The Dog Boy, a 39-year-old man child, is being forced from his home. He has nowhere to go. Charon's Crossing, a failed racehorse, will be put down unless she wins her next race, but she has lost each one of her previous 64 races. The worst is certai...
Loud then soft. Loud and creaking and then soft. A soft shushing sound, in fact. Clearly, it was nothing to worry about. It was the pattern of the sounds that told Sam all he needed to know.
Immediately after the loud came the pause. It was never more than five or six seconds in length, but the final second was always the worst. Especially if the pause lasted six full seconds because that's when doubt began to creep into Sam's mind. Would loud really be followed by soft or would loud be followed by the closing of the front door and then by silence?
Like most nights, Sam counted on that pattern to help him relax and go back to sleep. It comforted him to know that stairs always creak more when someone is walking down them than when they head back up. One minute before, Sam had heard Charon walk down the stairs and pause. She waited there on the landing at the bottom for a few seconds. It was as if she was thinking through every moment of her life before and after she had met Sam. The good moments and the bad ones but mostly the bad ones. They always count more, you know.
While Sam listened to the silence coming from below him, he held his breath (or he thought he held his breath). Then finally, he heard the softer sound of Charon walking back up the stairs to return to bed. Stairs creaking like before but not quite as loud. Each soft footfall reminded Sam of the sound a horse makes when it walks across the sand. Soft. Soft. Soft and regular.
Charon pulled the covers over her shoulders. A puff of cool air coiled around Sam's feet, so he slipped his legs under Charon's and said, "What did one grain of sand say to the other grain of sand?"
Charon tugged on the blanket. "Stop it, Sam. It's late." She paused for a moment and then said, "I don't care about that. I never did. And besides, you're repeating yourself."
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