THE STAIRS

The Stairs, Chapter 32

Indignity Vol. 6, No. 53

THE STAIRS

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.

32.

We turned around. "Professor Melk!" I said.

Norman Melk, standing by the empty cage with a scarf wrapped up to his chin, looked blank. "'Professor'? I'm only a graduate stu—"

"You will be," Maxine said. "Congratulations! If we get our future back, that is. So what do we do?"

"Now, I regret to inform you," said Pythia, "we open your backpack and bring forth the shifty one."

Theo took off the backpack and unzipped it. Milton, looking a little ruffled, scrambled out. "I thought those pliers were going to snap my tail off, the way you kept rattling the bag," he said. "And I got my leg all wrapped up in that rubber thing."

"What rubber thing?" I said.

"I brought your slingshot," Theo said. "I don't know. I thought it might help."

"Stop whining," Pythia said to Milton. "No, wait, keep whining. You're desperate for acorns. You're trying to ingratiate yourself to Hartstock. He won't be choosy."

"We're sending him to Hartstock?" Maxine said.

"I know," Pythia said. "I know. But we have to."

I was getting more confused and anxious every second. I could see Theo was not only confused and anxious, but upset. "Why?" he blurted. "What is anyone doing? How is this going to help us get unstuck, or get home?"

Norman Melk reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose again, caught himself, and gave himself a shake. "Theo," he said, stooping a little to look my brother in the eye, "I'm sorry. Let me explain the plan, as best as we've come up with one."

Theo had already pulled himself together. "OK," he said. "What are we doing?"

Norman Melk looked around at the rest of us. "If we cut the power to the resonator now," he said, "Hartstock will simply power it up later, or find a different power source. We need to disable it permanently."

"'Destroy' would be the word you're looking for," Pythia said.

"Yes," Norman Melk said. "To destroy it. When Hartstock taps into the Yuletide Garden, therefore, we want him to receive all the electricity he's looking for—and then considerably more of it, rapidly increasing. Enough electricity to overload the machine irreparably."

"Our friends are out in the wiring of the Garden making sure he gets that extra electricity," Pythia said. "But that's no good if the machine is able to handle it."

"So—" Maxine said.

"So that is where Milton here tries making some amends for his previous errors of ethics and judgment," Pythia said. "He goes and makes sure the resonator is ready for Hartstock to start it up on time, and also makes sure that it's not ready for a surge of power."

"We trust him to do this?" I said.

"We can't get anyone else on the inside," Pythia said. "Also, Milton, in case there's any confusion: if you don't do the right thing, I will hunt you down through the hollows and tangles of time and space and tear you into small pieces of fluff."

"No need to get that way about it," Milton said. "Threatening me with a temporal paradox was plenty." He looked this way and that and breathed in deeply, smelling the air. He turned to face the way we'd come in, toward a blocky mid-rise building across from Shinters, on the nearest corner of 74th and Fishhawk. "There," he said, nodding at a window five or six floors up. "That's where he'd have the machine."

Faintly, in the distance, we could hear the sound of a brass band—a shapeless soft blare, with now and then a snap of drums. "The parade is on its way," Dr. Argemend said. "Children, could you go with Pythia and see Milton to his destination?" She handed us something that looked like my dad's candy thermometer. "Here's a soil moisture gauge for the hedge planters, in case anyone asks what you're doing."

We headed down the ramp again, across the lower walkway, and up another ramp. Milton stuck to the shadows, and Pythia stuck to Milton. Now the section of the model city we were passing through looked like New Marble, with freighters at docks and waiting boxcars and little mechanical stevedores frozen in the middle of heaving crates and sacks from hand to hand. A miniature greenhouse stood full of miniature orange trees, real ones, laden with fruits that looked oversized but were really smaller than golf balls.

A row of evergreen shrubs, festooned with gold ribbon, marked the edge of the Garden, up against the outer wall of the building. "Start climbing," Pythia growled. Milton jumped to the top of a shrub, steadied himself, and began working his way up the stone blocks. The sound of the band was more distinct now. They were playing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

We watched Milton scramble up the face of the building, a shadow among other shadows. He reached the sixth floor and started running sideways along the window ledges, as smoothly now as if he were on a tree branch. At the fourth window, he stopped. There was movement and the creak of a window, and Milton went out of view.

The band, getting louder, switched to "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The sky was dark blue, streaked with orange. A bright crescent moon stood in the west, well above the elevated train tracks. My watch said 3:37.

"What now?" I said.

Pythia cast one last hard look at the window where Milton had vanished. "We go back," she said. "And watch the show."

TELL THE PEOPLE OF BLUESKY ABOUT THE STAIRS!

Find previous chapters of The Stairs here.

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, June 17, 2026

★★★ The threat of humidity fled with dawn, leaving an enduring moderate day. Gray light came from a sky that was still, on inspection, undecided whether to be overcast or not. Even after the clouds had darkened and mostly closed over, little openings let blue peep through. Then those were gone and the weather app claimed it was drizzling, though a hand stuck out over the balcony rail felt otherwise. Things kept switching back and forth between clouds and full sunshine with no clear pattern or tendency. In the street later on there was a bit of drizzle, but only a bit, as intermittent as the gusts that carried it. Reddening berries were out on the brambles. The shape of a huge turtle—a snapper, surely, by the bulk of it—stirred the surface of the Pool, disappeared, and manifested again as a shadowy collection of submerged parts. The spreading branches of a hilltop elm reached all the way to the grass to make the wall of a domed half-enclosure. In the suddenly returning sun a glistening starling pecked and tugged at a full chicken drumstick bone in the bike lane, flipping it around to pry scraps of kindred bird-meat off the ends.

New York City, June 18, 2026

★★★ The air was thick and unpleasant and the morning light was choked. Even working at the desk was sweaty business. Hot sun came on as the Knicks ceremony progressed on the laptop video feed. Then the light faded out again—to return accompanied by a breeze through the window so strong it seemed to be coming from the electric fan. The temperature was rising but the drying air made it feel as if the afternoon were cooling off. Hot gusts blew along the cross street and flapped the awning of a hair salon. Over on Broadway the heated wind was even stronger and louder, flipping up the leaves on the tree outside the hardware store—yet it refused to enter the wide-open doors of the Japanese market, leaving the aisles upsettingly still and sweltering.

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of a sandwich selected from Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes, Vol. IV, by Christine Terhune Herrick, Editor-In-Chief, author of The Little Dinner, The Chafing-Dish Supper, etc., and associate author with Marion Harland of the National Cook Book, with a list of contributors which includes many of the famous chefs and cooking experts of the United States, published in 1905 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

Jam Sandwiches

Mix the yolks of 2 eggs very smoothly with a tablespoonful of flour and a tablespoonful of ground rice; add a very small pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, half a pint of thick cream, and a quarter of a pint of new milk. Beat the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, add them last of all, and beat the mixture for four or five minutes. Butter 2 large plates, put in the mixture, and bake in a quick oven until it is set and lightly browned. Spread a little jam over one of the cakes and lay the other upon it, the browned part uppermost. Sift a little sugar over it before serving. Jam sandwiches may be eaten either hot or cold. Time, twenty minutes to bake.

If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by our continued offerings, be sure to send along a description of your experience and a photo or three to us here: indignity@indignity.net.