The Markmaker / Steam / Special Connection

3 fictions.

The Markmaker

I went to visit my friend the markmaker.

“Here,” he said. “Take a look at this.”

He showed me a page. It was covered in small black marks. Some split or connected with each other. Others turned at hard angles. They were arranged in neat, regular rows.

“That’s quite interesting,” I said.

“It’s something I’ve been working on. The marks are a kind of system.”

“I see. Like an alphabet.”

He looked at me, irritated. “No, not at all like an alphabet at all. This is something completely different.”

I changed the subject. We ordered dinner from the dumpling place we always used to order from, back in our student days. Later, we drank a few beers and I fell asleep on the soft bamboo floor of his study.

A few weeks passed. I happened to be in my friend’s neighborhood again, and I decided I would go visit him. When I called at his house, however, there was no answer. Going around back, I found him standing up to his knees in the grass. There was a large stone in front of him that he seemed to be studying. It was dark and angular.

“Here you are,” I said. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

“I’m sorry. I was concentrating.”

“On the stone?”

“Yes. Don’t you notice how it’s a mark? A very specific mark? It’s a part of my system.”

“I see.”

“Except…” He trailed off. We stayed outside for a while, then went in. Over cups of green tea, he told me a story about watching his older brother die of tuberculosis when he was a child. He told me it took a long time. The sun set, and I said goodnight. On the way home, I thought about the hopelessness of our ambitions. Moths flitted beneath streetlights.