There Is No Year - Blake Butler [57]
On the tile over the stove in black marker or grease there was a note: I AM WASHING. I AM TIRED. I WILL FIND YOU WHEN I CAN. LOOK DOWN.
The son looked down. The son could not see anything about the floor. His legs were wobbling a little. He couldn’t think of when he’d last eaten. Maybe several days. His stomach felt lined with ugly light. He turned to look at all the cabinets. He had no idea which one he should open.
In the first cabinet, the son found a long rack of enormous knives—beautiful, sharply made blades that showed his face back to his face. The knives were so huge—as tall as he was, with a book’s width to the blade—he knew he couldn’t take one, though he tried. The metal slithered hot against his body as he stuffed it down his shirt. It burned and fizzled at his chest flesh, becoming soldered. It hurt to rip it free. The aching son replaced the knife inside its holder and watched it look back at him and gleam.
Another cabinet was the size of a warehouse and was stocked with books from end to end. All the books were copies of the same book, rotting, stuffed so full there wasn’t room to move.
In another cabinet there was a replica of the son’s neighborhood complete with every window, every door. Unlike the others, the son could not pry the doors or windows on his own house open, nor could he see in through the glass. A tiny black gazebo sat in their house’s backyard beside the pool. A gazebo? Even smaller bugs were clustered to it, working at the roof. Some smoke rose from its gaps. The son touched the gazebo’s tip, felt an incision. He sucked his thumb and closed his eyes. When he looked again, there were people, many of them, small and teeming, crowded in like ants. They moved on small magnetic tracks set in the ground around his house and the gazebo, wanting in. They had eyes that opened and real hair. Some were shouting, so soft, a shiver purr. They would not see the son above. In other houses the people moved from room to room, at their own mirrors, eating air. From certain windows came a song. The son felt dizzy, dangled upside down. He chose one of the many people and broke the bind off and brought its body closer to his face. The little head was staring, saying something. The son squeezed the tiny body tight inside his palm. Tighter. Tighter. A little bubble. Rumbling. Pop.
That small sound echoed in the son’s ears: pop
pop
pop
pop
pop
POP!
The son looked up. Standing beside him there was a little man—scaly, pale, flat features—the man seemed very pleased. He had long arms and a longer mustache and he was dressed in a deep gray bellhop jumper with high-heeled boots, a black neck scarf, and, draped over his shoulders, a snakeskin jacket. He had the biggest teeth the son had ever seen. The teeth all looked like keys. The son was afraid at first that the man would bite. Instead the man got out a little chalkboard.
He wrote, traced in the old dust using his thumb: I HAVE NEVER BEEN OUT OF THE HOUSE.
He set the chalkboard down on the floor where, resting, the text changed: THIS HOUSE IS OUR HOUSE, YOURS AND MINE. The son did not see these newer words. He did not see the text change again.
The man laughed and clapped and splayed his hands—a blackjack dealer’s flourish, followed by sneezing. He went over to another cabinet and reached inside and got a tray. He went to the stove and opened pots and spooned things out onto many little plates, still sneezing, not covering his holes. The man didn’t say anything. He breathed hard. His spine looked ruined or crooked. When the tray was full—so much food, enough for several people—the man hoisted the tray onto his shoulders and pointed with his nose toward another cabinet door—a door shaped just like the son was—son-sized.
So, son? the small man intoned, key-teeth splaying, speaking with no tongue. He sneezed and winked. Shall we?