surviving chance

I received him as a guest once. That was the night when he felt like
being a cliche and decided to knock on someone's door,
which turned out to be ours.
He asked me to take him in, so I did. Should've thought
it out before my whole family wrapped around him like a
bandage. I believed things would be interesting that first day when
I took him to my room and announced, This is my life, and slid some
of the torn magazines under the bed with my foot.
He looked around, cast an eye
on the books soldered to the desk and said,
This is enough, I guess. One thing
about him is, he did not like board games
and storybooks. Whenever I went
downstairs to read Cinderella to my youngest sister,
he went to the rooftop, put
on music so strange and angry that it breathed in a
life of its own, glowered at
passersby. The children in the house tiptoed
around our strange guest, gave him
food that he said he did not want.
We've got lots of time for that, he said, as
he stared at the beautiful girls coming down the road with pink
tank tops on. One night, I said something to him,
I think I mocked him, I don't really remember. He got
so angry his fists became waves
that appeared and hid underneath the floorplanks.
Next day, he was gone.
It has been
six years and we are all still here. We leave a light on for him but
now, there's only the slow, dry wind.