An excerpt from a recent work of short fiction.
Get Marl Borough’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
“There are other planets, you know,” together, a midnight blue couplet hit by light surfing through the glass waves all twelve feet of mahogany carved for Algernon floats into scene on the nineteenth-century wall. Hung above eye-level in the darkened parlour room, of stellar blues, an oil-painted epic, an amazing background, where late every night for the past three weeks Mr. Kadane observed the warmer planets fall Eastward by marking loose geometries with thick graphite upon another page in his sandy book. All drawings neatly stacked; eighty-four shapes in orbit.
Later on, in compact books — edges rendered in perfect fade — from time spent on humid basement bookshelves between the war’s end and whenever I took them home. On holiday from his West-facing chair, watching sunbeams shadow play on white curtains; a view in winter that saw past a full nativity nestled in the corner; one never missed as you came and went through a half-wall, nodding past a mechanical Mary statue holding plastic expression, a graceful pose, and an amber electric candle; praying over other small and tidy novelties collected throughout the long and short years; a parade of unpacking and place-setting that has lessened steadily over time. Housing such sharp little objects, the room was forever soft as sinking; feet on soft layers worn over time; gravity impressing the weight of square, wooden legs into the carpeted floor; see-through glass tops reflecting soft light; softness in sight. And those complex math equations passed along in compact books — edges rendered in perfect fade — from time spent on humid basement bookshelves between the war’s end and whenever I took them home: they live under new, colour-corrected light now and I wonder if they will ever be moved by war again.
