"Jim Munroe - Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gas Mask" - читать интересную книгу автора (Munroe Jim)

I walked to the door and opened it, thinking that I'd call out to her.
She was already
too far for anything but an outright yell to be audible, so I stopped. I could
see her brown hat
bobbing amidst the other sidewalkers. I could see the plume of icy smoke from
her, rising. I
imagined it coming out from between her lips.


"I saw you today, passing the laundry on College," I said, immediately
feeling creepy as
I did so. *I saw you* is too too close to *I've been watching you* .
"You mean the one near Euclid?" Her face was suddenly grave. "I saw the
weirdest
thing there once. You want a coffee and a water, right?"
I nodded, waiting for the weirdest thing.
She left, her eyes distant in memory recall.
Sok was pretty empty -- it was a weekday afternoon. The old guy that was
usually
fixed outside had slipped his leash. There was a family who looked like
tourists to me, a teenage
girl and a toddler and a mom and dad. Why they were touring in winter was
beyond me.
Cass came back with my order, and was about to leave.
"What's so scary about Miracle Wash?" I asked, snapping a sugar packet.
"It's not scary. It's odd. I went by there one time, late night. It was
dark inside, closed,
but I guess some movement caught my eye. Then I noticed this guy sitting on a
chair -- "
"A chair *made of human bones* ?!" I suggested, eyes wide.
Cass smirked and ignored me. "He was sitting there, reading a magazine
in the little light
that was coming in from the street. And he was barefoot."
"What?"
"Yeah, he was sitting with his feet curled up beside him, so I saw them
clearly. Bare."
"He was the owner, probably. Asian guy, right?"
"Yeah, but don't you think that's weird? Bare feet in a laundromat?
Those places are
dirty -- they're where people bring their dirt, for Christ's sake."
The look on her face appealed to me, asking me to confirm her
uneasiness. I could not
oblige. "But it's also where people go for cleanliness," I said. "It's an
environment rife with
paradox." She laughed and I was a happy boy.
She sat down at the table next to me, and rolled her feet in circles.
"It's amazing what
you see at night, walking around the city. Stuff you never would have seen if
you had just gone
to bed. It's like stolen time. I wish I could do it more often." Someone came