The End

Part 1

Colt left his room and walked downstairs to where his mom was cooking dinner, and stopped to take a whiff of the odour in the air-spaghetti. Newstalk bounced off the walls as Colt went to the foyer.

"Dad, was there any mail today?" picking up a patterned stone and throwing fliers, notices and bills at the roll-top desk, its mouth gaping at him.

The TV answered back, "..senior correspondent Gail Edwards has more: 'Lisa, I'm here outside the Lincoln park entrance off Northparklington Road and witnesses here say...'"

"Dad..." throwing a water bill inside the roll-top's mouth.

Colt could hear boiling water and small quick synchronized taps from his mom cutting something in the kitchen. He crossed over to the living room entrance. His dad was standing with his back to Colt, too close to the TV, placing an odd glow around his silhouette.

"Colten," he heard from behind him. "Come here for a sec,"

Colt turned around and walked into the kitchen. His mom was orchestrating dinner and also had her back to him. Colt turned left at the dinning table and looked at the backyard through the stained glass window. The unwieldy multicoloured leaves were being tossed left and right, then held against the white-painted chain link fence that bordered their yard from the empty field that used to be an army reserve base. Cold buildings loomed upstream from the field, large seemingly random alpha numeric block letters pasted on them; their windows were either boarded up or had been broken into and shards of glass pointed more or less toward the centre of the windows.

"I've never been in there," a voice said behind him.

"What?" Colten said, turning around.

"The admissions building," she said, holding out a letter with the Johns Hopkins Seal.

Colten, almost leaping over the dinning table, jumped across the kitchen and pulled the envelope away from her. "Why didn't you tell me right away?" He said beaming.

"I wanted to open it up while we were all eating dinner," she said smiling.

"Ya, I don't think that's a good idea mom," he said grabbing a basket-ball from a nearby cabinet, and bouncing it on the kitchen floor while looking at the thick letter.

"OK, but let me know as soon as you do," she said, then abruptly, "Colten!"

"Sorry," he said, and put the basket-ball on the counter.

"Rick," she said loudly, as she was pouring the hot water and spaghetti in a strainer.

Colten peeked in the living room, the TV still newsing: "We was camping down there near the pond when these dudes came outta woods and started coming towards us. The didn't look right, so I told my wife, we better get going cuz these, uh, people don't look right. And that's when one of them got me right here. Flashing blue and red lights lit up the homeless man's neck, a large gash from ear to shoulder.

The interviewer under an umbrella: "And what did you do then, sir?" pointing the mic at him.

"Well, me and my wife managed to run back to the access road and cops was all over the place, telling us to get on the ground."

"Rick, please turn it off and come help me set the table," she pleaded from the kitchen.

"This is crazy," was the only thing his dad said, moving closer to the TV now.

Colten sat at the table and peeled open a magazine: A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. "I'm gonna open it at Maggie's tonight."