He was three feet to the left of the driveway.

Dirt had settled into the crevices of his palms, connecting the purple maps of his prominent veins. Sweat was drying on the back of his neck, gluing his hair to his shirt collar. The sun was merciless, knifing through his pale skin and burning the sore, sinewy tissue beneath.

A handful of cotton flags was scattered across one foot. He was clutching the rest, bright fabric wilted and hanging like dead flowers on the wooden sticks. Half of the yard had been marked already. Which seemed like an accomplishment, considering the size of the yard. But as he looked across the endless unfurling of dry grass left, despair gnawed at his stomach.

How much longer would this continue?

“Eek the one over, right there.” His grandfather bent over his shoulder and poked him, fingernails sharp against his skin. “France is too close to America.”

Gideon bit his tongue. This was spring cleaning – or rather, spring rebuilding. Every season his grandfather had these flags taken down and put back up. Each represented a country – America, France, Great Britain, Australia. There were dozens of others, driven strategically into the ground around the mansion.

The strangest thing about them was not that they existed, but that they had no meaning. No purpose. They were arranged each spring with no visible intent. His grandfather called it “gardening”, but nothing good came out of it.

Except working. He was forced to work, which he liked. It kept his hands busy, his mind alert. Fingers dug deep into the ground, repeating the same task over and over – it helped him think. Spring helped him untangle his thoughts. And lately, there had been more than enough confusion inside of his mind. His emotions were mapped and strung and twisted, veins across his mind, pulsing with untapped irritation.

For every pole that twisted into the soil, he aired out a memory of Keane. Shouting. Fighting. Swearing. Gaining the upper hand. Bent over his girlfriend, hands cupped around her head of galaxy hair like he was trying to disguise its unnatural hue.

That. He couldn’t get rid of that. The elevator. Her eyes. The door, slamming shut in his face. It was a black hole, a gateway of dark and dangerous things.

“Gideon.” His grandfather kicked him lightly in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. He snorted out a breath of air and grabbed one of the flags. “Stop holding conversations in your head.”

Gideon rocked back on his heels, staring at his hands. At that earthen patchwork, holding his skin and bones and memories together. “I was thinking.” He murmured.

“Don’t hurt your brain!” His grandfather started cackling. “You and Keane and your girlfriends. When I was your age, I held conversations about philosophy. And math, and geography.”

He doubted this. When his grandfather talked about his childhood, it was usually to relay some adventurous exploit. Many – if not all – of which involved women. He had been talking philosophy, all right: is chastity in your religion?

“Keane has the girlfriend,” Gideon said. “He left the lawn to visit her.”

His grandfather didn’t seem to hear him. He stretched his arm out and plunged it forward, sinking Great Britain six inches deep in soil. “What did you think inspired this geography?” He continued, still snuffling. “Them discussions. You really think I could outline the world with your kind of thinking?”

No, Gideon thought, you could not. In the grand scheme of things, outlining the world was of lesser importance. Who cared about geography – all those cleans angles and lines? Reality was ragged, pieces of life that didn’t quite fit together. They didn’t teach you those things in school. You had to learn them, or you drowned.

Knowing reality, with all of its messy twists and turns, was a valuable asset. But sometimes drowning felt like the better option. After all, if he was indifferent, why did these tiny, inane, ridiculous things matter?

He looked down at the flags in his hands. At the rest of the yard, where a battlefield of colored cotton soldiers were encamped. Nothing felt quite real, in that moment. If he shifted the balance, it seemed that nothing would change.

Indifference meant not feeling wholly alive. Gideon felt strangely empty as he stood, throwing the last flags into the ground. A few snagged upon the grass and bent, quivering, at his feet. He was done with spring rebuilding. He was done with the whole business of clearing his mind, because when he reached for emotions, there was a sudden absence.

This emptiness smarted below his breastbone, gripping his chest. Funny how painful it was to feel drained – how instead of feeling thoughts or emotions, he was feeling everything else. The rapid pulse of his heart. The buzz of his blood through his veins. The even tempo of pounding above his brow. The sensation that if he was hit by something else, something human, it would trickle over his bones and right through him.

“You can’t touch my lawn again, boy.” His grandfather was squinting against the sun. He was furious, scrabbling for those scattered flags. He gathered them up like twigs in his bony hands and shook the bundle at Gideon. “You hear me? You can’t even walk on it. I told Keane, and I’m tellin’ you.”

“I don’t want to touch the lawn!” Gideon stepped back, heat rising to his cheeks. He tried to keep his voice in check. But he couldn’t. He was empty, but he was an angry kind of empty, the seething, boiling kind. “You can’t cross the globe through a lawn in Louisiana. Stop trying.”

“You shoulda left spring to me,” his grandfather said. “If I wanna map my lawn, I can map my lawn. I don’t need a teenager! All you boys are the same. All those girlfriends.”

Guilt flashed through him, a lightning strike that left him breathless. His grandfather was relentless, but he let him live in the attic, and drive the car, and contain Keane when necessary. He ignored the drunk stumblings and the pile of stolen library books, and fumbled about his business.

Indifferent. He was indifferent. All of this didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, really, except feeding his insatiable urge to turn and walk away. He climbed up the porch steps and passed through the yawning doors, entering his prison once again. The attic was flooded with weak sunlight, heat settling along the floor like a fog.

Gideon pulled the steps up and closed the door, locking himself in. He stood in front of the window and watched his grandfather throw his handful of flags across the lawn. The flags were left where they landed; a couple of oddities in a sea of organized chaos.