Embedded Files
The Omnibus
Naxos and Palma sat on the girder between their apartments.
They lived on the forty-third floor. Kei trucks crawled past under their feet. Miles of identical pencil-thin apartment towers swayed in the heat haze. The girders lacing between them suspended Naxos and Palma in a faint gray net. Their razor-thin shadows crossed and uncrossed on the asphalt.
Four other people sprawled on a girder a few blocks away. When Palma squinted, she could see a flash of blue beach towel. It was still almost too bright to see them, but she waved anyway. One of them waved back.
Past them, a solid silver wall across the west.
The Omnibus was the tallest building in the world. When the sun sank below the roof, at three in the summer and two in the winter, it left the rest of the world in the half-twilight that seeped through its walls.
Palma pointed at it. “Tenth floor.”
“Stock exchange,” Naxos said.
“No.”
“Look at the windows. The ceiling’s like forty feet high.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You know what a stock exchange looks like,” Naxos said.
“No, I don’t.”
“You haven’t seen pictures?” he asked.
“No. Why have you?”
“You know, with the big board, and the computers, and the…” Naxos waved his hands.
“That’s a classroom.”
“No, it’s different.”
“Auditorium.”
“Come on, you’re just saying you —”
“Bowling alley.”
“What?”
“Board. Computers.”
“It’s different!”
“Okay, how?”
“It’s — you know —”
Palma covered her mouth.
“Stop laughing!”
“I'm not laughing.”
“At least I know what a stock exchange looks like.”
“I do, too. I’m looking at one. According to you.”
“Shut up,” Naxos muttered.
Palma shrugged, smiling at something an inch above Naxos’s head.
Naxos sighed explosively and sprawled backwards over the girder. His head hung backwards over the other side. The towers behind him were fringe hanging from the horizon. The glare on the endless square windows and whited-out cladding faded into the afternoon sky.
Palma lay down next to him, shading her eyes.
“Move over,” Naxos said.
“Why?”
“Sun’s in my eyes.”
“Mine too.”
“So move.”
“I don’t care.”
“You can still let me get out of it, at least.”
Palma closed her eyes. “Why?”
Naxos signed again, to make sure she heard it.
“Maybe it’s the train station,” Palma said.
“That doesn’t even make sense. Where are the tracks?”
“Inside.”
“Why?”
“Why is anything?”
“That’s cheating,” Naxos said.
“So?”
“Shut up.”
Palma shrugged.
Wind rippled through the East Side, winding a high, hissing whistle across the sky. Towers bent like grass.
“Is that coming this way?” she asked.
“No. It’s headed for Pool.”
She grunted and closed her eyes again.
Naxos pulled something wrapped in wax paper out of his pocket.
Palma opened one eye. “What’s that?”
“Black pepper donut. Want some?”
“No.”
Naxos ripped off a corner and held it under her nose. She swatted it away.
“What?” Naxos said.
Palma said something, but it was muffled by her arm.
“Sorry. Forgot you can’t handle spicy food.”
“That’s not the reason and you know it.”
“I said I was sorry. Hate to bring back bad memories.”
“It’s. A black pepper. Donut. How can you eat that.”
“Remember when we went to that Mesu diner in South Oyster—”
“Shut up—”
“— extra-mild fish roll that you —”
“I said shut up —”
“— tell her your aunt died?”
“That’s not what —”
Naxos cackled.
Palma shot out her hand. “Give me that.
Naxos handed her the donut. Palma dropped it over the side.
“Hey!”
“Hey what.”
Palma folded her arms over her face. The sound of the wind faded and died.
Naxos stretched. “Thirty-eighth floor,” he said.
“How would I know.”
“Guess.”
“No.”
“It’s an easy one. There’s a billboard.”
“Can’t see it.”
“At night, I mean.”
“I don’t sit around staring at it.”
“I don’t ‘sit around staring at it.’ I just used to live like a block away.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Five moves before this one.”
“Huh.”
“Right in front of it. It was so bright I could read it through my curtains. I had to start sleeping in my parents’ room.”
“Must have been terrible.”
“Maybe you’ll get that place next.”
“They’ve never given us anything closer than Yew Bus.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Palma muttered.
“Oh. Wow.”
Palma rolled over.
Naxos cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“I don’t want to be close to it.”
“Neither did I, but, I mean.”
“I said I don’t care. You said it was awful.”
Naxos stared over the edge of the girder. Three floors down, a corner of a curtain twitched, then disappeared into an invisible window.
“Boys’ shoes,” Palma said.
Naxos pushed himself up on his elbow. “How’d you know?”
“Billboard.”
Palma flipped onto her back and stretched. Her fist swayed an inch above Naxos’s eyebrows. He started to say something, but he stopped.
“What?” Palma asked.
“Nothing.”
“Say it, Naxos.”
“It’s not important.”
She shook her fist.
“Fine.”
“Hm?”
“I said, fine.”
“I’m still waiting.”
Naxos didn’t look at her. “You ever think about going in?”
“The Omnibus?”
“Uh-huh.”
Palma was silent.
“I do,” Naxos said.
“Wow. Really.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“I thought you were asking me.”
“Well. Yeah.”
Palma still didn’t say anything.
“Never mind.”
She never answered questions about that kind of thing. Naxos felt in his pocket. Plastic crinkled.
“Hey, you want a —”
“Yeah,” Palma said.
“I didn’t even say what it is yet.”
“I meant the Omnibus.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Some-times,” she said.
“That’s not what I sound like.”
“Sure.”
Palma sat up and rolled her neck. Her bangs flopped over her face so that Naxos couldn’t see her eyes.
“I mean, I wonder,” she said. “I’m never going to do it. What’s the point of going in if I can’t get back out?”
“I mean, nothing says you can’t.”
She snorted. “Idiot.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“Yes, you are.” Palma stuffed her bangs back under her headband. “But I wouldn’t go, even if I could get back out. What’s in there that isn’t out here?”
Naxos had to say it. She already knew. He said it anyway.
“Everything.”
“Yeah. I know.”
A cloud’s reflection drifted across the Omnibus’s windows. A stripe of faint pink light bled through it from the hundred-and-somethingth floor.
Naxos closed his eyes. He was tired of counting.
“What were you gonna ask before?” Palma asked.
“Oh.” He pulled the package out of his pocket. “You want a rice cracker? It’s the cinnamon kind.”
“Depends. Did you sit on it?”
“No.”
“Is it broken?”
“No — okay, it is, but it’s just cracked in half.”
“So it’s broken.”
“I was gonna have to break it anyways, if you wanted to split it.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Palma held out her hand. “Give me my half.”
Naxos ripped open the wrapper with his teeth and shook the cracker out into his palm, along with a waterfall of cinnamon sugar.
“The bigger half,” Palma said.
“It’s my cracker.”
“Yeah, and you broke it.”
“By accident!”
Palma wiggled her fingers.
“Fine. Shut up,” he muttered.
She popped the cracker into her mouth and crunched loudly.
“I still get the extra sugar,” he said.
“I don’t want it.”
“Sure.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“Hey!”
“Hey what.”
The roof of the Omnibus cut the sun in half. Shadows flooded the bottom floors of Palma and Naxos’s buildings. The alley between them was black and studded with silver headlights.
“I don’t want to go either,” Naxos said.
Palma kicked her legs over the edge of the girder. “Where?”
“The Omnibus.”
“Mm.”
“I think you’re right,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I’m not joking.”
“I know.”
“Oh.”
One of Palma’s sandals almost fell off. She carefully worked it back onto her foot, frowning in concentration.
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
“After this?”
“Yeah.”
“Dunno.”
“Hm. You wanna go up to the top?” she asked.
Naxos grinned. “Yeah.”
“Great.”
“Now?”
“Nah. In a minute.”
Palma sprawled backwards and folded her arms under her head, squinting on the cirrus-cloud scales on the sky. The omnibus shimmered, gold, red, and purple. The city swam in its windows, blurring in the heat.
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