Basal Ganglia Read Free Page B

Their hearts pumped each other’s blood.
    When Ingrid was first introduced to Rollo’s bedroom fort, she intuited its importance. This was more than a structure that Rollo sought refuge in. This was a manifestation of all Rollo was. He had erected his own heart and invited her inside. The knowledge Rollo had dredged from life was directed here. Understanding the danger her presence in the fort might represent, she embraced Rollo and became another blanket in which he could hide. He turned in exploratory tumbles before swimming to her depths, where safety existed in untold abundance.
     
    …
     
    The intimacy of pre-sleep’s limbo exists in its vulnerability. It is fed by solitude and grows with exploration of the reflexive self. Rollo handed Ingrid an invitation to his personal space. Rollo did not need to explain himself to Ingrid. When light became dark, she was waiting at the fort’s core. He saddled up behind her and shuddered with the unknown. In their silence, he could hear the thud of another’s heart, the exhalation of gentle breath. The limbic screech of colliding thoughts. In this space Rollo knew his safety was tied to the beautiful creature pressed against him. Their future was bound. His cells were merging with hers.
    Each night, separate from any reality expected of them, the two would float through the pre-sleep limbo. They added further burrows to the bedroom fort and moved through them like blood through veins. Rollo became aware of Ingrid’s thoughts merging with his. He would voice thoughts originating in Ingrid that had not yet been spoken, believing them to be his own. Rollo understood Ingrid was now in possession of his thoughts too.
    Ingrid and Rollo. Start. End. Circular movements. Spun on the same spool and blending their threads into something stronger. Individual fears set aside for shared fear. The limbo pushed away everything unbound to them.
    School’s hateful mass continued to engorge and longed for a tangible manifestation of their disdain toward Rollo. He had not dwindled beneath them. He punished the mass by thriving in spite of them. A representative approached Rollo, blocking his movement, ensuring the mass would not be ignored. This collision startled Rollo. Who were these people and what was their business with him? The hands of another, shaking with physical violence, held him in place. How could such nameless hate exist? He motioned to move forward, the dreadful hands overwhelming him. These hands were not just owned by one hateful boy. They were owned by one seething, hateful mass. He was reminded of the hands that left him alone in the crib of his infancy. What right did uninvited hands have upon another person?
    Ingrid, ensnared by a different set of hateful hands, was pulled from Rollo’s side. Their thoughts telling the other to remain calm. She fought against the hands, but they possessed a strength she did not. Rollo turned to help Ingrid. Ingrid turned to help Rollo. Both turned away from helping themselves. One of the hands holding Rollo balled into a shaking fist and, with horrific efficiency, introduced the concept of deliberate pain to his body. Again. Again. Parts of his structure were breaking and voiding. Ingrid lunged toward the fist. Her lunge was truncated before she could help. Her body was pulled in the opposite direction, bleeding into the asphalt. A heavy foot pressed her in place while the wheezing pain of Rollo escaped him, too blunt to resonate.
    The mass had fed. Rollo was left to fall beside Ingrid. They writhed toward the other’s pain and found the sustenance of embrace. They both thought such terrible things. They both agreed on a course of action. It was the only future that had ever made sense. They had so much work to do and there was no one else capable of doing it. The world around them was a ferocious storm of endless danger.

 
Anatomy of the Fort
 
 
    On a logistical level, the development of the pillow fort is one of incalculable