Read Online Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban - Free Book Online

you, said the yellow paper. And the story of you will come to an end this morning.
    I don’t care, said Redbeard.
    I’ll kill you, said the yellow paper. I mean it.
    Go ahead, said Redbeard. I don’t care.
    All right, said the yellow paper. To the river.
    Redbeard took a train to the river.
    Out, said the yellow paper. Up to the embankment.
    Redbeard got out, went up to the embankment, looked over the parapet. Low tide. Mud. The river withdrawn to its middle channel.
    Over the side, said the yellow paper.
    Low tide, said Redbeard.
    Over the side anyhow, said the yellow paper.
    Redbeard took all the yellow paper out of the carrier-bag, flung it out scattering wide, fluttering down to the low-tide mud.
    You, not me, yelled the paper. Gulls wheeled over it, rejected it.
    Redbeard shook his head, took a bottle of wine out of the other carrier-bag, retired to a bench, assumed a bearded-tramp-with-bottle pose.
    This was your last chance, said the paper lying on the mud. No more yellow paper for you.
    Redbeard nodded.
    What we might have done together! said the paper, its voice growing fainter.
    Redbeard shook his head, sighed, leaned back, drank wine.

Stretto
    ‘You’re doing marvellously well on the 2-Nup,’ said Dr Pink. Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna seemed as pleased as he was. ‘Diapason’s just about normal.’
    Here they were together, the curtains drawn around Kleinzeit’s bed, the rest of the world shut out. They’re all on my side really, thought Kleinzeit in his adventurous pyjama bottoms. They’re like a father and three brothers to me. He smiled gratefully, overcome with affection for Drs Pink, Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna. ‘What about the Shackleton-Planck results?’ he said.
    ‘Hypotenuse not being very cooperative, I’m afraid,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Hypotenuse obstinate, more skewed than ever.’ Fleshky and Potluck shook their heads at the futility of trying to reason with hypotenuse. Krishna shrugged as if he thought hypotenuse might be more skewed against than skewing.
    But you’ll talk to hypotenuse, won’t you, said Kleinzeit with his eyes. You’ll make him be nice.
    Snap, said Memory. You win another one: the bully with the ugly face who shook his fist at you every day and waited for you after school. Once you fought him but you gave up quickly. Here he is, not lost any more: Folger Bashan, yours again from now on. Folger grimaced, showed his yellow teeth, shook his fist, mouthed silently, I’ll get you after school.
    Thank you, said Kleinzeit. I am indeed rich in memories: my father’s funeral, the tomcat I killed, Folger Bashan. There was more, wasn’t there? Something, when was it? The day the fat man, the day M. T. Butts died.
    Don’t be greedy, said Memory. You weren’t meant to have that yet.
    ‘And of course,’ said Dr Pink, ‘with a hyperbolic asymptotic intersection your loss of pitch and the 12 per cent polarity are now accounted for.’ The faces of Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna showed that they were not surprised.
    ‘And the quanta,’ said Dr Pink. Kleinzeit now saw the quanta as a marching army of soldier ants consuming everything in their path. ‘Where you have asymptotic intersection you can be sure that quanta won’t be far off,’ said Dr Pink. More like those awful hunting dogs that ate wildebeeste alive, thought Kleinzeit. Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna took notes.
    ‘Yes,’ said Dr Pink. ‘Everything falls into place now, and the stretto blockage is to be expected. If it weren’t blocked at this stage I’d be surprised.’
    I may be a coward, thought Kleinzeit, but I’m a man after all and I can’t take this stretto business lying down. He made a feeble stand. ‘Nobody said anything about stretto before this,’ he said. What’s the use, he thought. I myself predicted stretto and I don’t even know where it is or what it does.
    No one bothered to answer. Out of common decency they turned away as one man from Kleinzeit’s funk.
    ‘Right, then,’ said Dr