Magic for Beginners: Stories Read Online Free PDF

up.
Not even Batu.
     
    Hangi yol daha k?sa?
    Which is the shorter route?
     
    Hangi yol daha kolay?
    Which is the easier route?
     
    Charley came by at the beginning of her shift. She didn’t come
inside the All-Night. Instead she stood out in the parking lot,
beside her car, looking out across the road, at the Ausible Chasm.
The car hung low to the ground, as if the trunk were full of
things. When Eric went outside, he saw that there was a suitcase in
the backseat. If there were ghost dogs, Eric couldn’t see them, but
there were doggy smudges on the windows.
    “Where’s Batu?” Charley said.
    “Asleep,” Eric said. He realized that he’d never figured out how
the conversation would go, after that.
    He said, “Are you going someplace?”
    “I’m going to work,” Charley said. “Like normal.”
    “Good,” Eric said. “Normal is good.” He stood and looked at his
feet. A zombie wandered into the parking lot. It nodded at them,
and went into the All-Night.
    “Aren’t you going to go back inside?” Charley said.
    “In a bit,” Eric said. “It’s not like they ever buy anything.”
But he kept an eye on the All-Night, and the zombie, in case it
headed towards the storage closet.
    “So how old are you?” Eric said. “I mean, can I ask you that?
How old you are?”
    “How old are you?” Charley said right back.
    “I’m almost twenty,” Eric said. “I know I look older.”
    “No you don’t,” Charley said. “You look exactly like you’re
almost twenty.”
    “So how old are you?” Eric said again.
    “How old do you think I am?” Charley said.
    “About my age?” Eric said.
    “Are you flirting with me?” Charley said. “Yes? No? How about in
dog years? How old would you say I am in dog years?”
    The zombie finished looking for whatever it was looking for
inside the All-Night. It came outside and nodded to Charley and
Eric. “Beautiful people,” it said. “Why won’t you ever visit my
hand?”
    “I’m sorry,” Eric said.
    The zombie turned its back on them. It tottered across the road,
looking neither to the left, nor to the right, and went down the
footpath into the Ausible Chasm.
    “Have you?” Charley said. She pointed at the path.
    “No,” Eric said. “I mean, someday I will, I guess.”
    “Do you think they have pets down there? Dogs?” Charley
said.
    “I don’t know,” Eric said. “Regular dogs?”
    “The thing I think about sometimes,” Charley said, “is whether
or not they have animal shelters, and if someone has to look after
the dogs. If someone has to have a job where they put down dogs
down there. And if you do put dogs to sleep, down there, then where
do they wake up?”
    “Batu says that if you need another job, you can come live with
us at the All-Night,” Eric said. His lips felt so cold that it was
hard to talk.
    “Is
that
what Batu says?” Charley said. She started to
laugh.
    “Batu likes you,” Eric said.
    “I like him too,” Charley said. “But I don’t want to live in a
convenience store. No offense. I’m sure it’s nice.”
    “It’s okay,” Eric said. “I don’t want to work retail my whole
life.”
    “There are worse jobs,” Charley said. She leaned against her
Chevy. “Maybe I’ll stop by later tonight. We could always go for a
long ride, go somewhere else, and talk about retail.”
    “Like where? Where are you going?” Eric said. “Are you thinking
about going to Turkey? Is that why Batu is teaching you Turkish?”
He wanted to stand there and ask Charley questions all night
long.
    “I want to learn Turkish so that when I go somewhere else I can
pretend to be Turkish. I can pretend I
only
speak Turkish.
That way no one will bother me,” Charley said.
    “Oh,” Eric said. “Good plan. We could always go somewhere and
not talk, if you want to practice. Or I could talk to you, and you
could pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying. We don’t have
to go for a ride. We could just go across the road, go down