“No.”
She sat in orange streetlight and looked up into the mist of insects in the beam. She remembered how light used to pour from holes in clouds and how it never fell on her. But now…her turn…this. They leaned against the dirty brick wall of the old bar, which had not always been a bar; it used to be a tailor, and before that a pizza store (take-out only) and before that a bank and before that a bar again. Now its lights were permanently off, part of an isolation project of the city to sequester deteriorating locations before they became cancerous. They were alone for at least four blocks in each direction.
He studied a soda can as it was blown down the dark street and rolled into the waiting mouth of a sewer.
He dug into the olive drab sack and pulled out a black and white composition book, flipped a few pages, then pulled out five more books just like it.
“There. Hold on.”
Book 14, page 52, table 2, line 5, column 33: Book 33.
“Almost,” he said, diving back into the bag for Book 33.
She came with him on his observation nights in order to enjoy the almost-silence of the isolation corridor. He would sit patiently and watch the dead world around them, waiting for some mundane event or occurrence so he could document it and consult the tables. She would stare at storefronts and imagine fat kids tugging the skirts of their mothers on a summer day, shiny cars, the smell of real meat cooking.
“There,” he said, and she heard him hold his breath. He always held his breath after he finished tracing a long trail of events and coincidences. It had taken over 40 years of hermit-like seclusion to observe, compare, compile, consult, document. She turned to face him as he finished scrawling on a scrap of paper.
corridor/bar--->date?/June
He held the sheet of paper next to his watch. “Ready?” She didn’t answer; he knew she was.
“Three…two…....….now,” he breathed softly as he closed his eyes, and not a moment later a soft blue thread connected the street and sky, not 100 yards from where they sat, followed by a train wreck of sound sprinting down the street.
“Wow!” she said, feigning her excitement. His predictions were almost always correct, but the pragmatist in her was always disappointed by lack of application. She saw no purpose. They sat for a while longer before he packed his notebooks. He placed them in the bag, one at a time, like jewels, while he mulled over the idea of meaning. She watched his weathered hands and wondered if he was paying attention to the right coincidences.
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