I woke up on someone’s front lawn at twilight. The grass was long, thick, and itchy. I didn’t know where I was. It was another blackout.

The front door was painted purple with an orange porch light on and three purple steps. I hurried up the walkway to the porch steps and knocked on the door using a golden handle.

After I waited several seconds, who answered the door but my ex-girlfriend?

“You,” I said.

“You,” she said. She’d sounded angry to see me.

And I was stunned.

She looked the way she did when we were together, and that was sixteen years ago. My god. She rolled her eyes at me.

“I don’t know how I got here or where I am,” I said.

“You’re on Venus,” she said. “You look scared. Come in.”

She opened the door to let me in.

I sat on her couch in front of the television. A cartoon was on. A cougar was chasing a squirrel with a sledgehammer.

She slammed the door shut to her bedroom. Why did she let me in if she was so angry to see me?

Someone was washing dishes in a kitchen to my right. It was my mother. She scrubbed each dish with a wet sponge and minded her business.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked.

“Washing dishes,” she said. “What does it look like?”

A cowboy stepped out of another room to my left. He sat on the couch with me and smelled like mud.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Cleetus. I could shoot you.”

His six-shooter was packed in his holster. There was mud all over his pants and his boots. He watched the cartoon with me, but I really wasn’t paying attention to it.

Her door opened again. Out stepped a man who looked about ten years younger than me, somewhere in his thirties.

He stopped to shake my hand.

“I’m Josh,” he said.

“Ben,” I said.

“She told me all about you. Welcome to our house.”

I didn’t know what to say to him.

The cowboy crossed his legs and put his arm around me on the couch.

“I better get going,” Josh said.

He went out the front door. My mother kept doing dishes.

The cowboy got up and pulled his six-shooter from his holster and shot a hole in the TV.

Glass shattered everywhere.

After that, he left out the front door, too.

It was just me and my mother.

My ex-girlfriend came out of the bedroom with wet hair and a white bathroom towel around her body.

“Where did Josh go?” she asked.

“He left already,” I said. “So did the cowboy.”

“Oh,” she said. “What happened to the TV?”

“The cowboy shot it,” I said.

She rolled her eyes as if it were typical of him.

Another man stepped inside. He had a long nose, like Cyrano de Bergerac.

My ex stood up straight and stopped combing her hair. She said something to him in French, and he said something back in French. They began arguing in French.

I didn’t want to be in the middle of it, so I stood up from the couch and went to the kitchen.

My mother kept washing dishes at warp speed. She wasn’t even paying attention to me.

“How did you end up here?” I asked.

“I live here,” she said.

“At my ex-girlfriend’s house.”

“No, it’s my house.”

“Your house?” I said. “Where’s Dad?”

“Dead for seven years.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

I opened the fridge while my ex kept arguing with him in French and my mom was washing dishes.

There was nothing in there but milk cartons, I would say at least twenty of them. I took one and opened it because I was really thirsty. It was spoiled. I spit it out immediately, and the curdled milk was all across the tiled floor.

I needed water to kill the putrid aftertaste, so I ducked my head into the sink and drank from it.

The Frenchman left, and my ex slammed her door shut again. I sat back down on the couch with no TV to watch.

Mom kept doing the dishes. There had to be over five hundred of them by the way she was doing them so quickly. But where were they coming from?

The doorbell rang. I didn’t even notice there was one.

My mother wouldn’t stop to answer, and since my ex was in her bedroom, probably changing, I answered it for them. It was another man. He was shorter and fatter than the other two men before him.

“Hi, I’m Josh,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”

“Josh?” I said. “Didn’t we meet a few minutes ago.”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

I let him in.

He kept his hands in his khaki pockets and began to walk to her room. He tapped the door, being polite, and called her name.

I didn’t know what to say to anyone. I couldn’t remember last night.

A beagle came out of nowhere and rested its chin on me, asking me to feed him.

I had no food on me.

“Hey, Mom, do you have any food for this dog?” I said.

“No,” she said. “Ronnie will have to fend for himself.”

I guessed the beagle would have to go out and chase game.

So I opened the door for it, and it ran down the porch through the street, where there was a man on fire standing on the sidewalk waiting for something.

I’d seen enough of Venus.

My ex opened the door. She wore a pink prom dress. They held hands and began to walk to the couch. I remained there at the door.

“Do you happen to speak French?” I asked the short man.

He said, “Yes.”

I couldn’t believe it.

They sat on the couch and stared at the hole in the TV, not talking, their faces filled with boredom.

I stepped outside into the moonlight while my mother was still washing dishes, and hoped somewhere there was a 7-Eleven.