Miss drew the line. It was vertical and oddly straight. The shading from the pencil was thick, never wavering its size and she wished she could be in that line, or at least on the other side of it. These drawings were such personal endeavors. She wasn’t an artist, but she liked these projects, these experiments that required only one warm, hunched body. This time was different though because she had company. Mister was sitting across from her and he was drawing a house, she could see that clearly. Miss stopped herself because she was about to draw one as well and she thought it would be too strange if they both had the same ideas. She turned the paper ninety degrees and thought it might look like a ground of some sort. She colored it deeper, using small x’s to make it seem as heavy and as soft as soil. She started sketching beneath the grass, the secrets they were meant to draw, the things that people can’t seem to reveal. Her circles became a ballerina. Her tutu was lifting as she raised her thin, pale arms and her eyes were searching towards the top of the dark cave. Her toes were pointed at the invisible ground, and for a moment, Miss saw the ballerina’s feet moving from side to side so utterly gracefully. Then she moved her pencil to another corner of the paper and started to draw a young blonde woman sitting alone in a chair, staring at another chair that was empty, and she made sure her lips were thick and sad, and she made even surer that her eyes appeared green even though she only had a pencil to use. The vacant chair was wooden and seemed to be drowning itself into the bottom of the paper, and she had to stop at that.

She moved to a blanker corner and drew the last girl, her hair brushed over her face. She put a man behind her and he was smiling with his hand was on his forehead and his eyes were as small as pebbles. The girl had her arms forward, hanging down and there was a broken wine glass at her feet, shattered and scattered around her in a sort of ring, and her feet were bloodied, maybe from the wine, but it didn’t seem like it mattered much.

She moved to the last corner and drew a rodent, perfectly rotund and grey, with a piece of cheese in its little paws, and it was trying to share with another rodent, really offering it, but the other rodent had its paws up, eyes closed and nose lifted up, snuffing the cheese.

She felt finished. Time was almost up anyways, so she lifted her eyes over to Mister whose legs were wrapped around the chair and he was slouching, his nose nearly touching the table and she thought that his nose should turn black if it even slightly grazed the paper. The bell rang and he turned to her and asked her for her drawing. She gave it to him and took his. And she really did understand it. It wasn’t like he was a very complicated person, but the song that was playing was complicated, so she hoped that Mister would finally understand her.

He had drawn only the walls of the house. There was a brief feeling of disappointment. There weren’t even tunnels to go underneath through the basement and up the stairs. Each floor was filled with something different and elaborate. The bottom was obviously the darkest. It contained hundreds of needles and snow, and she knew it was snow because it was divvied up in these even thinner lines. The most frightening part was the cliffs. They were incredibly detailed, very far away from one another and they looked unsteady, easy to fall from. Lower than the cliffs were these shattered mirrors that were obviously thrown from one side. There was a shadow leaning down, seemingly looking at the glass, but the other cliff was lonely and bare. The first floor was slightly brighter, but still dark. It only contained people. There were more women than men, but his family must have been in there because there should always be family on the first floor or at least in the basement. She couldn’t find them though because technically, she hadn’t made it into the house officially. She looked at the attic, which was the lightest and contained books and words, simply letters and numbers like 927, which she knew was the birthday of his favorite lover. The strange thing about the attic was that there was no roof to it. So technically, the only way into the house was by climbing the walls or beating them down, which could potentially only ruin the house, and distance her from him. The hardest part was finding ways to latch the strings across the roofless house. The easiest way was to wait for supplies, hints of entrance, but that took time, and she knew that there were very few patient people in the world and that’s why the house was built and that’s why there was no door or windows or any way into the basement even though it would be the sweetest way to begin something. So she took his house, put it in her pocket, and tried her best to remain an understanding Miss.