Leaving Home, Again

The way that the light switch clicked, plastic on plastic, as he switched it on was a comfort, even if the kitchen itself was dreadful.  He could see a few cockroaches in the shadows created by the table and the small indent at the base of the counter.  Tilting his head up, flickering light from the dust-covered light-bulbs assaulted his eyes with dull shades of orange.  It had been months of emptiness here, between when the last of the family moved away and when he had returned home.  It was his home, squeaking floorboards and bug-infested walls included.  

Stepping in, past the spider-web in the door frame, he came up to the refrigerator.  His hand brushed away the dust that covered the various magnets and papers that were a record of his and his brother's childhood.  Nobody had bothered to take it with them, maybe leaving it for him when, if, he came back, or more likely because the collage blended into the background as those things do.  All the rest of it was gone, packed up in boxes and driven away in a diaspora of his relatives.  The lights flickered once more, then quit, burned through wires that would rattle if you shook them.  Back to the half darkness, light shining in through the door behind him, but not much as the sun drifted lower.  He didn't need to see to know which photograph to pull out from under a magnet and stuff in his pocket, wedged between his wallet and the jeans.  

It was faded back before he had left, bleached from the sun that would shine in through the curtained window.  Three boys sitting on a pier, legs dangling down towards the water.  His brother holding a fish, sitting in the middle, grinning like it was five feet long instead of the eight inches it was.  On the left was the youngest, holding his fingers in rabbit ears, smirk plastered to his face, as it was most days.  He was staring up over the photographer, his father in the boat, up at the sky.  If he had asked his brothers, they would have said he was staring at a cloud, or lost in thought.  They wouldn't remember, wouldn't believe he had been watching it so long.  In the darkness, his fingers brushed lines of dust down the face of the refrigerator, traveling over the uneven surface with a hesitance.  Falling away in the gloom, to clench by his thigh, then pry themselves free to hang there, his fingers trembled slightly.  

Eyes closed, he turned and walked away, boots finding their way, surefooted around the creakiest boards as he strode towards the front door.  It was still half-open where he left it, and he slammed it shut as he exited, so it wouldn't jam half open.  Two steps over the porch, three down the stairs, ten to where his vehicle was parked on the dirt road.  He turned around, then, seeing less the old, wood pillars and the chipping red paint that covered the walls, more soaking in the years he had spent growing up there, the sounds of laughter, the smell of a warm, home-cooked dinner.  

When the moment passed, the sun had sunk low, almost eaten by the thick tree-line that surrounded the clearing.  He moved his hand to the door, typing in his five digit access code and then letting the cool air rush out over him.  Already humming to life, the ship's engines threw the dirt up in clouds around him before he managed to step inside.  The station would expect him back from personal leave in three hours, and the flight would take close to that if he started now.