Read Online The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier - Free Book Online

next morning that I started to feel sick. I remember going into the bathroom for a glass of water, but not much else after that.”
    Here she stopped for a moment, and the remembering tone fell out of her voice. “I guess that’s the whole story. I’m sorry. I just had to tell somebody.”
    “Can I ask you one question?” Luka said.
    “Ask.”
    “How long was it before you died?”
    “I don’t really know,” Minny answered. “My guess would be that I didn’t make it through to the night.”
    She was resting on her side, hunched and facing away from him. All this time her feet had been swaying in slow half circles beneath the blankets, one grazing on top of the other, like waves covering each other over on the beach. He felt as though he could listen to the rustling sound they made forever. Just before he fell asleep, he heard her mutter, “The dishes,” and the next thing he knew it was morning.
    Once more, the blind man was already awake. He was helping Minny in the kitchen, filling the coffeemaker as she plugged the toaster oven into the wall. The three of them ate a light breakfast of English muffins with strawberry jelly, and then they started off into the city.
    The streets seemed even emptier than before. Most of the trash—hamburger wrappers, ticket stubs, styrofoam cups—had been blown down to the river or collared inside the necks of various alleyways. The few pieces that remained were either too heavy or not aerodynamic enough to be lifted by the wind. A windup alarm clock. A rubber doorstop. A compact disc. They looked like part of some vast, citywide art installation:
Things We Left Along the Way
.
    A banner was flapping between two flagpoles on the side of a building, tightening and relaxing like a sail luffing in a gentle breeze, but on the pavement everything was perfectly still. Luka kept his eyes open for any sign of human activity. He matched his step to Minny’s. The blind man stayed a few paces ahead of them, running his hand along the walls and the windows, never stumbling as he stepped over the curb into the intersections of the empty streets.
    Luka planned to lead them back to his office before the day was out. He was afraid he had neglected to close his window. Whether or not they found anybody, he didn’t want to leave his equipment exposed to the rain. The mimeograph machine, in particular, barely worked on even the best of days: the crank often got stuck, or the drum fell loose, or the paper came through clotted with ink. He hated to imagine how it would operate with a few gallons of rainwater irrigating the machinery.
    They stopped for a few minutes at a small, enclosed park on the corner of Seventeenth and Margaret Streets, where they lined up on one of the wrought-iron benches to rest their legs. Minny took her shoes off and began rubbing the soles of her feet, massaging them with her thumbs and then with her knuckles. “This is what a lifetime of driving from the door to the mailbox will get you,” she complained. “Little-girl feet.”
    A pair of basketballs had drifted to a stop against the chain-link fence. Every so often a gust of wind would pass between them, and they would roll apart and come back together again with an oddly resonant thumping noise. Minny slipped her shoes back on, Luka tapped the blind man’s shoulder, and the three of them headed back out toward the conservatory.
    It was still early in the day when the blind man brought them up short, extending his left arm. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
    Luka hadn’t noticed anything. Neither had Minny.
    “It sounded like a gunshot,” the blind man said. “A few miles away.”
    He cocked his head and pointed. “There! There it was again!”
    All at once, and without another word, he struck off at a fast walk. Luka and Minny had no choice but to follow after him. He appeared to know exactly where he was going. He made a right onto Third Avenue, sheering around a car that was tilted up onto the sidewalk,