The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories by Jonathan Carroll Read Free Book Online

door.
    “Yes?”
    “Scott, I got something here. Can you come out and look?”
    I liked Beenie and admired her courage, but was it necessary to disturb me in the middle of work to see if we wanted an old tennis racquet? I made a face and went to the door. “Yes, Beenie, what is it?”
    She held a cardboard box the colour of oatmeal. Wrapped around it was a piece of brown rawhide. Written across the top in large block letters was THE KING OF TOMORROW. I hadn’t seen the box in twenty years, but didn’t need to open it to know what was inside.
    When I was a graduate student, besides my course work, I was required to teach a class in Freshman Composition. It was a pleasant chore, and—because I was young, idealistic, and full of energy—I taught it well.
    One of the students in there was a serious young woman named Annette Taugwalder. She was smart and talented and wanted more than anything else in the world to be a writer. Annette cared so much about literature that she often read class assignments twice. I liked her, but was put off by her intensity. I loved books, too, but got the impression she ate them as well as read them. Also, she had an arrogance that said, Nobody is on my level here, folks, so stand back.
    Halfway through the semester, she came to me after a class and asked if I would be willing to read the manuscript of her novel. I said yes, but also told her I would be totally honest if I didn’t like it. She said she knew that, and it was one of the reasons she was asking me and not another teacher.
    Unfortunately, it was no good. Yet another twenty-year-old’s bildungsroman —there were good parts in it, but generally it was only old stuff trying to sound new. But I spent the better part of a weekend reading it carefully and making notes so Annette would know I had given it a fair shake.
    On Monday we sat together after class, and, as cannily and diplomatically as I could, I told her what I thought was wrong with her book. There were strong things there, but they needed shaping up, better characterization, clearer perspective. She asked if I thought the manuscript was publishable, and I said no; I thought it had to be rewritten. She became defensive, and said she’d already submitted it to one publisher, who had written a very encouraging letter back. I congratulated her, and said I could very well be wrong. She seesawed back and forth between arrogance and pleas. I could see the discussion was getting nowhere, and after two hours—two hours!—I told her I’d said all I could about the book, and, in the end, it was her decision. Never once was I condescending or dismissive. I am sure of that. To make a terrible story short, Annette walked out of the room and left the manuscript in its box on the table. I thought it a bad dramatic gesture, and best not to follow. I’d wait till our next class and give it back then. I never saw her again. A week later she committed suicide.
    Tell me you were connected to a suicide, but feel no guilt, and I will call you a liar. We start whole, but soon guilt begins to carve its insidious tunnels around and through our souls. By the time you are my age, much of the structure should be condemned as unsafe. I never got over this. I don’t know what influence our meeting had over her final decision, if any, but what difference does it make? I see myself as one of her accused. I talked to Roberta; I talked to an analyst; I tried talking to God. But nothing helped.
    “Where did you find that ?”
    “Up way back on a shelf in the garage. What do you want to do with it?”
    My first instinct was to say dump it. Instead, I told her to leave it with me. What was more troubling than seeing it again was knowing for sure I had left that box with the police the day I heard about her death. I walked into the police station and spoke to men I’d never had any real contact with, other than seeing them give parking tickets and chatting with store owners. Now two of these blue