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Jan. 26th, 2017 12:38 amFurther down the hallway the doors stopped and murals began, pictures of some city far away in someone else's country and deep in their past, what looked like both sides of a major thoroughfare, the sidewalks and windows and signage and doorways of shops. Walkers in the mural - not passersby, as the only one passing was you - were rare and spaced near-regularly. You could tell from far off when you'd see one because instead of heads there were cylindrical inlet shelves with spherical smoked glass lamps in them, the dim and only lighting in that whole stretch of corridor. Traverse it enough you'd be tempted to give them names, ones befitting their colors, of which no two were much alike. You'd learn later that this was the portion beneath the actual street, that short stub of pavement, virtually a square, between the big library and the little Statehouse.
...
It was a sort of paste made with tuna and it really did pull blood out. The damnedest thing. He couldn't bring himself to ask them who'd hit on it and in what circumstances, given what they were doing. Someone must have had an evening nearly as horrible as this one.
...
She was a flirt but it had never been a flirtation. We shared both an interest and a problem: him. The operation was both in constant danger of going under and obviously, to those close in and with wits and eyes, a front for something riskier still. We couldn't ask or tell anything to the point, at least not there, but even then I think we were both probing for something under the guise of weather inquiries and wardrobe tips. It wasn't till the third afternoon in a row that she'd recited from memory the same involved recipe for whiskey cake but with just a few details changed that I realized she'd hit on a code. But I couldn't figure it out no matter how long I spent trying. That's when I asked for her number. It's not like they could stop us from dating, and wouldn't they prefer this to our pairing with outsiders? She must have known better than that but assented because she was dying to tell me by then. The real start of us, she told me, at least for her, was when she came over and found out I'd baked her the cake.
...
I liked how the rain looked on the window and I liked how it looked in the open air over the harbor. A latch and two steps and it was a different sort of world, and each did something distinct for me. One, it all seemed miles away or long ago, and like it were being contemplated from some space of exception - of wisdom, warmth and safety where nothing could ever be wet, one in every sense curtained. The other, out on the balcony, the air was cold and the drops were sharp and joined and clung but it moved, it was real, was the same thing in your lungs and your blood as it was on your cheek and away in the fog. Some baseline of life, a dirty oxygen. Despite the Gauguins the inside's was more like a tomb's. Given all that had happened that had its own special appeal.
...
She'd tried to kill her with a shovel, recall, but here the two were arm in arm. Their bracelets even clinked. I drank the whole rest of the milk carton to buy time to put something not fear in my eyes. They were smiling, though. One of them had told the other and now both knew. Maybe they'd told each other at the same time, I imagined idly while they advanced.
...
It was a curious commute and a lonely one. The strange injunction to never breathe while stepping made it verge on sinister, though you'd also learn at last that there was a reason for that: the fixtures were gas, and old, and the ventilation iffy. A single tugrope turned them all on at once, some millionaire's conceit no longer subject to the millionaire's upkeep. Everyone was terrified of leaks. One hiss, they said, run. You'd learn the most efficient pattern for that distance and purpose was one pace, then inhale, then one pace, then exhale. Mostly because that prevented counting and other sorts of overthinking, reliable disturbers of respiration. It didn't bear dwelling on during the doing. Much like the job itself.
...
It was a sort of paste made with tuna and it really did pull blood out. The damnedest thing. He couldn't bring himself to ask them who'd hit on it and in what circumstances, given what they were doing. Someone must have had an evening nearly as horrible as this one.
...
She was a flirt but it had never been a flirtation. We shared both an interest and a problem: him. The operation was both in constant danger of going under and obviously, to those close in and with wits and eyes, a front for something riskier still. We couldn't ask or tell anything to the point, at least not there, but even then I think we were both probing for something under the guise of weather inquiries and wardrobe tips. It wasn't till the third afternoon in a row that she'd recited from memory the same involved recipe for whiskey cake but with just a few details changed that I realized she'd hit on a code. But I couldn't figure it out no matter how long I spent trying. That's when I asked for her number. It's not like they could stop us from dating, and wouldn't they prefer this to our pairing with outsiders? She must have known better than that but assented because she was dying to tell me by then. The real start of us, she told me, at least for her, was when she came over and found out I'd baked her the cake.
...
I liked how the rain looked on the window and I liked how it looked in the open air over the harbor. A latch and two steps and it was a different sort of world, and each did something distinct for me. One, it all seemed miles away or long ago, and like it were being contemplated from some space of exception - of wisdom, warmth and safety where nothing could ever be wet, one in every sense curtained. The other, out on the balcony, the air was cold and the drops were sharp and joined and clung but it moved, it was real, was the same thing in your lungs and your blood as it was on your cheek and away in the fog. Some baseline of life, a dirty oxygen. Despite the Gauguins the inside's was more like a tomb's. Given all that had happened that had its own special appeal.
...
She'd tried to kill her with a shovel, recall, but here the two were arm in arm. Their bracelets even clinked. I drank the whole rest of the milk carton to buy time to put something not fear in my eyes. They were smiling, though. One of them had told the other and now both knew. Maybe they'd told each other at the same time, I imagined idly while they advanced.
...
It was a curious commute and a lonely one. The strange injunction to never breathe while stepping made it verge on sinister, though you'd also learn at last that there was a reason for that: the fixtures were gas, and old, and the ventilation iffy. A single tugrope turned them all on at once, some millionaire's conceit no longer subject to the millionaire's upkeep. Everyone was terrified of leaks. One hiss, they said, run. You'd learn the most efficient pattern for that distance and purpose was one pace, then inhale, then one pace, then exhale. Mostly because that prevented counting and other sorts of overthinking, reliable disturbers of respiration. It didn't bear dwelling on during the doing. Much like the job itself.
