I Live With You Read Free Page A

whirlwind
.
Be such
.
    It doesn’t make sense to me anymore than the other one did. I’ll destroy this gobbledygook. “Let’s get on with the burning. We’ll start with that big book.”
    I should have known better than to start with that book. Even the little book of poems can be a weapon. And I’m not ready for it. She hits me hard in the stomach. I lean in pain, but then my training kicks in. I hit her so hard she flies across the mosaic floor into the shelves of books beyond.
    I go to her. I call, “Yawn. Yawn.” I don’t bother keeping quiet anymore.
    Before I pick her up, I take out the fire starters. I throw out several in different directions. Then I carry her out to the pool. Halfway across it I put her on the edge of it and turn to watch the fire. It starts fast and when it reaches the bombs I set around the edges and under the roof, the blasts begin. Not as large as I’d have wished them to be.
    Of course the librarians come, but six women are no match for someone like me. One problem, though, I have to keep my eyes shut because of all those bare breasts. I’m afraid I might touch one.
    They trip me. I fall into the pool. They’re water people and I’m not. I’m helpless in it. They hold my head under. It’s Yawn yells for them to stop just when I’m choking. They pull me to the edge and Yawn turns me over and pumps the water out. It takes a while before I can breathe.
    The little homemade bombs are still going off now and then as the fire reaches them, but they’re much too small. The building won’t come down. Some of the librarians stand near the carved doors, their silhouettes outlined against the flames inside. They don’t dare go in yet.
    Nobody’s paying attention to me. I roll over on my back and watch the dawn come, turning everything pinkish again. But the library is a mess, black from smoke, some corners are broken, but my bombs were too feeble to bring down the walls.
    It’s still an imposing sight in an entirely different way. The caryatids still look down in disapproval from over their bare breasts. A few gold tiles have fallen from the roof but nobody is rushing to pick them up even though just one would make a person rich. The librarians walk right past them.
    Yawn sits beside me. I tell her I didn’t mean to hit her so hard. She says, “I know.”
    Finally the fires settle down enough for the librarians to wrap wet scarves around their faces and go in. Yawn stays with me. Says, “I don’t understand why you wanted to destroy it.”
    “To show your side we can bring down your most magnificent building.”
    “But you didn’t. We don’t even have any soldiers to protect it, and you didn’t. Even so you failed.”
    “But look what one single man…. I, alone….”
    “You failed.”
    “I’ll bring you a bird. I’ll bring you gold.”
    “What would you do if you were a golden man and lived in those pictures?”
    “And you were the golden woman.”
    “Would you throw me down like you did?”
    I’m thinking I would put my hand on her breast, but I don’t say it. “Never again.”
    “Or maybe you’d melt me down and have me made into coins. Or you’d melt yourself down.”
    “I don’t think unreal things. Besides, I’d rather be of use after I die. My skin gone for leather. My bones for spoons. I’d never become anything for beauty. Promise you won’t let that happen to me.”
    “We’re not going to kill you. I won’t let us.”
    “Let’s escape together.”
    She’s tempted. “What would you do, go steal tiles?”
    “I’d rather have you than golden tiles.”
    That pleases her. She will come. She says, “Hurry,” takes my hand to pull me into the bushes by the side of the pool, but I pull her in the other direction. I want to see what the librarians are doing in there. Maybe I can keep them from putting out fires.
    She tries to hold me back. “But you said….”
    “Your art tells lies and I lie, too.”
    Inside, the library is full of smoke.