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Kivi 3 Scene 5. January second. I'm home alone, sleeping on CharlieWindsong's pillow for the pleasure of his scent. He's out on night-training. I wake up suddenly. Terrified! Eyes wide open, heart racing. My God! It feels just like when mother died! I sit in the dark. Sparkling nothings, familiars from another time, hover at the edges of my sight. The horizon glows. The phone rings. I jump up, crash into a chair, fall, snatch the receiver from the floor. It's CharlieWindsong's wing commander. CharlieWindsong's plane has crashed and exploded. He's not in it-must have ejected-but they don't know where. I wait.
Hoping. Praying. Crying. At sunrise the phone rings again. A janitor has found CharlieWindsong's body, chute unopened, on the playground of a public school. Back in the hall, the three small doors open to three small bedrooms with a single window each. Awful. No air in there...but if the walls came down.... Climbing again, toward the dark third floor. A possum steps from a hole in the wall, hisses, makes stink, bares a set of random stubby teeth, and flops over dead. It reconsiders, jumps up, dashes between Kivi's legs, and runs downstairs. "Wahoo!" Kivi shouts after it. Third floor landing. Scanning two great arched doors by flashlight. Horn blowing cherubs-their gold leaf glowing dully through decades of dust-salute a world-creating, finger-pointing God. Push on a door. No response. Crouching now, leaning, using thighs. The door squeals open, viscous darkness pours out from an invisible space. Mirrored walls ricochet flashlight beams to an indigo dome that sparkles back from many points. What? Light bulbs? ... Yes, arranged like the constellations! There's Orion ... and Cassiopeia ... and the Seven Sisters! And the globe is the moon-mares and all! Really excited, Kivi flips switches though there's no electricity. Don't need a ballroom, but what a guestroom this would make! Back on the landing, Kivi puts a hand on the attic door knob. Starts to turn it. Stops to listen. Got to see that cupola ... it looks so great from the road. But, err, I dunno ... maybe a bit too busy in there. Think I'll wait for John on this one. Slowly going downstairs. Great, great place. But it needs so much-everything's decrepit: woodwork and flooring and walls. Wiring's chewed through, furnace is rusted, pump is dead, trash all over. But still, John will help ... and contractors could do what we can't. Sitting between floors, Kivi recalls the realtor's tale: "Old Judge Ugric," he'd said, "sure had terrible luck. Son of a Cossack, he left Murmansk-wherever that is-and a wife, to escape the Bolsheviks-whoever they were. "Remarried here ... some rich Italian woman who bought him a judgeship and gave him three kids. Lost one, a daughter, to TB, and the other two, both boys, to the D-day invasion. When his wife died a couple years later, he just gave up. Quit the bench and went reclusive with his cats. Weird cats, they say. Albinos-all of 'em-must have been inbreeders. "For years he had groceries, mostly cat food, dropped off at the gate every six weeks. Picked 'em up at night, grocer charged his bank. No one saw him except for some locals-kids then-who used to scare themselves by hiding and watching him walk his fields at night. They still tell spooky stories about him disappearing in the moonlight, leaving just his long white beard floating along, surrounded by swirling white cats. "Nobody knows just when he died, but when he stopped picking up his groceries, the grocer called the sheriff. Sheriff found his skeleton in the kitchen. Only that. Just a skeleton. That and a beard on the floor. No body. Meat all picked off by the cats, I guess. That's why they say it's haunted-like if the cats became what they ate. People sure do like to spice things up!" "What happened to the cats?" "Dunno. Oh, people still say they see one once in a while-bright white critters with blood-red eyes-but I've been out here a lot and I haven't seen any. I think they
probably all died. Probably too used to being fed. Downstairs, Kivi skips over some 'coon scat, walks over to the realtor, who struggles to his feet, and surprises herself by saying, "Let's talk price." * * * |
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Copyright© 2000, 2008 by George Simone or Monte Fowler All rights reserved. |
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