The Impossibly by Laird Hunt Read Free Book Online

quickly. It was not a pleasant speed. And I have since found, on far too many occasions, the impromptu memory of that speed quite troubling. Once in fact I almost stumbled. At remembering. John, in his telling of it, told it as if we should have called the authorities or something but hadn’t, as if that was why it had meant anything to us. According to John, we just walked along next to it, and it kept skimming along near the wall, and we passed a lot of people, but no one else saw it, and we just kept walking along as far as we could, which was a long way, and then the current took it out into deeper waters, and we did not see or hear of it again. If you call that doing something, you can. I call it doing nothing. The doing part of the business occurred some weeks before the time of John’s story about the river and the body and the flowered skirt, and it was an accident. Entirely. At any rate, that’s how we planned, if it became necessary, to explain it to the boss. I did not know what I thought I was going to do. I mean, just after she had said, oh fuck, and the oh fuck was unpleasantly repeating itself in my head, and I was moving toward her too quickly, out of nervousness and slight embarrassment at my outburst at Deau, and also the fact that maybe the whole story about the soup and the man and the cottage—not just part of it—had not been true, but mostly just the general nervousness, not suspicion, and then I had arrived in front of her. Hi, you have five seconds to explain yourself. Hi, I thought you were out walking with Deau. I was. And you’re back so soon. What were you doing in my stuff? Nothing. What the fuck were you doing? But then it turned out to be about a present she had been hoping to hide in my bag, a present which she, once I had taken a step away from her, immediately showed me. It was supposed to be a surprise, she said. What is it? I said. She was holding her hand out, cupped, with her fingers curled and pressed tightly together, as if to hold a small quantity of liquid. What does it look like it is? she said. I told her I was having trouble making it out. She held her hand out a little closer. I kind of leaned over. Don’t get too close, she said. I said maybe if I tried another angle. The other angle didn’t help. Well then I’d have to say it looks like nothing—is it nothing? No. What is it? She smiled. She said hold out your hand. I held out my hand. She said, here. I said, thanks, but here what? She smiled then went over and sat down on the bed. I held my hand up to the light. It’s not nothing is what you’re saying? I said holding my hand out just so, and moving it back and forth under the light. That’s right, she said. And I’m holding it? You are. Well, how about that. It’s beautiful, said John, later, when I showed it to him. It’s exquisite, agreed Deau. Can I put it in my pocket? I asked her, earlier again. She nodded. I put it in my pocket and said, look, I have to apologize—I just called your friend Deau a big fat bitch. I then went out and told John that I had called Deau a big fat bitch. Oh well, he said. I really should have told him about what I had done in the small city on the coast. That would have helped—John was always good at helping. But we were in the country and it was fairly pleasant, and there was still a chance for it to be extremely pleasant, I thought. So I didn’t. Dumb. And then the next day we left. Back to the city. At breakfast the next morning, she told us she was ready to leave. So we left. But other things happened before that. One of those things was that I apologized to Deau. No problem, she said. I’ve just been a little nervous, I said. In general, as a matter of fact, I find you, and especially in your current transitive / intransitive state, to be very pleasant. Hearing this pleased her, I told myself. Look at what she gave me, I said. It’s exquisite, said Deau. It is, isn’t it? I said. At any rate, she went away smiling. So