The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued

Page 759

By 44th, Victor’s heart was thudding. He passed a woman with a stroller. It was empty. A teenager with a Walkman playing static. A man in a business suit and no shoes.

He reached Grand Central just as the clock struck four. The terminal glowed like a cathedral, its constellations overhead offering a kind of absolution. Victor exhaled. The idlers didn’t follow him inside.

But as he descended the marble steps, he glanced back.

They were still there. Lining the sidewalk. Silent sentinels of something unnamed.

Victor boarded his train, unsure if he’d escaped something—or been marked by it.

Part II: The Idlers

Victor’s train rattled northward, but his thoughts stayed behind; on the sidewalk, on the watchers. He tried to dismiss them as New York’s usual cast of eccentrics, but something about their stillness, their synchronicity, gnawed at him.

That night, he couldn’t sleep. The city’s hum outside his window felt off kilter, like a record playing a half-step too slow. At 2:13 AM, he gave up and padded to the kitchen. As he poured a