XIV.
He is a creature of context. From skewed beginnings. He relives the foundation of other men. Meaning appears, later.
Apples would be enough. To eat them. To cut them. Sally Owner hands him red-skins. He rinses them in the sink. He questions himself. How long can he does this?
"Do it this way," she says. She corrects his movements. His endurance.
Washing apples in the sink. The window has a wood lattice. Pastel blue. The walls are cornflower. They are moist.
"What's the count dear," she says from another room. One hundred. Two hundred. He sells himself.
The sieve is blue. Plastic. Reflective. The faucet. Warm current drifts from the nozzle. His fingers. She opens the window at the height of dawn.
For his pleasure, she sets him to work.
"And now dearie?" She says from somewhere. There must be a thousand. They mash them into pulp. Encrust then in dough. They cook in the oven. He sells himself, his red-skin hands. His belief in her.
XV.
Unfinished building. Construction site. Wires laced between steel frames. Spotlights caste shadows. In dark corners. Used molds. Superfluous screws.
One open corridor. The spotlight on. He walks through the gate. He is a guest in a tiny room. Otis Shiver in his cardboard office. An industrial light centers a piano. A brown upright. Paper on its shoulders. Music on the stand.
Otis Shiver teaches him at midnight. Beneath incomplete steel. Skeleton housing. An imaginable foundation. He is gentle with his wisdom. He applies pressure. Otis lifts his fingers. He positions them in the correct place. The correct order. The correct sound.
The pedal is down.
"No pedal please," Otis says. He applies pressure. Corrects his movements.
A map with stolen countries. The overhead view. A ring in the air. A phone. Otis takes the call in another room.
He pounds the keys. The horrific sound that frightens the lights. Staccato. Jagged. Long. Then soft. Sustaining. Uncontrollable sound. He cannot contain what exists under his hands. Soft again. He hears footsteps.
"Sorry about that my boy. You know that damn architects can't sleep. Bad dreams about the building collapsing. They don't trust their own work."
"At the doorstep of creation, there is destruction."
"Something like that, now where were we?"
"Measure 58."
"Precisely! What was that racket a moment ago?"
XVI.
He does not worry. He frightens himself. Variation. Frightening variation. Endless possibilities that lead to an empty alley. Alone. Trash. Aluminum cans. Dumpster with rotten cheese. Shoelaces with no shoes.
His face is nothing like him. He does not believe in Fate. Maybe fate, but not Fate. Felix says Fate is a constant
"It is in its very nature, Absolute."
He chooses to leave. To act. To think. To plan. If he chooses death in a room, that is his Fate. If he drowns himself in a river, that is his Fate. Fate is mutable. It cannot stand against his actions.
Felix says Fate is a constant.
He changes the constant. By sleep. By meditation. He has a say. He creates destiny by action. Destiny is not real. The only real is the occurrence. The action.
YOU ARE READING
The Nameless Man
Short StoryAfter stumbling into a small village, a man finds it hard to leave when he encounters a woman and her daughter. As their intimacy grows over the years, it becomes clear that he'll have to choose who's heart to break or leave forever. In his quiet mo...
