Intending to obtain entrance under the pretense of cultivating
friendship, what he really wanted to do now was contain her, for her
to contain him. If only he could rush forward, demolish the absurd
wall of circumstance that he felt kept them both from acknowledging
what felt increasingly obvious to him: that somehow they already
knew each other quite well.
“Yes?” she said.
But of course he could not do that, and so just stood there. Time
passed in thick draughts, choking in his throat. He swayed
imperceptibly. She began to knit her brow in worry. Or pity. Or fear.
Roy laugh a little, then shook his head in defeat. This absurd passion.
With practiced care, she reached out and took him by the hand.
She led him to her bed. The clean little room was lit all around with
Christmas lights and red paper lanterns. Strange soft a cappella
music played on her stereo and the scent of vanilla twirled around
them from a candle by her bedside. As he wept she cradled his head
in her lap, stroking his long, wet forehead. He held onto the back of
her knee as if it were the last dry plank on an otherwise sinking boat.
All at once, he was back with Ellie. And then further still: With
his father, and the mother he never knew. He was somewhere thinly
familiar. The fetid slime around him washed away and all the
continents of his life rushed slowly back together into a massive
Gondwanaland, a Lemuria rising. Waves of déjà vu poured up and
down Roy’s spine. He felt he was flipping through an album filled
with photos of his life taken by hidden photographers, and suddenly
all of it made sense. The air of the room was pregnant with oxygen
and warmth and he breathed it greedily like a castaway crawling back
upon the edge of land.
She enveloped him, and as her mouth closed around his, Roy
thought these two things: I’ve missed you, and Goodbye.
“I like you,” Sprout said. It could have come from anywhere in
the room.
2. Storm
It was Yak who answered the phone. Though he had never spoken
with the man, he knew immediately who it was. An angry storm god
grumbling on the horizon.
“Hello,” Yak said, “We’ve been waiting for your call.” The voice
ABYSSINIA
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