Sebastian Malloy – Page 4 – Sebastian Malloy

Articles posted by Sebastian Malloy (Page 4)

Perpetual Smug

“In my dream,” Rivi says, “I’m standing outside a blue house at the top of a big hill. There’s a black cat in the yard, and I try to walk around it to look at its face, but no matter where I’m standing, it’s always looking away from me.” We are laying in her bed, with dozens of photographs spread out around us. She has been looking through photo boxes, pulling out some, transferring others from one box to another. I have seen myself in many of them, and more full of faces I don’t know. “I can see my…

A Whispered Insistence

“Tell me,” Tina says. She is in the easy chair in my living room, sitting sideways with one foot on the floor and the other propped up on the arm of the chair. Her dress rides high and her bare legs glow yellow in the light of the streetlamp outside my apartment. The light flickers off and then on again, the wiring faulty, strobing her once, then twice, then being steady once more. “Tell you what?” I ask. “About you and Olivia,” she says. “There’s nothing to tell,” I say. A lie. She takes the hem of her dress between…

A Library of One

“What is this place?” I ask. “What do you do here?” Instead of answering, Sullivan turns away from me, there on the other side of the glass counter, and reaches for an item on the shelf behind him. He sets it down between us and folds his arms, not speaking. It’s an old wooden fishing lure, an eyelet at the top where the line would be tied, and a barbed hook at the bottom. “Is that for me?” I don’t pick it up. I’m afraid to touch it. “No,” he says. “It’s not yours.” “Whose it it?” “A madwoman,” he…

Cultural Archaeology

Rivi and I are waiting for the BART to arrive. The low hum of distant trains hovers in the air of the underground station like the thrum of surf against the shore. Rivi pokes at the back of my neck with her fingernail. “You got sunburned,” she says. “Is it bad?” I ask. “Not really. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it’s bad, sure. Sunburn is just one step away from skin cancer.” She pokes me again. “Okay,” I say. “Is it cancer?” “Nah,” she says. “It’s just a sunburn.” We had spent the afternoon at Amoeba in…

Endless December

Tina is asleep on the bed, turned away from the window, the morning light soft around the edges of the motel curtains. She is snoring softly, which I won’t tell her about when she wakes. She likes to pretend that she is a delicate flower. We had gone south for Easter, driving along the coast until we ran out of stamina, and stopping at the first motel with a vacancy. Tina had fallen asleep before I’d gotten out of the shower, sprawled on her stomach across the top of the bed nearest the window. I’d covered her with a spare…

The Devil’s Work

I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep. At some point while I’ve been out, someone—Sullivan?—has put a small table beside the cot, and on this table he has put a cup of water and three spotted bananas. I reach out for the cup and drink the water in one fast swallow, leaving the bananas for now. The light is dim, and it’s coming from a small lamp on a shelf behind me. He called this place a storeroom, and that’s definitely what it looks like. A few metal shelves along the walls, some empty boxes in the corners. I…

Typhoid Magpie

From her bedroom, Rivi brings me a copy of a used book she’s picked up earlier in the day: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. “I found it at Green Apple,” she says. “It was mis-shelved in the poetry section.” I turn the book over and look at the back cover. “I think I’ve read this,” I say. “It sounds familiar.” “Doesn’t matter,” she says. She takes the book back from me and flips through the pages. Mid-way through, she stops, and I see that there’s something stuck between the pages of the book. It’s a photograph,…

Pancakes and Plans of Attack

Olivia’s apartment is empty. “You’re not her mom,” Tina says. “She doesn’t have to tell you when she leaves town.” “I know,” I say. I feel weird standing in Olivia’s living room, afraid to touch anything, like I’m intruding on a crime scene. This concern for her is completely irrational, but after the idea that she’s connected to the ghostly photo Rivi took in her bedroom, it’s something that I’m unable to shake free from my mind. “Did you try calling her?” Tina asks. “Yeah. And texts.” “This is why life was better before cell phones,” she says. “If you…

Deeper Into the Ever

Wake up. A voice, not mine. In my dream, this dream of snow and ice and cold? Wake up. Not a dream. “Wake up,” the voice says, and so I do, letting my head break through the surface of my sleep, just barely, just enough. It is a struggle to open my eyes, and so I give up and leave them shut. “Take your time,” the voice—a man’s voice—tells me, and I couldn’t argue if I wanted to. I’ve never been so exhausted before. My every bone aches, every breath feels like fire in my lungs. “…water…” I croak, not…

The Secret Architectures of Spiders

Hannah is sucking on a Blow Pop as we drive. She is scrolling through my iPhone, looking at my music. “Don’t you have anything from this century in here?” she asks. “Don’t give me any grief,” I say. “You’re the same age I am.” “Maybe, but my musical education didn’t stop in 1987.” She finally picks something, and The Boomtown Rats start playing from the car speakers. “I do listen to new music, you know,” I say. “It’s just new music that sounds like old music.” The road is all curves here, in the hills along the California and Nevada…