Fiction

Abstract

The old man sat at the table, his elbows propped on the newspaper in front of him, and stared at the page. It was late afternoon, the autumn light mellowing the sharp angles and shadows of the room. He had somehow substituted ritual for reality without being aware of when this had happened—sometime in the last year perhaps. His afternoon ritual was to make himself a cup of tea, hunt down a pencil, and tackle the cryptic crossword. The ritual always included a muttering indignation that the pencil, which was left on the table the previous day, had somehow vanished into a distant corner of a forgotten drawer. This afternoon was no different. The day’s similarity extended to the fact that there was always one clue that he could not solve. Initially, he had regarded this as a minor blemish on his record, but it was now assuming larger proportions, wounding to his intelligence and, even worse, his pride. Today, it was 23 across, a 5-letter word for “a clubby sort of humor.” He stared at the page resentfully. The five squares stared back, blank except for a single O in the middle, cyclopean and accusatory. He scratched his scalp with the end of the pencil. The phone rang in the corner of the room. He put his glasses back on, eased his painful hip over the edge of the chair, and stood up, creaking audibly. He ambled over to the phone and picked it up with a brusque “Hello!” He had stopped announcing his name on answering because he grew tired of hearing a motley collection of individuals representing the AllRound Carpet Cleaning Company, Dante’s Furnace Company, and the like addressing him by his given name. This time he was greeted by a female voice. “Doctor, I hope you …