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NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN
HERE WE COME A-WANDERING
Matt met the moss man on Christmas Eve.
She was sitting on a stone bench in a pioneer cemetery, a wall of ivy-covered
brick at her back, and a brown paper bag full of past-their-expiration-date
cellophane-wrapped sandwiches beside her. The short cool daylight was fading,
mist breeding in the low spots and spreading. The damp in the air smelled like
winter, dead leaves, iced water, chill and no comfort. Matt was glad of her
thick olive-drab army jacket.
She liked the look of the old mossy gravestones, some tilted and some broken,
but all mute against the wet grass and vanishing distance. The people who had
come here to commune with the dead had all died, too; no fresh dreams troubled
the stillness. This was as close to nature as she liked to get, a tamed
wilderness only a short walk away from a town where she could go to find
warmth
and comfort after she had had her supper.
She unwrapped one of the sandwiches and sniffed it. Roast beef and yellow
cheese. It smelled fine. She took a sample bite, waited to see if her stomach
would tell her anything, and then ate the rest of the sandwich. The bread was
dry and the edges of the cheese hard, but it was better than a lot of other
things she had eaten.
Her stomach thanked her. She opened another sandwich, ham and swiss, tested
it,
and ate it.
She was sitting and feeling her own comfort when she noticed there was some
dreaming going on to her left, a quiet swirl of leafy images emerging from the
layers-thick ivy on the wall. She wondered if she were seeing the dream of a
plant. She had never seen a plant dream before. This seemed like a strange
time
to start seeing them. She turned to get a better look at the dream, and it
changed. The leaves wove together into green skin, the skin smoothed and
formed
a man, and then a man all green stepped away from the wall, shaking his head
slowly.
Some texture in the sound and smell of him told her he was no dream at all.
Matt grabbed the loose cellophane on the bench beside her and asked it if it
would cover the man's face if she threw it. It said yes. If he came at her . .
.
she touched the bench she was sitting on. It was too old and sleepy to
mobilize.
She put her feet on the ground and tensed to run.
The man blinked. His face looked like a mannequin's, no real expression, no
movement of the tiny muscles, a polished and unreal perfection to the
features.
He turned and stared at her.
"Who are you?" she asked after the silence had stretched.
"Edmund," he said.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing," he said.
"Nothing? Why'd you move if you don't want anything? You could have just
stayed
in the wall." She had never met anybody who wanted nothing. She wondered if he
were lying.
"It was time to move," he said. Something was happening to his skin in the
waning light, the green fading, leaving tan behind. His clothes and curly hair
stayed green. She hadn't noticed the clothes until the rest of him changed.
T-shirt, pants -- green, mossy even; bare arms and face, hands and feet. And
it
was freezing, but he didn't look as though he felt the cold.
"Want a sandwich?" she said.
He stretched and yawned. He came closer. She had thought his expression was
wooden, but now she saw it was more like ice, frozen . . . though thaw was
coming. He blinked. He finally smiled. It changed her image of him completely:
he looked friendly and almost goofy.
Still gripping the cellophane just in case, she scooted over, leaving room on
the bench. He sat down.
She peered into the brown paper bag. "Looks like I got a tuna and a
ham-and-cheese left. The tuna might be bad. Fish goes bad faster than cured
meat."
"I'll try the ham-and-cheese," he said. "Thanks."
She gave him the sandwich. He struggled with the cellophane for a minute. She
grabbed it back and unwrapped it for him. "How long you been part of a wall,
anyway?"
"I don't know," he said. "I wonder if my car will run." He bit the sandwich
and
chewed, abstracted, as though he were listening to his mouth. "Hmm."
"It's Christmas Eve," Matt said when he had finished the sandwich and sat
watching her, smiling faintly.
"Huh," he said. "Been a wall a couple months then, I guess. I'm not sure."
She peeked at his mental landscape. A forest clearing, with a single tree
rising
from the center, sunlight stroking one side of its trunk. Wind blew and the
tree
leaned into it as though its bark were skin, its core supple.
Not threatening, but not clear, either. "What were you doing in the wall?"
"Standing still."
"How come?"
"That's how the spirit moved me."
"Huh?"
He shrugged. "I just wander around until something tells me to act. I happened
to stop here a while back, and the wall spoke to me."
Matt felt a stir inside. She had been talking with human-made things for
years.
She'd never met someone else who talked with them.
"What did it say?"
"'Come here.'"
She glanced back at the wall under its cloak of ivy. --Did you say "come here"
to this guy?-- she asked it.
--Yes,-- said the wall.
--Why?--
--I wanted him.--
Nothing ever seemed to want Matt, though lots of things enjoyed meeting her,
and
most of them were nice to her. --Why?--
--He's a certain kind of brick. He's hot. He makes everything fit
better.--Matt
looked at Edmund. His eyebrows were up.
"You're a brick?" she said.
"A brick," he repeated, with a question in it.
"Wall says you're a brick. A hot brick."
"What?" He glanced at the wall. He reached out and placed his palm flat
against
it.
Seemed like he hadn't heard her conversation, then. Matt felt better. She had
been talking to everything for a long time without other human beings hearing
her. She wasn't sure how she would feel about being overheard.
His arm stained brick red.
--What's he doing?-- Matt asked the wall.
--Connecting,-- the wall said. --Are you talking to me?-- Its voice had
changed
slightly.
--Am I?-- Matt looked at Edmund. His mouth opened slightly, and his eyebrows
stayed up.
--Yes, -- said the wall. "Yes," said Edmund.
Matt swallowed. --This is so strange.
--Yes.
-Slowly he pulled his hand away from the wall. His skin faded to tan again.
He held his hand out to Matt. She stared at it without touching it.
"What do you want?" he asked her. "What do you need?"
"Me? I don't need anything," she said.
"I'm here for you."
"What?"
He dropped his hand to his thigh. "I follow as the spirit leads me," he said.
"It led me to you. Let me know when you figure out what you want."
"I take care of myself," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"I don't need anything else."
"All right."
"What do you want?" she asked him again.
He smiled wide. "Nothing," he said again. "Guess that makes us a match."
"I don't turn into a brick," said Matt, unnerved. She hadn't realized until
this
moment how much she valued being different and special, even if no one else
knew
just how special. She knew, and that had been enough, until now. She didn't
want
this man to be anything like her.
He said, "Would you like to be a brick? I like it. It's nice being a part of
something so solid."
"No." Matt shook her head. "No, no."
"Okay," he said. He pulled his legs up, bent knees against his chest, and
gripped his feet.
She watched him for a while. His feet and hands started to gray to match the
stone bench, and then the dark was too heavy for her to make out details.
"Uh," she said. "I'm going back to town now. Nice meeting you."
"I'll come with you."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Oh. All right. Thanks for the sandwich."
"You're welcome." She stood and walked away quickly, chasing mist whenever she
could.
She found a newspaper in a phone booth and scanned the page of church
services,
then picked an early one to go to. She liked churches on Christmas Eve, the
pageantry, the carols, the candles and greenery, the warmth, the smells of hot
wax and pine and incense and perfume and even mothballs from some of the fancy
clothes people wore. She liked the idea that a kid born in a cave could be
important.
She settled in a back pew and watched everything with interest. Children
thought
about presents, those opened and those still waiting, full of promises. Some
of
the grown-ups did too. Some people were thinking about the service, and some
were thinking about going to sleep. Some were remembering their dinners. Some
were worried because they hadn't finished wrapping things or they hadn't found
the right presents, and others were happy because they had done what they
could.
A woman in front of Matt kept thinking about washing a mountain of dishes. She
would sigh, and start the task in her mind again, go through it dish by dish,
each spoon and fork and knife, and sigh, and start again. Matt tuned her out
and
focused on a child who was watching the candles and listening to the singing
and
thinking about the words of the songs and making the flames go in and out of
focus, flames, flat disks of light, flames. A child in another place looked at
every scrap of red clothing, hoping to glimpse Santa Claus. A man cradled a
sleeping child. When he looked down at her he saw his arms full of golden
light.
Another child looked at the priest and saw angels behind him. Matt wondered if
maybe the angels were really there. They had beautiful smiles and kind eyes.
The church was full. It lived and breathed, a big organism full of different
cells and tissues, everything cooperating.
Matt kept an eye out for the moss man. What did he want from her? He wasn't a
normal human. She couldn't guess which way he'd jump.
She didn't see him again until she left the church. She was walking through a
quiet neighborhood talking to houses she passed, asking if any of them would
like some extra company tonight, and listening to their stories about the
festivities they had hosted, the lighted trees they held inside, the way their
humans had dressed them in jewelry of lights, when an old rest-blotched
station
wagon pulled up beside her, its engine surprisingly quiet considering its
exterior, and Edmund leaned along the seat and said out the rolled-down
passenger-side window, "Want a ride?"
"What?" she said.
"Want a ride?"
"No," she said, wondering if she should run.
He pulled the car over to the curb and turned off the engine. "Want company?"
he
said, climbing out. He had shoes and a coat on now.
--What's with this guy?-- she asked the car.
--He won't hurt you,-- the car said. Its voice was gentle and warm and somehow
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl audipoznan.keep.pl
NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN
HERE WE COME A-WANDERING
Matt met the moss man on Christmas Eve.
She was sitting on a stone bench in a pioneer cemetery, a wall of ivy-covered
brick at her back, and a brown paper bag full of past-their-expiration-date
cellophane-wrapped sandwiches beside her. The short cool daylight was fading,
mist breeding in the low spots and spreading. The damp in the air smelled like
winter, dead leaves, iced water, chill and no comfort. Matt was glad of her
thick olive-drab army jacket.
She liked the look of the old mossy gravestones, some tilted and some broken,
but all mute against the wet grass and vanishing distance. The people who had
come here to commune with the dead had all died, too; no fresh dreams troubled
the stillness. This was as close to nature as she liked to get, a tamed
wilderness only a short walk away from a town where she could go to find
warmth
and comfort after she had had her supper.
She unwrapped one of the sandwiches and sniffed it. Roast beef and yellow
cheese. It smelled fine. She took a sample bite, waited to see if her stomach
would tell her anything, and then ate the rest of the sandwich. The bread was
dry and the edges of the cheese hard, but it was better than a lot of other
things she had eaten.
Her stomach thanked her. She opened another sandwich, ham and swiss, tested
it,
and ate it.
She was sitting and feeling her own comfort when she noticed there was some
dreaming going on to her left, a quiet swirl of leafy images emerging from the
layers-thick ivy on the wall. She wondered if she were seeing the dream of a
plant. She had never seen a plant dream before. This seemed like a strange
time
to start seeing them. She turned to get a better look at the dream, and it
changed. The leaves wove together into green skin, the skin smoothed and
formed
a man, and then a man all green stepped away from the wall, shaking his head
slowly.
Some texture in the sound and smell of him told her he was no dream at all.
Matt grabbed the loose cellophane on the bench beside her and asked it if it
would cover the man's face if she threw it. It said yes. If he came at her . .
.
she touched the bench she was sitting on. It was too old and sleepy to
mobilize.
She put her feet on the ground and tensed to run.
The man blinked. His face looked like a mannequin's, no real expression, no
movement of the tiny muscles, a polished and unreal perfection to the
features.
He turned and stared at her.
"Who are you?" she asked after the silence had stretched.
"Edmund," he said.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing," he said.
"Nothing? Why'd you move if you don't want anything? You could have just
stayed
in the wall." She had never met anybody who wanted nothing. She wondered if he
were lying.
"It was time to move," he said. Something was happening to his skin in the
waning light, the green fading, leaving tan behind. His clothes and curly hair
stayed green. She hadn't noticed the clothes until the rest of him changed.
T-shirt, pants -- green, mossy even; bare arms and face, hands and feet. And
it
was freezing, but he didn't look as though he felt the cold.
"Want a sandwich?" she said.
He stretched and yawned. He came closer. She had thought his expression was
wooden, but now she saw it was more like ice, frozen . . . though thaw was
coming. He blinked. He finally smiled. It changed her image of him completely:
he looked friendly and almost goofy.
Still gripping the cellophane just in case, she scooted over, leaving room on
the bench. He sat down.
She peered into the brown paper bag. "Looks like I got a tuna and a
ham-and-cheese left. The tuna might be bad. Fish goes bad faster than cured
meat."
"I'll try the ham-and-cheese," he said. "Thanks."
She gave him the sandwich. He struggled with the cellophane for a minute. She
grabbed it back and unwrapped it for him. "How long you been part of a wall,
anyway?"
"I don't know," he said. "I wonder if my car will run." He bit the sandwich
and
chewed, abstracted, as though he were listening to his mouth. "Hmm."
"It's Christmas Eve," Matt said when he had finished the sandwich and sat
watching her, smiling faintly.
"Huh," he said. "Been a wall a couple months then, I guess. I'm not sure."
She peeked at his mental landscape. A forest clearing, with a single tree
rising
from the center, sunlight stroking one side of its trunk. Wind blew and the
tree
leaned into it as though its bark were skin, its core supple.
Not threatening, but not clear, either. "What were you doing in the wall?"
"Standing still."
"How come?"
"That's how the spirit moved me."
"Huh?"
He shrugged. "I just wander around until something tells me to act. I happened
to stop here a while back, and the wall spoke to me."
Matt felt a stir inside. She had been talking with human-made things for
years.
She'd never met someone else who talked with them.
"What did it say?"
"'Come here.'"
She glanced back at the wall under its cloak of ivy. --Did you say "come here"
to this guy?-- she asked it.
--Yes,-- said the wall.
--Why?--
--I wanted him.--
Nothing ever seemed to want Matt, though lots of things enjoyed meeting her,
and
most of them were nice to her. --Why?--
--He's a certain kind of brick. He's hot. He makes everything fit
better.--Matt
looked at Edmund. His eyebrows were up.
"You're a brick?" she said.
"A brick," he repeated, with a question in it.
"Wall says you're a brick. A hot brick."
"What?" He glanced at the wall. He reached out and placed his palm flat
against
it.
Seemed like he hadn't heard her conversation, then. Matt felt better. She had
been talking to everything for a long time without other human beings hearing
her. She wasn't sure how she would feel about being overheard.
His arm stained brick red.
--What's he doing?-- Matt asked the wall.
--Connecting,-- the wall said. --Are you talking to me?-- Its voice had
changed
slightly.
--Am I?-- Matt looked at Edmund. His mouth opened slightly, and his eyebrows
stayed up.
--Yes, -- said the wall. "Yes," said Edmund.
Matt swallowed. --This is so strange.
--Yes.
-Slowly he pulled his hand away from the wall. His skin faded to tan again.
He held his hand out to Matt. She stared at it without touching it.
"What do you want?" he asked her. "What do you need?"
"Me? I don't need anything," she said.
"I'm here for you."
"What?"
He dropped his hand to his thigh. "I follow as the spirit leads me," he said.
"It led me to you. Let me know when you figure out what you want."
"I take care of myself," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"I don't need anything else."
"All right."
"What do you want?" she asked him again.
He smiled wide. "Nothing," he said again. "Guess that makes us a match."
"I don't turn into a brick," said Matt, unnerved. She hadn't realized until
this
moment how much she valued being different and special, even if no one else
knew
just how special. She knew, and that had been enough, until now. She didn't
want
this man to be anything like her.
He said, "Would you like to be a brick? I like it. It's nice being a part of
something so solid."
"No." Matt shook her head. "No, no."
"Okay," he said. He pulled his legs up, bent knees against his chest, and
gripped his feet.
She watched him for a while. His feet and hands started to gray to match the
stone bench, and then the dark was too heavy for her to make out details.
"Uh," she said. "I'm going back to town now. Nice meeting you."
"I'll come with you."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Oh. All right. Thanks for the sandwich."
"You're welcome." She stood and walked away quickly, chasing mist whenever she
could.
She found a newspaper in a phone booth and scanned the page of church
services,
then picked an early one to go to. She liked churches on Christmas Eve, the
pageantry, the carols, the candles and greenery, the warmth, the smells of hot
wax and pine and incense and perfume and even mothballs from some of the fancy
clothes people wore. She liked the idea that a kid born in a cave could be
important.
She settled in a back pew and watched everything with interest. Children
thought
about presents, those opened and those still waiting, full of promises. Some
of
the grown-ups did too. Some people were thinking about the service, and some
were thinking about going to sleep. Some were remembering their dinners. Some
were worried because they hadn't finished wrapping things or they hadn't found
the right presents, and others were happy because they had done what they
could.
A woman in front of Matt kept thinking about washing a mountain of dishes. She
would sigh, and start the task in her mind again, go through it dish by dish,
each spoon and fork and knife, and sigh, and start again. Matt tuned her out
and
focused on a child who was watching the candles and listening to the singing
and
thinking about the words of the songs and making the flames go in and out of
focus, flames, flat disks of light, flames. A child in another place looked at
every scrap of red clothing, hoping to glimpse Santa Claus. A man cradled a
sleeping child. When he looked down at her he saw his arms full of golden
light.
Another child looked at the priest and saw angels behind him. Matt wondered if
maybe the angels were really there. They had beautiful smiles and kind eyes.
The church was full. It lived and breathed, a big organism full of different
cells and tissues, everything cooperating.
Matt kept an eye out for the moss man. What did he want from her? He wasn't a
normal human. She couldn't guess which way he'd jump.
She didn't see him again until she left the church. She was walking through a
quiet neighborhood talking to houses she passed, asking if any of them would
like some extra company tonight, and listening to their stories about the
festivities they had hosted, the lighted trees they held inside, the way their
humans had dressed them in jewelry of lights, when an old rest-blotched
station
wagon pulled up beside her, its engine surprisingly quiet considering its
exterior, and Edmund leaned along the seat and said out the rolled-down
passenger-side window, "Want a ride?"
"What?" she said.
"Want a ride?"
"No," she said, wondering if she should run.
He pulled the car over to the curb and turned off the engine. "Want company?"
he
said, climbing out. He had shoes and a coat on now.
--What's with this guy?-- she asked the car.
--He won't hurt you,-- the car said. Its voice was gentle and warm and somehow
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