Ángel Torres Quesada: El ángel malo que surgió del sur

Apenas terminó de materializarse, gritó:

—¡Ya está bien, coño!

El estentóreo bramido repercutió en toda la sala de la lujosa mansión del Sr. Aprieto, que palideció y se quedó encogido en el sillón donde había estado dormitando, vencido por el cansancio y tantas horas de aburrida espera.

Sus ojos se abrieron a continuación como platos y bailotearon vertiginosamente, como si un centenar de chistularis ensayaran dentro de su cabeza aún aturdida, a todo ritmo, la zarabanda que debían interpretar en la plaza mayor del pueblo el día del patrón.

Quizá fueron las esencias de tantas mixturas pseudomágicas que ardían las que provocaron el trance en que se había sumido y del que la voz fuerte, de ultratumba, le sacó tan violentamente.

Con un temblor en sus piernas que a veces le hizo entrechocar las rodillas, se incorporó, realizando un gran esfuerzo para sobreponerse al miedo, la sorpresa, y sus deseos, sobre todo, de salir corriendo de allí. Pero algo en su interior le dijo que ya no podía volverse atrás. Tenía que enfrentarse a lo provocado.

Sacó pecho, hundió estómago y adelantó el mentón. Luego intentó mover una pierna y… todos sus propósitos se vinieron abajo: seguía con aquel miedo que le aplastaba los hombros. ¡Adelante!, se dijo. Echó una mirada al personaje que continuaba despotricando a un par de metros de sus narices. Aprieto tenía detrás la mesa de nogal que le aprisionaba en los riñones, pero que al mismo tiempo sostenía su precaria posición vertical. Aumentó su apoyo en ella, acomodando sus posaderas en el canto para apuntalar su cuerpo lleno de temblores.

Entonces la visita se revolvió hacia él, y le miró como se contempla una cucaracha antes de aplastarla.

—He dicho que ya está bien, coño —repitió el personaje—. ¿Es que no me ha oído?

¿Cómo no iba a oírle si hasta había hecho oscilar los sólidos muros de la señorial mansión de sus antepasados? El Sr. Aprieto aspiró profundamente. ¿Por qué tener miedo? Al fin y al cabo, el diablo estaba allí porque él lo había llamado. Además, mientras el ente diabólico permaneciera dentro de los signos cabalísticos nada podía temer. Allí estaba más seguro que en el penal de Ocaña.

Carraspeó y dijo:

—El diablo, supongo.

—Eso, y usted es Livingstone. ¿Quién voy a ser si no, joder?

—Es que como ha tardado tanto…

—Pues no pensaba acudir a la llamada, ea.

Aprieto le miró estupefacto, fijándose con más detenimiento. El aspecto del diablo no tenía nada de aterrador. Por el contrario, consideró ridícula e inadecuada su vestimenta, ya que en el exterior hacía fresco, un airecillo frío que se filtraba por las mal encajadas ventanas, por lo que él se llevó un buen rato antes de hacer la invocación, atizando el fuego que aún crepitaba con fuerza en la chimenea, con el exclusivo fin de proporcionar a la esperada visita el acogedor ambiente que merecía.

—¿Por qué ha dicho que no quería venir? —preguntó susurrante.

John Langan: Renfrew's Course

“So this is the wizard,” Neil said.

“Supposedly,” Jim said.

Six feet tall, the statue had been carved from wood that retained most of its whiteness, even though the date cut into its base read 2005, seven years ago. Jim thought the color might be due to its not having been finished—splinters stood out from the wood’s uneven surface—but didn’t know enough about carpentry to be certain.

“Looks kind of Gandalf,” Neil said.

He was right. The wide-brimmed hat, long beard, staff and robe, all suggested Tolkien’s character, an impression the squirrel at the figure’s left foot, fox behind its right, owl on its shoulder did little to argue.

“I know,” Jim said. “It’s like that statue of William Wallace—did I tell you about that? They wanted to put up a new statue of Wallace—somewhere out near Stirling, I think—so what did the artist come up with? Mel Gibson in Braveheart.”

“No wonder there’re so few Jews in Scotland.”

“Apparently, the real guy was much stranger.”

“Gibson? I know,” Neil said, starting up the hill towards the dirt path that would take them into the nature preserve.

“No, the wizard.” Once he had caught up to Neil and they were walking under the tall pine and oak, Jim continued, “In one story, the King of France was causing some kind of difficulty for the local merchants—an embargo, I think. Michael Renfrew mounted his iron horse and in a single bound crossed the distance from Kirkcaldy to Paris. When he showed up at the French palace, its doors flew open for him. The King’s guards found their swords red hot in their hands. Needless to say, Louis-the-whatever changed his mind, and quickly, at that.”

“An iron horse, huh?”

“Legend says you can still see its hoofprint on the cliff it leapt off.”

To their right, separated from them by dense rows of pine, a stone tower raised its crenellated head above the tree line. “See?” Jim said, pointing to it. “Over there—that’s Renfrew’s keep.”

Gonzalo Suárez: Cierta alteración en la hipótesis de H. Poincaré

La pequeñez humana es cosa probada. Los filósofos nos han hablado de ello.

No había ni un hombre, ni un animal, ni una planta, ni una piedra.

La superficie era blanca, dura y resbaladiza.

Me enviaron a mí, para que investigara.

Soy un hombre de pocas palabras, pero tampoco tuve ocasión de hablar con nadie. Hacía frío.

Mis primeras observaciones me llevaron a poder afirmar, sin temor a errar, que: no soplaba viento.

Fue fácil proseguir la encuesta, puesto que ningún obstáculo se interponía en mi camino. Me deslizaba sentado, manteniendo el equilibrio con las palmas de las manos.

No se trataba de un tobogán, y a uno y otro lado había espacios abiertos.

Me abstengo de describir sensaciones subjetivas.

Era como la luna, pero por dentro. O más bien una cascara de huevo. Producía vértigo mirar hacia arriba. Una gárgola monstruosa pendía sobre mi cabeza.

Un monstruo metálico y babeante. Escupió, y me aparté a tiempo.

Y casi caigo en el cráter de un volcán funcional.

Había agua, pero no vida.

Arthur Machen: The Turanians

The smoke of the tinkers' camp rose a thin pale-blue from the heart of the wood.
Mary had left her mother at work on "things," and had gone out with a pale and languid face into the hot afternoon. She had talked of walking across the fields to the Green, and of having a chat with the doctor's daughter, but she had taken the other path that crept down towards the hollow and the dark thickets of the wood.
After all, she had felt too lazy to rouse herself, to make the effort of conversation, and the sunlight scorched the path that was ruled straight from stile to stile across the brown August fields, and she could see, even from far away, how the white dust-clouds were smoking on the road by the Green. She hesitated, and at last went down under the far-spreading oak trees, by a winding way of grass that cooled her feet.
Her mother, who was very kind and good, used to talk to her sometimes on the evils of "exaggeration," on the necessity of avoiding phrases violently expressed, words of too fierce an energy. She remembered how she had run into the house a few days before and had called her mother to look at a rose in the garden that "burnt like a flame." Her mother had said the rose was very pretty, and a little later had hinted her doubts as to the wisdom of "such very strong expressions."
"I know, my dear Mary," she had said, "that in your case it isn't affectation. You really feel what you say, don't you? Yes; but is it nice to feel like that? Do you think that it's quite right, even?"
The mother had looked at the girl with a curious wistfulness, almost as if she would say something more, and sought for the fit words, but could not find them. And then she merely remarked:
"You haven't seen Alfred Moorhouse since the tennis party, have you? I must ask him to come next Tuesday; you like him?"
The daughter could not quite see the link between her fault of "exaggeration" and the charming young barrister, but her mother's warning recurred to her as she strayed down the shadowed path, and felt the long dark grass cool and refreshing about her feet. She would not have put this sensation into words, but she thought it was as though her ankles were gently, sweetly kissed as the rich grass touched them, and her mother would have said it was not right to think such things.
And what a delight there was in the colours all about her! It was as though she walked in a green cloud; the strong sunlight was filtered through the leaves, reflected from the grass, and made visible things—the tree-stems, the flowers, and her own hands—seem new, transformed into another likeness. She had walked by the woodpath over and over again, but to-day it had become full of mystery and hinting, and every turn brought a surprise.
To-day the mere sense of being alone under the trees was an acute secret joy, and as she went down deeper and the wood grew dark about her, she loosened her brown hair, and when the sun shone over the fallen tree she saw her hair was not brown, but bronze and golden, glowing on her pure white dress.
She stayed by the well in the rock, and dared to make the dark water her mirror, looking to right and left with shy glances and listening for the rustle of parted boughs, before she would match her gold with luminous ivory. She saw wonders in a glass as she leaned over the shadowed, mysterious pool, and smiled at the smiling nymph, whose lips parted as if to whisper secrets.

Alejandra Basualto: Rosas

Soñabas con rosas envueltas en papel de seda para tus aniversarios de boda, pero él jamás te las dio. Ahora te las lleva todos los domingos al panteón.

Michael Swanwick: Sleep of Reason

Midway in life's journey, a man who might have been Dante or might have been Goya himself (on this the record is not clear) went astray and found himself alone in a dark wood. Never saw he so drear, so rank, so arduous a wilderness! Alas for him that he was an artist, and susceptible to such influences. Alas for us all that he fell asleep!

The Noösphere is the ocean of thought within which we all live, dream, make love, and sometimes aspire. It is purified by reason. It is polluted by war and madness. And, like a river so badly polluted it catches fire, the Noösphere in times of war and madness can be a dangerous thing.

In a time of war and madness, the man who might well have been Goya fell asleep, and his dreams caught fire. They congealed and took form and entered the physical world. As cats and owls and bats and less wholesome creatures, winged, furred and fanged, they leaped into the night, and filled the skies with their keening presence.

One flew off with a child's jacket. Another swooped down and bit a hole in the lord mayor's ear. A third put on a uniform and led the French armies into Russia.

A thousand ills poured from the dreamer's troubled sleep. The Siege of Leningrad and the Trail of Tears. Andersonville and total warfare. The Paraguayan War, the Taiping Rebellion, the Bataan Death March. Pol Pot, Baba Yar, Jack the Ripper. Mercury poisoning, thalidomide babies, mustard gas and trench warfare. Lynchings. Black Thursday, Black Friday, Black 47. September Eleventh. The Rape of Nanking, the occupation of Tibet, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution. Stalin and Beria and the Soviet Terror and the relocations and the gulags. Krystalnacht, and then the camps: Chelmo, Majdanek, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Auschwitz, Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Maidenek — the names roll by like cattle cars in an endless train. The Jewish Holocaust, the Native American Holocaust, the Romani Holocaust, the Armenian Holocaust… Why go on?

Juan Perucho: El dorado

Surge a la superficie de los espejos, proveniente de las profundidades de la nada. Lo vio, con gran espanto, el hijo pequeño del marqués de la Mina cuando m peinaba para ir al colegio de nobles de Cordelles, recitando mentalmente la lección de matemáticas que el padre Tomás Cerda había dictado el día anterior. En llegando a la afirmación de que «Multiplicar una quantitat per una altra no es sino prendre aquesta quantitat tantes vegades com unitats hi ha en l'altra»1, vio al monstruo, que tenía un perfil inconcreto, flotando con campechanía en los espacios bruñidos e irreales del espejo. El niño se espantó, lloró desconsola damente, huyó de la habitación y se escondió debajo de la mesa del comedor. Tuvo que pasar mucho rato para apaciguarlo y, por fin, tranquilizarlo.

Por la tarde, el marqués convocó una junta científica para esclarecer el fenómeno. Asistieron Pedro Virgili, del Real Colegio de Cirugía y Antonio Palau Verdera, Martín d'Ardenya, Agustín Caselles y Francisco Salva Campillo, por la Academia de Ciencias Naturales, ahora elevada a «real» bajo la providencia del mismo marqués. Por último, y en representación de la de Buenas Letras, decana de las Academias barcelonesas, acudió el padre Mateo Aymerich, en virtud de su nueva vocación naturalista y no por su carácter de historiador, acreditado por su reciente episcopologio. Como invitado de honor, el famoso «abbé Desfontaines», colaborador de las Mémoires de Trévoux, que estaba en Barcelona de paso hacia Madrid, donde iba a ser huésped del padre Feijóo.

La junta científica observó al monstruo con meticulosidad y, sentados los académicos alrededor del espejo, después de prolijas deliberaciones respecto a la naturaleza, cualidad, posible especie del fenómeno, determinaron: 1) Que «aquello» no tenía consistencia física, y mal se podía hablar de una entidad real, sin límites tangibles y corpóreos; 2) que, siendo así, tampoco se podía afirmar la existencia en «aquello» de fluido vital, aunque se moviera y se desplazara ilusoriamente, yendo y viniendo de las entrañas del espejo; 3) que, en consecuencia, era unánime y vehemente la opinión de que se trataba de un espectro 0 de una imagen óptica, ajena al mundo físico, y 4) que, provisionalmente, aquel fenómeno de la naturaleza tenía un cierto parecido con los seres acuáticos, y que esta apariencia era reforzada por el hecho de que la ambulación fuese lenta y flotante, sin alas ni piernas y, por tanto, natatoria.

Se levantó acta de la reunión de la Junta con las conclusiones acordadas y se hizo constar que la conclusión cuarta había sido aprobada a propuesta del padre Aymerich, quien dejó deslumhrados a sus ilustres colegas por el conocimiento que poseía de las condiciones morales de los peces, fueran grandes o pequeños, sobre todo cuando, aprovechando la circunstancia de la conclusión cuarta, les leyó el siguiente fragmento, que casualmente llevaba en el bolsillo, de la Historia natural y geográfica del principado de Cataluña, que era la obra que actualmente escribía referente a los animales acuáticos y que acababa expresivamente de la siguiente forma: «Sin embargo del elogio muy cumplido de los pezes en lo moral y en lo physico, no les disimula una propiedad muy vergonzosa y reprehensible que es comerse unos a otros, y lo peor es que los grandes se comen a los pequeños. Si los pequeños se comiesen a los grandes, un solo Pez grande bastaría para muchos millares de los pequeños; pero, comiéndose los grandes a los pequeños, muchos millares de estos no bastan para saciar el hambre y llenar el buche de aquellos, y eso en lo moral y en lo physico tiene malísimas consequencias.»

Alfonso Castelao: Na noite da derradeira novena de difuntos

Na noite da derradeira novena de difuntos a eirexa estaba inzada de medos.

En cada vela escentilaba unha ánima e as ánimas que non cabían nas velas acesas acochábanse nos currunchos sombrizos e dende alí fitaban os rapaces e facíanlles carantoñas.

Cada luz que o sancristán mataba era unha ánima acesa que se desfacía en fíos de fume e todos sentíamo-lo bafo das ánimas en cada vela que morría.

Dende entón o cheiro da cera traime a lembranza dos medos daquela noite.

O abade cantaba o responso diante duha caixa chea de ósos e no intre de fina-lo “paternóster” daba comenzo o pranto.

Catro homes adiantábanse apartando mulleres enlouquecidas de door e cunha man erguían o ataúde e coa outra empuñaban unha facha.

A procesión tiña remate no osario do adro. Os catro homes levaban o ataúde pendurado a rentes do chan e a facha deitada pingando cera por riba dos ósos. Detrás seguía o enxamio de mulleres ceibando laídos abrouxadores, moito máis arrepiantes que os do pranto nun enterro de afogados. E se as mulleres carpían, os homes esbagullaban calados.

Naquela procesión todos tiñan por quen chorar e todos choraban.

E aínda choraba Baltasara, unha rapaza criada pola caridá de todos que aparecera dentro dun queipo, a carón dun cruceiro, que non tiña pai nin nai nin por quen chorar; mais ela foi collida polo andacio do pranto e tamén se desfacía carpindo con tódolos folgos.

Edward Frederic Benson: In the Tube

"It's a convention," said Anthony Carling cheerfully, "and not a very convincing one. Time, indeed! There's no such thing as Time really; it has no actual existence. Time is nothing more than an infinitesimal point in eternity, just as space is an infinitesimal point in infinity. At the most, Time is a sort of tunnel through which we are accustomed to believe that we are travelling.

"There's a roar in our ears and a darkness in our eyes which makes it seem real to us. But before we came into the tunnel we existed for ever in an infinite sunlight, and after we have got through it we shall exist in an infinite sunlight again. So why should we bother ourselves about the confusion and noise and darkness which only encompass us for a moment?"

For a firm-rooted believer in such immeasurable ideas as these, which he punctuated with brisk application of the poker to the brave sparkle and glow of the fire, Anthony has a very pleasant appreciation of the measurable and the finite, and nobody with whom I have acquaintance has so keen a zest for life and its enjoyments as he. He had given us this evening an admirable dinner, had passed round a port beyond praise, and had illuminated the jolly hours with the light of his infectious optimism. Now the small company had melted away, and I was left with him over the fire in his study. Outside the tattoo of wind-driven sleet was audible on the window-panes, over-scoring now and again the flap of the flames on the open hearth, and the thought of the chilly blasts and the snow-covered pavement in Brompton Square, across which, to skidding taxicabs, the last of his other guests had scurried, made my position, resident here till to-morrow morning, the more delicately delightful. Above all there was this stimulating and suggestive companion, who, whether he talked of the great abstractions which were so intensely real and practical to him, or of the very remarkable experiences which he had encountered among these conventions of time and space, was equally fascinating to the listener.

"I adore life," he said. "I find it the most entrancing plaything. It's a delightful game, and, as you know very well, the only conceivable way to play a game is to treat it extremely seriously. If you say to yourself, 'It's only a game,' you cease to take the slightest interest in it. You have to know that it's only a game, and behave as if it was the one object of existence. I should like it to go on for many years yet. But all the time one has to be living on the true plane as well, which is eternity and infinity. If you come to think of it, the one thing which the human mind cannot grasp is the finite, not the infinite, the temporary, not the eternal."

"That sounds rather paradoxical," said I.

Max Aub: Yo soy modisto

YO SOY MODISTO. No lo digo por halagarme, mi reputación está bien cimentada: soy el mejor modisto del país. Y aquella mujer, que se empañaba en que yo la vistiese, llegaba a su casa y hacía de su capa un sayo, dicho sea con absoluta propiedad. Sobre aquel traje verde se echó la echarpe de tul naranja de su conjunto gris del año pasado, y guantes color de rosa. Até disimuladamente el velo a la rueda del coche. El arranque hizo lo demás. ¡Que le echen la culpa al viento!

Pere Calders: Coses de la providència

I

Me'n recordo molt bé: feia dos anys que hom m'havia comunicat un augment de sou i era ben felic, tan felic que semblava menti da en una època com ara aquella.

Vaig llevar-me tard, i el primer gest de la jornada fou obrir de bat a bat la finestra de la meva cambra i donar una ullada al món, amb el profund convenciment que jo el dominava una mica i el judici clar que, tal cornerà, estava bé.

Em vaig posar la meva millor roba i em plau de dir que feia goig, emparant-me en el fet que en el temps que som la gent no estima la modèstia fingida. Pot afirmar-se que aquell dia estrenava bigoti, perquè després de la darrera afaitada havia pres forma i lluia amb personalitat.

No caldria dir-ho, però vai més deixar les coses ben establertes: feia un mati de sol i ens trobàvem poc més o menys en piena primavera. El carrer va guanyar amb la presència meva, i més d'una noia, en passar a prop meu, es girava per mirar-me el bigoti d'esquitllentes.

Em sentia poderós, clarivident, entenia una colla de coses que sempre havia trobat obscures i em sembla que, si és que els reis i els emperadors es veuen assistits d'un estat de gràcia especial en la comesa de llur ofici, deu èsser un estat com el que en aquell diumenge m'embellia la vi da.

Sóc minuciós en la descripció d'un moment espiritual tan notable perquè la gent es faci ben bé càrrec que jo no tenia cap preocupació, que em sentia ben normal a la meva manera i que res no feia preveure que m'hagués de passar la cosa realment extraordinària que va passar-me després. La vi da dona capgirells quan hom els espera menys, i això, per més que la filosofia ens ho vulgui fer entendre, ens sorprèn sempre.

No tenia pas ganes de perdre'm l'aire lliure aquell dia. Necessitava la tebior del sol i poder clavar els ulls ben lluny i veure forca gent i coses animades. Vaig anar-me'n cap al Pare, a passejar la meva glòria; és gairebé segur que encomanava als altres el meu engrescament, perquè les persones que em voltaven somreien, sense saber bé què els passava.

Fou un bon mati des de tots els punts de vista, que com moltes coses bones va passar de pressa. Las de veure Hors i claror de dia, content d'haver fet passador el captiveri d'alguna fera donant-li les llepolies que el cos li demanava, va arribar-me l'hora de dinar, i ni massa lent ni massa cuitós vaig anar-me'n cap a casa.

A l'escala vaig palpar-me la butxaca de les claus, amb l'instintiu gest quotidià. I vaig comprovar que no les duia. «Les has oblidades en el vestit de cada dia», vaig dir-me sense patir-hi gens, perquè comptava que la Irene, la serventa vella que tenia cura de mi, m'obriria.

Vaig trucar, i sabeu qui va obrir-me? Em va obrir un senyor de mitja edat, amb patilles, embolicat amb una bata ratllada de blau i de blanc com la que jo usava.

—Dispenseu—vaig dir—. Dec haver-me equivocat de pis.

—Aquí somal tercer pis, primera porta —respongué ell—. Se us ofereix quelcom?

El tercer pis, primera porta, d'aquella escala era casa meva. Per tant, si en mi no ni havia error, el qui s'errava era el senyor de mitja edat. A mes, mirant de cua d'ull, vaig veure que els mobles del rebedor eren els meus i que el paper de l'empaperat era el que havia escollit jo mateix en una ocasió no llunyana.

Vaig adoptar un posat sever:

—Qué hi feu, a «casa meva»? Que sou parent de la Irene potser? L'home va sorprendre's i em contesta amb bonhomia:

Edgar Allan Poe: Four Beasts in One: The Homo-Cameleopard

Chacun a ses vertus.
CRÉBILLON'S Xerxes.

ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up the sum total of his private life and reputation.

Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other countries, sixteen cities of that appellation, besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But ours is that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little village of Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman Empire, it was the ordinary station of the prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the emperors of the queen city (among whom may be mentioned, especially, Verus and Valens) spent here the greater part of their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes upon the town and neighboring country.

"What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally through the wilderness of buildings?"

Santiago Eximeno: Dormido

La mujer avanzaba entre la multitud, sosteniendo al niño entre sus brazos. Nadie prestaba atención, nadie le miraba. Hora punta, salida del trabajo, vuelta a casa; todos se refugiaban en sus propias preocupaciones. Al pasar a mi lado vi que la mujer lloraba.

Fue entonces cuando pensé que el niño no estaba dormido.

Harlan Ellison: He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes

A bad thing had happened. No, a “Bad Thing” had happened. A man in Fremont, Nebraska cheated an honest old lady, and no one seemed able to make him retract his deed to set things right. It went on helplessly for the old lady for more than forty years. Then, one day, she told a friend. Now I will tell you a story. Or a true anecdote. For those who wish this to be “a story I never wrote,” have at it; for those who choose to believe that I am recounting a Real Life Anecdote, I’m down with that, equally: your choice.

Once upon a time, not so long ago…

A man in an 8th floor apartment in New York City lay in his bed, asleep. The telephone beside him rang. It was a standard 20th Century instrument, not a hand-held device. It was very late at night, almost morning, but the sun had not yet risen over the decoupage skyline of Manhattan. The telephone rang again.

He reached across from under the sheet and picked up the phone. A deep male voice at the other end said, very slowly and distinctly, “Are you awake?”

“Huh?”

“Are you awake enough to hear me?”

“Whuh? Whozizz?”

“Are your bedroom windows open…or shut?”

“Whuh?”

“Look at the curtains!”

“Whuh…whaddaya…”

“Sit up and look at the curtains. Are they moving?”

“I…uh…”

“Look!”

The man’s three-room apartment was on an airshaft in mid-Manhattan. It was in the Fall, and cold. The windows in his bedroom were tightly closed to shutter out the noises from the lower apartments and the street below. The curtains were drawn. He slumped up slightly, and looked at the curtain nearest him. It was swaying slightly. There was no breeze.

He said nothing into the phone. Silence came across the wire to him. Dark silence.