1 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:08,519 Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:12,160 Let's get into it. I caught a layer shrinking on 3 00:00:12,199 --> 00:00:14,519 his porch and are after midnight, and suspicion tightened my 4 00:00:14,519 --> 00:00:17,559 hands around the chief flashlight. I always kept clip to 5 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:19,920 my belt. I stepped out of my car with the 6 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:22,839 engine still warm. The street light above our drive hund 7 00:00:23,399 --> 00:00:25,559 the clock in the municipal post three twelve point two. 8 00:00:26,239 --> 00:00:28,519 Belaise stood on his front step, one foot on the 9 00:00:28,519 --> 00:00:31,480 top stair and one foot hovering. His shoulders folded into himself, 10 00:00:32,079 --> 00:00:35,000 his flannel hung loose. He looked smaller, like a man 11 00:00:35,039 --> 00:00:37,479 trying to fit inside a child's frame. I dropped the 12 00:00:37,479 --> 00:00:40,479 flashlight into my hand and move closer. I have kept 13 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:42,759 notes on my phone for weeks. I sleep poorly, I 14 00:00:42,799 --> 00:00:45,119 work out shifts, and I left two houses down from 15 00:00:45,119 --> 00:00:47,520 a layers. I tell you that because when I say 16 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:49,880 I know the difference between a drunk stumble aness, I'm 17 00:00:49,880 --> 00:00:53,439 on speaking from repeated sober attention. Suspicion drove me out 18 00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:56,000 that night. I had felt it for days and had 19 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:58,280 made me walk the sidewalk at midnight in a threadberhoodye 20 00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:01,039 I owned fore years. He did notice me at first. 21 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:04,000 His hands clutched the porch rail like a child gripping 22 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,560 a grown up palm. His chaw moved quickly the weight, 23 00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:09,000 as when someone tries to make one voice hold two tones. 24 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:12,079 I called his name, Olise, My voice was well. He 25 00:01:12,159 --> 00:01:14,280 flinched and spawn and the face that turned toward me 26 00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:15,799 had the same hollow cheeks I had seen in his 27 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:18,920 photo on the block's Facebook group, but the eyes looked different, 28 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:21,680 round and orded. He answered with the high countance of 29 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:23,879 a kid startled in the middle of a game. I 30 00:01:23,879 --> 00:01:26,680 can tea, he said, then stopped, as if the sentence 31 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:29,200 fell off the edge of his mouth. His shirt sleeves 32 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:31,920 had ridden up. There was a small hand sized smudge 33 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:34,200 of dirt on his wrist. He was shrunk, and not 34 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:36,560 in a way of clothing falling loose, but imposture and 35 00:01:36,599 --> 00:01:39,760 reaching the way his knees bent inward. Missus Hanley opened 36 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:41,560 her front door two houses over with a mug in 37 00:01:41,599 --> 00:01:44,680 her hand. She saw Alis and that older crossed her 38 00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:48,280 face recognition and a long store of private rules. She 39 00:01:48,359 --> 00:01:50,719 called my name before I could decide whether to move closer. 40 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:53,120 He shouldn't be out here at this Eyele she said, 41 00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:55,680 but her voice was flat, with something older than worry. 42 00:01:55,719 --> 00:01:59,120 Missus Hanley look at him, I said appointed. She set 43 00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:00,640 the mug down on the seat and came to the 44 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:03,079 sidewalk with slow, certain gate of some one who had 45 00:02:03,079 --> 00:02:06,159 lived on this block for thirty years. She spin like 46 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:08,199 this once before the words landed like a stone. She 47 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:11,520 didn't explain, She only watched Oliz, hands folded under her chin. 48 00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:13,800 Lilis tried to step down, and his foot missed the 49 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:16,560 stair by half an inch. He made a small noise 50 00:02:16,599 --> 00:02:19,039 and hugged his knees as if cold. I moved to 51 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:21,639 steady him and found his shoulders collapsing into my palms. 52 00:02:22,319 --> 00:02:24,479 His watch was an old digital with a scratched face. 53 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:27,080 The hands were frozen at twelve point one in the 54 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:30,719 dim glow. Missus Hanley, why is it always after midnight? 55 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:33,319 And Oliz blinked as though he knew the question and 56 00:02:33,439 --> 00:02:35,319 was trying to put its meaning into the right mouth. 57 00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:38,159 We managed to get him inside his small living room. 58 00:02:38,639 --> 00:02:41,280 The front door stuck under the frame. The lock clicked 59 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:43,680 when I forced it with a shoulder. The smell was 60 00:02:43,759 --> 00:02:46,800 dust and old wool. Olaise leaned against a kitchen chair, 61 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:50,000 and closed his eyes. His breathing shifted from slow, adult 62 00:02:50,039 --> 00:02:52,159 and hails to a rapid, shallow pattern that made the 63 00:02:52,199 --> 00:02:55,240 thin muscles at his throw flutter. When Marla arrived, she 64 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,639 smelled of cigarette smoke and authority. She brushed through the 65 00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:00,360 doorway with a key I had never seen and a 66 00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:04,919 sudden professional shield. Oliers, What did you do now? She said? 67 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:07,840 Her fingers twisted the ring on her hand. Her voice 68 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:09,680 carried the tight ness if someone called out at night 69 00:03:09,719 --> 00:03:12,560 for things they wanted to get private. She introduced herself 70 00:03:12,599 --> 00:03:15,759 to missus Hanley and me without softening, and Marla, I'm 71 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:17,680 a sister. She did not ask how we had gotten 72 00:03:17,719 --> 00:03:20,199 in Marla's as skimmed the room and stopped on a 73 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:23,199 closed closet door. She moved to it hand hovering above 74 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:25,800 the knob. I heard the metallic jangle of keys in 75 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:27,800 her pocket and the movement of her jaws. She decided 76 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:31,960 which faced a shore. She he's been sick. We thought 77 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:37,120 it was neurological. We thought her voice cut, she kept saying. 78 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:38,919 We thought as if the thought itself had been a 79 00:03:38,919 --> 00:03:42,639 bandaged They were removing. Missess Hanley shook her head. There's 80 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:45,039 a toy in his coat. She went to the coat 81 00:03:45,159 --> 00:03:47,719 rack by the door and tubbed a dam faded cardigan free. 82 00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:50,719 A small plastic soldier fell out, water beats stuck to 83 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:53,199 its paint. I picked it up. It fit in my 84 00:03:53,199 --> 00:03:56,120 palm like a child's reminder. I said. There were clothes 85 00:03:56,199 --> 00:03:58,639 under his shirt. There was a small card again in 86 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:01,319 the closet. There was a music box behind shirts in 87 00:04:01,319 --> 00:04:03,719 the bottom drawer. I heard my voice steady on the 88 00:04:03,759 --> 00:04:07,879 lost items, listing evidence by motion, not interpretation. Marla looked away, 89 00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:10,599 finger nail catching the corner of the closet door. Johntee 90 00:04:10,639 --> 00:04:13,960 opened the closet. She said her mouth tightened, not yet 91 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,160 her hands moved like she wanted to block us, not 92 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:18,959 only from seeing, but from knowing. We pried the closet. 93 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:22,160 The lock gave under two screw drivers and a cheap crowber. 94 00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:25,240 Inside we found it ten music box wrapped in newspaper, 95 00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:27,920 a child's cardigan folded flat, and an analog watch with 96 00:04:27,959 --> 00:04:30,480 its hand stopped at midnight. The music box had a 97 00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:32,360 small smear of rost on its hinge and a frozen 98 00:04:32,399 --> 00:04:34,759 note of melody. When we nudged a crank no falsum, 99 00:04:35,319 --> 00:04:37,639 a warped single tone like a child's lulla by hitting 100 00:04:37,639 --> 00:04:40,279 a missing key. Marla, those aren't mine. Her voice was 101 00:04:40,319 --> 00:04:43,160 a low, tight thing. She tried to put the clothes back, 102 00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:45,879 as if re arranging them could rearrange the meaning. She 103 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,920 left the watch face in my hand. Officer Dies arrived 104 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:50,720 at one in the morning because I called when we 105 00:04:50,759 --> 00:04:53,360 found the clothes. She had a flashlight that cut the 106 00:04:53,399 --> 00:04:56,680 room into white rectangles. Officer Dies for names on the 107 00:04:56,759 --> 00:05:00,160 dresses and kept repeating, no crime here. Medical call at 108 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:02,240 a repetition would make the obvious gap what we saw 109 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:04,800 on whether law could touch narrower. She wrote a report 110 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:06,759 while Olise sat on the sofa with his niece tucked 111 00:05:06,759 --> 00:05:09,680 and stared at the music box. Olaise opened his mouth 112 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,639 while officered Eyes wrote, and his voice shifted again. I 113 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:15,360 wanted to keep the music, he said, in high, quick syllables, 114 00:05:15,439 --> 00:05:17,240 and then he seemed to be listening to something only 115 00:05:17,279 --> 00:05:19,639 he could hear. He put his hands over his ears 116 00:05:19,639 --> 00:05:22,439 and cult into a smaller shape on the couch. It's cold, 117 00:05:22,439 --> 00:05:25,480 it's small, he whispered, and then he pressed both palms 118 00:05:25,519 --> 00:05:28,079 against the bridge of his nose and squeeze. The first 119 00:05:28,079 --> 00:05:31,079 shift in my emotion moved from suspicion to confusion. I 120 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:34,560 wanted an explanation that masched human systems illness, shrugs a 121 00:05:34,639 --> 00:05:37,519 failed treatment. I argued that to myself as we moved 122 00:05:37,519 --> 00:05:38,959 to look at the polar as not loose in the 123 00:05:38,959 --> 00:05:42,079 hallway table. The photographs were face after face of Alais 124 00:05:42,079 --> 00:05:44,800 in the same sweat over decades sixty forty twenty, and 125 00:05:44,879 --> 00:05:46,720 in one of the pictures, a smaller pair of hands 126 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:49,800 rested on his shoulder, too small for an adult. Marla 127 00:05:49,839 --> 00:05:51,879 snatched the photos from the table. There was a private 128 00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:53,800 she said, sharply, and her hands were the kind that 129 00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:56,920 could fold a room into silence. She placed the photos 130 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:58,800 back on the table and then shoved them into an 131 00:05:58,839 --> 00:06:02,360 envelope and slid the envelope into her jacket pocket. Missus Hanley, 132 00:06:02,399 --> 00:06:06,160 I've seen that picture before. He keeps them like Talisman's. 133 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:08,079 She touched the edge of a photograph with a finger 134 00:06:08,079 --> 00:06:10,759 tip that had flower marks on the knuckle. There swan 135 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:12,680 with him and a little boy in an old playground. 136 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:15,680 I thought it was just nostalgia. I thought it was 137 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:18,800 lonely men holding onto the past. Not like this, Her 138 00:06:18,879 --> 00:06:21,680 voice broke on the last two words. We sat in 139 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,079 the kitchen, while the Liz's breathing came in ragged bursts. 140 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:27,240 We talked in fragments because words felt like tools that 141 00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:30,759 could cut our bind. Officer dyers. Did he hurt himself? 142 00:06:31,399 --> 00:06:36,199 Is he dangerous? Maul answered no, he is disoriented. He 143 00:06:36,319 --> 00:06:39,879 needs rest. Her mouth formed a shiltering distance she didn't reach. 144 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:43,120 Blaise's hands began to fidget, and then he shoved both 145 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:46,480 palms into his cardigan pockets and pulled out damp folded note. 146 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:49,079 He unfolded it with the slowness of some one, tracing 147 00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:52,480 shapes to remember letters on the paper was a childish groll. 148 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:55,120 Be back at midnight, be careful, dantes forget to count. 149 00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:57,920 My confusion shifted into an edge fear when I read 150 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:01,600 the instruction count what he back at midnight? From where 151 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:04,959 the letters were lodge and uneven. Thelais looked at the 152 00:07:04,959 --> 00:07:07,720 note and blink slowly. He mouthed the words and then 153 00:07:07,759 --> 00:07:10,079 began to hum. The music box walped latch, not in 154 00:07:10,120 --> 00:07:12,399 the room, but under his breath, like a thread pulling 155 00:07:12,439 --> 00:07:15,560 something loose. The ire crawled toward midnight again in the 156 00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:18,480 clock above the street. We stepped into the backyard because 157 00:07:18,639 --> 00:07:21,560 Liz kept saying he wanted there the metal store clock 158 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,160 in the lamp of street eleven point fifty eight. My 159 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:27,279 palms were damp. Missess Hanney held a Thermas like it 160 00:07:27,319 --> 00:07:29,759 was a shield. Molla stood near the back door with 161 00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:33,120 her shoulders squared. We watched the porch across the narrow lawn. 162 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,279 As the minute flipped, the liddies began moving oddly, first 163 00:07:36,319 --> 00:07:38,680 a small stoop, then a sudden contraction at the knees. 164 00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:42,360 His spines of movement were not smooth. He folded into 165 00:07:42,439 --> 00:07:44,480 himself and then straightened, as if some one inside him 166 00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:47,399 pulled a different set of levers. I lunged forward when 167 00:07:47,399 --> 00:07:50,240 he convulsed and caught his arm. His limbs contorted in 168 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:52,920 a way that did not match bone length. His form 169 00:07:52,959 --> 00:07:55,519 seemed to tuck under his torso. He made a sound 170 00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:57,639 that at both a man's slow strain and a child's 171 00:07:57,680 --> 00:08:00,600 thin cry. I felt something press behind his eyes when 172 00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:02,800 he looked at me. Another presence carried on top of 173 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:04,680 his face like a film, but it wasn't a metaphor. 174 00:08:05,279 --> 00:08:06,920 I could see it as a small change in how 175 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:10,240 his mouth curved, how his pupils dilated. Hold him, I 176 00:08:10,279 --> 00:08:13,079 told Malla, Hold him by the shoulders. We gripped her 177 00:08:13,079 --> 00:08:16,720 fingers dug into his cardigan fabric. Olaise twisted his head 178 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:19,480 towards us. In a second, smaller face flickered in his eyes, 179 00:08:19,600 --> 00:08:21,519 a reflection of a different mouth in a different set 180 00:08:21,519 --> 00:08:24,879 of expectations. The second presence was not audible, but Eliz's 181 00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:27,120 fingers moved to count on his knuckles quick and tiny. 182 00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:29,959 Officer Dies called for back up over her radio, and 183 00:08:29,959 --> 00:08:31,759 then turned it off. When she saw the way Les's 184 00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:34,799 shoulders jerked, she stepped back and said, stay with him, 185 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:37,720 Dante let him out of sight. Her voice had the 186 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:40,720 clip cadence of someone who expects nothing supernatural to be true, 187 00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:43,559 and yet that night she did not laugh. Alias convulse 188 00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:46,720 one more time, and then became very still. He folded 189 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:48,559 farther down until he was small enough to sit in 190 00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:51,320 the porch step without his knees hanging his watch. Dad 191 00:08:51,360 --> 00:08:54,279 stopped at twelve point one. The music box fell from 192 00:08:54,320 --> 00:08:56,600 an open pocket and rolled against a concrete seam. Its 193 00:08:56,639 --> 00:08:59,399 metal casing whispered. The sound was like a high note 194 00:08:59,399 --> 00:09:02,240 scratched in the air to fearing. Then something else arrived, 195 00:09:02,279 --> 00:09:04,120 an animal noise in the yard, or a child's laugh 196 00:09:04,159 --> 00:09:06,879 from a half closed window. Missus Hanley looked up and 197 00:09:06,879 --> 00:09:09,879 then down. Dante go past the tracks, she said, suddenly, 198 00:09:09,919 --> 00:09:12,200 to no one in particular, and then to me. She 199 00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:15,279 had not said that before. The sentence landed as a rule, 200 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:19,120 not folklore. I had to ask missus Hamley what tracks. 201 00:09:19,840 --> 00:09:22,240 She swallowed and said, there's a real line two streets over. 202 00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:24,600 Folks he used to say, not to go past it 203 00:09:24,639 --> 00:09:27,519 after dark. All people used to warn the kids away. 204 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:30,320 Lilies used to take late walks that way. She didn't 205 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:33,679 he finish. That was a twist. I hadn't expected the 206 00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:36,279 block of memory that changed how I placed Olaire's walks. 207 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,080 Up to that point, I had assumed this was isolated. 208 00:09:39,159 --> 00:09:42,159 Her words required context. Now what we saw at min 209 00:09:42,159 --> 00:09:43,600 At might link to a place in town no one 210 00:09:43,639 --> 00:09:47,039 crossed after dark. Lais was silent. He lifted his hands 211 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:49,879 and counted four small, deliberate taps on his knee. He 212 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:52,080 in a child's voice, camp with me. I counted a lot, 213 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:53,759 because his eyes held me with a pleading that was 214 00:09:53,879 --> 00:09:58,360 quite adult. We counted eight. On the eighth tapis shoulders clenched, 215 00:09:58,399 --> 00:10:00,639 and he pushed off the step. He was gone when 216 00:10:00,639 --> 00:10:03,559 the porch light flared. No one hurt him step away. 217 00:10:04,159 --> 00:10:06,200 There was only the sound of soft scuffing on gravel 218 00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:08,679 that stopped at the fence. We round to the gate 219 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:10,559 and peered down the narrow alley that led toward the 220 00:10:10,600 --> 00:10:13,519 track's two streets. Over the street lamps made a ribbon 221 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:16,679 of dull yellow. The night swallowed the last of his footprints. 222 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:20,440 Don found as combing his house. Officer Dies filed a 223 00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:24,080 report that read ordinary on paper, missing adult, no signs 224 00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:27,519 of forced entry, no substance detected on paper. The watch 225 00:10:27,519 --> 00:10:29,799 in the music box were evidence. Items of bar coats 226 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:33,200 in hand. The watch was cool and flat. The music 227 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:36,080 box offered a warp half melody when spun between finger nails. 228 00:10:36,759 --> 00:10:38,879 Marlla moved through the rooms like a woman sweeping through 229 00:10:38,879 --> 00:10:41,600 a place she had already mourned. He left at midnight, 230 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:44,080 she said to me once, and then looked away. He 231 00:10:44,159 --> 00:10:46,919 left of his own accord. He chose her voice, both 232 00:10:46,919 --> 00:10:50,159 accused and protected. We found a stack of poloids pin 233 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:52,919 to the wall and his den. The photographs have been 234 00:10:52,919 --> 00:10:55,559 reducted with black marker and strange places, names and dets 235 00:10:55,559 --> 00:10:58,320 struck out, leaving only faces in the cornice of places. 236 00:10:58,840 --> 00:11:01,200 One photograph had an old playground slide with a layers 237 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:04,000 sitting on it and a child's hand extended toward his knee. 238 00:11:04,399 --> 00:11:06,799 Another showed him older, holding a small toy boat in 239 00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:09,639 a diner booth. A picture's pin together showed the same 240 00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:13,240 man at different sizes across different years. Officer Dier's close 241 00:11:13,279 --> 00:11:15,279 her notebook and said, we have probable cause for a 242 00:11:15,279 --> 00:11:19,120 missing person aboard. We'll issue an alert. She took the 243 00:11:19,159 --> 00:11:22,279 watch on the music box's items of interest. Keep a log, 244 00:11:22,399 --> 00:11:26,080 She told me. If you see anything, call us Dante, 245 00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:28,960 confront unknown partis alone. She left with the quiet competence 246 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:31,000 of some one returning to a world that must make sense. 247 00:11:31,759 --> 00:11:33,960 Marla packed a small bag and told a layer's neighbor 248 00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,240 she would handle clean up and appointments and anything else 249 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:40,039 that smelled like responsibility. Missus Hanley offered coffee and cass 250 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:42,879 whorls without pursing, but with a steady hand. I sat 251 00:11:42,879 --> 00:11:44,679 at a Lai's kitchen table and wrote down what I 252 00:11:44,679 --> 00:11:48,600 had seen. I detailed the contractions, the child's cadence, the stopwatch, 253 00:11:48,799 --> 00:11:51,759 the music box, the polaroids. My hand shook when I 254 00:11:51,799 --> 00:11:54,919 wrote the words count and tracks. The shaking was a 255 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:57,600 physical sign that something inside me had shifted from confusion 256 00:11:57,679 --> 00:12:00,840 to fear. That fear turned into a kind of methodical resolve. 257 00:12:00,879 --> 00:12:03,799 By morning, I taped the music box into small evidence 258 00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:06,639 back and photographed the watch with my phone. I recorded 259 00:12:06,639 --> 00:12:09,799 the polaroids in sequence. I numbered the items and wrote 260 00:12:09,799 --> 00:12:12,919 their locations for me. Cataloging was the only way to 261 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:15,759 keep a lid on panic. The act of organizing kept 262 00:12:15,799 --> 00:12:19,000 my jaw from clenching until it aged. Before Maula left 263 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:20,840 with a handful of photos and a promise to return, 264 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:23,840 she turned to me. Dante, tell any one about the closet, 265 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:26,480 she said, And she said it sharply so it would 266 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:29,240 lodger my memory. As command, if you must tell, tell 267 00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:35,240 Officer Dyers, Dante, tell the internet. Dante feed rumors. Her 268 00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:38,240 eyes were hard and wet at once, she folded herself 269 00:12:38,279 --> 00:12:40,679 into protecting ship. I had seen before in family members 270 00:12:40,679 --> 00:12:42,600 who wanted to hide damage from a world that would 271 00:12:42,639 --> 00:12:45,399 not understand. I left the watch in the music box 272 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:47,799 under my arm, and the says Hanney beside me, handing 273 00:12:47,799 --> 00:12:50,480 me a thermisalt like a talisman. When I stepped into 274 00:12:50,519 --> 00:12:52,159 the street, the morning air had a thin coal that 275 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:54,480 made my breath white. I put the watch in my 276 00:12:54,519 --> 00:12:57,039 pocket and the music box in my bag. My note 277 00:12:57,039 --> 00:12:59,559 becud twenty pages of scribbled sentences and the headline I 278 00:12:59,559 --> 00:13:03,440 hadn't tender to ray keep a night lock. Officer Dyers 279 00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:05,960 called me later that morning and read the report back, 280 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:10,279 missing it all last seen midnight, no witnesses. She if 281 00:13:10,279 --> 00:13:12,320 I wanted to file a statement. I said yes, and 282 00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:15,639 then added, I need to be here to night. She paused, 283 00:13:15,639 --> 00:13:18,519 then asked why. I answered simply because him change. A 284 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:21,440 pause was long enough to hear her calibrate disbelief into duty. 285 00:13:22,159 --> 00:13:25,039 She i'll run patrols by the tracks. Call if you 286 00:13:25,039 --> 00:13:27,879 see anything. I agreed. When I hung up, I put 287 00:13:27,879 --> 00:13:29,799 the watch on the kitchen table and closed the drawer 288 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:32,440 over it. I wound up the music box and let 289 00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:34,720 it hitter once before I slid it into a line pocket. 290 00:13:35,279 --> 00:13:37,039 The single watt note hung in the air and then 291 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:39,639 was swallowed by the sound of a passing patrol. I 292 00:13:39,679 --> 00:13:41,720 went home before noon and slept in the shallow way 293 00:13:41,759 --> 00:13:45,399 people do after a sleepless night. Sleep came in small chunks. 294 00:13:46,039 --> 00:13:47,799 I woke with my hand in the old digital watch 295 00:13:47,799 --> 00:13:50,360 in my pocket. My finger found the scratch upon its 296 00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:53,080 glass and traced it like a prayer of comprehension. By 297 00:13:53,080 --> 00:13:54,679 the time thus came, I had set an alarm for 298 00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:58,080 eleven fifty I packed a flashlight, notebook, and the music 299 00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:02,480 box wrapped in a bandana. Must Haney called from a 300 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,559 porch and told me to be careful in three different ways, practical, moral, 301 00:14:05,639 --> 00:14:09,759 and superstitious. She dawntey go past the tracks unless he 302 00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:11,919 re ready to count, and then she clapped her hand 303 00:14:11,919 --> 00:14:13,840 over her mouth, as if she had proclaimed a secret. 304 00:14:14,399 --> 00:14:16,919 Her warning was both a civic instruction and a superstition, 305 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,600 handed down with a plate of cookies. When the street 306 00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,000 clock approached midnight again, I stood on my lawn and 307 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:25,320 watched Oliz's house. I had changed from suspicion to curiosity, 308 00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:27,360 to dread to resolve over a span of ten hours. 309 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,080 The emotion shifts had been visible in my body, a 310 00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:35,000 tightening jaw, a shallow breath, a decisive step forward. The 311 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:37,159 night opened like a wound, and I walked toward it. 312 00:14:37,759 --> 00:14:39,799 At eleven fifty nine, I heard a sound behind me, 313 00:14:39,879 --> 00:14:42,519 a car door, then missus Hanner's whisper. If anything happens, 314 00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:45,000 maa Thys will be up his route By the tracks. 315 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,279 At one, I whispered back, I'll wait by the fence. 316 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:50,039 She put a thermos into my hands and said, bring 317 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,759 the watch if you can. I tucked it into my 318 00:14:51,799 --> 00:14:54,399 palm and felt its flat face against my skin. The 319 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,720 porch light across the yard flared at midnight. Lie stood 320 00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:00,559 there again, smaller and more deliberate. He looked at me 321 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:03,120 as if he had been waiting, and then moved. He 322 00:15:03,159 --> 00:15:05,559 walked toward the gate in the exact deliberate rhythm of 323 00:15:05,559 --> 00:15:08,360 the child's counting we had tried to match. He paused 324 00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:10,480 at the fence, turned once, and looked back at the house. 325 00:15:11,159 --> 00:15:13,519 His mouth put together the word sorry with the slowness 326 00:15:13,559 --> 00:15:16,440 of a child learning in adult apology. He stepped through 327 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,159 the gate, and the knight swallowed him. I called his name, 328 00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:20,960 and my voice went raw. The sound of his scuffing 329 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:23,519 feet on gravel faded. When I reached the gate. There 330 00:15:23,559 --> 00:15:25,279 was only the film of dew and the grass, and 331 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:27,600 a faint smer of small prints heading toward the tracks. 332 00:15:28,279 --> 00:15:30,759 I followed them until the yard narrowed in the lamplight shifted. 333 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:33,399 Then I stopped, because the Prince simply ended at the 334 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,320 chain link boundary by the alley beyond the trucks, the 335 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:39,039 reels lay like a line of no return. I watched 336 00:15:39,039 --> 00:15:41,039 the horizon for a long time, and then turned back 337 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:44,039 to Alise's empty porch. The watch in my pocket taped 338 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:46,320 against my palm, though its hands remained frozen at twelve 339 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:48,200 point one, as if the mechanism wanted to move and 340 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,919 couldn't he. I put the music box on the porch 341 00:15:50,919 --> 00:15:53,759 step and wound at once. A warped home played and 342 00:15:53,799 --> 00:15:56,440 then broke. Dawn came with a las gune and with 343 00:15:56,559 --> 00:15:59,960 new tasks, log entry, his phone calls, and no decision. 344 00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,679 I decided to document every midnight. I decided to keep 345 00:16:03,679 --> 00:16:06,279 the music box and the watch under my control. I 346 00:16:06,360 --> 00:16:09,279 decided to learn what the counting meant. As I left 347 00:16:09,279 --> 00:16:11,919 ols house that morning, I hesitated outside his gate, clutched 348 00:16:11,919 --> 00:16:15,240 the watch, and heard the faintest sound behind me, a chal, small, 349 00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:17,440 deliberate counting from a mail book across the street that 350 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,399 stopped at three and then vanished. I turned toward the 351 00:16:20,399 --> 00:16:22,679 sound and stepped forward. When the porch light clicked off, 352 00:16:22,799 --> 00:16:24,919 leaving the music box a single walped note in the air, 353 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:27,600 like a question that refused to resolve. I pried the 354 00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:29,919 back window and stepped into a living room, Whererillaz folded 355 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:32,600 in an arm chair, limbs collapsing like a marionette in 356 00:16:32,639 --> 00:16:36,360 the dark. Suspicion drove my hands. Suspicion made me break 357 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:38,799 him without calling for help. He was smaller in the 358 00:16:38,799 --> 00:16:41,519 low light, shoulders pressed towards his ears, knees drawn up 359 00:16:41,519 --> 00:16:44,519 beneath the card. Again, I turned the cheap flashlight against 360 00:16:44,559 --> 00:16:46,879 the ceiling and watched dust flash across a pole's clock 361 00:16:46,919 --> 00:16:49,879 on a mantel. A municipal post clock had rid twelve 362 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,000 of two. When I left my car, the house cock 363 00:16:52,039 --> 00:16:54,039 read twelve ten, and the second hand had stopped at 364 00:16:54,039 --> 00:16:57,080 one minute past midnight. I say suspicion because I could 365 00:16:57,120 --> 00:16:59,240 not let the image on his port be the only proof. 366 00:16:59,799 --> 00:17:01,559 The night I had first seen Alis shrinking at his 367 00:17:01,639 --> 00:17:03,519 doorway was a clear physical event in my head to 368 00:17:03,559 --> 00:17:06,079 refuse to be explained away, I had put my car 369 00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:08,160 keys in my pocket and told myself I would only 370 00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,480 watch that memory. Him getting shorter under the street light 371 00:17:11,599 --> 00:17:14,519 made me come back. The sheep flashlight hung from my belt. 372 00:17:14,559 --> 00:17:16,599 When I climbed the crooked porch steps and pressed the 373 00:17:16,599 --> 00:17:19,559 window frame, the room smelled of old wool and dust. 374 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:22,240 There was a lamp knock sideways on the coffee table, 375 00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:24,319 teak broken in three pieces in the rug, and a 376 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:26,480 lay still in the arm ship, breathing like someone trying 377 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:29,400 to keep two different rhythms in time. I stepped closer. 378 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,400 I saw his hands too small for the sleeves, fingers 379 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:36,039 cold tight. I touched his shoulder. His skin was cool, 380 00:17:36,079 --> 00:17:38,799 and he did not look up. I said, Elise, and 381 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:41,920 his head turned with a childless lowness. He answered in 382 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:44,000 a voice that was both him and not him. Maggie, 383 00:17:44,039 --> 00:17:46,119 he said, and his mouth shaped the name with the quick, 384 00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:48,480 innocent trust of a child calling for a familiar adult. 385 00:17:49,079 --> 00:17:52,279 I had the thinness in it and felt my second emotion, doubt, 386 00:17:52,279 --> 00:17:55,279 slipping into fear. Doubt had been a background noise since 387 00:17:55,319 --> 00:17:58,759 the porch that first night. Now it sharpened into immediate danger. 388 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:00,559 I moved to the arm chair and tried to lift 389 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,400 him by the shoulders. My hands met bones that had 390 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:05,720 the wrong ratio for the man I knew. The Liz 391 00:18:05,759 --> 00:18:07,440 sacked against my palms like a coat that had been 392 00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:10,480 turned inside out. He made a small sound, half laugh, 393 00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:13,640 half hiccup, and reached out with both hands, fingers searching air. 394 00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:16,759 His eyes were glossy steel blue, but rounder, and the 395 00:18:16,799 --> 00:18:18,799 line on his forehead that I remembered was a shallow 396 00:18:18,799 --> 00:18:21,279 fold now instead of a worry. When I bent to 397 00:18:21,319 --> 00:18:23,079 steady him, he clung to the arm of the chair 398 00:18:23,079 --> 00:18:26,160 with surprising strength, and then folded again. The window I 399 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:28,279 had forced to enter slound shut behind me with a 400 00:18:28,279 --> 00:18:30,799 gust of cold that knocked the lamp. I spawned and 401 00:18:30,839 --> 00:18:33,920 heard footsteps outside on the porch, rapid determined done to 402 00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:36,519 let him go. A woman hissed, threw the thin gass. 403 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:39,839 Maggie shoved the back door open and came in without knocking. 404 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:42,440 She had a coat half on and one shoe, and hied. 405 00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:45,200 Maggie's shoulders were set like some one a fight. You 406 00:18:45,319 --> 00:18:48,000 had it, she said, and then softer you took too long. 407 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:50,839 She moved to Liz, ignored me for a second, and 408 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:53,799 put her shoulder under his back. Her voice changed when 409 00:18:53,799 --> 00:18:56,599 she said his name, Eliz, Eliz. Hold on. Maggie's hands 410 00:18:56,599 --> 00:19:00,319 were steady. Her first lines were practical. We lift him together. 411 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:03,759 On three one two we heaved a Lie's body folded further, 412 00:19:03,839 --> 00:19:06,640 hips collapsing toward the floor. He made a wet sound 413 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:09,359 that reached my throat like a cut officer dies as 414 00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:11,720 cruiser lights painted the curtains outside in a thin blue 415 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:13,680 band and then stopped at the end of the driveway. 416 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:16,480 Maggie's brow snapped up at the sound of the siren, 417 00:19:16,599 --> 00:19:18,920 and the next motion shifted through me from fear into 418 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:22,200 a harved, pragmatic focus. I tightened my grip and matched 419 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:24,960 Maggie's rhythm. Dios banged on the front door with the 420 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:27,519 heel of his hand and called out neighborhood wellness check 421 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:31,400 any one inside. His voice had the official flatness I 422 00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,000 had heard before the professional distance that tried to smith 423 00:19:34,039 --> 00:19:36,720 horrors into checklists. He was in the porch as if 424 00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:39,680 he'd run the block. A second later, the front door 425 00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:41,799 opened and he stepped into the hall with his flashlight 426 00:19:41,839 --> 00:19:44,519 and a paper notebook already in his hand. His eyes 427 00:19:44,599 --> 00:19:46,720 darted at a Liz, and then as what happened in here? 428 00:19:46,799 --> 00:19:50,039 He asked? My voice came out clipped he regresses. After 429 00:19:50,079 --> 00:19:53,359 midnight he collapsed in the chair. We thought you should 430 00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:56,960 check him. Maggie Oliz's first and lost name. Quickly thelaes 431 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,440 morn Dies repeated the name into his note book. Ome's 432 00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:02,319 pulse he said, the way officers say, show me to 433 00:20:02,319 --> 00:20:05,400 make action concrete. We move the layers towards the howyso 434 00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:08,039 dye as could reach him. He confosed mid's step and 435 00:20:08,079 --> 00:20:10,319 not jerk that pushed eyes backward on to the wallpaper. 436 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:14,920 The officer swore and steadied himself against the hallway banister Jesus, 437 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:17,799 he said, breathing through it. His hand hovered near lays 438 00:20:17,799 --> 00:20:19,920 wrist and then pulled away like something that surprised him. 439 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:22,160 I blocked a closet with my elbow and yant. The 440 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,119 door opened, because an instinct told me the house would 441 00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:27,400 hold answers. The closet was packed with adult sweaters, a 442 00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:29,720 box of navel pill bottles, and a wall of polor 443 00:20:29,759 --> 00:20:32,359 or is nailed in a cramped grid. I stepped closer 444 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:35,680 in trout the flashlight. Along the photos. There were faces, 445 00:20:35,799 --> 00:20:37,400 some older than a layer should be, for the dates 446 00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:40,960 written in byrow and the white margins handprint, small dusty 447 00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:44,160 over leg grown men in suits. The polaroids were pinned 448 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,279 and taped and smeared with corrections. Several had dates from 449 00:20:47,319 --> 00:20:50,880 decades earlier. My suspicion hardened into a new edge betrayal. 450 00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:54,319 The layers had been hiding a pattern. Maggie grabbed my arm, 451 00:20:54,319 --> 00:20:58,000 whispering he started them after ninety eight. He needed to 452 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:00,799 remember who was coming and going. Her voice cracked on 453 00:21:00,839 --> 00:21:04,039 the last three words, shiddy years, like they were charges. 454 00:21:04,759 --> 00:21:06,799 I pulled one photo free with my finger nail. The 455 00:21:06,799 --> 00:21:09,119 paper assisted and then came away with a soft rip. 456 00:21:09,759 --> 00:21:11,759 It showed Deliz smiling at a picnic table with a 457 00:21:11,839 --> 00:21:15,519 child size hanprin over his mouth. Officer Dyas walked into 458 00:21:15,519 --> 00:21:18,079 the study and saw the wall. He flipped a page 459 00:21:18,079 --> 00:21:20,480 in his note book and said, you have medical records, 460 00:21:21,079 --> 00:21:23,240 anything that explains He stopped when he looked at the 461 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:27,079 poor words. He did not write the first thing down. Instead, 462 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:29,160 he stepped to the closet end pointed to the handwritting 463 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:32,440 on a corner. What is that date, he asked, Jane tenth, 464 00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:36,480 nineteen eighty eight. Maggie read the timeline did not fit 465 00:21:36,519 --> 00:21:39,359 a normal illness. I pulled the drawer on the bedside 466 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,519 table because the layout mapsed my mental map from watching 467 00:21:41,599 --> 00:21:44,440 him from across the street. The drawer resisted and then 468 00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:47,799 slid open with a crack. Inside was the tin music box, 469 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,720 its paint chipped, the whining key swollen with age. My 470 00:21:50,799 --> 00:21:52,680 hands began to shake for the first time, and the 471 00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:56,160 feeling shifted again from betrayal into a thin, cold clarity. 472 00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,160 This object wasn't he incidental? It had wait. I turned 473 00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,680 a box in my palm. It fit in my hand 474 00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,000 like a child's treasure. There was a stick of a 475 00:22:04,039 --> 00:22:05,839 small boat on the lid, and when I wounded, a 476 00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,559 sharp metallic chime started to unwind into a luller by tune. 477 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,720 The sound altered the room. It made Olaise in hale 478 00:22:11,759 --> 00:22:14,279 and go still. Dawn Tea Maggie started and then cut 479 00:22:14,279 --> 00:22:17,119 herself off. She watched a box with both hands on 480 00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,000 Olay's shoulders. The music rolled into the space, and a 481 00:22:20,039 --> 00:22:22,599 second voice answered it, not from the box, but from Alaise. 482 00:22:23,279 --> 00:22:25,839 The voice inside him layered over the child's cadence, as 483 00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:28,000 if multiple records were playing on top of each other 484 00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:30,519 and the grooves were out of sync. The li's mouse 485 00:22:30,519 --> 00:22:33,200 shaped woods in a slow, deliberate way. The boat home returned, 486 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:35,400 followed by a stacado aldo syllable that belonged to some 487 00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:38,480 one else. Dias took a step back, and then another one. 488 00:22:38,559 --> 00:22:40,640 Olai's hands fex like the hands of a very small 489 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,200 child trying to find a window. When it back, DIA's 490 00:22:43,799 --> 00:22:46,279 his voice lower, Now stop it. My arm tightened around 491 00:22:46,319 --> 00:22:49,319 the box. Maggie's naels were white on Olai's card. Again 492 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:52,319 she is named softly, then Lauder Olaise. Please. He opened 493 00:22:52,319 --> 00:22:54,720 his eyes, and the child's eyes blinked for a moment. 494 00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:57,400 I missed the adult calculation in them. The room filled 495 00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:59,279 with a quite so specific I could count the panes 496 00:22:59,279 --> 00:23:02,759 in the window. I paused the winding key. The lullab 497 00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,359 hung somewhere between notes. The metallic breath. Billia's glapsed into 498 00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,279 a heap on Maggie's lap, and then settled, with a 499 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,079 child's trust, into the crook of her arm. He sighed 500 00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:12,720 like some one who had been trying to hold two 501 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,200 breaths and gave up one. Diyes took a breath that 502 00:23:15,279 --> 00:23:18,599 sounded like a man reconciling two possibilities. This isn't a 503 00:23:18,599 --> 00:23:21,480 call I can file without something official, he said, I 504 00:23:21,519 --> 00:23:25,720 need a clear medical problem on paper. Other doctors. Maggie 505 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,200 looked at me. Her eyes had a new raw edge. 506 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,359 Accusation and pleading all at once. You him he couldn't 507 00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:34,119 go past the tracks when he was a kid, She blurted, 508 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,200 at me you it was the rule you. I realized 509 00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,720 she meant pattern of rules. We both had spoken as children, 510 00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:42,400 the small taboos our neighbor had kept like a litany. 511 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,759 My reply was, then I told him not to wander 512 00:23:45,799 --> 00:23:49,519 alone after midnight. I didn't know this. I felt the 513 00:23:49,559 --> 00:23:51,960 paragraph of memory from the porch press against the present. 514 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,599 The night I had seen him shrink. My earlier actions 515 00:23:55,599 --> 00:23:57,759 had been shipped by suspicion that had become an imperative, 516 00:23:58,319 --> 00:24:01,839 find proof and stop it. Dyers cleared his throat. We 517 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,319 can try to get an ambulance to hold him under observation. 518 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,160 But if this is not a recognized disorder. He left 519 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,599 the sentence open, like a report, waiting for a diagnosis. 520 00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:14,240 Maggie's shoulders tightened. She pushed Alais toward the hallway and said, 521 00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:16,119 we don't he want him in a hospital. If they 522 00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:18,119 take him apart on a table and lose what we have, 523 00:24:18,839 --> 00:24:21,759 he is family. Her voice had a different logic, preservation 524 00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:25,640 over exposure. We argued in short lines, we need doctors? 525 00:24:25,839 --> 00:24:28,559 Does we need recos Maggie, If you hide him and 526 00:24:28,599 --> 00:24:31,480 he hurts someone, he won't he hurt anyone? Die Is, 527 00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,440 Maggie snapped he is sick. He needs a house. He knows, 528 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,640 not a ward. I say, Maggie, we found his polaroids. 529 00:24:40,319 --> 00:24:43,359 We found this. If you refuse, I can take copies. 530 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,559 I can give them to the station. Her reply was 531 00:24:46,599 --> 00:24:50,279 immediate No. There were three more exchanges like that, quick 532 00:24:50,319 --> 00:24:52,119 and clipped, each name used to anchor who had the 533 00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,079 standing to decide. When the argument broke into the cold 534 00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:58,559 arithmetic of procedure, Lais made a sudden motion. His hands 535 00:24:58,559 --> 00:25:00,200 grabbed the tin box on the night's end in a 536 00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,200 child's clumsy reach. He wounded himself in a way to 537 00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,519 assured the motion had been learned, not yesterday, but over 538 00:25:05,559 --> 00:25:08,759 many nights. The music rose in Elise's face bunched up 539 00:25:08,759 --> 00:25:10,640 with a look that was not pained but tight concentration. 540 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:13,119 He hummed along under the melody, but then the olled. 541 00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:15,519 A voice leaked through a rasp that spoke a sentence 542 00:25:15,559 --> 00:25:19,640 and eclipped the dull headence not yet wait. That sentence 543 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,559 made dire's step forward. He understands dire shot by his 544 00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:25,519 own words. I loungaged for the box because the pattern 545 00:25:25,559 --> 00:25:27,319 in front of me had to be stopped with an action. 546 00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,680 Maggie shouted no, dire saw and reached to hold my arm. 547 00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:33,799 Elaise's hands closed in the box, and he pulled it 548 00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:36,960 toward his chest. For a heartbeat, his small body tensed 549 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,559 like a bowstring, and then all at once he shoved 550 00:25:39,559 --> 00:25:42,200 the lid closed the interior, and no snapped, and the 551 00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,599 sun folded into silence. Olaise's chest hived, and he began 552 00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,359 to shake. The climax that held the whole night came 553 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,400 in the next six heart beats. Eliza's shoulders rose and 554 00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:55,200 fell rapidly, his voice layered, The child chimed a single 555 00:25:55,279 --> 00:25:57,599 right syllable and an old man's syllable ancer beneath it. 556 00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,559 With anger, he pushed himself up and slammed both palms 557 00:26:00,559 --> 00:26:02,240 on to the night stand, which banged the arm of 558 00:26:02,279 --> 00:26:04,599 the chef free. He looked directly at me with an 559 00:26:04,599 --> 00:26:07,599 expression that was not the open, trusting one before. It 560 00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,480 hid calculation and memory in it. You shouldn't have touched it, 561 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:12,559 he said, in my ear voice that belonged to a 562 00:26:12,559 --> 00:26:15,599 forty two year old mind, angry and lucid. My hands 563 00:26:15,599 --> 00:26:17,759 were on him before I thought to move. There was 564 00:26:17,799 --> 00:26:20,079 a second when every person in the room made a decision. 565 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,839 Maggie stepped back and then forward. The eyes grabbed the 566 00:26:23,839 --> 00:26:27,200 phone and started calling despatch. I tore the music box 567 00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,119 out of Eliz's hands and smashed it on the floor. 568 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,039 The lids skittered across the rug and metal shots fell 569 00:26:32,079 --> 00:26:34,839 out like teeth. The melody warbled, and he keeped as 570 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,000 if something inside it was struggling to finish a sentence. 571 00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,359 Eliz convols and then went still. His body relaxed into 572 00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,480 a tire deep silence followed the impact in the exact 573 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:47,559 waysir and followed gunshot and movies. The room smelt suddenly metallic, 574 00:26:47,799 --> 00:26:50,480 like open coin rolls. Thus much rose and caught the 575 00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,160 beam of Dya's flashlight. Maggie's palms were called on Elise's back. 576 00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,079 Dres breathed out slow lines into his radio. He sounded 577 00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,079 younger when he was shaken. He and the receiver unit 578 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,079 is holding patient responsive but altered, requesting m's a mental 579 00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:07,680 health lisson. The formal voice returned to cover to rhonas. 580 00:27:08,319 --> 00:27:12,079 When the ambulance took over, paramedics examined Olaise with effishient hands. 581 00:27:12,759 --> 00:27:15,480 He checked people's pulse and ask standard questions with them 582 00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:20,240 familiar tenderness, Eliz, can you tell me your name, one asked. 583 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,799 Delaise answered in a horse whisper o Liz mun He 584 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,519 kept repeating it like a mantra. Then he asked for 585 00:27:25,559 --> 00:27:28,119 a glass of water and for Maggie by name. They 586 00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,480 wanted to take him to the hospital. Maggie argued, not yet, 587 00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,680 not unless they say why. The paramedics said, gently, my 588 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,920 m we have to stabilize him. If he regresses again, 589 00:27:38,039 --> 00:27:41,240 he could hurt himself. Dyes put a town on Maggie's shoulder, 590 00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:43,960 as if to weigh the scale. He Maggie, if you 591 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,759 refuse it will become a custardy thing. You want him home, 592 00:27:46,839 --> 00:27:50,240 You need documentation. She looked at the polaroid wall and 593 00:27:50,279 --> 00:27:53,160 then at the smash music box. Her face change from 594 00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:56,000 a hard protected set to a look I recognized, weary. Decision. 595 00:27:56,519 --> 00:27:59,640 Maggie let them take Olais with conditions. She signed a 596 00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,480 foreman and then folded it into a pocket with trembling fingers. 597 00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,480 She to me, make coppies of everything, every photo, Give 598 00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,920 one set to eyes, give one to a lawyer, keep 599 00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,680 one with you. If you lose them, I lose him. 600 00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,119 The line was strict and practical. She named options like 601 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,960 a person naming a ladder over a sink. Do it now, 602 00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,200 she added. We spend the next ire catalog in photographs. 603 00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,960 Diers took notes, and against Habit photographed the wall with 604 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,480 his phone and low with the dates. We wrote down 605 00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,400 which polaroids had small hand prints, in which had adult signatures. 606 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,279 There were names scrolled on the back in Ali's crumbed hand, 607 00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,240 some more people I recognized from neighborhood fires. Some were 608 00:28:37,319 --> 00:28:40,160 names no one could place. The pattern made a slow, 609 00:28:40,279 --> 00:28:44,079 terrible coherence. Blaise had been tracking repetitions, a record of 610 00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,359 nights when someone or something had come through his life. 611 00:28:46,839 --> 00:28:49,160 At three in the morning, we were standing outside as 612 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,480 the ambulance pulled away with flashing red lights. Looking at 613 00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,039 the hedges. Maggie had to lay his cardig into her 614 00:28:54,119 --> 00:28:56,720 chest like a shield. Diers watched the vehicle until it 615 00:28:56,759 --> 00:28:59,319 vanished down the block. Then he turned to me and 616 00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:01,920 Officer make and by exhaustion, if what you found is real, 617 00:29:02,039 --> 00:29:03,519 he said, I will write it up as part of 618 00:29:03,519 --> 00:29:07,359 the incident report. I'll recommend an investigative follow up. He paused, 619 00:29:07,359 --> 00:29:09,160 But I can promise what the paper will do with it. 620 00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,200 These things get filtered. I felt a sudden, hard anger. 621 00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,319 Frustration at the evidence we had might simply become a 622 00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,839 folder in a stack. I had the polaroid in a 623 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,319 Manilla envelope and Olaise as stopped for a torch in 624 00:29:19,319 --> 00:29:21,880 my palm. The municipal clock on the post at the 625 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:26,200 convary twelve o one. When we left the yard, Maggie Dantes, 626 00:29:26,279 --> 00:29:29,160 leave him in the open, put them somewhere safe, I said, 627 00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,039 I would. She clasped my wrists, saw him shrink on 628 00:29:32,079 --> 00:29:36,279 the porch before write. She asked, you were the first witness, Dantes. 629 00:29:36,359 --> 00:29:38,359 Let them tell you it didn't happen. I said, I 630 00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,559 want tea. My voice was low and close. She repeated 631 00:29:41,559 --> 00:29:44,319 his name like a protection. Olaize more, and we walked 632 00:29:44,319 --> 00:29:47,079 back toward our houses with the polaroide pressed inside my jacket. 633 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:49,480 The nut had thinned into a kind of brittle light. 634 00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:52,920 A dog barked and then stopped. I thought of the 635 00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:55,160 first knife again, the porch picture frozen in my head, 636 00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:57,279 and felt a closing shift inside me, from simple fear 637 00:29:57,319 --> 00:30:01,039 to responsible, stubborn resolve. I could not, in good conscience 638 00:30:01,119 --> 00:30:03,559 allow the music box and those pin photographs to remain 639 00:30:03,599 --> 00:30:05,960 buried in some one's drawer. I had to make a 640 00:30:06,039 --> 00:30:08,920 choice not to let them be erased by procedure. At dawn, 641 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:10,920 I sat at my kitchen table, spread the polaroids on 642 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,400 the laminae. I set the stop watch on top of 643 00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,240 one picture and looked. Each image had a month and 644 00:30:16,279 --> 00:30:19,160 a year in a different hand, some more annotated with 645 00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,240 small notes. Returned left at nine captain side, not to 646 00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,839 the tracks. The words were precise and almost legal. I 647 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,440 began to catalog them on to her notebook page, copping dates, descriptions, 648 00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,359 and any writer. By mid morning, I had three stacks, 649 00:30:33,039 --> 00:30:35,279 coppas for the station, coppas for Maggie, and set e 650 00:30:35,359 --> 00:30:37,440 in an envelope and tucked into the lining of my jacket. 651 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,960 Maggie called twice that morning. The first time she was 652 00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:43,839 raw and angry because hospital staff had insisted on testing. 653 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:47,319 The second time she was quieter. He sleppt most of 654 00:30:47,359 --> 00:30:50,079 the day, She said, he woke around five and asked 655 00:30:50,079 --> 00:30:53,279 where his music box was. He didn't he remember the closet, 656 00:30:53,759 --> 00:30:56,960 He didn't he remember the polaroids. He if he'd been naughty. 657 00:30:57,559 --> 00:31:00,680 Her voice broken the last word, I said, what did 658 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,359 the doctor say? She sounded small when she answered day. 659 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,000 They would run scans, check for toxins, maybe a seizure 660 00:31:07,039 --> 00:31:10,799 disorder day about sleep walking. They didn't Tea say anything 661 00:31:10,839 --> 00:31:14,799 about She left the sentence hanging. Two days later, Olaise 662 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,480 was back home. The hospital had released him with the 663 00:31:17,519 --> 00:31:19,960 diagnosis of a truncent episode and a referral to a 664 00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,400 patient neurology. They gave Maggie a printed summary that read 665 00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:27,079 like a form altered mental status possible desociative event. Di 666 00:31:27,119 --> 00:31:29,119 As filed his notes and after a week sent a 667 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,880 brief memory recommending follow up with the department as behavioral 668 00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,880 health liaison. The official trail would be a thin line 669 00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,480 of paper. The private truth had more weight. Elaise woke 670 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,599 as an adult and stayed so. He was slower. Sometimes 671 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:44,519 he blinked at the morning sunlike everyone else in the street. 672 00:31:45,119 --> 00:31:47,480 His hands looked proportionate again. When he hugged Maggie in 673 00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:50,519 a living room, he called me by name and laughed once, 674 00:31:50,559 --> 00:31:53,200 like someone relieved to see a neighbor. He had anesia 675 00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:54,920 for parts of the night, and for the small hand 676 00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:58,079 prints on some polaroids. He kept a stopwatch strapped to 677 00:31:58,119 --> 00:32:01,519 his wrist. He once did I do that? Did I 678 00:32:01,599 --> 00:32:04,519 make that face? And Maggie, you did, but you read back. 679 00:32:04,599 --> 00:32:07,160 Now we'll find out why. He I don't tea want 680 00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,759 to be a problem, and Maggie answered, you read not 681 00:32:09,839 --> 00:32:12,839 a problem, you refamily. The lines were plain and domestic, 682 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:15,759 and they tied up what the hospital could not. I 683 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,640 returned the coppice to Diers in person. He nodded at 684 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,279 the polaroids like a man handing evidence he wished were simple. 685 00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,039 I'll keep those in the station fault for now, he said, 686 00:32:24,039 --> 00:32:26,680 if Pattens show up us where this helps he use 687 00:32:26,759 --> 00:32:29,359 the word pattern without drama. I left him with the 688 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,599 envelope and a numbered call. Maggie and Olais sorted the 689 00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,359 polaroid again, frame by frame. The layers insisted on cataloging 690 00:32:36,359 --> 00:32:39,119 the dates he could remember. He found one from nineteen 691 00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:42,039 eighty eight with a child's handwriting. He'd never explain. He 692 00:32:42,079 --> 00:32:44,720 about a name in a corner. Maggie him the family 693 00:32:44,759 --> 00:32:47,160 had always kept lists of rules as a joke. The 694 00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,680 Lais listened and then shrugged, but his fingers lingered on 695 00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,079 a coroner where a small handprin faded into the emulsion. 696 00:32:52,559 --> 00:32:56,480 Weeks passed, the nights grew longer and then shorter. The 697 00:32:56,559 --> 00:32:59,680 municipal clock still clicked in its steady way. The wristwatch 698 00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:01,839 that its stopped at one minute past midnight was fixed 699 00:33:01,839 --> 00:33:04,759 and wound and wound again until it took normally. Sometimes 700 00:33:04,839 --> 00:33:06,440 late night I would passed by a liz port and 701 00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,160 look up. The house lights stayed on seldom, and when 702 00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,079 they did, the silhouette of the window looked like a 703 00:33:11,079 --> 00:33:15,000 man thinking about ordinary bills and groceries. Days later, when 704 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:16,880 the spare key was in the jacket pocket, I found 705 00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:18,640 a fold of polaroids stuck at a book of local 706 00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,200 ordinances at the library where I worked a midnight shift. 707 00:33:21,839 --> 00:33:23,559 It was one of the ones I had fought coppered, 708 00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:25,240 and someone had written on the back of note in 709 00:33:25,279 --> 00:33:27,440 the same crump hand as olaise es keep him from 710 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,440 the tracks. I folded the paper and slid it into 711 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:31,960 my pocket. It felt like a small fuel for what 712 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,039 I intended to do with the copies, not to announce them, 713 00:33:35,039 --> 00:33:37,119 but to arc of them in a slow, patient way. 714 00:33:37,759 --> 00:33:39,799 I made three additional coppies and placed them in three 715 00:33:39,799 --> 00:33:42,400 separate envelopes, each marked with dates in the phrase did 716 00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,960 not destroy. I left one with Dyes, one with Maggie, 717 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:46,799 and one in a safe deposet box whose number I 718 00:33:46,799 --> 00:33:48,519 wrote on a page that no one else would find 719 00:33:48,559 --> 00:33:51,160 without asking me. On a morning when the sky was 720 00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,359 a flat gray and there had been rain, Laise came 721 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,799 to my door. He carried the fixedress watch in his 722 00:33:55,839 --> 00:33:58,359 palm and set it on my kitchen table. He looked 723 00:33:58,359 --> 00:34:01,480 smaller for a moment, and then stead. I dun'tee liked 724 00:34:01,519 --> 00:34:04,200 the idea of others finding those photos, he said, naming 725 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,240 a practical fear instead of the nights. Who would believe me? 726 00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,719 Who would want to? Maggie had told me earlier he 727 00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,760 had asked the doctors the same question. I answered, simply, 728 00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,480 we will keep copies and tell truth when it matters. 729 00:34:16,519 --> 00:34:18,440 He nodded, and for the first time I saw no 730 00:34:18,559 --> 00:34:20,800 child or all voice lace in his speech. He sounded 731 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:24,199 like himself, cautious, polite, tire. He slept without regress in 732 00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:27,239 that night. The next night he slept without regressing as well. 733 00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:29,800 Weeks became a month, and the pattern that held him, 734 00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,360 like a track loosing its ties, did not return. We 735 00:34:32,519 --> 00:34:35,599 never found another intact music box. The tin on the 736 00:34:35,599 --> 00:34:37,559 floor had broken in a way that made it impossible 737 00:34:37,559 --> 00:34:40,679 to wind and impossible to repair. The polaroids remained a 738 00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,239 stubborn record scrolled with dates and small obsessions. They were 739 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:46,639 evidence of something that had happened and of something that 740 00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:49,559 might have been stopped. I realized now that my choices 741 00:34:49,559 --> 00:34:53,039 that night were not heroic. I forced a window, I 742 00:34:53,079 --> 00:34:55,000 broke a child's object in the hope of stopping a 743 00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,599 harm larger than paperwork. My suspicion in that first paragraph 744 00:34:58,599 --> 00:35:01,239 turned into a choice. Act on what you see, even 745 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:03,920 when the system asks you to wait for proof. Maggie 746 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,119 decided to trust a hospital for the scannon to earn 747 00:35:06,119 --> 00:35:08,159 the fear of keeping her brother closed. Dyes chose to 748 00:35:08,159 --> 00:35:10,840 write an official record rather than file an anonymous complaint. 749 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:12,760 Lis and And returned to a version of himself that 750 00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,280 could answer questions at breakfast and make grocery lists as 751 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,000 concrete upcomes of the truth of what we did. The 752 00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:19,199 polaroids of Boxton labeled now the watch its on a 753 00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,679 shelf that catches the morning light, and sometimes I whined 754 00:35:21,679 --> 00:35:24,360 it and listen to the steady tick. The Lizmos is 755 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,159 lawn again. He calls out when the mail comes. He 756 00:35:27,159 --> 00:35:29,360 looks older when he laughs, and younger when he laughs 757 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:32,119 too hard. We do not speak of midnight rituals or 758 00:35:32,159 --> 00:35:34,039 of rules past the tracks in the way children would 759 00:35:34,079 --> 00:35:38,559 tell a Dare we say only the pragmatic things? Medication, appointments, 760 00:35:38,599 --> 00:35:41,480 follow ups? Who will pick up milk? The final concrete 761 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,599 moment I will keep from that night is small and exact. 762 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,400 The stop municipal clock on the post, the one that 763 00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,519 reads rumin us one when I left to liz House, 764 00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:50,719 was reset by the city a week later and now 765 00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,360 shows one minute past midnight like any ordinary instrument. I 766 00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:56,960 watched a change with another neighbor who had never left 767 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,519 her port since the ambulance. We did not speak. I 768 00:36:00,559 --> 00:36:03,000 slid the last polaroid I kept into the glove compartment 769 00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,480 of my car and closed the door. The photograph was 770 00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,440 of the layers on his porch, shorter in the light, 771 00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,000 a child's hand pron faint on the margin. I put 772 00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,039 the stop for a stwitch into his palm the next afternoon. 773 00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:14,159 When he asked for it, he felt his weight and 774 00:36:14,199 --> 00:36:16,760 said thank you. I left before he could blink at 775 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:18,920 the small missile gaze, and the house closed its cutains 776 00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,400 against the late sun. When I locked my own door 777 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,320 at night, I checked the window lutch twice. The suspicion 778 00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:26,119 that motivated me in the first half of The night 779 00:36:26,159 --> 00:36:28,599 still sits under my ribs sometimes, but it now moves 780 00:36:28,639 --> 00:36:31,599 me to careful acts, copy signatures. A fallen call to 781 00:36:31,679 --> 00:36:34,079 check on some one that night resolved into a few 782 00:36:34,079 --> 00:36:37,719 clear outcomes. The music box was destroyed, the polaroids were 783 00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,519 carped and set side. Alias regained a stable adult wakefulness, 784 00:36:40,519 --> 00:36:43,239 and Maggie kept him close. The final image is his 785 00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,000 concrete and mundane. I said a stop for wristwatch back 786 00:36:46,039 --> 00:36:48,119 into oliz palm, and watched his fingers close around it, 787 00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:50,559 like a promise or a habit. He held it there 788 00:36:50,559 --> 00:36:52,480 and bried, and I walked away with the polaroid to 789 00:36:52,519 --> 00:36:54,920 my jacket, and the memory of the lullaby warped into 790 00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:58,280 metal and dust. Outside, the municipal clock read one minute 791 00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:00,599 past midnight on its face, fixed by hands that care 792 00:37:00,639 --> 00:37:04,079 for ordinary things. Inside the cardboard box of photographs, where 793 00:37:04,079 --> 00:37:06,599 it's on my closet shelf, in a labeled envelope. The 794 00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:08,880 night is no longer a rule I must break by myself. 795 00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:11,920 I told dives where copies were hidden. Maggie knows where 796 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:14,360 another copy is. Oliz wears his watch and remembers his 797 00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,239 brother's name. The immediate danger we held in our hands 798 00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:19,000 that night was stoked by a physical act and by 799 00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:22,119 choices that other people made. Afterward, the music box is 800 00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:24,280 broken into useless pieces on a rug in a living 801 00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,199 room that smells like old wool and detergent. That is 802 00:37:27,199 --> 00:37:28,480 the end of the night, in the beginning of the 803 00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:32,079 long ordinary work of keeping a person safe, And that 804 00:37:32,199 --> 00:37:34,599 is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will 805 00:37:34,599 --> 00:37:43,599 see you in the next one.