It wasn’t a dainty sort of clanging, like that of a cable car in San Francisco, thought Woolly. It was an emphatic clanging like that of a blacksmith who’s beating a red-hot horseshoe on an anvil.
Or perhaps not a horseshoe . . . , thought Woolly with a pang.
Better that it was a blacksmith beating something else. Something like, something like, something like a sword. Yes, that was it. The clanging sounded like an ancient blacksmith hammering on the blade of Excalibur.
With that happier image in mind, Woolly closed the door, switched on the radio, and went to lie down on the bed on the left.
In the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks has to climb into three different beds before she finds the one that’s just right for her. But Woolly didn’t need to climb into three different beds, because he already knew that the one on the left would be just right for him. For as in his youth, it was neither too hard nor too soft, too long nor too short.
Propping up the pillows, Woolly polished off the extra bottle of his medicine and made himself comfortable. As he looked up at the ceiling, his thoughts returned to the jigsaw puzzles that they would complete on rainy days.
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful, thought Woolly, if everybody’s life was like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Then no one person’s life would ever be an inconvenience to anyone else’s. It would just fit snugly in its very own, specially designed spot, and in so doing, would enable the whole intricate picture to become complete.
As Woolly was having this wonderful notion, a commercial came to its end and the telecast of a mystery show began. Climbing back out of bed, Woolly turned the volume on the radio down to two and a half.
The important thing to understand about listening to a mystery show on the radio, Woolly well knew, is that all the parts designed to make you anxious—like the whispering of assassins, or the rustling of leaves, or the creaking of steps on a staircase—were relatively quiet. While the parts designed to set your mind at ease—like the sudden epiphany of the hero, or the peeling of his tires, or the crack of his pistol—were relatively loud. So if you turned the volume down to two and a half, you could barely hear the parts designed to make you anxious, while still getting to hear all the parts designed to set your mind at ease.
Returning to his bed, Woolly poured all the little pink pills from the little brown bottle onto the table. With the tip of his finger, he pushed them into the palm of his hand, saying, One potato, two potato, three potato, four. Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more. Then washing them down with a big drink of water, he made himself comfortable again.
With the pillows properly propped, the volume properly lowered, and the little pink pills properly swallowed, you might think that Woolly wouldn’t know what to think about, what with Woolly being Woolly and prone to all the old Woolly ways.
But Woolly knew exactly what to think about. He had known that he would think about it almost as soon as it had happened.
—I’ll start in front of the cabinet at FAO Schwarz, he said to himself with a smile. And my sister will come, and we’ll have tea at the Plaza with the panda. And after Duchess meets me at the statue of Abraham Lincoln, he and I will attend the circus, where Billy and Emmett will suddenly reappear. Then we’ll go over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Empire State Building, where we’ll meet Professor Abernathe. Then it’s off to the grassy train tracks where, sitting by the fire, we’ll hear the story of the two Ulysses and the ancient seer who explained how they could find their ways home again—how they could find their ways home, after ten long years.
But one mustn’t rush, thought Woolly, as the window curtains stirred, and the grass began to sprout through the seams between the floorboards, and the ivy climbed the legs of the bureau. For a one-of-a-kind kind of day deserves to be relived at the slowest possible pace, with every moment, every twist, every turn of events remembered to the tiniest detail.
Abacus
Many years before, Abacus had come to the conclusion that the greatest of heroic stories have the shape of a diamond on its side. Beginning at a fine point, the life of the hero expands outward through youth as he begins to establish his strengths and fallibilities, his friendships and enmities. Proceeding into the world, he pursues exploits in grand company, accumulating honors and accolades. But at some untold moment, the two rays that define the outer limits of this widening world of hale companions and worthy adventures simultaneously turn a corner and begin to converge. The terrain our hero travels, the cast of characters he meets, the sense of purpose that has long propelled him forward all begin to narrow—to narrow toward that fixed and inexorable point that defines his fate.