Zero History

had opened, but would be unable to see what he was doing there. He entered his user
name and password.
And Winnie was there. Or had been. “Whr R U?” An hour ago.
“Still Paris. Need to talk.”
He refreshed the browser. No reply.
The girl in the cotton dress, having finished dusting, was looking at him. Reminding
him, as he found certain young people did, of one of those otherwise fairly realistic
Japanese cartoon characters, the ones with oversized Disney eyes. What was that about? It
seemed to be international, whatever it was, though not yet universal. This was the sort of
thing he’d gotten used to being able to ask Bigend about. Bigend actively encouraged this,
because, he said, he valued Milgrim’s questions. Milgrim had arrived from a decadelong
low-grade brownout, and was, according to Bigend, like someone stepping from a lost
space capsule. Smooth clay, awaiting the telltale imprint of a new century.
“It is the Mac Air?” the girl asked.
Milgrim had to check the branding, at the bottom of the screen. “Yes,” he said.
“It is very nice.”
“Thank you,” said Milgrim. Self-consciously, he carefully plunged the rod-and-ball
atop the tea press, forcing clear fluid through a surgical grade of white nylon mesh. He
poured some out, into the even more fragile-looking glass cup. Took a sip. Complexly
metallic. Not much like tea. Though perhaps in a good way. “Do you have croissants?”
“Non,” said the girl, “petites madeleines.”
“Please,” said Milgrim, gesturing to his white table.
Proust cookies. It was literally all he knew of Proust, though he’d once had to listen to
someone’s lengthy argument that Proust had either described madeleines incorrectly or
been describing something else entirely.
It was time for his medication. While the girl fetched his madeleines, from the rear of
the shop, he took the bubble-pack from his bag and popped the day’s ration of white
capsules through the foil at the back of their individual bubbles. Out of long habit, he
held them concealed in his palm. He’d replaced the bubble-pack by the time she returned,
his three cookies on a square white plate. One plain, one lightly drizzled with something
white, another with dark chocolate.
“Thank you,” he said. He dunked the plain one briefly in his tea, perhaps out of some
vague, Proust-related superstition, then quickly ate them all, as is. They were very good,
and the white-drizzled one was almond. Finished, he washed the capsules from Basel
down with white pear tea.
Then he remembered to refresh the browser again.
“R U there?” Two minutes ago.
“Yes. Sorry.”
Refresh.
“Ur phons nt secure”