from too much pressure. Straining the muscles of his eyes and wrinkling the skin of his forehead he pushed the tears down his cheeks and off his chin. Wiping his chin with the back of his hand, he screamed out loud, "Ineffectual."

He ran into the backyard not wanting to face his parents nor to repeat the daily routine.

Sitting down on the stone ledge in the garden, he thought of the delicious hours he savored between the time that he came home from school and when his parents returned from work. The dark days like this one spent at the window were his favorite. The sombre, heavy clouds hung close to the trees and brought a fine mist. Everything one touched seemed covered with a shroud of cold gray and it made Howey's brain swell. His body would relax and his mind would move to a dull darkness, a void. It was pleasant to be free of the incessant day-dreams and the fevered activity of his racing brain.

The bay window in the sitting room looked out onto the garden. Howey had sat in the window seat many times and looked out over the horizon of gray sky and black-green shrubbery. The gray and green reminded him of umbrellas and funerals.

Howey had always fancied his parents as dead. Looking out over the gray and green he pictured himself left alone in his house to come and go, to lounge as he chose. He often found himself anticipating the ringing of the telephone bearing sad news. His mother and father had been killed instantly. Was he the next of kin? He glumly wondered about the insurance money. Several times while he lay in bed he had heard his parents discussing insurance and retirement. Because of this he knew that his parents had made some provision for him should they leave him alone. In his quiet mind he slowly and darkly rehearsed the way in which he would act when the news came.

"Yes. I'm Howey Morton."

"No. I am quite able to manage alone, thank you."

"No. There is no need to send anyone here. I want to be alone.”

"Yes. Please mail the money directly to me. Thank you."

Howey would then leave his place in the window and drag to the full-length mirror in his parents' bedroom. In the semi-darkness, he would stretch his tall, slender frame and contort until his muscles ached. Piece by piece he would remove his clothes and observe himself in the mirror.

The half-light on his white naked body caused the blood to rush to his head. His limbs would be consumed with a heat that made him want to stretch and contort until his entire being convulsed to total reaction. He would fall upon the floor in exhaustion, but his mind would again begin its incessant racing and forming of images.

"Ineffectual," Howey, sitting on the ledge, said as he saw the lights go on in the

kitchen.

"Howey, dear. Are you out there?" his mother called from the kitchen.

“Yes, I'm out on the ledge," he murmured, his face averted as he observed the horizon of gray and green.

"What dear? I can't hear you. What are you doing out there?"

"I'm sitting out in the garden."

"Well, come on in now, dear. Your father and I are home. You shouldn't sit out in the mist like that. Do you want to catch your death?"

Howey dragged himself up,

"Okay. I'm coming," he said. As he walked up the steps and entered the kitchen his mother tousled his hair and kissed his cheek. She was happy to be home for the evening.

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