Free The Canal by Daniel Morris Page B

maybe.
    "Thank you," Paul said at last.
    The policeman went away. Paul turned to the
card the man had given him -- its print was elusive, every letter a
mess of slashes and squiggles. A business card. Detective. Vincent.
Burnham. 76th. Precinct.
    They know, said Old.
    Paul shut the door and the floor came up to
catch him, almost gently. It was better on the ground.
    If they knew, thought New Paul, they would
have taken me away.
    Murderer, murderer, murderer... And on he
went, this old Paul. He was becoming a bit hysterical, a bit
wild.
    New Paul was rather amused. Murderer, he
teased. Murderer? We are all murderers, old friend. Oh I'm sorry,
did you forget? Did you not realize? That survival is, in and of
itself, a process of murder? Life feeds on life. Life gorges on
itself, it does. The strong prey on the weak. Why, man is the
greatest murderer this world has ever seen. We'll devour a species
to extinction -- and yet, we feel no guilt. We sleep blameless in
our beds, our stomachs full with flesh. But it's the order of
things though, isn't it? We're just following the rules. Its been
ordained, not by us, but by life itself. We're all just part of the
machine.
    But, wait, what's that you say? What's that
about man killing man? Oh, you say it's wrong, do you. It's
different. Who says that? The carrion? The flies? The worms? WHAT
DID I TELL YOU, YOU SNIVELING, HIDING, SHIT! EXISTENCE IS NOTHING
BUT APPETITE. AND I, FOR ONE, INTEND TO KEEP THAT APPETITE FED!
    Old Paul could keep all his sentimental
yester-year's, all those cried on Polaroids. But what New Paul had,
well, that was something truly special. Something that actually
mattered and was real.
    He had his dear friend, the twilight visitor.
Appetite incarnate.
    And in spite of New Paul's distaste for the
past, there was one reminiscence that he allowed himself. One
indulgent memory. It was his sole pleasure.
    It wasn't a new memory. Although it had taken
place after his family had died, and after New Paul had come to be.
He'd been in the backyard, which at the time still had some
momentum, some green. The sun neared the horizon. A lone cloud
prepared to meet its maker over the Atlantic. Summer. Paul was at
the barbecue. He used to keep the barbecue clean, but now zits of
rust pitted its dome, spider cocoons hung from beneath. Paul had
begun to make a habit of cooking here. He liked being outdoors. He
liked monitoring the decline of his yard. He liked to cook
meat.
    Tonight, dinner was a steak of primitive
gristle, the lobes of fat shimmering on the grill. Beside it was a
can of beans, the label already charred away. Paul was watching his
dinner transform in the flames when he heard a noise coming from
the canal. A splash, like chimes. It was probably nothing. Probably
a piece of canal bulkhead falling in.
    The new Paul had a respect for the canal that
Old never had. He saw the canal as honest, a place without pretense
or artifice or disguise. It embodied the world's true form, as it
existed beneath the tended lawns and the swept streets and the
billboard lined avenues -- where it was all the time rotting.
Collapse, and nothing else, was the natural state to which all
things tended. And the canal, it embodied that perfectly.
    Paul turned to stare at the back of his
property, towards the dead foliage that shielded his yard from the
river. He heard more noise. A crunching this time. The snapping of
dry twigs.
    The weeds along the fringe of his yard began
to shake slightly. The wind? Or a stray, perhaps. And then the
weeds parted, ever so hesitantly, and out slithered something pale,
child-like. Delicate arms that were as long and thin as a fishing
poles. And then came the rest, sliding on its stomach.
    It was like no kind of insect that Paul had
ever seen. The larger cousin to the sort that crawls into your
mouth while you sleep and then lays eggs in your brain. And it was
coming towards him. Shimmying with a blind urgency that Paul found
fascinating. It didn't use its limbs