Scareship_Issue8

see him... he leaves a five dollar bill. He has nothing smaller. “You
owe me some change, man.”
Where to go now? A midweek holiday, a city to play in, and
he stands for minutes, like one of those sculptures he’s read about,
normal-people-type statues: a woman sitting on a bench, a man
hailing a cab, that people sometimes took to be real, spoke to and
waited for an answer....
Where to go now?
He soon finds out (and it’s strangely amusing) that nothing’s
open. Well, he can fix that with a rock or a garbage can. The
thought seems to free him: he spreads his feet, puts a hand on his
hip, and looks at the world he owns now. Everything he wants is
his... and he was worried about five damned dollars?
Tommy walks for half a block looking in store windows,
crossing the street to look, then back. Food, books, eyeglasses,
clothes... anything he wants, blandly available.
What the hell happened here? Where has everybody gone?
And why hasn't it happened (whatever it is) to him? In some ways,
it's more frightening that whatever happened—hasn’t happened to
him. The feeling that he’s been spared, and the feeling that he's
been left behind, are tangled together and wound around him.
The echo of a childhood ritual comes to him: I am not worthy.
Worthy of what? This isn’t hell. New York crowded is more
hellish that New York empty. This is unsettling because it isn’t
what he is used to, and people, however they may crowd you in,
may please you or anger you... are part of what gives you purpose
in life. Not that his life has been gushing with purpose, but now...
What does he do? “Hell of a time to realize this,” he whispers to
himself, and then walks into the middle of the street and shouts,
“Hello!”
Nothing but echo, tall buildings and empty sky.
On holiday mornings, or late at night, he’s seen a street like
this sometimes, so empty that it doesn't even seem haunted. But
then a car glides by, graceful as a predator, or he looks up and sees
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