Tony Burgess - The n-Body Problem

“There’s nobody out there, Mosey. Not a soul. Seems like end of days more than ever. Oh, well. Never mind. We got each other and a warehouse down the road.”

Tildy laughs at her wickedness. I watch her scooping dry formula into a bottle and fill it with water. She repeats this several times then sets all but one just outside the door to freeze. The dead are frozen now. I wonder if they still move. Those seizures and tiny fits cracking the ice in their bones. Maybe shattering them over time. Shards of lung and crystallized eyes. Tildy shakes the bottle I am to drink. She won’t give it to me yet though. She wants to warm it. She sits on it.

The Bible. I listen, mostly to her voice. Her quiet amens. I don’t care what the words mean as much as I love Tildy’s calm, happy voice. She stops from time to time, closing the book on her speckled fingers and she looks out to the dead world as if it were a field of bright yellow wheat. As if her children were running through the grass up the hill. Or angels. She drifts off. We have all the time we need, Tildy and I.

I am genuinely grateful to be here. I have been a violent man. I have brought many people to sudden death. Now I am bundled and free of limbs and speech and pain. I squeeze a small turd through my buttonhole. I watch Tildy sleep. Candy. The black sky and the silver earth. These days can end or not end. I am home.

Tildy wakes when the room temperature falls. It is cold in here. I can see cloud puff from my mouth.

“That’s bitter in here, Mosey. I’ll check the furnace.”

Tildy returns after almost an hour. The house is now becoming dangerous. She doesn’t look at me or say anything as she pulls on her parka. She stomps a boot to keep Candy from the door and she leaves.

Candy walks in a military march toward me then stops and takes her post. She knows as much as I do. She is visibly shivering.

We sit like this, staring each other down for about a half hour, when the door opens. Nine or ten frozen logs fall in with a shroud of dry white particles. I only see Tildy’s arm as she pulls the door closed again. Candy barks and runs to the settee. The cold floor hurts her paws.

Tildy does this three more times until the entire front room is dominated by logs. I can see as she bends down to the stove and lights paper that this has cost her. She still hums but I’m pretty sure this is for me and Candy. It works. Candy understands that warmth is coming. I look up at where the pipe enters the ceiling. Black mould and stains and metal discoloured by decades of tightening and releasing. I wonder when was the last time the inside of this chimney was cleaned.

I have to stop imagining death at the end of every action. That’s Syndrome. I have to stay here. Like Tildy. In the moment. I wonder if I can hum? I try. Of course I can! I hum a tuneless sequence of notes. Tildy drops a log. She closes the stove door as she watches me. I hum louder. What song? What song can I hum for Tildy? I hum “Freebird.” It just comes to me. Tidly’s droopy white skin is drawn up into a smile. Her eyes are blue!

She listens on the couch and twirls Candy’s ears in her fingers. The room is warming. Loud delicious snaps form the stove.

“I know that song, Mosey!”

Tidly hums along with me, matching some notes, on her own with others. She thinks it’s a different song than “Freebird.” Maybe a song she learned in church as a girl. We sit like this humming, laughing at each other, through the evening. I switch the songs from time to time. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Each time Tildy listens intently at the start, then slaps her thigh, declaring she knows it. She accompanies me with the same melody each time. Eventually, we grow sleepy. Losing ourselves in the solemn fire.

“I’m sleeping on the couch tonight, Mosey. Keep an eye on the fire. Them rooms back there are froze.”

My eyes droop as she pushes logs in on the embers. Droop and drop.

I keep thinking spring is coming. I look for signs of thaw. The white mass outside to shrink. I keep thinking it must be late March. It’s not. It’s mid-August.

Tildy has worked hard to keep us alive. Stacking more wood against the house. Bringing it in when the supply inside gets thin. She has lost weight and hums less. At night she holds the Bible open but doesn’t read. She just watches the fire until she falls asleep. I worry for her, not only because she keeps us alive, but because I don’t want her to die. I am her baby. I love her.

Candy disappears one day. I try to calm Tildy by humming “Smoke on the Water.” Eventually she finds the dog frozen in her bedroom. She lays the body to thaw in front of the stove.

Tildy takes Candy in her arms and wanders out into the frigid black August afternoon. I have a renewed fear that she will not return. The fire would go out and I would freeze to death in hours. My Tildy. My Tildy. Don’t leave me.

I want that bottle now. My grape-sized stomach empties in a snap. There is some rice liquid at the bottom of a jar on my tray. I push my lips toward it but can’t reach. The pains are sharp. Not like hunger. More stabbing. I rock back and forth with no clear plan. Either I draw it to me or I fall.

The door opens.

“Somebody’s comin’, Mosey! Somebody’s comin’!”

Tildy lifts me from the high chair and settles on the couch.

“They seen me for sure. Young people. They’ll come.”

Tildy closes her eyes and mouths a prayer. I need to eat.

A rap at the door.

“Look at that, Mosey. Company.”

She lays me on the couch and stands, revealing a baby bottle. I pull the nipple into my mouth and pump.

Tidly opens the door.

“Why, hello!”

I hear a young girl’s voice.

“Hi. We’re freezing. Can we come in?”

The door opens farther. I can tell that ’cause the bottle frosts up. Shoes stomp on the floor. The door is shut.

“Come in! Come in! Oh, you poor loves! You look near dead.”

Three young men sit on the floor near the stove. One turns.

“This is great. Thank you. Mind if I put another log on?”

They haven’t spotted me yet. I am forced to imagine what this looks like. A full-grown man’s head on a larval body sucking formula from a baby bottle. I want to scream at myself. I am grotesque. I forgot about all that.

The young man pulls open the stove door, burning his gloves and drives a log in. The other two are staring at me. Eyes as long as test tubes. They look to the girl standing behind me. I can’t see her. I hear her though.

“Oh! I’m sorry. What’s… who’s that?”

She is being calm. I hear the struggle. The boys have moved back and are looking anxiously to Tildy. Hurry up. Tell us what we’re looking at.

“Oh. That’s Mosey.”

The boys slowly return their gaze to me. I am too much for them and they move even farther back.

“Do you kids want some food?”

They congregate around the kitchen table. Tildy leaves me on the couch. It’s warm here and I have my bottle. I can’t see them.

“You folks been stuck out there for long?”

I hear sighs and low whistles.

“Well, you’re here now and what’s mine is yours.”

Silence follows this. I imagine they don’t know what to say.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, you’re good kids.”

They eat. I’m not sure what. Something form the warehouse bags.

“I was afraid when I saw you. There’s bad people out in the cold and dark. But I guess you know that.”