The Stairs, Chapter 21
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 30
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.
21.
"I'm going to have to go to the office today," Mom told us. "Emily said she can come over and watch you. She's bringing Maxine." She was telling us this as we sat on the living-room floor, right outside the kitchen, eating cereal out of coffee mugs.
I glanced at Theo. He was trying to keep his face blank, but his jaw was clenched. "Isn't Dad coming with the movers today?" I said.
"What?" Mom said. "That's not till the 3rd."
I looked at the top of the newspaper page on the floor by my mug. July 1, it said. The prickly feeling came back, in one quick sweep from my knuckles to my shoulders. "Oh, right," I said. "I forgot what day it was."
Who had forgotten what? We had already had this breakfast, on this morning, two days ago. Was time frozen? The sun was shining outside, just like it would on a normal morning, after a normal sunrise. I looked at the clock on the wall by the kitchen—no, the movers took that clock, there was just a blank space and a nail. The clock on the stove. It said 8:55. I counted Mississippis in my head, and in the middle of "37 Mississippi" I saw the clock change to 8:56.
So: time was still moving. Mom was planning her day like any other day, even though she had already planned this day before. This day should have already happened. Dad was—where? Back in Turfburg, I guessed, getting ready to come see us in two days.
And those two days would never come, and neither would he, unless we could figure out what to do.
We needed time.
"Mom?" I said. "Can Maxine sleep over here tonight?"
"Really?" Mom said. "With the place like this?"
"We've got extra space now," Theo said.
"It'll be like camping out," I said.
Mom thought it over for a second. "I suppose it's not as if we have much else to do," she said. "Let me text Emily and see if it's OK with them."
"Thanks, Mom," I said.
Theo and I finished our cereal, rinsed out the mugs, and put them in the dishwasher. We went back to the bedroom. Milton was snoozing in a corner of my open suitcase. Theo had given him a couple more acorns last night, and he had decided to stay around. We hadn't gotten much more out of him, though.
"Where are we going to go to find this thing, so we can shut it down?" I said.
"I have no idea," Theo said. "Do we go back down the stairs, or look for it in the present day, or what?"
"Try the lab," Milton mumbled.
"What lab?" I asked. "Where?"
"Hartstock's laboratory," another voice said.
It came from the window. A dark little head was peeking around the side of the box fan. "Pythia!" Theo said.
How he could tell it was Pythia, I had no idea. I scooted the fan over in the windowframe and lifted the screen behind it enough to let her climb in. She hopped to the floor. "Want an acorn?" Theo asked her, holding one out.
"How come she gets one?" Milton demanded, sitting upright in the suitcase. "What's she done for you?"
Pythia made a little disdainful noise, between a bark and a snort. "How'd you end up with the dealmaker, here?" she said. "I'd gladly have some breakfast, thank you." She took the acorn.
"You know each other?" I said.
"Are you friends?" Theo asked.
Milton flinched. "No," Pythia said.
"Are you enemies?" Theo asked.
"Well, I hardly—" Milton said.
Pythia cut him off. "Enemies matter. Does he seem to you like someone who matters?"
She glared at him. Milton tried to glare back, but he looked mostly nervous. I was starting to see how to tell them apart.
"Rollo! Theo!" Mom called, from right outside the door.
"Yes, Mom?" I called back.
"Maxine's parents said OK to the plan."
"Awesome!" Theo said.
"Why are we yelling at each other through the door?" Mom called. "Come out here and help figure out what we're going to do with her for dinner!"
I waved my hands at the squirrels in warning. Pythia darted into the bathroom. Milton, looking harried, ducked down into the suitcase again. "OK," I said, opening the door. "What should we eat tonight?"
Find previous chapters of The Stairs here.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, March 31, 2026
★★★★ It was not really time to dig the shorts out of their place on the high shelf, but it was time to stow a thick chamois shirt up there and to take video calls out on the balcony. The sky up above the meetings was blue filmed with white, with little creature-suggestive clusters of cloud bits below. Something thicker and duller closed over it and then gave way to the blue again. The air out in the street had the smell of everything growing and decaying at once. A warm, eerie breeze shoved its way along the cross street. Flowers were up in the Park and people were out on the lawns and birders were gathering on the shore of the Pool by a Louisiana waterthrush. The great fallen willow had left a ghostly impression of its hollow trunk in the bank—a curve of paler, drier dirt in the darker ground—and below that a slim trunk of willow leaned out over the water, trailing its new leaves. A golden-crowned kinglet, tiny and just migrated, danced among the swaying green. A cormorant hitched itself into a heraldic tangle of black angles and then settled down compact and cruising low across the water. The blue was replaced by gray again, then came back moments later, with sun strong enough to feel hot where it reached.
New York City, April 1, 2026
★★★ The pear tree out the front window had gone on into bloom. The forecast said afternoon rain was coming, and the air was sluggish and warm. Men sat on indoor chairs outside the vegetarian restaurant, eating food from wrappers, saying that despite the CLOSED sign from the health department they'd be open tomorrow. The clouds above the balcony kept thickening from white to a rainy-looking gray, then pulling apart to let light through again. The gloom settled in again; the air through the open windows became definitely chilly; the sun returned, regardless. The teen who'd packed an umbrella off to school came back with it unused. By the time the rain did come, it was nothing more than a quiet sound to go to sleep to.
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.
LETTUCE ROLLS
Remove the crust from a loaf of fresh bread; cut the bread in very thin slices and trim each slice in a a rectangular slice. Spread lightly with softened butter and roll up. Dip the end of small lettuce leaves in mayonnaise and insert a leaf in each end of each roll. If the bread does not roll easily wrap it in a damp towel and let stand for an hour.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by these offerings, be sure to send your experience and a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
