The Burning Water

10 - Puzzle Pieces

It was too late to get a taxi back to his apartment, so Jasper carried Likotsi, curled against his shoulder, with the boy inside his coat, ten blocks to the closest bus stop. It was bitter cold, but the little boy was warm and dozed lightly as they walked. Fortunately there was a storefront where they could wait, out of the wind, and a bus arrived after a half hour.

It was nearly empty, just a few tired-looking men on their way to or from a job. Jasper wondered how many of them would die before the virus was tamed. To avoid that kind of thought, he looked out the window at the sleeping city. A few neon signs glowed over retail stores and bars, and occasional headlights raked the street ahead of the bus. It was that time of night too late for partiers, yet too early for morning shift workers.

The bus passed one store with brightly lit windows and posed mannequins, and he was reminded of the Edward Hopper painting, Nighthawks. A man and woman sat at a restaurant counter, with another man nearby and a waiter behind the counter. He'd had a poster of it on his dorm room wall, attracted to the sense of loneliness and alienation it embodied.

That was how Jasper felt, riding on the near-empty bus with the little boy curled against him. Isolated from the rest of the world by the knowledge of the deadly virus which even now could be circulating in his bloodstream.

Likotsi stirred and smiled up at Jasper. Jasper smiled back. At least he could do this, he thought. He could take care of this sad orphan boy for as long as he was able to.

He carried Likotsi the last few blocks from the bus stop to his apartment, then ran a hot bath in the old-fashioned claw foot tub. The boy was so sweet, marveling at all the water, and Jasper wondered if he'd ever bathed in a tub before.

When Likotsi's ebony skin gleamed in the stark bathroom light, Jasper dried him with a threadbare towel. He gave the boy one of his old T-shirts to sleep in, and tucked him in. The boy insisted that Jasper stay with him, holding his hand, but within a few minutes Likotsi's grip was released and he was sound asleep.

Jasper went into the living room. He was too amped up to go to sleep right away, and he thought he'd troll the international news for information about the virus.

There was nothing.

He couldn't understand at first, until he realized that so far almost all the cases had taken place in North Korea, and news was very slow to filter out of there. He yawned. It had been a long, stressful evening. He stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes, and didn't wake until he felt Likotsi tugging at his sleeve.

He opened his eyes, confused for a moment. Why was he sleeping on the sofa? Who was this little black boy?

Thin pale light crept in from the window that faced the street, and Jasper sat up and yawned. "Are you hungry?" he asked Likotsi. He mimed eating, and the boy grinned eagerly.

How resilient Likotsi had to be, Jasper thought, after going through so much in his brief lifetime. Jasper got up, used the bathroom, then boiled water for oatmeal for both of them, adding raisins and sprinkling the bowl with cinnamon the way his mother had done.

After they finished eating, he called Wing's cell phone. The call went to voice mail, and Jasper left a message. He hoped that Wing was all right, that by some miracle the virus could not affect him. He liked the doctor, and up until the world intruded, he'd thought they might begin dating, building a friendship and perhaps a relationship.

He took a quick inventory of his own health. No headache, no sneezing or coughing. He felt his forehead and couldn't discern a fever. What had Wing told him about the incubation time for the virus? Twenty-four to forty-eight hours? It been less than a day since he first met Likotsi.