he has collected, whiteboards … chop! chop! read more!