TheComingandGoingofStrangers - (EPUB全文下载)

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The Coming and Going of Strangers
Short Story
Simon Van Booy
to
LORILEE VAN BOOY
If you are not here, then why are you everywhere?
Contents
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Simon Van Booy
Copyright
About the Publisher
The Coming and Going of Strangers
Walter’s Journey Through the Rain
W
ALTER WHEELED HIS HOT,

ticking motorbike up and down the muddy lane, breathing with the rhythm of a small, determined engine. Fists of breath hovered and then opened over each taken-step. He would soon be within sight of his beloved’s house. In the far distance, Sunday parked over the village like an old mute who hid his face in the hanging thick of clouds. The afternoon had seen heavy rain and the fields were soft.
Tired and wet, lovesick Walter thought of the Sunday town streets, hymns and hot dinners, the starch and hiss of ironing; shoes polished and set down before the fire so that each shoe held a flame in its black belly; dogs barking at back doors. Early stars.
He stopped and held his motorbike still. He listened for the sounds of the faraway town. At first he could hear only his own hard breathing. Then a bus growling up the hill; the creaking of trees; and then in the distance—seagulls screaming from the cliffs.
There were scabs of mud on the black fuel tank of Walter’s motorbike. Leaves and sticks had caught in the spokes and marked the stages of his journey in their own language. Light had not yet drained from the world, yet the moon was already out and cast a skeletal spell upon the bare branches of trees.
The road sloped downward for several hundred yards. In the distance, cows perched on steep pasture and barked solemnly out to sea. Walter imagined their black eyes full of wordless questions. What were they capable of understanding? The cold country of water that lay beyond the cliffs? Did they feel the stillness of a Sunday?
Walter removed the basket of eggs from the milk crate strapped to the back of his seat. Then he lay the machine down on its side. A handlebar end disappeared into a puddle.
It was the highest point in the county. Looking west, Walter knew from the few books in his uncle’s caravan that America lay beyond. He exhaled and imagined how night—like a rolling wave—would carry his breath across the sea to New York. He imagined a complete stranger breathing the air that filled his own body.
Walter removed a glove and rubbed his face. The dirt beneath his fingernails was black with oil. Walter pictured his mother ba ............

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