Read Online The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Madeleine E. Robins
Tags: Fiction
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the truth.
For the first time in two days, common sense overweighed obsession and the driving need inside him quieted. He could wait until morning. The city was within reach, a fact. It would guard his sleep as he guarded it. Shivering in the March wind, Tietjen settled himself against a stanchion of the Hudson Bridge, pulled his grimy topcoat close, and huddled down to dream and to wait for the light.
1
JIT woke, recalled from a very long distance, breaking through the surface; very tired. His eyes fluttered open and yellow light from stolen Park Service lanterns washed over him. He had been dreaming about the door.
Slowly Jit sat up, rolling his head, touching big ears to sharp bony shoulders, staring down at his legs, willing them to move too. His knees were so knobby they made his legs look like pipes. He swung his legs over the side of the old wooden bench and dragged himself standing. He felt empty. Not hungry—well, always hungry—but empty. Something happened, he thought dimly. He could not remember what it was, but something had happened. Had he done something? He reached out, listening for the others.
There was nothing there. For the first time he could remember, he was alone. It made him panicky, like a man in the dark who wakes and thinks he is blind.
He reached out again, fumbling, and finally found something, a nice squishy disorganized thing: the taste of dried grass, hungry hungry cold balance on the limb of this tree gray world. A squirrel. Jit rarely heard the animals in the Park; sounds of people were always too loud, drowning out animals, sometimes drowning out Jit himself. He listened to the squirrel for a minute or two, comforted by the creature’s small hungry warm thoughts. The silence wasn’t in him, after all: he could still hear.
But where were all the others?
Usually when Jit woke it was to a dull roar of thoughts, things. They were in his dreams, too, always there. Good, sometimes, but mostly bad things. When the thoughts got too loud, too bad, when he could not stand them anymore, he threw them behind the door, slammed the door shut on them, to make them go away.
He had been dreaming about the door. In his dreams the door had been flung open, burst its seams, and all the things, anger and fear and murderous feeling, years and years and years of things, had come flooding through him, pouring out the door and through him, and back at them. He shook his head tiredly.
Hungry. The squirrel’s hunger had quickened his own. Moving shakily on his stick legs, more awkward today than usual, Jit followed the tunnel to his kitchen. He was proud of the stove, which he had stolen from the cart of a hot-dog vendor who had been stabbed near the Park. The man had been hollow as an empty can, all the thoughts gone. Jit had lived high on hot dogs and rolls and sharp yellow mustard for a week. When he looked at the stove he could almost taste the hot dogs. Good memory. Now he lit the tiny lamp and looked over the small collection of cans and jars on his shelf. Soon he would have to make another raid on one of the food places. A good, scary thought.
He took a can of soup—he knew which foods went with which pictures—and opened it and put the can on the heat. The label around the can immediately lit and burned away to nothing as Jit watched. This quiet scared him. Even in the middle of the night he had never felt alone like this; there were the night people, the ones that walked in the Park, the ones that stalked the streets. Even sleepers’ thoughts had their own sound, the noise of dreams a white whisper against the dark noise of the night people. Jit did not know the words for these things but he recognized them. There were the good things and the bad things. Only now, there were no things at all.
A hot sizzle from the little stove brought him back from thinking: the soup was beginning to bubble in the can. Jit looked through the magpie collection of spoons on his shelf, picked one that was not
For the first time in two days, common sense overweighed obsession and the driving need inside him quieted. He could wait until morning. The city was within reach, a fact. It would guard his sleep as he guarded it. Shivering in the March wind, Tietjen settled himself against a stanchion of the Hudson Bridge, pulled his grimy topcoat close, and huddled down to dream and to wait for the light.
1
JIT woke, recalled from a very long distance, breaking through the surface; very tired. His eyes fluttered open and yellow light from stolen Park Service lanterns washed over him. He had been dreaming about the door.
Slowly Jit sat up, rolling his head, touching big ears to sharp bony shoulders, staring down at his legs, willing them to move too. His knees were so knobby they made his legs look like pipes. He swung his legs over the side of the old wooden bench and dragged himself standing. He felt empty. Not hungry—well, always hungry—but empty. Something happened, he thought dimly. He could not remember what it was, but something had happened. Had he done something? He reached out, listening for the others.
There was nothing there. For the first time he could remember, he was alone. It made him panicky, like a man in the dark who wakes and thinks he is blind.
He reached out again, fumbling, and finally found something, a nice squishy disorganized thing: the taste of dried grass, hungry hungry cold balance on the limb of this tree gray world. A squirrel. Jit rarely heard the animals in the Park; sounds of people were always too loud, drowning out animals, sometimes drowning out Jit himself. He listened to the squirrel for a minute or two, comforted by the creature’s small hungry warm thoughts. The silence wasn’t in him, after all: he could still hear.
But where were all the others?
Usually when Jit woke it was to a dull roar of thoughts, things. They were in his dreams, too, always there. Good, sometimes, but mostly bad things. When the thoughts got too loud, too bad, when he could not stand them anymore, he threw them behind the door, slammed the door shut on them, to make them go away.
He had been dreaming about the door. In his dreams the door had been flung open, burst its seams, and all the things, anger and fear and murderous feeling, years and years and years of things, had come flooding through him, pouring out the door and through him, and back at them. He shook his head tiredly.
Hungry. The squirrel’s hunger had quickened his own. Moving shakily on his stick legs, more awkward today than usual, Jit followed the tunnel to his kitchen. He was proud of the stove, which he had stolen from the cart of a hot-dog vendor who had been stabbed near the Park. The man had been hollow as an empty can, all the thoughts gone. Jit had lived high on hot dogs and rolls and sharp yellow mustard for a week. When he looked at the stove he could almost taste the hot dogs. Good memory. Now he lit the tiny lamp and looked over the small collection of cans and jars on his shelf. Soon he would have to make another raid on one of the food places. A good, scary thought.
He took a can of soup—he knew which foods went with which pictures—and opened it and put the can on the heat. The label around the can immediately lit and burned away to nothing as Jit watched. This quiet scared him. Even in the middle of the night he had never felt alone like this; there were the night people, the ones that walked in the Park, the ones that stalked the streets. Even sleepers’ thoughts had their own sound, the noise of dreams a white whisper against the dark noise of the night people. Jit did not know the words for these things but he recognized them. There were the good things and the bad things. Only now, there were no things at all.
A hot sizzle from the little stove brought him back from thinking: the soup was beginning to bubble in the can. Jit looked through the magpie collection of spoons on his shelf, picked one that was not
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