Dollhouse |slow updates|

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I uncap the little bottle of polish and pour it over my hands. Shiny green tentacles of nail polish wash over my skin and curl around into the tiny pockets and crevices of my skin. Slowly, I lift my hand; just one, and it slides off like a snake’s second coat. All that’s left is the varnish on my nails. I do the same to my other hand and look at them in satisfaction.  

While I undo the bow from my hair, a thin path of smoke drifts into the room. My Brother. He’ll be sitting at his desk, pursing his lips as he fulfills his addiction, the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling not being enough to mask the fog pouring from the cannabis.

Faint snores sound from the living room and I imagine my Mother; collapsed on the couch after drowning her sorrows in the fluid from the flask at her waist. Her lipstick’ll have faded completely, her lips no longer matching the crimson beret that she wears to cover the hairs that are out of place.

I walk out to the study to get a pair of scissors and see the window left open. A violent wind whips through it, and on the sturdy grandfather desk, the papers in a binder flutter through the air. A footprint adorns the windowsill and I blink.

Of course my father is out.

This family isn’t perfect- far from it- but when the time comes, we are.