Turn by David Podlipny

his head up abruptly. “That didn’t help at all.”
    “Hmm…I’ll try again. Because our sight is not absolute, the objects we observe can’t be absolute either. Nothing is. Not even emptiness is empty.” Edgar shrugged his shoulders. “Empty of what? But that doesn’t necessarily mean that one is wrong and the other is right. No. Who’s to say? It’s all relative.”
    Sono pried open his eyes with his fingers and then stared rabidly at his grandpa. “It’s all relative? You could go on forever like that; it’s all relative. That’s the most fatalistic answer ever. But it doesn’t work—all right, maybe for you, because you’ve spent your entire life cooped up under that topsy-turvy hair.”
    “And you haven’t?”
    He removed his fingers keeping his eyes dry. “No, I live over there, in the city.” Sono pointed with a rigid index finger toward the horizon. “Look; society. Civilization. That’s where I wash and comb this impressive crown. You’ve imprisoned yourself, Grandpa...”
    Edgar wrinkled his already creased chin further by manhandling his bottom lip.
    “Where do you think all of that is? The people, the buildings.”
    “Where it is?”
    Edgar made a broad sweep with his hand. “All of this. Where is it?”
    “Like coordinates? I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Where are we now?”
    “We’re here. Just outside your home, which I won’t call by its rightful name…” Sono slowly mouthed the words leprosy fields .
    “It’s all created in your head. It’s all inside; all of it. You create the concrete in your head. But the inside is not really the inside, that’s the kicker.”
    Though Sono for once comprehended his ramblings rather lucidly, or at least that the word concrete didn’t allude to the jagged landscape, he still felt drawn toward it. He caught himself staring at the concrete pieces with a taut frown and floating cheeks.
    As novel thoughts by the dozen overtook his mind, his uninviting expression loosened with every new blink.
    “All right. The bottom line is, I’m the romantic fool, because that’s what you’re saying, right? And you? You’re the genius recluse?”
    “It wasn’t meant as an affront. Not at all.” Edgar shook his head emphatically. “Did I in any way plant her inside your head?”
    “Well, you’re a lot sneakier than you give yourself credit for grandpa...a lot sneakier. You’re probably working an angle right now.”
    “You’re being unwisely paranoid Sono. You know…” A faint twitch scurried across the top of his grandpa’s cheek. “I gotta go.”
    “Go where? Inside?” Sono asked listlessly, watching him rise. Very hesitantly, Edgar brought himself to his feet, and then kneaded his unbalanced midsection with both hands. After making a quick peace sign, he started off toward his home.
    “Come on, where are you going? You can’t sweep this under the rug…you don’t have one!”
    Noticing that his route would not bring him to the arched entryway, Sono realized the peace sign’s actual meaning. His legs were kept unusually tight, stiffening his stride. The peace sign was actually the number two.
    “Are you serious? Peace my ass! Great timing...”
    “Always pick up when nature calls!”
    With Sono’s eyes attached like a squashed bug to his flip-flops, Edgar picked up the pace and hobbled hastily behind the dome he called home, out of his sight.
    The toilet was no more than a hole in the ground behind his home, a seemingly bottomless one, since he’d not once during all the years he’d lived there cleaned it, nor had it ever overflowed; or so he claimed at least. Sono didn’t like to use it, partly because it felt like he was on display. Even if he defecated into an aged plastic box lined with a garbage bag, whose disposal was far more graphic than what his grandpa had set up, he was used to the confines of a bathroom, often with his flashlight as only companion. The vast eye of the concrete unnerved him. If Edgar would