Read Online List of the Lost by Morrissey - Free Book Online Page A

with grief. I loved your mother, too. But we need you …” His voice trailed away unconvincingly, knowing that Harri was neither listen-ing nor captive. The week worsened as weakly Harri sat alone at Ledger’s Bar. He is now slipping away, yet he has adjusted to the sensation of feeling worn, for there is not a single kind thought within him and he could accommodate no more of the inherently decent advice that spun his way from caring friends. Margo had been genuinely good, caring and accommodating without self-interest. Even though Harri didn’t actually know her very well, she had discreetly assisted as much as she could with the house, offering soothing aromas of wood crackling warmth and confidence and cooking that might renew Harri moment by moment, preventing him from sliding into further dramatic shock. Margo attempted to spruce and brighten the big icy blackness of the now deadly sealed rooms. Small touches here and there worked miracles: the warming smells of home cooking, quietly soothing classical radio, decency and empathy from the frame of this small woman who quietly replicated mother’s habits of lighted candles and neat bedding and laundered towels spelling out peace preserved and motivated only by love. As noble as Margo’s efforts were, she didn’t know Harri well enough to become a powerful authority in his life, and, although genial to the last, she could only manage some light housework. Margo had seen a body die and then had witnessed a spirit die, and the former was easier to deal with. Gallantly, she would fall asleep on a downstairs recliner so that Harri might sleep an untroubled sleep assured that the heart of a civilizing influence occupied the room below, and that he was not quite so adrift.
    Another night passed at Ledger’s Bar as a small, ageless figure ripe from the underground spoke cautiously to Harri. “I’ve got what you want,” it said.
    â€œYou … what?” asked Harri, looking down from his barstool.
    â€œHorse, snow, white sugar, brown sugar, aitch, Mexican mud, Chinese red … black Russian, blond Lebanese …” The little mud puppy squirreled on.
    There came a thoughtful pause as Harri examined this running dog, a twirl of a scag-trade pharmacy. “But do you have enough?” asked Harri, somehow done with it all. The toad of hell smiled a persuader’s smile as the rag-mop transaction took place, during which Harri caught a shadowed sight of the man’s face in the awkwardly dull lighting of Ledger’s Bar. Dummied and tight-lipped, the face was empty of meaning, yet the savage granite expression aroused a certain tension. What was it? The inscrutable glacial coldness of the mega-gnarly cave-dweller had brought to mind the snot-nosed wretch that the boys had left to the woods. But this could only be irrelevant coincidence – or, to the esoteric world, not coincidence at all. As if it were his life’s worth, Harri took care not to slip on the stairs as he climbed for the final time towards his childhood bedroom, a friendly room of trophies and teenboy artifacts that foolishly become souvenirs of scuzzed-up years. Harri slumped to the floor heavy-headed and heavy-hearted, striving to conclude the day with a certain patience and wisdom. He shall travel this path without the strength to cope with anything else, no longer likely to explode from this intensity, yet ready to fuse the physical with the spiritual and to accept that the next moment will be unlike any other. Life had become much too burdensome, and the repulsive vision of his mother’s cashed-in body and soul all alone under soil caused a brittle left-to-right cluster headache each time its flash-photography image tasered his brain. Here was a point of control whereby you are your own witness, and all that happens is made by you and does not need further clarification. Let the minutes spin as a tankard of vodka is clouded by a heavy