Dead
Edward Mullany

The house at the end of the street has no front door, though in every other way it is like a normal house, or, anyway, like the other houses on this street. It has a lawn that has recently been mowed, it has a mailbox at the end of its walk, it has a driveway and a garage, it seems to just sit there in the sun. I wander around it, looking up at the windows, finding in the backyard an old man sitting in a lawn chair, asleep, though beside him on the grass is a tiny portable radio, which is off. I wake him by touching his shoulder, which is bare, and when he squints up at me, shielding his eyes with a large wrinkled hand, I flash him my badge, identifying myself as a member of the government agency to which I belong. "Oh, you again," he says, because I have visited him here before. "I thought I already explained this to you. I don't know what happened to the door. One day it was there and the next day it wasn't. Just filled in with wall. Now I simply go in and out through the windows. Is that such a crime?" He looks around, and when he doesn't see my partner, he says, "Where was that pretty girl who was here with you last time, I liked her better than you."

1996 © 2011