The scent of vanilla air spray could not cloak the odor of cigarette smoke and fried food. The paneled walls, which undoubtedly had once been a faux wood grain, were painted pink. Across from a sunken couch, almost within arm’s reach of it, stood an enormous particleboard entertainment center that ate up most of the room. In the center of it, where a TV would sit, an aquarium more massive than any North had seen in a home, sat on display. The aquarium teemed with luminous, exotic fish that swam in circles, darted, and finned in place. Some appeared dead, their lips suctioned to the glass. A black light lit pink pebbles littered across the bottom, and illuminated the stripes of fish to a neon glow. North didn’t care for fish. He didn’t like fishing and he didn’t like to eat fish. Found their taste foul and flesh grotesque. Probably because he didn’t like water. He’d nearly drowned as a boy, the memory of which he now pushed down as it tried to rise. Where’s my focus gone?
