He sat for a long while listening to the wind howl in the chimney and the rain funnels outside.
The old house creaked down into a deep swell of night then backed up and over, out of sight of land and light.
Rats practiced graffiti on the walls and spiders played harps so high that only the hairs inside his ears heard and quivered.
How much loss, how much gain? he wondered. How much leave, and how much remain?
What to decide? he thought.
All right, he called into himself. What? Which?
Not a stir of dark in his head. Not an echo.
Just a whisper: Sleep.
And he slept again and put out the light behind his eyes.
He heard a locomotive whistle across his dreams.
The train was gliding, rushing in the night, taking the curves under the moon, hitting the long straightaways, tossing dust, scattering sparks, laying out echoes, and he was atilt and adream and somehow the familiar words came back in his head:
One kiss and all time’s your dominion
One touch and no death can be cold.
One night puts off graveyard opinion
One hour and you’ll never grow old.
Drink deep of the wine of forever
Drink long of eternity’s stuff
Where everyman’s learned and clever,
And two billion loves not enough.
He cried out in his dream. No! And then again, Oh God, yes.
And some final few words spelled his dreams:
Somewhere a band is playing,
Playing the strangest tunes,
Of sunflower seeds and sailors,
Who tide with the strangest moons.
He was waking now. His mouth sighed:
Somewhere a band is playing
Listen, O, listen, that tune?
Learn it and you’ll dance on forever
In June and yet June and more … June.
The train was not far off now. It was rounding some hills. The sun was rising and he knew he had changed his mind.
He looked out at a sunrise that was bloody, a town filled with farewell light, and a weather that was so strange he would not forget it for a thousand days.
He saw his face in the bathroom mirror as he shaved, and the eyes looked immensely sad.
He came down to breakfast and sat before the mound of hotcakes and did not eat.
Nef, across from him, saw what he had seen in the mirror and sat back in her chair.
“Have you been thinking?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. Up to this very moment he didn’t know what would come from his mouth.
“Stay,” she said, before he could speak.
“I wish that I could.”
“Stay.”
And here she reached and took his hand.
And it was a warm hand and his own was cold. She seemed a goddess, bending to reach into his tomb and help him out.
“Please.”
“Oh God,” he cried. “Oh Christ, let me be!” He wept inside. “You don’t understand. I’m not made to not grow old.”
“How can you know?”
“Each of us knows. I was born to live and die at seventy. Then I will really be filled up. The fire of life, the good stuff, goes straight up the chimney. The sins, the sadness, whatever, stays like soot on the chimney walls. One can gather only so much darkness. I’ve collected too much. How do you knock the soot off the walls inside your soul?”
“With a chimney sweep,” she said. “Let me sweep and knock those walls until you laugh. I can, if you let me.”
“I won’t allow it.”
“No,” she said, quietly. “I don’t suppose you can. Oh, God, I might cry now. But I won’t. Goodbye.”
“I’m not going yet.”
“But I am. I can’t watch you go. Come back someday.”
“Do you think I’ll never come back?”
She nodded, eyes shut.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s so hard. I don’t know if I’m ready to live a hundred and thirty years. I wonder if anyone is or can be. It’s just,” he said, “it sounds so … lonely. Leaving everyone behind. Coming to the day when the last friend goes into the graveyard.”
“You’ll make new friends.”
“Yes, but there are no friends like the old ones. You can’t replace them.”
“No. You can’t.”
She looked at the door.
“If you go, and you do decide to come back, to try and find us, don’t wait too long.”
“Or it won’t work? I know. I’ll be too old. Must I decide before I’m … fifty?”
“Just come back to us,” she said.
And suddenly her chair was empty.