Read Online This New and Poisonous Air by Adam McOmber - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adam McOmber
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories (Single Author), Alternative History, Collections & Anthologies
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night.”
“An event?” I said.
Frau Garrik took hold of her husband’s hand. “Your stableman,” she said, biting the tips off her words, “he shot our boy. Shot our beautiful boy in the head last night.”
The breakfast parlor began to dissolve. No parents. No careful tea. Only a rash of yellow on an otherwise empty canvas.
When I struck the floor, I was surprised, having always believed I would fall when I was with Amon. But there was no truth to this. I fell without him. My father gathered me in his arms, and I looked up into the sharp bristles of his mustache, the holes of his nostrils. He was himself a pit of some depth. “The stableman must have been having one of his fits,” he said quietly. “They’re known to cause dementia, though I certainly wasn’t aware of the extent to which he suffered. He’s been telling us all morning that he didn’t shoot a boy, didn’t shoot Amon. He says he shot a large bird or even a kind of dragon out of the sky.
Frau Garrik broke down in wrenching sobs, and Helmer Garrik began calling to me in his stony voice, asking if I understood why his son might have been on our property at midnight, or why he might have been mistaken for a dragon, of all things. My father didn’t allow me time to answer. Instead he carried me up the stairs, telling me I must rest.
I told him I couldn’t. I’d never rest after this, and he closed the door of my bedroom, taking a seat at the foot of my bed. My father looked like an old man in that moment, his silk vest stretched tightly across his paunch, the hair on the top of his head so fine it was nearly invisible in the morning light. He watched his hands as he spoke. “You cared for him, Roderick?”
“I did,” I said, unable to restrain myself. “Very much.”
He nodded, speaking slowly and with care. “In the war, there was a custom. We wrote letters to the dead. Placed them in the coffin near the hands so they might be opened, even in darkness. You’ll write a letter. Tell Amon how you felt. But you’ll tell no one else. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Herr Garrik wants me to bring you to the clinic for a stay. I don’t know that I can refuse him after what’s happened.”
I put my face in my father’s hands, felt his warmth, rested.
I’ve searched for some final passage from his professional journal to finish this, wanting to close with a sense of symmetry. But there are no further passages about flight, and my father certainly wrote nothing else about me. After the events of that day, he was careful to exclude me from his studies. I can almost feel my father next to me as I write this, or perhaps it’s that he is a part of me. The Garriks wouldn’t allow me to attend Amon’s funeral, and when I nearly went mad from this, my father told me what to do. I burned the letter I wrote to Amon Garrik on the hill among the yellow tulips where he first stepped into the air, and as the smoke of my words rose into the clear sky above, I imagined the bright animals with their tremendous faces, somehow reaching down and finding a way to accept those ashes as offering.
A Man of History
TO BECOME HIS BELOVED FRIEND, his minion, as it were; to stand at his side; wear the same flower; sleep in the same bed—all of this he wanted, and yet even before I took up rooms with him, I think Thomas Weymouth understood the impossibility of our union. Perhaps he’d even predicted our parting the moment we met; there was something in his expression at the gallery—a future sadness, a telescoping of years. I was freshly graduated, touring the British Museum in a ridiculous velvet jacket; my hair inspired perhaps by Rimbaud. I’d lost my friend Marie near Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks (one of her favorites—a work she said she could make a life inside of) and had wandered into another set of cold rooms where I attempted to analyze a Flemish portrait of Sir Philip the Good for the benefit of a complete stranger, an older man
“An event?” I said.
Frau Garrik took hold of her husband’s hand. “Your stableman,” she said, biting the tips off her words, “he shot our boy. Shot our beautiful boy in the head last night.”
The breakfast parlor began to dissolve. No parents. No careful tea. Only a rash of yellow on an otherwise empty canvas.
When I struck the floor, I was surprised, having always believed I would fall when I was with Amon. But there was no truth to this. I fell without him. My father gathered me in his arms, and I looked up into the sharp bristles of his mustache, the holes of his nostrils. He was himself a pit of some depth. “The stableman must have been having one of his fits,” he said quietly. “They’re known to cause dementia, though I certainly wasn’t aware of the extent to which he suffered. He’s been telling us all morning that he didn’t shoot a boy, didn’t shoot Amon. He says he shot a large bird or even a kind of dragon out of the sky.
Frau Garrik broke down in wrenching sobs, and Helmer Garrik began calling to me in his stony voice, asking if I understood why his son might have been on our property at midnight, or why he might have been mistaken for a dragon, of all things. My father didn’t allow me time to answer. Instead he carried me up the stairs, telling me I must rest.
I told him I couldn’t. I’d never rest after this, and he closed the door of my bedroom, taking a seat at the foot of my bed. My father looked like an old man in that moment, his silk vest stretched tightly across his paunch, the hair on the top of his head so fine it was nearly invisible in the morning light. He watched his hands as he spoke. “You cared for him, Roderick?”
“I did,” I said, unable to restrain myself. “Very much.”
He nodded, speaking slowly and with care. “In the war, there was a custom. We wrote letters to the dead. Placed them in the coffin near the hands so they might be opened, even in darkness. You’ll write a letter. Tell Amon how you felt. But you’ll tell no one else. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Herr Garrik wants me to bring you to the clinic for a stay. I don’t know that I can refuse him after what’s happened.”
I put my face in my father’s hands, felt his warmth, rested.
I’ve searched for some final passage from his professional journal to finish this, wanting to close with a sense of symmetry. But there are no further passages about flight, and my father certainly wrote nothing else about me. After the events of that day, he was careful to exclude me from his studies. I can almost feel my father next to me as I write this, or perhaps it’s that he is a part of me. The Garriks wouldn’t allow me to attend Amon’s funeral, and when I nearly went mad from this, my father told me what to do. I burned the letter I wrote to Amon Garrik on the hill among the yellow tulips where he first stepped into the air, and as the smoke of my words rose into the clear sky above, I imagined the bright animals with their tremendous faces, somehow reaching down and finding a way to accept those ashes as offering.
A Man of History
TO BECOME HIS BELOVED FRIEND, his minion, as it were; to stand at his side; wear the same flower; sleep in the same bed—all of this he wanted, and yet even before I took up rooms with him, I think Thomas Weymouth understood the impossibility of our union. Perhaps he’d even predicted our parting the moment we met; there was something in his expression at the gallery—a future sadness, a telescoping of years. I was freshly graduated, touring the British Museum in a ridiculous velvet jacket; my hair inspired perhaps by Rimbaud. I’d lost my friend Marie near Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks (one of her favorites—a work she said she could make a life inside of) and had wandered into another set of cold rooms where I attempted to analyze a Flemish portrait of Sir Philip the Good for the benefit of a complete stranger, an older man
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