Novellas
The Number 6
Next ("The Cages")
Shoreline Drive
Photophobia
Precipitation Likely, Chance of Sun (“The Might and the Will”)
A Better Place (“The Calling”)
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The Number 6
A Novella
Excerpt B
Harlan finished up his day as he always did, in an empty bus bumping and rattling along the poorly maintained roads that lay across the invisible line separating Clement County from Summit County. The sun was a mottled blood orange rolling out of the western sky which had long since begun brooding out of its periwinkle youth. The fields were still so hot from the day that they seemed to be glowing behind a screen of palpable translucence that was made of more than just air and vapor, but of some living substance, some diurnal plague, from deep within the molten core of the earth itself.
Ordinarily he turned around several miles before that line passed beneath the wheels of the Number Six, but today was Tuesday, and it was well worth a short detour into Clement County before returning to the bus yard in the dark, even given the distinct possibility that Mr. Janicek would be waiting on him to collect the key.
But Harlan knew it was just as likely that Mr. Janicek would spend any such waiting time relishing his moments away from Mrs. Janicek, who would not let him drink a single drop of liquor once he returned home. Mrs. Janicek was born again – a concept Harlan did not pretend to fully understand, and was very strict about such things. In any event, on Tuesdays, Mrs. Janicek expected her husband to be late home from his work, Mr. Janicek got to wet his whistle and Harlan got to stop by The Gravy Boat Inn six miles into Clement County which on that day served up Mrs. Winifred’s meat loaf and potatoes and biscuits. It was a weekly indulgence that Harlan always found impossible to resist and that the universe had strangely accommodated.
Harlan looked out at the horizon and could see the day withdrawing its wave of light into the great sea of history, slipping away from the black, glittering shores of night. He was good and hungry and he looked forward to his dinner and to his time tonight looking out at the stars with the crickets out in the fields and the invisible owls on the wing in the dark air; for the day had washed up something new and interesting for him to pick up and to hold between his fingers before he went to sleep.