Keys of Babylon by Robert Minhinnick Page B
Authors: Robert Minhinnick
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories
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maybe heâd see a craft. A saucer. An unidentified flying circus. Ha, ha, he thought. Iâve made a joke.
It was cold now. He couldnât stay long. But he kept looking skywards. Take me, the Big Little Man would whisper. He wanted to wave the flask but even in the darkness he was careful. Behaviour was everything. But again he whispered. Take me. Here I am. Iâm waiting for you.
Then he smiled again to himself. Tonight the Big Little Man was not convinced by his own desperation. Making a joke in a foreign language is difficult. But he was good at it now. He had had a lot of practice.
When the Big Little Man first arrived in the city he was still a little man. There were hoardings everywhere. There were signs. Weâre building a mountain together, the signs said. That was a good omen. The Winter Olympics were coming to the province. But there were no slopes for the skiers. So the city was building its own mountain out of rubbish. All the cityâs rubbish for three years was to be piled on the prairie, then earth poured over it and grass seed sown. When the grass grew, the city would be ready. All it had to do was wait for winter and the snow.
In this city the snow always fell on the last day of October. The Big Little Man didnât understand that, but it was always predicted and it always occurred. By now, he was used to it. As on the evening of that day, he was accustomed to children knocking at his door. Children dressed as ghouls and ghosts, with black lipstick or ice hockey masks like Michael Myers. There were whole shops now in the city devoted to fancy dress.
For the first few years he had bought candies for these Halloween children. Recently he had stopped. The children had started to frighten him, the children in the corridors outside, whispering at the apartment doors. Meanwhile, the childrenâs parents would huddle on the sidewalk, eating Halloween food. The parents came in case the children were invited inside. In case they disappeared.
Strange, he thought, in his dark room, listening to the children scratching like mice. Why are they so afraid? Afraid of disappearing? There was a story that had been in the news. A teenage girl had vanished. Maybe she was abducted. Witnesses swore they saw a light on the prairie, a beam like a ladder reaching to the ground. Perhaps the girl had climbed the ladder into the indigo sky.
Lucky girl, he thought, his back to the door where the children were whispering. If they stopped and listened instead they might have heard him breathing. He could picture them in their hoods. In their cloaks. On the other side of that door stood a four-foot Grim Reaper and a Star Wars trooper. In the street their moms were eating taffi. He hated taffi. It glued his teeth together. The first snow was falling and it shone in the womenâs hair under the streetlight, the women in their scarves and ski pants, their furry boots.
After a while the whispering would stop. But he would not switch on the lamp. Soon there would be another knock, another scratching. Freddy Krueger with a green face would be asking for a treat, and Freddyâs mom would be standing in the snow in her black lycra. In her zips and buckles.
He pictured the motherâs smile. Her teeth would be Arm & Hammer white, her belly, if he might miraculously glimpse her belly, would still be tanned, the colour of prairie earth. And flat as a dinnerplate. How he longed to rest his face there. His lips upon the knife slit of her navel. Someone had told him you might hear the heart through the belly. The belly beating with blood. Yes, such were the mothers now. Toned was the word. A word he had never used.
The Big Little Man wondered where the fathers were. In their offices, he imagined. Doing the things office people do. Talking on telephones, scrolling down, always scrolling down, towards the next financial cataclysm.
These mothers and fathers were tough people. They lived in a city without bends in
It was cold now. He couldnât stay long. But he kept looking skywards. Take me, the Big Little Man would whisper. He wanted to wave the flask but even in the darkness he was careful. Behaviour was everything. But again he whispered. Take me. Here I am. Iâm waiting for you.
Then he smiled again to himself. Tonight the Big Little Man was not convinced by his own desperation. Making a joke in a foreign language is difficult. But he was good at it now. He had had a lot of practice.
When the Big Little Man first arrived in the city he was still a little man. There were hoardings everywhere. There were signs. Weâre building a mountain together, the signs said. That was a good omen. The Winter Olympics were coming to the province. But there were no slopes for the skiers. So the city was building its own mountain out of rubbish. All the cityâs rubbish for three years was to be piled on the prairie, then earth poured over it and grass seed sown. When the grass grew, the city would be ready. All it had to do was wait for winter and the snow.
In this city the snow always fell on the last day of October. The Big Little Man didnât understand that, but it was always predicted and it always occurred. By now, he was used to it. As on the evening of that day, he was accustomed to children knocking at his door. Children dressed as ghouls and ghosts, with black lipstick or ice hockey masks like Michael Myers. There were whole shops now in the city devoted to fancy dress.
For the first few years he had bought candies for these Halloween children. Recently he had stopped. The children had started to frighten him, the children in the corridors outside, whispering at the apartment doors. Meanwhile, the childrenâs parents would huddle on the sidewalk, eating Halloween food. The parents came in case the children were invited inside. In case they disappeared.
Strange, he thought, in his dark room, listening to the children scratching like mice. Why are they so afraid? Afraid of disappearing? There was a story that had been in the news. A teenage girl had vanished. Maybe she was abducted. Witnesses swore they saw a light on the prairie, a beam like a ladder reaching to the ground. Perhaps the girl had climbed the ladder into the indigo sky.
Lucky girl, he thought, his back to the door where the children were whispering. If they stopped and listened instead they might have heard him breathing. He could picture them in their hoods. In their cloaks. On the other side of that door stood a four-foot Grim Reaper and a Star Wars trooper. In the street their moms were eating taffi. He hated taffi. It glued his teeth together. The first snow was falling and it shone in the womenâs hair under the streetlight, the women in their scarves and ski pants, their furry boots.
After a while the whispering would stop. But he would not switch on the lamp. Soon there would be another knock, another scratching. Freddy Krueger with a green face would be asking for a treat, and Freddyâs mom would be standing in the snow in her black lycra. In her zips and buckles.
He pictured the motherâs smile. Her teeth would be Arm & Hammer white, her belly, if he might miraculously glimpse her belly, would still be tanned, the colour of prairie earth. And flat as a dinnerplate. How he longed to rest his face there. His lips upon the knife slit of her navel. Someone had told him you might hear the heart through the belly. The belly beating with blood. Yes, such were the mothers now. Toned was the word. A word he had never used.
The Big Little Man wondered where the fathers were. In their offices, he imagined. Doing the things office people do. Talking on telephones, scrolling down, always scrolling down, towards the next financial cataclysm.
These mothers and fathers were tough people. They lived in a city without bends in
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