could be certain of nothing.
He runs his hand along the drafting tableâs surface, scraped and worn from use. A piece of blue felt lies over one end. His tools arranged in a neat line. A few splinters of iron sit near the tableâs edge. He does not like to be gone from his work area for long. After dinners, he returns, looks everything over. Tonight is no different, though itâs later than usual. The clocks are arranged on the bookshelf to the left. Alarm clocks, squat and round with bulbous bells, flat and large wall clocks, a cuckoo clock. All sit still and silent, their hands frozen as if in shock. On the shelf above are the transistor radiosâknobs and tuners like eyes, watchful and reticent. Across the counter and along the back wall stands the honey-colored rolltop desk. The curtain of red and amber beads that separates the small back room from the workshop sways and clicks in the breeze.
His first strokes are always mere scribbles, half-rendered tracings. A few fragments of an equation. Several erasures before he can fully see how the propeller should be shaped. The propeller could tilt according to the oceanâs currents, gain more power and speed and work with the current rather than against it. It is a rough sketch, repeated until he can begin the full depiction. Then, the different views. From above. To the sides. A cross section. A semiâcross section. He is working out the number of blades, the full diameter of the propeller, the blade angle and curve, the velocity of rotation, the pitch of it.
An hour has passed. He isnât sure. The street noise is ambient, not invading. He steps outside now into the colder late evening. He lights his cigarette and takes drag after drag, contemplating the sky and clouds of this particular eveningâsilver gray. He wonders what the children remember of Mexico.
This time of day is his own, free from disturbances so that he can enter a space in his mind, create a mental image of how steam might flow more efficiently through a pipe, or what torque might provide enough resistance for his tilting propeller. How to calibrate the copper wiring to send currents of electricity along coiled springs. When he is stumped, he returns to the fundamental questions: What is light? What is energy? What is force or ether?
There is an agitation across the street, and he can see a flurry of movement through the trees of the median. On the opposite sidewalk, a woman is running. It is not something he sees often and he turns his focus, reluctantly, abruptly from the sky and thoughts of his children to this woman. It is a light step, but apprehensive nearly, and her steps clomp evenly and then sputter, slowing to a hurried walk, then run again. He moves from the doorway and sits hidden in the alcove window, watching as she dashes down the sidewalk. She slows and the flounce of her burgundy dress settles and then, as she begins to run again, swings in one great swath from side to side. She crosses the street, and moves into the median, cutting through all its green. Soon, she is running down his sidewalk, running toward him, and in a moment she will pass right in front of him. He watches as she continues to alternate between running and walking.
Whoever it is, heâll wait, heâll wait,
Austin thinks, when suddenly she draws to a halt before his storefront, her shoulders rise and fall, she throws her hands down to her sides so that they ricochet off her hips; it is the gesture of a spoiled child. And now, who exactly is this here? he wonders. He does not reveal himself. Maybe sheâll go away. She turns on her heel, walks to the curbside, pivots once again, ducking her head fast beneath the lowered gate of the shopâs front door.
â
Buenas tardes
,â she calls.
Austin sits forward in the alcove of the front window. He presses his hands against the adobe walls, which offer a coolness despite the all-day sun that floods this side of the
He runs his hand along the drafting tableâs surface, scraped and worn from use. A piece of blue felt lies over one end. His tools arranged in a neat line. A few splinters of iron sit near the tableâs edge. He does not like to be gone from his work area for long. After dinners, he returns, looks everything over. Tonight is no different, though itâs later than usual. The clocks are arranged on the bookshelf to the left. Alarm clocks, squat and round with bulbous bells, flat and large wall clocks, a cuckoo clock. All sit still and silent, their hands frozen as if in shock. On the shelf above are the transistor radiosâknobs and tuners like eyes, watchful and reticent. Across the counter and along the back wall stands the honey-colored rolltop desk. The curtain of red and amber beads that separates the small back room from the workshop sways and clicks in the breeze.
His first strokes are always mere scribbles, half-rendered tracings. A few fragments of an equation. Several erasures before he can fully see how the propeller should be shaped. The propeller could tilt according to the oceanâs currents, gain more power and speed and work with the current rather than against it. It is a rough sketch, repeated until he can begin the full depiction. Then, the different views. From above. To the sides. A cross section. A semiâcross section. He is working out the number of blades, the full diameter of the propeller, the blade angle and curve, the velocity of rotation, the pitch of it.
An hour has passed. He isnât sure. The street noise is ambient, not invading. He steps outside now into the colder late evening. He lights his cigarette and takes drag after drag, contemplating the sky and clouds of this particular eveningâsilver gray. He wonders what the children remember of Mexico.
This time of day is his own, free from disturbances so that he can enter a space in his mind, create a mental image of how steam might flow more efficiently through a pipe, or what torque might provide enough resistance for his tilting propeller. How to calibrate the copper wiring to send currents of electricity along coiled springs. When he is stumped, he returns to the fundamental questions: What is light? What is energy? What is force or ether?
There is an agitation across the street, and he can see a flurry of movement through the trees of the median. On the opposite sidewalk, a woman is running. It is not something he sees often and he turns his focus, reluctantly, abruptly from the sky and thoughts of his children to this woman. It is a light step, but apprehensive nearly, and her steps clomp evenly and then sputter, slowing to a hurried walk, then run again. He moves from the doorway and sits hidden in the alcove window, watching as she dashes down the sidewalk. She slows and the flounce of her burgundy dress settles and then, as she begins to run again, swings in one great swath from side to side. She crosses the street, and moves into the median, cutting through all its green. Soon, she is running down his sidewalk, running toward him, and in a moment she will pass right in front of him. He watches as she continues to alternate between running and walking.
Whoever it is, heâll wait, heâll wait,
Austin thinks, when suddenly she draws to a halt before his storefront, her shoulders rise and fall, she throws her hands down to her sides so that they ricochet off her hips; it is the gesture of a spoiled child. And now, who exactly is this here? he wonders. He does not reveal himself. Maybe sheâll go away. She turns on her heel, walks to the curbside, pivots once again, ducking her head fast beneath the lowered gate of the shopâs front door.
â
Buenas tardes
,â she calls.
Austin sits forward in the alcove of the front window. He presses his hands against the adobe walls, which offer a coolness despite the all-day sun that floods this side of the
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