Seven!<\/p>\n
Larry grins.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u2019s a rare thing.\u00c2\u00a0 He lets his feet dangle over the side of the roof, lets his eyes stray over the Fairgrounds, where there are no rooftops, and even through the Mirage, despite that the garden\u2019s also got a metro station.<\/p>\n
Larry\u2019s not comfortable underground, and so much of Midnight, too much of Midnight, is made up of caverns and crevices and cracks and holes.\u00c2\u00a0 On the rooftops, he can breathe.\u00c2\u00a0 He can drink the rain when it comes.<\/p>\n
And he can count birds.<\/p>\n
That magpie, there, on the fire escape, proud of its black feathers and its white feathers, makes seven so far for the night, and the red light of dawn shall soon grace the mountaintops.\u00c2\u00a0 Seven\u2019s wonderful.\u00c2\u00a0 Mystical and magical.\u00c2\u00a0 The number of releasing secrets.<\/p>\n
Larry knows so many counting rhymes he\u2019s lost count.\u00c2\u00a0 Some involve fingers or thumbs, eggs, marbles, or aces.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of the rhymes, maybe even most, agree with the Bible: seven is important.\u00c2\u00a0 Many end at seven.<\/p>\n
He has to be careful.\u00c2\u00a0 When the new day starts, he can begin counting anew.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u2019s always sad, starting with one, but since Larry cannot remember a night that ended with only one, it\u2019s a brief bit of sad and he can handle it.<\/p>\n
Larry he likes secrets.\u00c2\u00a0 He love mystery.\u00c2\u00a0 If he ends the night at seven, that\u2019s the best kind of omen.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019d go down to the surface, to the streets, amid the cars and the noise and the chaos of all those damn people, to discover his secret.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019d go into the womb of the city, the tomb, the catacombs with their skulls and the sewers with their shit.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019d ask questions.<\/p>\n
He practices, now, using a voice that scratches his throat.\u00c2\u00a0 He says, \u201cHello,\u201d slow and uneasy, and then again with emphasis on the last syllable.\u00c2\u00a0 He tries, \u201cHi,\u201d but it sounds like he\u2019s clearing his throat.\u00c2\u00a0 He tries again.\u00c2\u00a0 Still dusty and rough, like charcoal.\u00c2\u00a0 He opens his canteen, the water canteen not the whiskey, wets his lips and his tongue, then takes a swallow.\u00c2\u00a0 He says it again: \u201cHi.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds almost human, or at least a reasonable facsimile of what he thinks human sounds like.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019s still grinning.\u00c2\u00a0 He says, \u201cMy name is…Larry.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s happy being Larry.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019s always been Larry.\u00c2\u00a0 He sometimes tries to imagine being someone else, but it never works right and often ends in panic.<\/p>\n
Maybe this time–with his seven magpie omen guiding him to the asphalt and pavement–maybe this time the secret he\u2019ll uncover is the name of the woman who first called him Larry.\u00c2\u00a0 It counts as a secret if you knew once but no longer.<\/p>\n
Larry turns to the magpie perched beside to him, nearly delirious with joy and wonder and hope and fear, and says, \u201cHi.\u201d\u00c2\u00a0 He says it before realizing dawn has yet to redden the sky mountaintops.\u00c2\u00a0 He says it before realizing his count has jumped.<\/p>\n
Eight.\u00c2\u00a0 No secrets for eight.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u2019s not ready for eight.\u00c2\u00a0 Larry\u2019s grin retreats, though he\u2019s not sad, not really.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe tomorrow night he\u2019ll count only as high as seven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven! Larry grins.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u2019s a rare thing.\u00c2\u00a0 He lets his feet dangle over the side of the roof, lets his eyes stray over the Fairgrounds, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}