Nancy Kress - In a World Like This

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IN A WORLD LIKE THIS

by NANCY KRESS

from Omni October 1988

My wife makes out her shopping lists not in single words but in dependent clauses and prepositional

phrases. She will write "fruit but not apples, which we have," or "kuchen, for Sunday A.M." This habit

sparks in me a deep, primal dislike - for its manneredness, its pretentious completeness. Emily knows

this.

"You realize you're being ridiculous," she says.

"I know it," I answer, having already been put at a disadvantage by the pettiness of my objections,

and now at a further one by admitting them. "I can't help it."

"Of course you can."

"I'll tell you what," I say, trying to salvage dignity through jocularity - always a risky move. "So long as

you don't end the clauses with a period."

Emily smiles at me, the slant-eyed smile that she often wears in bed. "Fair enough. No periods."

The next time I come across her shopping list, it says "tampons, for my;"

She has left it on the kitchen table, where I am sure to see it.

"Look at this, John," Kip Lowry says after we settle ourselves on the 7:42. He has opened his

newspaper, and it is flapping over into my half of the seat. Kip works for some scientific/political think

tank downtown and reads the morning newspaper with an intensity that would make me wonder exactly

what he expects to see there, except that I suspect it of being a pose to look more knowledgeable than

he is.

"Two earthquakes last night. Mexico City and Miskolc. And both registered exactly the same on the

Richter scale."

"I didn't think the Reds released that information." I poke at the edge of the newspaper, nudging it

back toward Kip. He frowns and glances at me evasively. Watching Soviet information may or may not

be something his institute does.

"Who knows? Look at this - another burglary in Hickory Village."

Hickory Village is the subdivision in which we both live. I crane my neck toward the paper I have just

pushed away.

"The cops don't have any leads," Kip reports. "When do they ever? Hey, look at this - some guy in

Albany just won the New York State Lottery for the second time! Do you know what the odds are

against that?"

"High," I say, apparently too sourly. Kip gives me that evasive glance once more. He does this at

parties as well - starts a subject that touches on his specialty, something called information theory, and

then suddenly shies away as if his listeners were moving toward something politically sensitive. I dislike

the habit intensely. He also wears wide-brimmed, overly dramatic hats.

"A Russian last name for that lottery winner," Kip says slowly. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

Whatever Kip thinks he is looking for, or wants me to think he is looking for, he can look alone.

The lobby of Jefferson Tower rings with jackhammers. I step over chunks of floor and rolls of sodden

carpet to scream at the receptionist, "What happened?"

She screams back, "Water leaking from someplace. They can't find where. Damnedest thing - ruined

the carpet!"

I can't consider the carpet, which has always looked like cold oatmeal with pebbles in it, to be much

loss. The noise, on the other hand, is unbearable. Even in my office on the eighth floor the jackhammers

are audible, like a steady whine from huge but distant insects.

Helen, my secretary, comes in with a sheaf of papers. She looks distracted.

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