Tales of Accidental Genius Read Free

something sacred about sleep, nature’s way of saving us from ourselves.
    W HEN M R. B AXTER woke in the afternoon, it was clear that the young man had tried to make the bed before he left. It wasn’t a bad job. The sheets were pulled up, but not even—and there were creases and dents, as though he had lain back down again.
    After some toast and marmalade, Mr. Baxter stirred another pot of tea and looked out the window, past the old cheese shop and into New & Lingwood, where several mannequins gazed blindly into the street, their limbs divided with lines and numbers.
    When Mr. Baxter went for his usual walk, he purposefully forgot his coat. Then, on his way back, he stopped into one of the less expensive men’s outfitters on Jermyn Street and purchased a lovely full-length, double-breasted chesterfield with a velvet collar. When the tailor insisted he try it on, to prove it simply wasn’t going to fit over his enormous frame, Mr. Baxter growled at him to stop meddling.
    When he got home, he hung the coat on the back of the door. Then he made a cup of tea and looked at his hands, remembering how steady they’d been, removing the glass from the young man’s face.
    Then all the shops began to close.
    Another day was almost over.
    Men with briefcases and umbrellas hurried home to their wives and children. The radio said that snow was finally coming and that London would be thick with it by morning. Mr. Baxter imagined the hard cold broken into bright, falling pieces.
    After listening to the six o’clock news on the BBC, Mr. Baxter tied on his apron and reached into the highest cupboard for a bag of flour. On his way home that day, he had also popped into Wiltons Restaurant to buy a couple of fish, but the chef seemed to know who he was and wouldn’t take any money. Then at the small, bustling Tesco Metro Supermarket on the corner of Jermyn Street, Mr. Baxter had spent half an hour picking out the best Jersey potatoes, which he put in his basket with a pot ofcream, a bunch of chives, and an onion. The good thing about fish pie, he thought , is that it keeps.
    But somehow he knew it wouldn’t go to waste, and as it bubbled in the bright, unbroken gaze of the oven, and the sky split in a fury of silent falling, Mr. Baxter opened every window in the house, for the great hunger that filled London was no longer his own.

The Goldfish
    For Tinkerbell
    2009–2013

A FTER LINING UP with a busload of schoolchildren, the old man bought a ticket and entered the aquarium through a pair of tinted glass doors.
    For the first hour he drifted from room to room as if he were a fish himself, marveling at the different colors and shapes, and how some came right up to the glass.
    Then a woman in overalls and white rubber boots emerged from a door marked STAFF ONLY . She was holding a bucket and there was tinsel tied around the handle because it was almost Christmas. The old man saw his chance.
    â€œExcuse me, but is there someone I can talk to about fish?”
    The woman stopped walking. “You can talk to me if you want.”
    â€œOh good,” said the old man, “Because I desperately need some help with Piper, my goldfish.”
    â€œI’m afraid we’re not allowed to give advice to people who keep fish as pets.”
    â€œBut it’s only that Piper—”
    â€œI’m sorry,” the woman said. “I could lose my job.”
    A FEW DAYS later, the old man was scraping unsalted butter across a slice of toast when he overheard something on television about a new program called Animal Hospital .
    Eureka! he thought, and went off in search of the Yellow Pages.
    The next morning, he found himself sitting patiently in a crowded waiting room, flicking through a tattered magazine about hamsters.
    When the old man signed in upon arrival, writing GOLDFISH on the form, the receptionist said she’d talk to the doctor, but it was unlikely they’d be able to help.
    After