Oliver Benjamin
surrounding the two of them like satellites coalescing around a
nascent solar system. The circle grew outwards layer by layer, wax
upon gold, sheaves of living tissue growing outward from the center.
At some point she finally broke from Yak and the circle, and left to
administer refills. Then the system then slowly disintegrated.
Roy and Yak stood together with no hard feelings between them.
The big man had saved his life once. Roy was wondering if in some
way, in bringing him back to the world, he hadn’t managed to return
the favor.
“Oh, by the way— happy new year,” Roy said, smiling.
“Aren’t you early?” Yak replied.
“Not according to the Ethiopian calendar. This is also the day
they celebrate the feast of John the Baptist.”
Yak smiled, “What do they serve at the feast? His head on a
platter?”
Roy laughed and swirled the coffee in his cup and peered in. “You
know, that song Sprout was singing,” he said, “about the teapots. I
couldn’t remember where I heard it. But then, I wasn’t very well at
the time, was I? I mean, I’d nearly drowned.”
Sprout came up and decanted the heady infusion into their cups.
“Who wrote it?” Roy said, “It sounded like T.S. Eliot on Sesame
Street.”
Yak scratched at a beard that was no longer there.
“Who wrote what?” Sprout said.
“That song, the one you were singing. I knew I’d heard it before.
It’s some kind of lullaby.”
Sprout looked away as if trying to remember a face or a name.
“Someone wrote it for me,” she said, “When I was young. It was our
own private song.” She pursed her lips.
Roy could now see that she was no longer looking at them.
A grey and tired-looking old man slowly made his way across the
room to Sprout. As if obeying the laws of some unfathomable
emotional physics, the air between them grew increasingly heavy as
the distance between them diminished.
“Hello,” he said, a pair of syllables mixed together with crushed
gravel and molasses.
“Daddy,” she said. She drew her arms around his neck. “I’m so
happy you’re here. How did you…?”
“I saw you on television,” he said. “I went to see you at the jail,
but they’d already let you out.” He held her tightly. “How have you
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