Next Year

story thirty-one · figures 91–93

The story →

NEXT YEAR · WHAT PEOPLE BRING TO A FOLDING TABLE — the underpass market, between the key-cutter and the man who sells rain jackets in every season NEXT YEAR · WHAT PEOPLE BRING TO A FOLDING TABLE the underpass market, between the key-cutter and the man who sells rain jackets in every season a ring cannot keep it · cannot throw it away a key that has outlived its door a letter, sealed addressed to the bringer unopened the gray cards a name on the strip, a renewal date lately · this is the new trade HER HUSBAND’S CARD renews on Thursday canceled four times, reinstated four times · she holds it in both hands like something warm A MADE HAND heavy, in a canvas bag, wrapped in a shirt its fingers closed on their last instruction · he has tried the bins twice and come back SHE DOES NOT ASK HIM TO DESTROY IT. SHE ASKS HIM TO MAKE IT DISAPPEAR. Destruction is a service the office sells, with a form and a fee. Disappearance is not on any schedule, and she pays him less than a reinstatement for it, and climbs toward the light. "WHERE DID IT GO?" · "TO NEXT YEAR. THE ONE ADDRESS THAT NEVER CHANGES." He does not touch it. He does the trick. The key-cutter does not look up.
91 · Next Year
NEXT YEAR · WHAT HE CHARGES, AND WHAT HE KEEPS — he never asks for money for the hard ones · he asks for one word, said clearly, and does not say what he does with it NEXT YEAR · WHAT HE CHARGES, AND WHAT HE KEEPS he never asks for money for the hard ones · he asks for one word, said clearly, and does not say what he does with it A HUNDRED AND FORTY WORDS IN HIM that are not his he can feel which ones are LOAD-BEARING · and the woman’s was the fee for a card less than a reinstatement, in coin the fee for the hard ones one word, said clearly what he does with them he does not say how long he has been here since before the plates behind the folding table THERE IS NO DRAWER A CONJUROR IS THE RIGHT TRADE FOR A CITY WHOSE METHOD IS MAKING THINGS VANISH AND ISSUING A RECEIPT. He is the honest version: no drawer, no mechanism, nothing retained. THE DAMP HAS LIVED IN HIS KNEES FOR YEARS. HIS HANDS ARE THE CLEANEST THING IN THE TUNNEL.
92 · Next Year
NEXT YEAR · THE ADDRESS THAT NEVER CHANGES — what the city sends to next year, across sixty stories · and the one thing that comes back NEXT YEAR · THE ADDRESS THAT NEVER CHANGES what the city sends to next year, across sixty stories · and the one thing that comes back SENT a coin at a seventh birthday, story one a gray card a husband’s renewal, canceled four times a made hand fingers closed on their last instruction a word said clearly, at the folding table and the rest what people cannot keep and cannot throw away AND ONE THING COMES BACK the coin, in a box on a hill fifty-nine stories later, unremarked and nobody in the book connects the two NEXT YEAR IS THE ONE ADDRESS THE OFFICE DOES NOT SERVE. It has no counter, no rate, no reference and no form — which is why it is the only place in the city where a thing can go and not be held. BEHIND THE FOLDING TABLE THERE IS NO DRAWER.
93 · Next Year

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