Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Bagel.


Louis Pound’s last bagel was a Magnuson’s Onion, toasted and spread with reduced-fat cream cheese. One half lay a few feet from his outstretched hand, underneath a stool, face down; the other half a few feet further away, leaning up against a carton of orange juice that was, like Louis Pound, leaking its contents onto the floor of the deli.

Beyond the twisted frame of the truck now bent into the front of Mr. Magnuson’s deli, Louis could see figures peering inside, shouting, running. He could hear Mr. Magnuson’s sister, Polly, groan from the other side of the counter.

He tried to turn his head. The room started to turn brighter and indistinct, so he stopped, and stared along his arm at his hand, now an unfamiliar color, pale, turning noticeably darker as he watched.

Where’s my phone? he thought. And then: There was going to be chili at the barbecue on Saturday. Dammit.

He listened to something dripping from the cab of the truck onto the tile.

At least I won’t have to call Angie, She’ll still probably be mad, though. It was weird, her so crazy about needlepoint. That’s odd, right? What kind of 28-year-old is crazy about needlepoint?

The peaks and curves of cream cheese on top of the bagel started to undulate and turn, like waves on the ocean. He stared into a tiny white sea, with a feeble grey light, shining, inexplicably, through the center of it.

From the back, he heard someone pound a door open, and figures scrambling inside.

I wish I could have had a chance to eat my bagel.

Well, someone’s coming, I think.

Someone’s coming.

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