The Stairs, Chapter 17
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 21
THE STAIRS
© Tom Scocca, 2025
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, and events is entirely coincidental, with the exception of the events in Chapters One and Two, which happened more or less as written, on the line between Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, on Memorial Day weekend in 1999.
17.
"What was that about?" I said. The room felt even more hushed than it had been before.
Maxine turned to the nearest bookshelf. "I think he wanted us to read the book," she said. "The Atlas of Realities, right?" She scanned the spines. "More Than Nothing...Studies in Inquiry...The Principal Principle..."
"How is some book going to tell us what we're supposed to do?" Theo said.
"Just look for it," I said, picking a section of shelf and starting to search. The Existence of Logic and the Logic of Existence...Ethics and Habit... I worked my way along that row, then down to the next. I was crouching on the rug, halfway down my third row, when Maxine called out.
"Here it is," she said. "Krangberg, An Atlas of Realities." She pried a thick book out of the shelf and held it up, hefting it with both hands. The cover was leather, green and a little blotchy. She set it down on a padded footstool and opened it up. Theo and I gathered around.
I could barely understand a word of it. Or I might recognize the words, but I had no idea what they were doing with one another. "Each actual, excluded from correspondence, assumes the character of necessity..." I read.
"Maybe there are pictures or diagrams," Maxine said, flipping through the thin pages. "Aha!" There were charts. They were, unfortunately, as indecipherable as the sentences.
"How is this going to help us?" Theo said. "Do we take it back in time and hit someone over the head with it?"
"There must be something we can use," Maxine said. She flipped ahead and reached a section of glossy pages, printed in color. They looked a bit like maps, if all the rivers had floated off one way and the mountains had slid a little the other way and the coastlines had second and third coastlines inside them. It was all nice to look at but it didn't really clear anything up.
"I don't get it," I said.
Maxine kept going: more text...more charts...some columns of numbers...another section of color printing. She flipped over the last half-inch or so of pages all at once, with a thump. "Beats me," she said.
"What's that?" Theo said, reaching for the book. I saw it: a little white corner of something just sticking out between the pages. I opened the book to the spot.
An envelope was tucked in there. It had been made of thin paper to begin with, and was now mashed completely flat. Where the address would go, in neat letters, it said "'Dram. Soc. - Jr. Aux.'" In quotation marks. Much smaller, in the top left corner, was written "N.M."
"'Junior Auxiliaries,'" Maxine said. "That's what he told the man we were, in Walt's."
"It's for us?" I said.
"Open it," Theo said.
"OK, OK, hold on," Maxine said. She carefully pried the envelope out of the book. It made a little crackling sound in her hands.
"Getting caught up on your philosophy reading?" We whipped our heads around to see Emily peering through the doorway at us.
"Just curious!" Maxine sang out. She hoisted the Atlas of Realities, holding the envelope between her fingers behind it. "You read this stuff, Em?"
I stood up and reached out for the book, momentarily blocking Emily's view of Maxine as I took it from her hands. "I can't even understand the pictures," I said, holding it out toward Emily and walking closer. Behind me I heard the quick, quiet crinkling of a letter being stuffed into a pocket.
Emily glanced at the Atlas. "Huh, nope," she said. "There's some truly random stuff in the lounge. We get our books from the department library, mostly. Pop that back on the shelf, please, and let's get you home. Unless you're having too much fun here."
I stuffed the book back where it had come from.
"Nah," Maxine said. "We're ready to get moving again."
Find previous chapters of The Stairs here.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 4, 2026
★★ A morning glimmer of something sunlike shone warmly on the brick townhouses, under a sky that could have been called blue, then retreated for the long middle of the day. It was too hot in the apartment to strategize about how to dress for the chilier part of the damp, warming forecast. The remaining snow piles on Tenth Avenue were black and craggy. Flashes of reflection appeared on the gray cityscape where the clouds were weakening again, somewhere else, but nearby the view was so darkened and damp it was hard to identify familiar features on the ground. In the course of a long videoconference, though, real light swelled from the window opposite the screen and soft colors began to bloom.
New York City, March 5, 2026
★ Fat, relatively bright droplets hung in the top branches in an otherwise gloomy morning. The dry air from the long freeze—the driest winter in years, the piano tuner said—had loosened some of the the piano pegs so much they needed to be tapped back in with a hammer. There was no need to worry about a lack of humidity now or in the forecastable future. The rain dragged on, breaking enough for a walk to the store and then returning. The formidable mountain of snow at the corner was down below waist height and surrounded by clumped, sodden filth. Out in the early but deep night, the rain came down hard enough to require pulling the parka hood up, which made it impossible to look out for a vacant-cab light without stopping and turning around, to get rained on more. Water flowed thickly through the gutter at the bus stop and gave off an amplified roar as it plunged down the resonant storm drain.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Child's Recipes for Cooking and Preparing, by Childs Company, published in 1913 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
LETTUCE AND TOMATO.
Put 1 lettuce leaf and 1 slice of tomato with 1/2 teaspoonful of mayonnaise dressing between two slices of bread.
MINCED CHICKEN.
Butter 2 pieces of bread. Place between them 3/4 oz. minced chicken. Cut both ways and wrap in wax paper.
MINCED CHICKEN WITH LETTUCE AND MAYONNAISE.
Butter 2 pieces bread. Place between them 1 lettuce leaf with mayonnaise dressing and 1 oz. minced chicken. Cut both ways; wrap in wax paper.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by these offerings, be sure to send your thoughts and a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
