Mortgage of Sight

The workshop is shrinking. The cedar-planked walls seem to crawl inward, inch by agonizing inch. The air is a thick soup of damp sawdust and the sour tang of ancient mildew, clogging your throat with every shallow breath. *Scrape... scrape... scrape.* The chisel’s rhythmic gnaw eats at the silence, fraying the nerves of the room. You stand rigid behind the heavy workbench, your body as stiff as a slab of ebony. Your fingertips brush the cold, waxy edge of the parchment, and the sensation sends a violent shiver up your spine. *This isn’t a contract; it’s a noose.* "Don’t stop sanding. The right corner is still rough." Your father’s voice, Silas, slithers out from the shadows like a viper. He cannot see you; his eyes are two milky orbs buried behind a fog of cataracts. Yet, he hears the very cadence of your breath. He senses the way you displace the heavy air around you. Your hand tremors. You try to mask the shaking by white-knuckling the wood. In your pocket, the crumpled letter you found this morning stings against your thigh. *Arthur never went abroad, Father... the letter says he never even left the city limits.* The words die in your throat, a bitter lump of bile that r…