In Other Worlds

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In Other WorldsIn Other Worlds by A.A.Attanasio version 1.0
Contents
Eating the Strange 18
Alfred Omega . 88
The Decomposition Notebook 146
He who looks does not find,
but he who does not look is found.

-KAFKA

Carl Schirmer's last day as a human was filled with portents of his strange life to come. As he completed his morning ablutions, he saw in the bathroom mirror his hair, what little of it there was, standing straight up. He smoothed it back and tucked it behind his ears with his damp hands, but it sprang back. Even the few strands left at the cope of his shining pate wavered upright. His hair was a rusty gossamer, and it stuck out from the sides of his large head like a clown's wig.

With his usual complaisance, he shrugged and commenced to shave his broad face. Today, he sensed, was going to be an unusual day. His sleep had been fitful, and he had awoken to a breed of headache he had never encountered before. His .head was not actually aching-it was buzzing, as though overnight a swarm of gnats had molted to maturity in the folds of his brain. After completing his morning cleansing ritual and checking the coat of his tongue and the blood-brightness under his lids, he put his glasses on, took two acetaminophen, and dressed for work.

Carl was not a stylish or a careful dresser, yet even he noticed that his clothes, which he had ironed two nights before for a dinner his date had canceled and which had looked fine hanging in his closet, hung particularly rumpled on him that day. When he tried to brush the wrinkles out, static sparked along his fingers. The morning was already old,– so he didn't bother to change. He hurried through breakfast despite the fact that his usually trustworthy toaster charred his toast, and he skipped his coffee when he saw that no amount of wire jiggling was going to get his electric percolator to work. Not until he had left his apartment and had jogged down the four floors to the street did he realize that his headbuzz had tingled through the cords of his neck and into his shoulders. He was not feeling right at all, and yet in another sense, a perceptive and easeful sense, he was feeling sharper than ever.

Carl lived in a low-rent apartment building on West 'Twenty-fourth Street and Tenth Avenue in Manhattan, and he was not used to smelling the river, though he was only a few blocks away from the Hudson. This morning the air for him was kelpy with the sweetand-sour smell of the Hudson. Immense cauliflower clouds bunched over the city, and the blue of– the sky seemed clear as an idea.

He strolled down Twenty-third Street with an atypically loose stride, his face uplifted to the path of heaven. Spring's promise-haunted presence drifted through the tumult of clouds, which was odd, since this was November. The rainbow-haired punks that loitered about the Chelsea Hotel looked childbright and friendly today, and Carl knew then that the ferment of a mood was indeed altering him. But he didn't care. Though his blood felt carbonated, it was wondrous to see the city looking benevolent, and he went with the illusion.

At the corner of Seventh Avenue, a drunk approached him,, and he handed over a dollar, appreciating the serene desuetude of the woman's face. Nothing could depress him this morning. And the sight of the place where he worked sparked a smile in him. The Blue

Apple at Twenty-second and Seventh was a bar and restaurant that he managed. Except for the neon sign in the vine-trellised window, the structure was antiquated and looked smoky with age. Until Carl had come along, the narrow building had been an Irish bar with the inspired name the Shamrock, run and owned by Caitlin Sweeney, an alcoholic widow supporting her thirst and a daughter with the faithful patronage of a few aged locals. A year ago, after losing his midtown brokerage job to the recession and his own lack of aggression, Carl had let a newspaper ad lead him here.. He had been looking for something to keep him alive and not too busy. And then he had met Sheelagh and wound up working harder than ever.