Don’t touch the railing, she was saying, like an older sister, which she probably was. The smaller girl, the one with pigtails, pulled her hand back but then reached out again on the second flight of stairs, out of habit.
Don’t touch the railing, she said. People touch that.
They danced a duel every night, just as the moon was glowing white. He dashed and jabbed and parried with decreasing might while his opponent sliced and whipped and fought him back. At length, they would lock into a fierce draw, blade to blade, until sleep at last overtook him.
The only telephone in the house was ringing. Up twenty stairs and three rooms down the west hallway lay Gloria, withered like the last fall leaf. Oh! she said from her deathbed. I hope they leave a message. She waited in silence after the beep, and she is waiting still.
He heard crying and arguing and singing and yelling and screaming. He saw hands and light and space and electricity in the air. He felt the pencil in his hand like a feather, the floor at his feet like glass, the hand of Lois like tissue paper. You okay, Clark?
Darby waited. His guts were on fire and his hands were damp but he kept smiling in the dark. The curtains stood like comforting pillars. Hello, he whispered into them, smelling the bitter dust there. He heard his name, applause, saw lights! The pillars fell and he began to tap.
Sal is fixing a flat tire. Heat is rising off the asphalt. Between bolts, he looks out over the red rocks and the dots of trees. He spits and the road is steep enough that his saliva runs away. It makes him thirsty but he just keeps turning the wrench.
There is a Kleenex box. It has blue and white flowers on it. Fine white tissue blooms from the top. The corners are worn down to the cardboard. The fold lines reveal imperfect human handling. It is not good or bad. It is not cheesy or cool. It just is.
Jan came to the city. She took pictures of the skyscrapers and faces in the crowds. She followed stray dogs and homeless people and the wandering drunks, telling their stories in frozen moments of time. They know this because they found her camera at the corner of 2nd and Main.
This ring is so broken.
How do you know?
I’m so mad right now. But it’s like blue right now.
Yeah but it’s a really dark blue. So maybe you’re sad?
Yeah maybe I’m sad.
Okay.
What’s wrong?
I’m just sad now.
Okay.
Mood rings are so awesome.
I know.
When Mr. White had gathered enough breaths and bravery to step out, a red tricycle was trembling under his front tire. Its tiny driver was leaning coolly against his hood, his pudgy hands clutching the leaping jaguar.
I didn’t see you there, said Mr. White.
Tell that to my mom.
She curtsied. From somewhere deep and dark came the violin sounds of stridulation.
I don’t dance, I said.
She taught me how to hold her hand up and her waist tight, and when she rested her chin on my shoulder I finally felt like the man she thought I was.
He was stealing apples from the Old Man again, filling the crook of his arm with those shining green globes. Only lately had he seen the Man watching from his little house window, a mustache framed in dim light.
Awful sorry, thought the Boy.
They’re for you, thought the Man.
When Kate opened the door to her house that night, a tide of wildflowers was ebbing at her feet and an acoustic version of “Creep” was drifting up from the basement. Karl wasn’t pulling at his tie so nervously this time.
She coughed sweetly. The answer is still no, Karl.
The screen was lit large and bright before them. She teased the ribbon from her curls and draped it with a feminine arm out the car window. Clearly, he couldn’t watch the movie. Instead he looked sidelong and watched the flicker of moving images painted on her smooth white face.