and I’m tired of inspecting the insides of my eyelids. It’s never too late to better yourself, right? So consider me bettering by the second.”
“
Ucch
. All right, but do you really need four candles burning?”
“You want I should get eyestrain? You’ve got me talking like a peasant.”
“That’s my fault?”
“You used to say I didn’t read enough, that reading would better me. So here I am, reading, and now it’s ‘don’t read, you’ll ruin your eyes.’ You’re talking out both sides of your mouth, and with your teeth out it’s particularly repulsive.”
“Why are you so cruel?”
“It’s all I have left.
Feh
. You need your beauty sleep, fine. I’ll adjourn to the sitting room, your majesty.”
A clap of rainless thunder taunted them as Abe grabbed the platter on which the candles were arranged and left the room.
Tsuris
he did not need. He’d borrowed a couple of books from the kid in 3A, some cockamamie science-fiction
chozzerai,
but it was diverting enough. The writer, a fellow named Philip K. Dick, seemed bent on doling out as much torture as possible to his characters. Abe enjoyed others suffering even worse than he. At least Abe knew where the hell he was—he was situated in his misery. The poor schmuck in Dick’s book didn’t know whether he was coming or going; his reality kept shifting on him. What a lousy predicament. It was a riot.
Another sequence of rolling thunder followed him down the hall. “So rain already,” he griped. “Enough with the foreplay.”
Mixed in with the thunder were other sounds. A crash followed by the peppering of ruptured safety glass on pavement. That accompanied by the plaint of countless zombies.
“The natives are restless,” Abe said with a smirk. “It’s a regular hootenanny out there.”
In the bedroom, Ruth stared into the void. Abe wasn’t always easy to deal with, but at least he wasn’t always such a bastard, either. She’d been spoiled, she realized, by all his years away at work. She’d kept a few jobs here and there in her younger days, but they were usually part-time and often for relatives. Sure it was nepotism, but for such lousy pay, who’d make a fuss? She worked a little at a travel agency (Uncle Judah); a printing plant (cousin Sol); a catering hall (cousin Moshe); a small-time talent agency (cousin Tobias). When Abe came along she became a full-time housewife, then an overtime mother. Three children she’d raised, almost single-handedly.
That wasn’t a job?
Abe made her feel like she was living the pampered life of a queen because she didn’t have to schlep to an official place of work. Sure, Abe brought home the bacon—all right, not bacon; they kept kosher, give or take—but Ruth slaved, too. And for the meager allowance Abe doled out? It was indentured servitude. Even when they got along she’d prayed for liberation. Where was her own personal Moses to lead her to the Promised Land? Three children, and God only knows where they were or what their fates were. Was it too much to ask of God to at least know? Were Miriam, Hannah, and David even among the living? In her head she thought it possible, but in her heart, and more persuasively in her gut, she doubted it. So that meant the grandchildren were gone, too.
When God doled out the punishment he really laid it on thick, but she
believed
.
Ruth believed because of the absoluteness of the fate of mankind. The scientists had their theories, back in the first few weeks, before the television and the radio were kaput, but the theories didn’t hold much water. Biotoxins. Germ warfare. Terrorism. Advanced mutated Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Anthropoid spongiform encephalopathy.
No.
This was the work of a vengeful god. This was the work of a god who’d had enough, and who could blame Him? People had been doing terrible things ever since they arrived on the scene, but in just the span of her lifetime it went from not so good to bad to worse to unimaginable.
“
Ucch
. All right, but do you really need four candles burning?”
“You want I should get eyestrain? You’ve got me talking like a peasant.”
“That’s my fault?”
“You used to say I didn’t read enough, that reading would better me. So here I am, reading, and now it’s ‘don’t read, you’ll ruin your eyes.’ You’re talking out both sides of your mouth, and with your teeth out it’s particularly repulsive.”
“Why are you so cruel?”
“It’s all I have left.
Feh
. You need your beauty sleep, fine. I’ll adjourn to the sitting room, your majesty.”
A clap of rainless thunder taunted them as Abe grabbed the platter on which the candles were arranged and left the room.
Tsuris
he did not need. He’d borrowed a couple of books from the kid in 3A, some cockamamie science-fiction
chozzerai,
but it was diverting enough. The writer, a fellow named Philip K. Dick, seemed bent on doling out as much torture as possible to his characters. Abe enjoyed others suffering even worse than he. At least Abe knew where the hell he was—he was situated in his misery. The poor schmuck in Dick’s book didn’t know whether he was coming or going; his reality kept shifting on him. What a lousy predicament. It was a riot.
Another sequence of rolling thunder followed him down the hall. “So rain already,” he griped. “Enough with the foreplay.”
Mixed in with the thunder were other sounds. A crash followed by the peppering of ruptured safety glass on pavement. That accompanied by the plaint of countless zombies.
“The natives are restless,” Abe said with a smirk. “It’s a regular hootenanny out there.”
In the bedroom, Ruth stared into the void. Abe wasn’t always easy to deal with, but at least he wasn’t always such a bastard, either. She’d been spoiled, she realized, by all his years away at work. She’d kept a few jobs here and there in her younger days, but they were usually part-time and often for relatives. Sure it was nepotism, but for such lousy pay, who’d make a fuss? She worked a little at a travel agency (Uncle Judah); a printing plant (cousin Sol); a catering hall (cousin Moshe); a small-time talent agency (cousin Tobias). When Abe came along she became a full-time housewife, then an overtime mother. Three children she’d raised, almost single-handedly.
That wasn’t a job?
Abe made her feel like she was living the pampered life of a queen because she didn’t have to schlep to an official place of work. Sure, Abe brought home the bacon—all right, not bacon; they kept kosher, give or take—but Ruth slaved, too. And for the meager allowance Abe doled out? It was indentured servitude. Even when they got along she’d prayed for liberation. Where was her own personal Moses to lead her to the Promised Land? Three children, and God only knows where they were or what their fates were. Was it too much to ask of God to at least know? Were Miriam, Hannah, and David even among the living? In her head she thought it possible, but in her heart, and more persuasively in her gut, she doubted it. So that meant the grandchildren were gone, too.
When God doled out the punishment he really laid it on thick, but she
believed
.
Ruth believed because of the absoluteness of the fate of mankind. The scientists had their theories, back in the first few weeks, before the television and the radio were kaput, but the theories didn’t hold much water. Biotoxins. Germ warfare. Terrorism. Advanced mutated Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Anthropoid spongiform encephalopathy.
No.
This was the work of a vengeful god. This was the work of a god who’d had enough, and who could blame Him? People had been doing terrible things ever since they arrived on the scene, but in just the span of her lifetime it went from not so good to bad to worse to unimaginable.
Similar Books
