Alone Again Or | Page 3

fat man with dark hair and a screw
necklace, had drank too much foc. It was legal then. Syd, at eight,
could tell his father had drunk too much because the old man was

drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. The car had been rented
for the funeral procession. The economy was in bad shape when Syd
had been born; his parents didn't become middle class until Syd was
seventeen.
Syd's brother and mother had been in a separate car as was customary;
they were biologically related to the grandmother.
"How does a car move?" Syd had said. He knew cars were machines,
but they never needed to be plugged in, and this confused him.
"This car uses gasoline."
Syd ran his fingers along the metal strip under the glass of the
passenger window.
"What's gasoline?"
"Gasoline is a chemical they make in factories. Your uncle Tommy
worked in one for a while until his lungs burned out on him."
"How do they make gasoline?"
"From different dead things. The city garbage, food that goes bad and
isn't recycled into other things, dead pets, and dead people whose
families can't afford a real funeral."
"Not Grandma though, right Dad?" Syd had said, confident in that his
father would say the right words. He sat back in the car's roomy seat
which he imagined must be similar to the seats on the airplanes that
streaked through the sky over the city sometimes.
"You know we don't have much money," his father had said, "after the
funeral showing she'll go to the factory."
Syd had puked all over the floor of the car, and his father had to give
the rental agency one hundred extra dollars when he returned it.
Syd hoped he wouldn't have to buy a car.

Not because of that early memory, he thought, but because I don't have
anywhere to park cars.
On his breastbone above the dark blue oxford shirt sat a blank circle
necklace. It signified that he believed in The Circular Faith; that all
religions were true and led to spiritual enlightenment.
Syd didn't believe this to be true, but showing up anywhere public
without a necklace on had caused him to be constantly lectured by
missionaries from all faiths. It was easier for him in Steeple City to
wear a necklace, even if it was a lie. He wondered what religion his
wife would have.
The sidewalk was experimental, a yellow plastic based sidewalk,
instead of the ceramic type in use over most of the city. Syd kicked a
dandelion that had managed to grow in-between a building and the
sidewalk. As it skidded into the road he saw that it had yellow plastic in
its roots and he laughed.
I don't think you're going to get past the proto-type phase at all, he
thought.
I like the color yellow for the sidewalk though, he thought to himself.
The roads are boring and black. When the spaires-machine dust is
expelled its green powder would undulate and circle over the yellow
and black.
He watched it every time he was awake late enough for the expulsion.
Which lately, he thought, has been pretty fucking often.
The agency was a short train ride closer to the center of the city. Far
enough away from anyplace dangerous to need many guards, but not so
close to the center of the city that The Mayor had to pay much in land
tax.
The man sat Syd down in a small office on the twelfth floor. The air
had the stale smell of a Spaires Machine, and the furniture was brown

and designed to look like fabric. When Syd sat down heavily in the
chair across from the man's desk he discovered the chair was ceramic.
The desk was nothing but metal, shiny, buffed, and intimidating.
Behind the desk the man wore no necklace of faith. His eyes were
brown, and his teeth were yellowed. He wore black glasses with thick
rims, which Syd noticed were crooked.
But Syd like the man's smile from across the desk. It's a trusting sort of
smile, Syd thought.
His stomach had not been well since he entered The Agency building.
Everyone knew what a straight would go to The Agency for, and he felt
all of the secretaries stared at him.
"So what kind of appearance are you going for?" the man said, still
smiling with his hands folded on the desk.
Syd tapped his fingers on the desk. He hadn't given that much thought.
"I want a smart girl, one with taste in the arts and that can form her own
opinion."
The man behind the desk leaned back in his chair and put his wingtip
shoes up on the