The Stairs, Chapter 19
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 25
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.
19.
"Are you ready for things to return to normal?" Mom asked.
Theo and I flinched a little. "What do you mean?" Theo said.
"The furniture?" Mom said. "Your father? Arriving tomorrow? Or were you already used to camping out on bare floors and fine dining like this?" We were standing at the kitchen counter, eating fried rice out of folded-paper takeout cartons with disposable chopsticks.
"What's wrong with this for dinner?" Theo asked. The fried rice had tender chunks of pink shrimp in it, and little crispy dried shrimp too. The bits of egg were still yellow, not drowned in sauce till everything cooked up brown.
"Less than a week, and my children have already forgotten about eating on plates," Mom said, in mock despair.
"We ate on plates at Shinter's," Theo said.
"How was it?" Mom said. "Emily said you guys seemed to enjoy it."
"The whole place goes on and on forever," I said. "It's like worlds within worlds."
"You should take me and Dad up there when the moving is over," Mom said. "We've hardly had a chance to see Marble City. These six months went by so fast."
Had they? We'd left Turfburg right after New Year's, with winter just settling in, and we'd been here through the whole slow coming of spring and on through into summer. All the while, though, we'd been waiting for things to start seeming real and ordinary again, with Dad and Mom in one place and life undivided.
I tried to picture our own regular furniture right here, surrounding us, making it normal. Mom saw me looking around the empty room and reached over to pat my arm. "Tomorrow's the day," she said.
I bit into a piece of shrimp and wondered: why didn't we just tell her? What were we doing by ourselves with all these forgotten doors and stairways, talking to strangers, half of whom were squirrels? How did we think we were supposed to save the world? I swallowed the bite and opened my mouth.
Theo's hand with the chopsticks made a quick movement by his takeout carton. A lump of egg went flying through the air. I could see it coming but barely had time to blink before it hit me in the nose. "Ow!" I said. Not that it had hurt, really, but still.
"Sorry," Theo said. "My fingers slipped." He was glaring at me as hard as he could without being obvious about glaring.
"Theo!" Mom said. "Be more careful. Slow down when you eat."
After we finished and threw away our cartons, as soon as the bedroom door closed behind us, I grabbed Theo by the shoulder. "What was that for?" I said.
Theo twisted free and scowled at me. "You were getting ready to tell her," he said, "just like Maxine warned me you would. 'Rollo is getting nervous,' she said. 'Don't let him get so nervous he tells your mom about the stairs,' she said."
"When did she—" I started, then switched to another question. "Why did she—" I changed my mind again. "Why not?" I said. "Why not get help? You're seven years old! I'm only 11! What makes you think we can do this ourselves?"
"You heard what Norman Melk said," Theo said. "You're not even supposed to run into your grandparents. How would we bring Mom along? Or Dad, if we wait till he gets here?"
"That's not what he was talking about at all!" I said. Or was it? Wasn't it?
"He said it," Theo said. "Anyway, what were you going to tell her? We found these old stairs and went down them—without permission—and went outside—without permission—and it was winter there, and we talked to some talking squirrels, and it turns out we need to keep the world from being destroyed? What is Mom going to do about all that?"
"What are we going to do about all that?" I said.
"At least we've been there," Theo said. "Twice. We know how to get back and forth. The squirrels know us. Norman and Opal know us. We've already started."
"We have no idea what we're doing," I said.
"Argh!" Theo's face was red. He clenched his fist and punched the suitcase on the floor beside him. "Why do you have to be like that?" he said.
"Like what?" I said. "Like trying to make sense?"
"This doesn't have to make sense!" Theo said. He glared at me, his fist still clenched. I glared back.
We sat there, glaring. The late sun shone through the window. There was the sound of a truck going by. When it rumbled away, we heard something else. Tap...tap...
Someone was knocking softly at the other side of the door.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 18, 2026
★★★ Things started listlessly under thin cloud cover. The forecast said sun wouldn't take over till 3, but this far along the way out of winter, that still would mean hours of sunny afternoon. And in fact the sun came sooner than that. The afternoon light was sharp and so was the wind, cutting right through jeans and numbing gloveless fingers. The tempering effect of the accumulated warm days had worn all the way off; neither the full sun nor the flitting birds nor the upthrust daffodil stalks could outweigh the wintriness. The turtles' basking rock was occupied by a mallard drake and a hooded merganser hen, the latter's crest sticking out pert and ruddy. The red maples were hung with red flowers, standing against the clear sky. High-school runners had returned to colonize the Great Hill track. The moss and lichen on the wall were growing brighter green.
New York City, March 19, 2026
★★★ A shower and a hot cup of tea required opening the window a few inches to rebalance the indoors and internal temperatures. A grayish sky that gave no reason to want to venture out under it was replaced, while the eyes were stuck to computer screens, by clear blue. The day lasted long enough to make up for the oversight; the ninth-grader roused himself from his three-day sickroom and put on socks to go along. Faintly hazy, enriched color stuck to the buildings in the uptown and downtown distances alike. The blank wall below a water tower had the shadow of another water tower projected on it. Paler layers stood out more clearly than usual in the dark rock on the edge of the park. The chill that had sunk into the face stayed there in the flesh long after the return indoors.
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 Choice Recipes, by Order of Eastern Star, published circa 192o and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
SPANISH CHEESE
(A Delicious Sandwich Filling)
(Sarah Eliza Hall, P. W. M.)
One pound New York cream cheese
One-eighth pound butter, mashed till creamy
One teaspoon salt
One teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Dash of mustard, paprika, cayenne, and black pepper
Two chopped pimentos.
Split a clove of garlic and rub the bowl in which butter and cheese are creamed. (Garlic may be omitted if not liked, but it adds to the flavor.) Run the cheese through the meat chopper and then stir with the butter till creamy. (Chopped green olives may be added for a change but should not stand long, as they discolor the cheese.)
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.
