Rus Like Everyone Else Read Free Page B

enjoyed standing by the pond and looking into the water to see what he could he see. Sometimes he had to tidy his house a little bit and take his sheets to the Wash-o-Matic, and he often stood still to talk to the dogs that were waiting outside the supermarket. He also kept track of the gull that lived in the drainpipe, at what time it left and at what time it came back. Rus narrowed his eyes at the form. “Accountant. Actor. Astronaut. Athlete.” He let his pen float over the options. He checked the box for the word “Controller.”
    â€œI am a controller,” Rus said to the boy, who was staring at his identity card. He felt important, now that he had a word for what he did.
    â€œOh, yes, good,” the boy said distractedly. “It’s finished?” He held out the calculator for Rus, who said yes and quickly finished check-marking all kinds of boxes, on topics like “Savings” and “Possessions” and traded the form for the calculator. The memory ended with Rus adding and subtracting everything in his apartment.
    Rus stood at the opposite side of Low Street for a while when the memory was over, looking up at his apartment, the letter dangling from his hand. Then he shook his head furiously, went in through the front door and up the stairs, and closed the door of his apartment firmly behind him.

The sun has gone down now and is shining on the other side of the world again, but you are still here with me. We’ve seen the windows across the water switch to dark, one by one, and you can picture the inhabitants switching their lights off, making their way through the dark bedrooms, stepping barefoot into bed.
    Behind a few windows the lights remain on. The secretary’s curtains light up blue; the light is coming from her laptop, which is still on. She has joined an Internet group today for people who do not like to fall asleep alone. Now she falls asleep with a Japanese girl on the laptop screen, watching her silently. The secretary named her Katie just before she fell asleep.
    On the other side of the secretary’s wall, only a meter away from her head on the pillow, Mrs. Blue is sleeping too. She dreams of Grace, lying unconscious on the floor in the soap-opera mansion. Mrs. Blue turns around on her side and shakes her head in her sleep.
    Down the road, on Low Street, the windows are dark as well. But on the corner there, on the ground floor of Rus’s housing block, you see a red light blink every five seconds or so. That’s the alarm on Mr. Lucas’s bedroom window; the alarm Rus hears every Monday when he sets it off to make sure that it works. Mr. Lucas is lying in his bed by the window, his face pale, his arms clenching his pillow. A chair is shoved under the door handle and he keeps a knife tucked between his mattress and the box spring, because he is afraid in the dark. He is afraid in the light too, but you will hear about that later. First, he has to get the letter that we have here for him, the letter that will change everything.
    â€œDear Mr. Lucas. You are invited...” it reads, and there is even a seal on the envelope, which we put neatly back on.
    Rus is the only one in our neighborhood who is not sleeping. From where you are standing, right behind me, you can see his silhouette, sitting up in bed, looking at the view from his window,just like us. He could draw this view from memory: the roofs of the houses, the antennas and chimneys, the clouds passing over, all framed by the windowpane. Over the years the image has stamped itself on his brain. Never before had he considered that it could be taken from him. He has seen it for twenty-five years, every morning and evening, and it is his, his, his.

    THE DEBT COLLECTORS

    â€œMr. Rus,” a voice said. “I know you are in there!”
    Rus startled in the bed. He’d been lying with his face in the pillow, trying to forget the letter, but it remained in the middle of his thoughts,