Scareship_Issue8

He walks into the middle of the street and down to the corner.
Uptown? Downtown? The street stretches in both directions,
incredibly long, and so much shorter than days and weeks of this.
He decides to go west, then uptown to the Park. He hopes the
space there will be different, somehow calming: a landscape which
could have existed without people might not be as oppressive as
these buildings, this absence of urban song. And it is relaxing there
for a while, he’s always enjoyed it here, but he realizes after a
while that what’s missing from the enjoyment is watching people
reading or talking, children playing, dogs dragging their owners
across the grass. Not having this unravels the edges of his pleasure.
Here and there, he sees pigeons bobbing and wobbling near
benches, where they were probably fed. He wonders if pigeons are
so damned stupid that they could starve without people, and
figures they’ll be okay. But he thinks it would be good to bring
them food—maybe more for him than them. Purpose. Something
to do with an empty day.
He leaves the Park and goes down to the Library, realizing
that he hasn’t been there in years. He could wind up living there
now—shouting there, running down the aisles, who will tell him to
hush, behave himself or get out? He used to love to read. He hopes
he still does. And it turns out not to matter, since of course the
doors are closed, and he is hesitant about breaking the glass. Right
then, everybody will come back, and what will he say? Who would
believe him? Rod Serling, but he’d be too busy laughing his ass
off.
He heads uptown a few blocks to a bookstore he’s visited
occasionally, and out of patience with the city being closed,
nervous, achy, and furious, he picks up a garbage can and throws it
through the window. Bring the people, bring the cops. Please.
Nobody reappears, and he kicks the window clear of the glass
on one side (still nobody comes) and clambers inside. It’s one of
the chains, and there are rows of books, most of which he has no
interest in. Tommy isn’t nursing, he’s not Cooking for Company,
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