numbered Belaya accused Sol of abandoning them, which was not true at all at all. In a place called Bergen-Belsen.
From the shop, Sol was long gone.
Darkness had come on. The returned rain drumrolled in sudden loud then soft beats against the deadgray skylight to cause Sam to stop work as he closed up the back of the easy chair and stare upwards, mouth agape, at the ratattattat. Just look! Past the fixtures! The cascade made him feel like he was in the bottom of a pool under a waterfall. Mesmerized by the idea, unconsciously he held his breath. Is this what it's like to be trapped in a car underwater? There was something to do with the windows. Open them? Leave them closed? No matter that. If he could blast that drumhead he'd stand a good chance of being drowned. But not drowned dead. He just didn't have that kind of good luck. Probably just get washed right out the front door down to Bronx Park. If he really wanted to break out of this world he'd have to do some stupid thing that would damn his eternal soul to Hell. Doesn't count when you do it the hard way--go it a little bit every day--as he was. With that thought, he exhaled in one long, thin breath like the soft sough of an expiring aged beast resigned. He shook his head, which acknowledged the problem: Is this day yesterday? Or tomorrow? Today has that kind of similarity. Timespans were a samneness just as the ending neverending timpanic waterdrops of the passing storm. And April showers! Yes! Where are your flowers so late are they to come in the frost of my years? So fast goes the season? With good reason, mind you, especially for weedbarren soil. Like mine., Timecompression is a blessing to have done with it to save others the embarrassment of needing to note a markedly unremarkable long, drawn-out passing through this existence.
Now he had trouble filling his lungs. They were working on diminished capacity, insufficient to cause his collapse, enough to warn him of what he was missing. He lived as he breathed. Sol was very much on his mind. He thought now of Sol's parting words to him a few hours ago. It made him aware of just how serious the world could be. How the real world should be correctly viewed. It gave him perspective. More than anything else, like a laser beam going its hole through armor plate, or scorching a pin-head tumor in a brain, there was focus. Focus on his past. Focus on his present. Focus on his future. Sol's sad face, hands on the open door, leaving to go tend his Belaya, saying: --Sam! Dress yourself. Your zipper's open.
Swing low, Sweet Chariot. Coming for to carry me home...
Swing low, Sweet Chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Time. There was time. He would have to borrow a page from the playwright. Even the most novice knows in the third act comes the turning point, where the barricades he has erected for his characters are converted to bridges speeding the action from face-to-face conflict to the climax. Only Sam would have to switch his turning point to the second act of his life. There was time. He would make time, on this birth day. Numero three and zero! How to do it? He would change the usual, for one thing. By this time every day he had hunger pangs which would cause his hands to shake. Today, he wasn't hungry. He wasn't shaking. That was a start. Whatever caused it would be a momentary thing? Would he go on the rest of his life never feeling hungry again? Impossible, crazy impossible. Was he talking about change, or what?
Tat. He drove a Number Six Blue in the bottom of the chair, took two turns and a half-hitch with the nylon. Tat-n-tat drove the tack home, locking the thread. He cut free the curved needle, ending the job for the night. He'd put the cambric on the bottom in the morning.
So? Maybe he couldn't do anything about his appetite, but he could make a start to do things differently. Like what?
Like he could get laid for once in his life, and allow himself to concentrate on something else. He could go on out and
From the shop, Sol was long gone.
Darkness had come on. The returned rain drumrolled in sudden loud then soft beats against the deadgray skylight to cause Sam to stop work as he closed up the back of the easy chair and stare upwards, mouth agape, at the ratattattat. Just look! Past the fixtures! The cascade made him feel like he was in the bottom of a pool under a waterfall. Mesmerized by the idea, unconsciously he held his breath. Is this what it's like to be trapped in a car underwater? There was something to do with the windows. Open them? Leave them closed? No matter that. If he could blast that drumhead he'd stand a good chance of being drowned. But not drowned dead. He just didn't have that kind of good luck. Probably just get washed right out the front door down to Bronx Park. If he really wanted to break out of this world he'd have to do some stupid thing that would damn his eternal soul to Hell. Doesn't count when you do it the hard way--go it a little bit every day--as he was. With that thought, he exhaled in one long, thin breath like the soft sough of an expiring aged beast resigned. He shook his head, which acknowledged the problem: Is this day yesterday? Or tomorrow? Today has that kind of similarity. Timespans were a samneness just as the ending neverending timpanic waterdrops of the passing storm. And April showers! Yes! Where are your flowers so late are they to come in the frost of my years? So fast goes the season? With good reason, mind you, especially for weedbarren soil. Like mine., Timecompression is a blessing to have done with it to save others the embarrassment of needing to note a markedly unremarkable long, drawn-out passing through this existence.
Now he had trouble filling his lungs. They were working on diminished capacity, insufficient to cause his collapse, enough to warn him of what he was missing. He lived as he breathed. Sol was very much on his mind. He thought now of Sol's parting words to him a few hours ago. It made him aware of just how serious the world could be. How the real world should be correctly viewed. It gave him perspective. More than anything else, like a laser beam going its hole through armor plate, or scorching a pin-head tumor in a brain, there was focus. Focus on his past. Focus on his present. Focus on his future. Sol's sad face, hands on the open door, leaving to go tend his Belaya, saying: --Sam! Dress yourself. Your zipper's open.
Swing low, Sweet Chariot. Coming for to carry me home...
Swing low, Sweet Chariot, coming for to carry me home.
Time. There was time. He would have to borrow a page from the playwright. Even the most novice knows in the third act comes the turning point, where the barricades he has erected for his characters are converted to bridges speeding the action from face-to-face conflict to the climax. Only Sam would have to switch his turning point to the second act of his life. There was time. He would make time, on this birth day. Numero three and zero! How to do it? He would change the usual, for one thing. By this time every day he had hunger pangs which would cause his hands to shake. Today, he wasn't hungry. He wasn't shaking. That was a start. Whatever caused it would be a momentary thing? Would he go on the rest of his life never feeling hungry again? Impossible, crazy impossible. Was he talking about change, or what?
Tat. He drove a Number Six Blue in the bottom of the chair, took two turns and a half-hitch with the nylon. Tat-n-tat drove the tack home, locking the thread. He cut free the curved needle, ending the job for the night. He'd put the cambric on the bottom in the morning.
So? Maybe he couldn't do anything about his appetite, but he could make a start to do things differently. Like what?
Like he could get laid for once in his life, and allow himself to concentrate on something else. He could go on out and
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