Griff often hung around the slimeways of the Combat Zone on weekends, selling narcotic chewing gum to minors & undercover cops. The cops didn't bother to arrest him anymore, they just dished him out a ticket & moved along. Sometimes they even robbed him of his wares if it was a slow night, which always crushed his spirits. This time was no different. They stole his stash of gum & stuffed him in a nearby trash can. It took him fifteen minutes to wriggle free. He went home reeking of dead salad.

He shared a lopsided apartment with a girl named Martyr in the Bay Village, above a transvestite motorcycle bar. They used to be fairly intimate until the decay set in. Now they didn't do much together except for the occasional night out for bowling.

Thursday she showed him the lumps in her neck. He thought they felt like eggs forming under the skin. She was unhappy about this and poked at her bowl of Rice Krispies until they grew soggy. Griff lay on the futon with his head hanging upside down off the edge and imagined what it would be like if gravity reversed and he was able to walk on the ceiling. They listened to the radiator gorging on metal birds.

"It's cold," Griff mentioned without much commitment.

Martyr ran her hand over the eggs in her neck. "I'm sorry I sold your jacket."

"It's okay. I'll find another one."

"I was hungry."

"I know."

There was a rheumatic candle on the coffeetable. Griff trained his thoughts on it, trying to move it telekinetically. Nothing happened. He couldn't figure out which muscle to flex.

"I'm going out," he said.

"You can borrow my jacket if you'd like."

"Thanks."

He went down to the bridge and stared at the pondwater, wondering what it would be like to abandon a capsizing ship on a cold Baltic night. The straggly accordion boy wasn't at his post on the far side of the bridge, like some wheezing minstrel troll. Leaning over the stone rail he spotted something small and dark near the water's edge. He left the bridge and scuffled down to the object. It was a single glove. The left hand, begrimed with dirt. He felt sorry for it. He took it down the street to a laundromat and fed it gently to a washing machine. There was a girl watching her laundry going round and round in a noisy dryer. She looked like she was gleaning her future from it somehow. She wore a funny round hat with a bow on it. She had a lavender aura. He watched her for a little bit, then went over.

"You look like Daisy Buchanan," he said.

She looked up at him with a rosy smile. "I don't know who that is."

He regarded her with wonder. "Are you sure you belong in this decade?"

They talked of sparrows and matchboxes. When his washer died, he transferred his left hand glove to the dryer next to hers. He loved the smell of laundry. It was his third favorite smell in the whole world.
They sat watching her underwear go round. All the dryer barrels rotated clockwise. When the buzzer announced her clothes were dry, she scooped them into a crayon red dufflebag and told him she had to go practice her cello. He asked if he might come along and listen. She thought about it for a moment—finger to lips and eyes heavenward—then decided it would be alright. He took the glove from the dryer, interrupting its cycle. Even though it was still a little moist, he slid it over his left hand. Then he helped carry her laundry to a tiny practice room above a discount jukebox retailer. The room was strewn with sheet music and peacock feathers. She lit a red candle and placed it in the center of the floor, then began rosining her bow. Griff slouched on a beanbag in the corner and listened to her run through a repertoire of Schubert.

Cello was his favorite symphonic instrument. It sounded to his ear like a dancing golem. It had a very sensible tonality—as though it was not prone to vanity or foolhardiness. He felt he could depend on the cello. He listened until his eyelids grew heavy and he nodded off.

She tapped him on the shoulder gently to wake him. "I finished my practice," she told him. He rubbed his eyes, reoriented himself.

"I need to be getting home," he said. "Martyr will wonder what happened to me."

"You shouldn't go back there," she told him sadly. "Something bad will happen."

"I know, but it's where I live."

He started the long walk home. It was much colder than before. He shivered, hands buried deep in pockets. The glove felt good on his left hand. He was glad he had found it. He turned up the narrow road that led home. Inside Martyr lay inert on the floor. The eggs in her neck had hatched and the newborns were nowhere to be seen.