Hall of Small Mammals Read Online Free PDF

man with his dog, the parallel rhythm of their strides, almost brings a tear to Mawmaw’s eye.When she pulls up alongside the man, he leans down to her open window.
    â€œSomething wrong?” he asks.
    â€œSorry, but you seen anything kind of odd this morning?”
    â€œLike what?”
    She’s not sure what to say. “I lost my dog. A real big one.”
    â€œSorry to hear that. You tried animal control?”
    â€œI will,” she says. “Good idea.”
    She drives home again and gets on the phone.
    â€œListen,” she says, once she has a woman on the line. “Have you gotten any of what’d you say were ‘odd calls’ this morning?”
    â€œLike what?” the woman asks.
    â€œLike, for instance, about a real big and sick hairy dog?”
    The woman breathes deep. “Ma’am, are you calling to report a big and hairy sick dog?”
    Mawmaw hangs up. She opens a cabinet for breakfast but isn’t very hungry. Next to the cereal boxes is a tub of mixed nuts. Upstairs she flips on the television in her bedroom. She waits for Shirley to show up on the morning news, then the afternoon news, then the evening news.
    She goes outside to smoke a menthol, but can’t remember which end is which. The ash flakes on the brick at her feet. She pictures Shirley in the oncoming beams of interstate traffic. She pictures her in a hunter’s crosshairs, then her head stuffed and mounted
as a trophy
.
    She is on her fourth menthol when she hears a car in the driveway. A few minutes later, Tommy comes around the corner of the house, his face gaunt under the porch light. He looks out tothe dog pen and seems relieved not to see a mammoth there. If Shirley knows what’s good for her, Mawmaw thinks, she won’t come anywhere near the house tonight, not with Tommy here. She’ll wait until he’s gone again before coming home.
    â€œI was knocking out front,” he says, his hand up to shield his eyes from the light. “Guess I should have called first.”
    Mawmaw takes another drag of her menthol. In this light, he is only the outline of a man. “What’s the matter?” he says, stepping toward her. “It’s me.”

The Real Alan Gass
    H e’s been living with her for not quite a year when Claire first mentions Alan Gass.
    â€œI think I need to tell you about something,” she says. “About
someone
.”
    Walker turns down the stereo above the fridge and readies himself for whatever comes next. They are in the kitchen—formerly her kitchen, now their kitchen. The butter crackles around the edges of the potatoes he is frying in a big cast-iron pan. He runs his hand through his dark hair, as if exhausted. If she confesses an affair, what will he do? First, switch off the burner. Second, grab his jacket and go without a word. The third step could involve fast walking, tears, and possibly a stop at the liquor store. Beyond that, it’s hard to say.
    Claire is on the other side of the kitchen island with her laptop open, an old black T-shirt sagging down her left shoulder, a turquoise bra strap exposed. Until now, she’s been quietly at work. She no longer takes classes, but when she did, they had titles like“Advanced Topics in Sub-Subatomic Forces.” Thanks to a graduate fellowship, she spends most days on the top floor of the physics building at the university, thinking about a theoretical particle called the daisy.
    The daisy is a candidate for the smallest particle in the universe, but no one has devised a way to observe or prove the existence of one. Doing so would probably require re-creating the conditions of the Big Bang, which everyone seems to agree would be a bad idea. The wider academic community has not fully embraced Daisy Theory, as it’s called. Claire’s advisor came up with it, and, like him, Claire believes the mysterious particle is forever locked in a curious state of existence and