Eleven

The Serb woke up wearing a tissue paper negligee with a peek-a-boo back. His room, which smelled like bubble gum and iodine, was bright, boxy white with a thin, moss green blanket.

Tullia was sleeping in a chair by the door, a half-eaten croissant in her lap.

"Tulli?" he ventured. She moved only to breath. "Tulli?" he tried again, louder this time, and watched as she pressed her eyes tightly closed.

"Oh," she stretched. "Oh my goodness. I must have fallen asleep. Are you awake now, then?"

"Yes, damn it." He was pale, like a spent storm cloud, but his eyes flashed anyway. "Where in Sallah's name are we?" he asked, hoping that she wouldn't say Mexico. "It smells like jello."

Tullia looked at the i.v. in his arm and wondered what was in it. It must be something interesting, she thought. Morphine super plus. Serban always knew where he was.

She steadied her eyes on his. "Romania. We went to the house yesterday. You had a run-in with a woman there, and a dog or two." She paused, waiting for him to remember. "We brought you to the hospital this morning."

His eyes narrowed. "Why the hospital?" It was a demand, not a question.

She heard the confused edge in his voice and hesitated. The doctor had been unequivocal. His recovery would take months. For a well man, it would be quicker, but Serban was not a well man. She pressed her back teeth together and took a deep breath. "You were hurt badly, and Dr. Badgku . . . ." Her words trailed off and left her behind. "We'll have to stay here for a while, so you may as well rest."

He marshalled his voice again. "Fine for now, but the pols are coming this week." It sounded like he'd said "prols," but she would know what he'd meant.

Tullia thought briefly of calling him emperor but didn't want to be the only one in on the joke. "If you're up to it," she said, "they can come here. If not, they'll have wait, or figure things out on their own. They found you didn't they?"

He scowled and wiggled his fingers under the blanket. They all worked. He tried his toes next. Same. "I will be fine by then," he announced, suddenly tired. The jello smell was closing in. He thought of the house with its garden, of the stone wall pressed against the distant view of the town below. His mother had taken afternoon naps there, her linen dresses yellow with sunshine. He hoped that he would, soon, too. But Mexico, or wherever he was, would do for now.

"Will you stay by the door?" he asked Tullia.

"Yes. I will."

Nine

The prison hallway held the chill of dawn even though the morning outside was well underway. The warden wrinkled his nose at the parallel walls. Their yellow paint was peeling in papery dried-icing sheets, revealing the pea green beneath. They reminded him of baklava. He took a short breath and bellowed, “Christof! Christofor!” and nearly twitched with excitement.

A man walked around the corner. He had a deliberate gait and slate-colored blue eyes that were striking. He was a foot taller than the warden, and several years his junior.

“Chris, the woman that Andre arrested yesterday is not mute,” the warden said, as he bounced down the hall. “She has a fine voice. A strong voice!” He raised his fist into the air for emphasis and chuckled.

“I didn’t say that she was mute,” Chris answered. “I said that she didn’t speak to Andre.”

“Well, with a smile like his, who would?” They were walking in the same direction now, and the warden’s step quickened to keep pace with the younger man. Christof gave an obligatory laugh.

“She is an American,” the warden continued. “A tired one. She could probably eat some breakfast. And I don’t think she speaks the language.” He stopped in front of his office and turned to face his companion. “Have you seen her yet?”

Christof shook his head. The warden smiled as he pointed his right index finger at his squinting left eye, which sparkled with mischief. “She’s a gypsy. Like you.” He paused for effect, but the young man looked more opaque than amused. He continued, “She is here in my office. We’ll need a translator. In the meantime, bring her a roll and some cheese. She knows something about the Serb.”

Seven

The prison warden was a droll little man with sagging eyes and peppery, dull hair that curled. A soldier and a cherub in a former life, he served his days now as a flabby arm of the state. Sheri examined him warily from the opposite side of a large, gunmetal desk that held its own against ponderous mounds of triplicate copy. He had a single, luxurious eyebrow, and his eyes caught fire beneath it as he spoke. The warden was generally given to laughter rather than speech, but the circumstances of Sheri’s arrival overcame his reticence. Yesterday, he’d left with a cigar in his jowls and dined with his wife—that morning, his officer told him, there was a mute vagrant in the jail and dogs had attacked Balcescu. It was unprecedented. He explained to her the mystery of the Serb, or what he knew of it, and she could hear the extraordinary story in the tone of his voice, which had a tenor of excitement and foreboding. His language, whatever it was, sounded like it should have been written in Cyrillic script. She narrowed her eyes and prepared to interrupt him.

“I’m from the United States,” she managed, when he paused for a breath. He stared at her blankly.

“America. I am an American citizen,” she continued. “My passport is in the stucco house. There are two or three of them, please. I am traveling.”

Her voice sounded tired against her ears, and the warden looked at her closely, as though he were seeing her for the first time. He uttered several more runes in a lower tone, leaned forward and opened his eyes a notch wider.

She tried again. “My name is Sheryl Ann Peary.” The name, which rhymed with Marion Berry, had been a source of hilarity for her college friends, but the warden didn’t laugh. He continued to look at her, frog-like, as though he hadn’t expected her to speak.

“America,” she said, a talisman against his stare. She pointed her index finger at the cleft in her chest. “United States.”

The warden, eyes still wide but blinking, pressed his lips together, waved his hand around his head, and let out an upward-bound whistle. “America,” he repeated, shaking his head. He accented the first syllable. Then he bounced out from behind the desk and handcuffed Sheri to the chair. She was too tired to complain, and she quietly hoped that he wouldn’t call the consulate.

Five

The nurse, Tullia, shifted in her sleep. She had known Serban for many of his years, and many of those years had been good. Her mother, an Irish housekeeper with a talent for black-eyed wretches, met him on Rathlin Island. He so obviously needed someone to keep him that she had been willing to let go of Tullia, a girl of fifteen, for only two months’ wage and a promise. Although no one described her as fetching, Tullia was strong and not yet strong-willed. Serban had no use for beauty; he needed someone, just someone, to anchor him.

Their first week together had been an awkward one. Tullia had not known what to expect of the man who now owned her, and their constant traveling left her spent. He insisted that she sleep in front of the door each night, a routine that she found maddening. For breakfast each morning, they shared raw oats with honey and a prayer, thick with the scent of the east.

The afternoon hours were full. Visitors called him the Serb, although he was from Romania, and they came in a steady stream, leaving behind fingerprints and bits of bread. Sometimes they smiled at her, and she smiled back. They never spoke English, and over time, she learned that her job was just to be present, just to make sure that the walls stayed nailed to the floors. Tullia spent her afternoons thinking of London, which she had not yet seen, and of what she would do when she no longer had to sleep in front of the doorway. Serban had promised to send her to the city, to a life that was far from Glenarm and the island's basalt cliffs.

Kudos, O.K.

As of this afternoon, 64 Slices is a pro-am event. Congratulations to the Orchard Keeper, who landed a publishing contract today!

Four

On an opposite shore, Serban Balcescu regretted losing Sheri, even though he had discovered her only that afternoon. He wondered how long she had been living on his grounds. The thatched outbuilding where he found her was no bigger than a shed, and it spoke of generations of peasant women, their hands grey with earth. He felt the solid disapproval of their otherworldly eyes upon him and knew that it was they, and not Sheri, who owned the dogs.

Tullia, his nurse, slept quietly on an ancient divan in front of the door, barring all entry simply by virtue of her girth. Even from a distance, the divan’s upholstery smelled like dust, and Serban imagined a soft film settling on top of the nurse until she became, inextricably, a part of the room. She and he would sleep there for ages undisturbed, guarded by red tassels and porcelain statutes of pheasants, until the radiance of a perfect day shattered the windows and wrested them from their slumber. By then, he would no longer feel the raw and torn agony of his muscles digesting in the belly of a dead mongrel.

He thought again of the woman. He hadn’t wanted anyone to pursue her, but the police were independent and, in any event, he had been unable to speak to the officers. No one bothered to tell them about her thatched roof or about the spirits of peasant mothers who guarded her. In the morning, if it came, he would send Tullia to speak with the constable.

Three

Sleep wouldn’t come. Sheri stared at the concrete ceiling, where a hallway security light cut a dull yellow streak across the otherwise vacant slab. She knew that she should see nothing, but she saw the racing shadows of gaping jaws instead. It was worse if she closed her eyes, which were dry from the late hour. Their faces, slavering and inhuman, were alive in full color on the backs of her eyelids. She hated them and their devouring, so when she blinked, she blinked quickly, never removing her eyes from the grey cold above.

In books, she thought, prison cells had mice. She’d never understood why people were afraid of them. They were small and unassuming, picking up the crumbs left behind by larger creatures, and she quietly wished for a tiny kiss of fur against her palm, or maybe her cheek, as she listened to the space above her. The yellow hallway bulb was silent, and the prison’s breath weighed against her with a slow, rhythmic hush. Only an occasional low whisper or chain broke the walls’ aching slumber. From beyond them, she could hear nothing, and whatever secret message the moon and stars were blinking to her was lost.

********

Hello, gentle readers. I have a comment project for you. Why is my protagonist imprisoned, and where in the world is she?

If it were on paper,

this story might be pulp. Instead, it will be all energy, or maybe just static. And it will be yours to shape. Here are the rules--

64 Slices is an as-yet unnamed, unwritten fiction novel. It has no characters, no setting and no plot. What it does have is two authors-- one with questionable grammar and a second with questionable personal hygiene. If you put us together, we are a veritable J. D. Salinger.

Our novel will have two story lines, which you, the readers, will craft. Post your suggestions, cast your votes, blather on endlessly in the commentary about the oddities of Etruscan architecture, complain about our typographical errors and, in the end, wind our storylines together and name the novel.

We reserve the right to stretch our artistic muscles if you, our muses, should happen to drink one Sidecar too many and fail us. We also reserve the right to make fun of bad spelling (including our own) and to generally heap abuse upon all who enter here.

Let's start with the hero of plot line #1 and the heroine of plot line #2. Where do they live, and what are they doing in the first ten lines of their introduction?