Found Objects Read Online Free Page A

Gerber pushed off from the counter and ran straight towards Wilson, the knife held high.   He ran across the dirt on the kitchen floor, but almost stopped when he realized he would track it onto the living room carpet. Gathering his strength, he forced himself into the living room, his muddy feet crushing the soil into the rug as he charged towards Wilson.      
    Gerber was about to plunge the knife deep into Wilson's chest when he suddenly visualized Wilson's blood spilling out all over his carpet. The image brought him up short.     That would never come out, he thought.   Wilson stood there calmly, deliberately, staring at Gerber and smiling.   Gerber steeled himself, raised the knife high, took a deep breath...  
    Just as Wilson raised his clenched right hand and tossed a large handful of soot directly into Gerber's face.   Gerber rocked backwards on his heels.   The grit was in his eyes, in his mouth, his sinuses, he had sucked it down into his lungs, it would get trapped in the alveoli in his lungs, they would get lodged there and serve as nucleation points for tumors, he could not breathe.
    Wilson collapsed onto the floor in a paroxysm of coughing.   He dropped the knife and tried to wipe the soot from his eyes, but he only managed to grind the particles in deeper.   His throat was closing up, his sinuses were filling with mucus.   He coughed harder and harder, fighting to suck a few ounces of air in between explosive coughs.   A large hand gripped the hair on the back of Gerber's head and pulled it back, twisted it around, tipped it upwards.   Gerber imagined Wilson reaching back a huge fist, preparing to strike. He had to open his eyes, so he could see to ward off the blow.   He had to take a breath, so he could keep fighting.   With all his might, with every muscle on his face, he pried his burning eyelids and swollen mouth open.  
    Just in time to see Wilson, towering over him, still smiling, upending the paper bag directly onto Gerber's face.      
                                                                                                                                                                                                               
    "Dammit," the taller policeman said.   "The rug is too white.   Can't see a thing."  
    Chalk in hand, he was trying to outline the body on the cream-colored carpet.   "I think they keep some graphite powder in there, for that kind of thing," said the shorter policeman.      
    "Oh yeah," said the taller one, rummaging about in the bag.   He withdrew a vial and began sprinkling the black powder around the body.   As the sooty substance outlined Gerber's rigid form, the shorter policeman shook his head and sighed.   " Anaphylactic shock , the coroner said. Hell of a way to go," he said.   "Just look at the expression on his face.   When I die, I hope it's nice and peaceful, in m y sleep.   Not like this guy."

 
     
     
    MARGIN OF ERROR
     
     
     
     
     
    The paint wasn’t even dry when Martin moved into the new apartment.   The manager had complained that the apartment wasn’t ready.   Martin didn’t care.   There was much to do , many things to move.   Eight plates; four large, four small.   Five glass tumblers, each with a capacity of ten fluid ounces.   Two soup bowls, six spoons, seven forks, five knives in various degrees of sharpness.   He was considering eliminating half his plates and a third of his cutlery because he never got around to using them and they took up, by his estimates, forty-eight cubic inches of volume.   But until then, he would carefully arrange them in the cabinets of his new kitchen.      
    He carried thirty-six boxes one at a time up sixteen steps from the rental van (license plate 3SVW423) into the apartment.   His apartment.   His last residence had been a room at the halfway house he