Idiopathy. Sam Byers

‘How goes it?’

      He held out his hand to Nathan, who shook it.

      ‘OK,’ said Nathan. ‘Fine.’

      ‘Great,’ said Nathan’s father.

      ‘Well,’ said Nathan’s mother.

      They stood in an approximately equilateral triangle and each somehow angled themselves so as to face the emptiness between the other two. Nathan’s father put his hands in the pockets of his yachting jacket. Nathan rubbed his beard. Nathan’s mother performed a sort of smile that in order to be complete would have required machinery her face simply did not possess. Nathan debated a cigarette and thought maybe no. Nathan’s father slid an iPhone in a protective pleather pouch from his Velcro-sealed pocket and stroked the screen.