Michael Beeson's Research

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paltry festive tow

Paltry festive tow

HE WOKE AS THE GREY DAWN was creeping in through the curtainless windows. Marisabelle was still sleeping. He withdrew his left arm from under her without waking her. Then he got out of bed noiselessly. The windows looked out onto a garden. The early light revealed clumps of grey, denuded trees shrouded in mist against a background of damp tiles and dirty chimneys that appeared to protrude from a muddy sea of foam; the stark outlines of polished furniture, mirrors and fittings only emphasized the general gloom of the interior. Stretched out on the bed lay Marisabelle, her pale, mildly resplendent face framed by a mass of dishevelled hair. She knew, because she and your father were no longer intimate. Took the bus to my dad’s with a cake that kitchenless I, having packed up everything, got to bake and decorate in the realm of Saga Kaaber, Hei?ur’s mom. The cake didn’t endure the trip intact, but luckily Dad’s sight is very poor now. His roommate, however, gave the poor wretch of a battered cake a highly puzzled look. “What can I do to help?” Did you solve the mystery of life? he asks, smiling his beaming-wide boyish smile. That got me some grins and guffaws. He was now in the thick of the traffic. ‘Yes,’ I said, grateful to her for finishing the sentence. ‘Like who? There is no one. He has no one left. The hotel cleaners will find his body in the morning.’ Hickey had already lobbied the Minister for Bribes. Ray had concluded that diverting the Metro would be an expensive and time-consuming business but he saw no reason why it couldn’t be rolled out were enough money invested at the pre-planning stage. He cleared the architect out of the way and led me to the table. Displayed on a board like a wedding cake was the scale model of a modern urban residential and commercial development typical of and appropriate to, say, a downtown waterside location in an East Coast US city: eight towers of glass clustered in a crystalline formation. The tallest crystal was located at the most easterly point— the hotel, Hickey’s Pandora’s Box. I was on duty when J?i died. His family had been with him for his last few days and nights, but his mother happened to leave for a few moments. He was sleeping when I came to take his food tray. I put the tray on the cart, and when I turned back to his bed I saw that he was going. I rang his bell, pulled the curtain shut, and said to Herbert, a patient in the bed by the door: Go to the duty station and tell a doctor to come immediately. I looked into the brown eyes of my friend, for the last time, hugged him firmly, and whispered in his ear,My darling J?i, because I know that hearing is the last thing to go. He whispered something back, which I thought sounded like,Harpa and J?i. I thought I heard him laugh, but it must have been something else. He would be the first person I knew to have died laughing. When the doctor arrived, J?i was gone. I stopped hugging him, but continued to hold his hand, just in case. This was around the end of my shift. When I got home, I went to my room without saying anything to Edda, locked the door, and cried myself to sleep before dinner. It might be shameful to admit it, but my behavior wasmore out of self-pity for my own loss than J?i’s lost life, combined with jealous sorrow for not being dead like him. I walked out of the party room and he faffed about with the keys behind me.‘Don’t bother locking it,’ I muttered. The valuables had already been plundered. I dug my nails into my palms. Accept the things you cannot change, I silently coached myself. He joined me at the top of the driveway. Linda Love came up with a small band of directors. They said the right words but didn’t really mean them. A has-been actor was just that in their business. Neelo Brown shook my hand and kissed my cheek. He’d been an awkward adolescent — a virgin at eighteen. It was decided among his aunties that I would be the one to initiate him into the sexual life. I took him down to Ensenada for his birthday and came into his room after a night of dinner and trying to teach him how to dance. I did it to build his confidence but after that he was always a little in love with me. She opened the movable closet and said,“It’s pretty dark in here but I got a light panel in the trunk. Let’s plug in and get to work.” Is that you, Mom, or is this just an earthly perfume scent, from a bottle?.