Oliver Benjamin
one elderly lady demanded.
“I’ll pay yuh dubbah,” said her husband, his dentures coming
loose. “Makes muh feel yun’ again! Yesser-ee!” He tried to dance with
Sprout but his wife clobbered him with her purse.
When they opened the door the next morning, a small crowd had
already formed, eager to begin their day with the rare commodity.
“I don’t know. I just felt so good yesterday,” a businesswoman
was going on, “I felt like the world was giving me a hug. I couldn’t
explain it. It had to be the coffee.”
“Sorry, folks,” Roy apologized, “You’ll have to come back next
Monday. An express delivery will be coming in then. Don’t tell too
many people, though. It’s not that big of a shipment.”
Sprout lay back, exhausted on one of the gym’s white sofas, fell back
into Roy’s arms. He placed a kiss on her head like a tiny crown.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you too,” she replied, looking into his eyes and
smiling. He tried to keep her gaze, but she broke it. Desperate to close
the distance between them, he took her hand in his and kissed her
neck. It was like nuzzling a stuffed animal, soft but unresponsive.
“Something’s different,” Roy said.
“Everything’s different,” she replied.
“Look,” Roy offered, “We’ve suffered some losses. We can’t get
Martin back, but we can get Undergrounds again. We can make it like
it was, what we wanted it to be. I should have stayed in touch but I
just needed to cut myself off completely. I’m sorry I left you in the
lurch.”
Sprout stroked his hand. “It’s not that. I’m—we’re all very proud
of you. You did the right thing. You brought something divine down
to earth. But the thing is that now I’ve got to get my head out of the
sky too. I’ve got to find someone who will help me do that.”
Roy was overcome. Of course she had to. “Very well, then,” he
said, breathing deeply, “Marry me.”
Before she could reply or even react, Yak appeared and sat down
next to them. Roy’s awkward exhale startled them both.
“Analysis came back from the ashes,” Yak said, “The only thing
they could tell was that it had been a relatively large woman. There
was an above-average amount of calcium in the remains. Other than
that, nothing. Complex organic molecules can’t survive the
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