More Than This Read Online Free PDF Page A

charming, functional, happy little kid, despite any difficulties.
    Though there had been that unthinkable period when they all thought the worst, when they all looked at Seth and while saying over and over that they didn’t blame him, still seemed to think –
    He pushes it out of his mind, swallowing away the ache in his throat. He looks out toward the darkened sitting room and wonders what he’s supposed to
do
here.
    Is there a goal? Something to solve?
    Or is he just supposed to stay here forever?
    Is that what hell is? Trapped forever, alone, in your worst memory?
    It makes a kind of sense.
    The bandages don’t, though, smudged with dark, dusty stains but stuck fast to his body in an arrangement that covers all the wrong parts. And for that matter, the water – now running almost clear – doesn’t make sense either. Why satisfy his thirst if this is a punishment?
    He still can’t hear anything. No machinery, no human voices, no vehicles, nothing. Just the running of the water, the sound of which is so comforting, he can’t quite bring himself to turn it off.
    He’s surprised to feel his stomach rumbling. Emptied twice of all its contents, he realizes that it’s hungry, and rather than give in to the fear that this causes – because what do you eat in hell? – he almost automatically opens the nearest cabinet.
    The shelves are filled with plates and cups, less dusty because shut away, but still with an air of abandonment. The cabinet next to it has better glasses and the good china, which he recognizes, most but not all of it surviving the shipment to America. He moves quickly on, and in the next cabinet, there is finally food. Bags of desiccated pasta, molding boxes of rice that crumble under his touch, a jar of sugar that’s hardened into a single lump that resists the poking of his fingers. Further searching reveals cans of food, some of which are rusted over, others bulging alarmingly, but a few that look okay. He takes out one of chicken noodle soup.
    He recognizes the brand. It’s one that he and Owen used to be unable to get enough of, used to ask their mother to buy over and over again –
    He stops. The memory is a dangerous one. He can feel himself teetering again, an abyss of confusion and despair looking right back up at him, threatening to swallow him if he so much as glances at it.
    That can be for later,
he tells himself.
You’re hungry. Everything else can wait.
    Even thinking it, he doesn’t believe it, but he forces himself to read the can again. “Soup,” he says, his voice still little more than a croak but better now, after the water. “Soup,” he says again, more strongly.
    He starts opening drawers. He finds a can opener – rusty and stiff, but usable – in the first one and lets out a small “Ha!” of triumph.
    It takes him seventeen tries to get the first cut into the top of the can.
    “Goddammit!” he shouts, though his throat isn’t quite up to shouting yet and he has to cough it away.
    But at last there’s an opening, one he can work with. His hands are aching from the simple act of twisting a can opener, and there’s a terrible moment when he thinks he’s going to be too weak and tired to get any further. But the frustration drives him on and eventually, agonizingly so, there’s enough of an opening to drink out of.
    He tips the can back into his mouth. The soup has gelatinized and tastes heavily of iron, but it also tastes of chicken noodle, a flavor he’s suddenly so grateful for that he starts laughing as he’s slurping down the noodles.
    Then he also senses that he’s crying a bit more, too.
    He finishes the can and sets it down with a firm thud.
    Stop this,
he thinks.
Pull yourself together. What do you need to do here? What’s the next thing to do?
He stands a little straighter.
What would Gudmund do?
    And then, for the first time in this place, Seth smiles, small and fleeting, but a smile.
    “Gudmund would have a piss,” he croaks.
    Because that is