C23
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: Best Cellar

There is this high-pitched ringing in the house somewhere.

I think it's getting worse by the day,

and it must be really bad because
my hearing's gone to the point that even I'll admit it.
I used to just blame people for talking too quiet,
but I have to turn the TV damn-near all the way up to hear what anyone’s saying.
It could be a smoke alarm — the house could be on burning down maybe.
Haven't checked for that yet. Haven't really left the study much.
Reminds me of living alone, two lives ago.
Before the kid died and before Carrie altogether.

I emptied the pantry out and brought it all in here.
Got the handcart out and probably slipped a disc or two
trying to drag the little fridge in here.
All holed up in this empty room — it's got everything I could ever need, I think.
At least for the next week.

The desk has got bills from the Pre-ERA all over it,
with this antique word-processor at the bottom.
I always thought that this thing would make me want to write more,
that a tool could give me willpower. It isn't technically a typewriter.
It’s from when computers were still fetuses, and apparently this thing was just remarkable.
There's a little screen on it with big black pixels and a green backlight,
and a big blinking cursor a quarter-inch wide.
The clumsy clanking of the keys is about as soothing as a bed of nails.
But in a good way.
The thing was buried under a foot of bills and birthday cards and dust —
dead skin and hair sloughed off of Carrie and me and the kid
and whatever guests we've had over since we moved into this place.
Dust has its own sort of smell that you can only pick out when there’s too much of it.
Most of the time it’s the silent vowel of the whole word.
It's there and it enhances the rest somehow, but is little more than that.
But this room is all dust, with the exception of a few books and envelopes and boxes and me.

Thresher Charles