What Becomes Read Online Free

her feelings did exist, of course, and should be considered. She was upstairs bathing and having emotions. Undoubtedly the most important thought that he could have, should manage to have, would be that she had feelings. These feelings meant she didn’t like his soup, or his bread, or his hat and she blamed him for terrible things, for one terrible thing which had been an accident, an oversight, a carelessness that lasted the space of a breath and meant he lost as much as her, just precisely as much.
    He wanted to go to her and say:
I’ve watched this before, been near it – the way that a human being will drop and break inside, their eyes dying first and then their face, a last raising of light and then it goes from them, is fallen and won’t come back. They walk into our building and whatever they think and whatever we have told them, there is a person in their mind, a living, unharmed person they expect to greet them and return their world. Then our attendants lead them to the special room, to the echoing room, and they see nothing, no one, no return, a shape of meat, an injury. Some of them cry, some accept the quiet suggestion of tea and the plate of biscuits we set down to make things seem homely and natural and as if life is going on, because it is, that is what it does – picks us up and feeds us with itself, drives us on until we wear away. Some of them are quiet, inward. Some I can hear, even in my office. They rage for their lovers, their loves, for their dead love, their dead selves. And they rage for their children. And they fail to accommodate their pain. And they leave us in the end, because they cannot stay. They go outside and fall into existence. Our town is full of people running back and forth in torn days and every other town is like that, too. Our world is thick with it, clotted in patterns and patterns of grief. And, beyond this, I know you’re sad. I know your days are bleeding, too. And I know I make you sad. I don’t understand how not to, but please don’t bring in more of the grief, don’t add to it. If there is more, then I won’t be able to breathe and I’ll die.
    And I miss her, too.
    And I miss her like you do.
    The no one who comes home with you holding your hand.
    The girl who isn’t there to mind when I hurt myself.
    â€˜That’ll be okay, then.’
    Frank saw the young man’s sneakers, the intentionally bedraggled cuffs of his jeans. Frank looked at them through his fingers, keeping his head low. ‘I’m sorry.’ This emerging less as a question than a statement, a confession. He rubbed his neck, his helpless sweat, and said again, more clearly and correctly, ‘I’m sorry?’
    â€˜The projectionist’s just coming back. You can go in and wait.’
    Oh, I know about that, I’ve done that. Wait. I can do that. Past master.
    Frank swallowed while his anger crested and then sank. These spasms were never long-lasting, although they used to be less frequent. That could be a cause for concern, his increased capacity for hatred.
    â€˜Are you okay?’
    The boy staring with what appeared to be mild distaste when Frank straightened himself and looked up. ‘No. At least, yes. I am okay. I have a headache, that’s all.’
    Standing seemed to take an extremely long time, Frank trying not to fall or stagger as he pressed himself up through the heavy air. He was taller than the boy, ought to be able to dominate him, but instead Frank nodded, holding his cap in both hands – something imploring in this, something anachronistic and disturbing – and he cranked out one step and then another, jolted back to the doorway of the cinema and through.
    The dark was a relief, peaceful. He felt smoother, healthier as soon as it wrapped him round, cuddled at his back and opened ahead to let him pad down the gentle slope and find a new seat.
    It was actually good that his film had been delayed. This way,