Soft Apocalypses Read Online Free PDF Page A

ever eaten before or would ever eat again could ever taste this good. Except the milk he drank next. And the hot dog after that. And then the bread and cheese.
    For a few minutes the three of them sat in silence, eating, sharing the milk, grinning at one another as they chewed their food. After the initial burst of pigging out, they slowed their feasting, not only because they didn’t know when they’d eat again and so wanted to savor everything, but also because none of them wanted to eat too fast and make themselves sick. All of them knew how the Cold Ones would make them get rid of each other’s sick, and it was not something any of them were in a hurry to repeat.
    Penny handed the box back to Lewis and then went over to her section of the wall, sitting down near her chains. “I think I can maybe get my left hand back in,” she said, pushing one of the manacles around with her foot, “but there ain’t no way this is going back.” She held up her bandaged hand.
    “If I can get this open,” said Lewis, his fingers and thumbs caressing the surface of the box, searching out the seam he’d found earlier, “you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
    Penny’s face brightened. “Really?”
    “Really. Swear to God.”
    Carl swallowed the grapes he’d been chewing. “So you weren’t lying? That thing really is magic?”
    “Yes, it is.” Dear God, please let that be the truth. “It sure is.”
    And there it was—the seam. He probed its edges, its surface, the contours of the face in which it was hidden; clockwise, counter-clockwise, side to side, up and down and then—
    — click!
    The sound was so quiet, so soft, so subtle, that none of them should have been able to hear it, but hear it they did, and for a moment all stared in wonder as a section of the box slid out, revealing an interior that was so shiny Lewis could actually see part of his face reflected.
    “It’s a music box! ” said Penny, her face suddenly a joyous thing, full of summer afternoons with kites high above.
    It took a moment, but then Lewis heard it, as well; a soft tinkling melody like a bird’s song at morning.
    “Cool,” said Carl.
    Penny put a finger to her lips. “Shh, Piglet. Leave him alone. You go ahead and work, Lewis. We’ll be quiet.”
    “Thank you.”
    Lewis lost all track of time after that; for him, the world was the box, its faces, his eight fingers and two thumbs, and the fervent hope that he was still the best puzzle-solver anybody had ever seen.
    His fingers danced over the surface of the box, finding more seams that opened to reveal hidden indentations that in turn offered up more clicks. Lewis hunched over the box, possessed by it, enamored of it, his concentration total, his control the strongest it had ever been when confronted with a riddle, brainteaser, or puzzle. Like with the Rubik’s Cube in a life that seemed so long ago and no longer part of him, he eventually fell into a rhythm, found his heart beating in time with his breathing while his fingers pressed down in counter-time, on the upbeat. He didn’t know how or why but his whole body—his entire being , within and without—seemed now to be part of an orchestra, every digit a note, every movement a new instrument joining in the music, every breath a change of key, every click! the sound of the conductor’s baton tapping against the podium as the next section of the symphony began. Part of him knew the music was coming from the ever-opening box but he would not allow himself to think about that because to do so would invite wonder, and wonder would invite hesitation, and under no circumstances could he hesitate now. The box was offering its secrets up to him, almost as if it were telling him where next to press, to tap, to push, caress and pull.
    It’s letting me open it he thought to himself. It wants me to succeed.
    His fingers danced a glissando over the six sides once more, and when the final clicks revealed the mirror-like interior of