Cedric found himself in near-total darkness, and yet, everything was known to him. Somewhere, in the most rudimentary of his neural programming, he knew he was in a dream.
But he could not will himself out of this place. That essential function was forbidden to him. He had been in many dreams before, and he was familiar with the law. This realm of senseless sensation formed his prison, a prison that felt anything but temporary or imaginary.
He was on the sidewalk that formed a barrier around the graveyard. Though he had not walked into the enclosure — he had been stopped from doing so — the memory of this place was intense, having been written in his mind just the day before.
There seemed, however, to be things missing, things that had been there yesterday.
There was not a single vehicle parked on the edge of the road. Across the street, he expected to see shops and houses, like the very one he’d entered last night — but his gaze could not penetrate the shadow.
Why was it so dark?
He could not count the things missing any more than one could put measure to the immeasurable. If it were absent, he concluded, it must have been unnecessary to paint. Perhaps there was a reason these things had been omitted. Maybe they weren’t important.
Except—
The Sun. It didn’t appear in the sky, but something somewhere must have been creating this violet-blue haze in the air above, regardless of whether its rays directly pierced his vision. Even the Moon, as white as it appeared in a cloudless night, did not create its own light. Only the stars did that —
But maybe it was the Moon — she who would not smite your eye for looking upon her —
[Noise.]
It rose from all directions, but he knew from whence it came. Here, he knew all. This is what he’d heard before he entered the domain of the slumbering dead.
[Hate.]
Anger swelled within him as he heard the engine shriek, heeding its master’s command. He yearned to shatter each component, vaporize the metal, dash the atoms into chaos.
[Closer.]
The machinery grew louder and the sound rattled his chest. Blood pushed against veins and sweat soaked his skin.
[Pain!]
Cedric remembered himself and looked toward the car but it was too late.
‘Move, stupid!’
Cedric’s eyes opened. The scene was still yellowy-white, but there were no headlights glaring at him. Instead, a demure pattern of pale cornflowers graced the walls and gauzy curtains fluttered on the wind.
‘Betty’s house. My—’
He looked toward the door.
“My room.”
He blinked and raised his hand to remove sand from his eyes.
It had felt strange to lock the door to the bedroom last evening — he had never before been granted such a luxury — but he had slept well. Admittedly it had taken a while for him to fall into slumber, as it always did, but if he’d been dreaming, he reasoned, he must have been asleep, really asleep.
He pressed his fingers to his forehead in an attempt to soothe the tension in his brow. His attachment to reality still felt tenuous.
‘Just a nightmare…’
Cedric looked toward the red numbers on the clock radio. There were four of them and his heart leapt in his chest.
“Shit, it’s late.”
Betty had promised him breakfast, but he wasn’t sure she’d intended to serve so close to lunchtime. Presumably, his moment of opportunity had passed.
‘Snooze, you lose.’
He had showered and shaved after dinner last night, so all he needed to do this morning was change his clothes and maybe brush his teeth, but he figured before he did that, he’d check out the food situation, just in case.
Cedric dug some clothes out of his duffel bag and threw them on. They were deeply wrinkled, but he tried to ignore it; there was little need to dress to the nines to make an appearance at the library.
A small mirror hung on the wall next to the door. He looked into his reflection, disgusted that sleeping on wet hair had exaggerated a cowlick on the right side of his head.
He fluffed his tawny hair with his fingers, and, finding the effort fruitless, he grimaced at himself.
Cedric locked the door and slipped the key into his pocket. The bathroom was unoccupied so he stopped in, splashed some water on his face, and readied himself to face the morning. What little was left of it, he mused.
The stairs were covered with a dark carpet runner, slightly discolored and pressed flat in the center. The fabric dampened his steps but sent the wood creaking as he progressed downward, soon reaching the landing.
He looked into the living room. Dust motes danced luminescent in the still air.
“Betty?”
But there was neither sight nor sound of the woman. In her stead, a patchwork cat slept in one of the overstuffed chairs. Cedric saw that the black fur was dappled here and there with fields of white, something he’d failed to notice yesterday.
“Oh. Hello, cat.”
The cat slowly unfurled itself, stretched its chest luxuriously, and lifted its head to lock a pair of sleepy eyes with Cedric. The feline, too, had bright green orbs, shining like gemstones against the dark fur.
“What’s your name again? Michelle?”
The cat yawned lazily, showing off its bright pink tongue and wicked teeth, but was otherwise silent.
Cedric maintained a courteous distance and the two stared at each other for several long seconds.
“Well, cat, let your mom know I went out. See ya later.”
Cedric had thrown away his old library card before leaving for Newburgh. It had been difficult for him to do; the little white rectangle, messily laminated, had been a dear friend of his since he’d been small. He’d kept it safe through many years, relocating it at some point from its original home in a Velcro billfold to the black leather wallet he now kept on a chain in his back pocket. There it had stayed for some time —
Until the day had come that he needed to be rid of it. For months, he’d been combing through his every day life, tying up loose ends in preparation to head east.
It wasn’t that he thought anyone would misuse the card, hardly — but in a child’s klutzy script, the thing bore his birthname. Having it on his person would be a smoking gun.
He’d paused for a moment, and looked at his embarrassing penmanship immutable beneath the clear plastic.
‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child...’
With scissor in hand, he snipped the card in half and deposited it directly into the outside garbage bin.
Betty had given Cedric directions to the local library last night while he had a mouth half-full of meatloaf.
“This is great, Mrs. Clark—” Cedric tried to maintain proper decorum and what he knew of fine table manners, but he hadn’t realized just how hungry he had let himself become.
“‘Betty’, please,” she reminded him. “Just… ‘Betty’.”
“Sorry—” He swallowed the food he’d been chewing.
“I don’t feel like a ‘Mrs.’ anymore. Not without Mr. Clark around.”
Cedric looked up from his plate and put his fork down. “What happened? Did he—”
He was desperate not to offend the woman. “Did he leave you?”
She paused and then spoke solemnly, her gaze caught on her guest’s dinner plate. “If only it were that way. My husband died. Many years ago.”
No one ever quite knew what to say in these situations, and Cedric was similarly ill-equipped. He stumbled through a response. “Was he… sick?”
Betty took in breath and spoke with purpose, as if she’d said these words a thousand times before. “He was sick off and on for a while, but we didn’t know it was serious. Just thought it was part of getting older. Once the doctors realized what was going on, it was too late. We got to make preparations and say our goodbyes, but…”
Her brown eyes peered into the void. “There wasn’t much time left, at the end. It all happened so suddenly.”
Cedric noticed a tinny scratching coming from the kitchen, and it took him some time to realize it was the cat at the back door.
Betty either didn’t notice, or ignored it. “Medicine has gotten a lot better. Better tests. Lots of treatments for people that we didn’t have back then.”
She tried to brighten the tone. “God rest him. I hope someday no one ever has to suffer like he did.”
Cedric wasn’t even sure exactly why his grandfather had died. Maybe smoking. Lung cancer? No one had ever talked to him about it.
“Yeah, I hope so too.”
Betty looked at him and smiled weakly. “Dear me, look; I’ve gone and spoiled your appetite.”
“Oh, no, not at all.” He picked up his fork. “It’s really very good. I’ve only ever had meatloaf with ketchup. I didn’t know you could make it like this. I like your version.”
“I don’t care for ketchup,” Betty said. “Too sweet.”
There was a lull in the conversation as Cedric continued to eat. The scratching continued to echo quietly through the room. Based on the tone, he surmised that there was a screen door outside the kitchen, maybe aluminum.
Almost finished, with just a spot of potatoes to the side of the plate, Cedric broke the silence.
“Is that, uh, your cat?”
Betty lifted her head, aligning her ears with the doorway. “Might be. I’ll fetch her in a moment.”
When Cedric reached the Newburgh Free Library, the Sun was high above him in a bright blue sky. The short walk had been peaceful, his mind wandering idly toward nothing in particular. He supposed it was pleasant to make his way like this; once he’d purchased the Cavalier, he’d driven near everywhere he needed to be.
The library, in contrast to the properties to either side, had a generous lawn of impeccable grass in front of the building. The structure was enormous — much wider than it was tall — and made of grey concrete. By the look of it, this couldn’t be the town’s original library, but then he estimated that it wasn’t too much younger than himself. A smidgen of shadow — fated to slide away as the day went on — cast a slight chill over the entrance.
Cedric opened the glass doors to the library and was pelted with a front of cold air, a bit more frigid, he thought, than the weather conditions truly demanded. The door fell back into place and in the entry, colorful signs flashed at him from every angle, advertising local events and services. It was, in every way, a typical, even — cheerful — gathering place for the local population.
As he left the hallway and stepped into the main chamber, he could not help but be stunned by the serene beauty of the establishment. There were hundreds of shelves packed with books, many more than any collection he’d ever seen before, but that was not what stuck out to him. The whole room was illuminated by gigantic windows looking out over the Hudson River. These portals provided enough light to read by, and not a single lightbulb could rival the brilliance.
Cedric wove through the tables set in the center of the room and approached the panels of glass. There was nothing quite like this where he’d come from. Yes, his hometown was too situated by a river, but the townsfolk had all but ignored that fact of its geography.
He peered out the windows. The proud river silently divided the land and marched south. Only very seldom did the water mix with air and give rise to a whitecap against the deep blue. Birds, few in number but nevertheless present, floated effortlessly on the calm wind high above the surface of the river. Cedric was very much impressed by the immense grandeur of the view and stood studying the scene for at least a minute.
His stomach growled, his body reminding him that he had needs more pressing than cerebral distraction. He pulled himself away from the window and looked back into the room.
He had just arrived, and perhaps to spite the nagging in his gut, he did not intend to leave just yet.
He looked at the countless rows of books.
What was it he was actually here to do? He was sure they would not grant him borrowing privileges; he had no residence here, no job, no nothing. As far as the librarians would be concerned, they might as well give the books away.
He knew they would not do that; he would have to use the reading room.
But what was he looking for?
Cedric wandered through the aisles, only half cognizant of the categories and topics that flanked his path. The titles washed over him as he noticed the steady progression of the Dewey decimals.
Maybe he was lost. He had no particular book in mind; he wasn’t even sure what he enjoyed anymore. When he had been small, he’d always been absorbed in a book. Sometimes he’d finished several in a week. He’d especially loved the realms of history and make-believe, where he could immerse himself in concerns so removed from the drudgery of modernity. Without directly understanding his prejudice, he assumed hot pockets and easy chairs did not nurture the hero.
But as he’d grown older, he’d found less and less time for the written word. He’d started working at fourteen, and having less time for leisure was part of the change, but it failed to completely explain the shift in his priorities.
Once he’d gotten it in his head that he was going to leave that place, school had seemed completely ancillary. For the first time in his education, he found himself neglecting to do the readings at all. Maybe he would skim the assignment in his car before the first bell, and maybe he wouldn’t. When asked to write responses to passages he hadn’t read, he scribbled whatever nonsense came to mind. Sometimes he felt shame when he realized how plainly ignorance showed through his vague answers, and then, after a while, he stopped caring. None of the accolades they could give would get him anything he actually needed. It just didn’t matter anymore.
Cedric wove through the shelves and out of the library, resolving to think about it while he solved the growing pit at the bottom of his stomach.
When Cedric had shared that he’d been formerly employed at a grocery store, Betty had suggested he head down to Broadway to investigate his prospects. She had mentioned something about the A&P, but then she’d quickly veered into an corollary, and he wasn’t sure what it was that he was looking for. He was sure that it was on Broadway, and it had changed hands at some point somewhat recently, but he had left uncertain about what he’d find, overwhelmed by the details.
He wasn’t exactly dressed to impress in his t-shirt and faded denim, but he figured he might as well make an inquiry; the cash he had on hand would dwindle rapidly without a source of replenishment. His mind churned imagining the hurdles that could lie ahead. He was loath to provide the phone number for his last job as a reference, but if he had no choice, he’d proceed as necessary. He hadn’t informed his last place of work that he’d changed his name, nor did he want his old identity to get mixed up with his new. But he needed a job, and if he needed to prove his credentials, he supposed he’d tell the tale. If they asked why he’d shed his old name, well —
He hoped it would not come to that.
A few clouds, with their cottony confidence, thought to mar the Sun’s dominance over the midday atmosphere. But Cedric continued to walk, admiring the quaint way in which little brick shops lined the wide street. It became apparent to him that these were the streets middle America had sought to emulate. Even now, the peak of prosperity long past, there was a charm here no facsimile could birth.
Every so often, a lofty clump of water vapor cast a shadow over the man with the pale brown hair, but he didn’t think to notice. He kept going forward.
Sullivan’s Market had operated out of its corner property on Broadway since the original O’Sullivan acquired the deed shortly after the Great War. For decades, he fostered a loyal clientele who were drawn in by his fair prices. He kept them coming back for his quality cuts of meat, never excessively oxidized by lingering too long behind the glass. And O’Sullivan, understanding the weight of an ounce of gold, never once put his finger on the scale. On the contrary, he ensured his customers always received a little more than what they paid for.
These days, however, the old man was long dead and the store was run by his descendants. Unlike the supermarket down the street, Sullivan’s had no parking lot. It was difficult to get the trolleys down the aging, narrow aisles and sometimes food sat on the shelves for weeks after the dates stamped on the packaging. On the wrong days of the week, the butchery stunk to high heaven.
But none of that kept people from coming.
Cedric stepped up and into the storefront, the tinkling of a bell announcing his arrival. An elderly couple, the man rather diminutive underneath his hunched posture, were together surveying an array of vegetables. Laid over a faint emission of soft rock was the unmistakable squealing of shopping carts scraping against the tile.
Now sheltered from the bright sunlight, Cedric’s eyes dilated and his pulse slowed. This was something he knew a little about.
The pain in his gut becoming ever more unbearable, he made his way to the deli counter. From a sturdy man in a white apron, he ordered a turkey sandwich, no cheese, and let his eyes wander over the selection of chips at the base of the display.
The Utz girl was printed over and over again in slightly different colorations, but with the same round eyes and red cheeks, always drawn near the first letter of the brand name. Without a nose on her little face, she was nearly swallowed up by her dark hair, cut in a girlish bob about her chin.
By the looks of the display, this was his only choice. He had no objection to trying a little of the local flavor.
Cedric took a bag of pretzels, accepted his sandwich from the butcher, and made his way to the front of the store. He’d skip the drink and save a buck by getting a glass of water from Betty’s sink.
At the front of the store, light creeping in between the advertisements covering the windows, Cedric put his items on the conveyer belt. The cashier tapped the numbers into her register and came up with a total.
“Hey, I noticed you have a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window,” Cedric began while removing his wallet. “Are you still hiring?”
The woman working the cash register looked tired, her eyes drooping as she turned her focus to Cedric.
“Yeah, I think so, but the manager’s not in today. Try tomorrow.” She looked back at her display. “That’ll be $3.75.”
Cedric handed her four dollar bills.
When Betty came back to the house that evening, Cedric told her of his prospects. But she seemed unimpressed.
“You didn’t make it to the Grand Union?” She asked, a tone of matriarchal judgment ringing through her voice. “I don’t bother with Sullivan’s. Produce is absolutely terrible.”