Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss

Author:Nicole Krauss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781400076260
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2002-10-27T10:00:00+00:00

He walked outside and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. If there was no moon, as there was not tonight, the stars went berserk, billions of them shuddering against the black. Sooner or later, in the corner of his eye, he would see a meteor streak past, hitting the atmosphere and burning up. A few months before, a meteor had lit up over the Yukon and pieces of black rock came down over Canada. A man, an ordinary layman, picked them up out of the snow, carbonaceous chondrite that he slipped in plastic kitchen Baggies and froze until the proper authorities could send someone to fetch them. Little hunks of the universe preserved next to deer meat in his freezer, until the snow melted and the UPS man could get through.

He found the path that passed the laboratory before it began to ascend into the hills, winding past the dark outlines of rock formation. At the top were a busted couch and a few chairs, most likely dragged up there by some kids who used it as a hangout when the place was still abandoned. He took out a pocket flashlight and directed the weak beam on the star chart he’d bought in town: a plastic disk with a rotating cardboard center notched with the hours and months and a map of the constellations.

He thought of the moment, during the last week of summer before the seventh grade, when he was lying on his back in the grass next to Jollie Lambird, moving his fingers toward her hand as she said, Taurus, Pegasus, Cassiopeia, knowing he could keep reaching as long as the list went on. When his fingers touched hers she whispered, What sign are you? His heart was pounding.

I don’t know.

When were you born?

I’m trying to think, he wanted to say, give me time, and finally it came to him, January 29.

Aquarius.

Water Bearer, eleventh sign of the zodiac, the stars taking the shape of a man pouring water into a jar.

He shone the flashlight at the star chart and tried to find some connection between the flimsy rotating disk and the massive, breathing field of stars. It took a minute before the scattered lights focused into distinct groups, shapes that the ancients had seen as animals, hunters, and dippers. He sat down on the busted couch. A bat flew by, almost grazing his head. He thought about everything Ray had said to him over the past week. He could see the laboratory below and heard the distant hum of the generator. He thought about how he had arrived in such a strange and compelling place, all the unlikely events that had led up to this.

Then his thoughts returned to Jollie Lambird, to that night when he was twelve and nothing yet had happened.

What about you? What sign? He had her hand then, her cool fingers folded into his, and he moved his thumb gently across hers. He didn’t care if he never spoke to anyone else in the world, as long as she was there, whispering, Andromeda, Polaris.

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