Page 16 of Offside

“She’s met Novotný. The evidence supports her position.”

He laughs, once, eyes going shut on the way. Bright lobby. I look at the desk staff looking at nothing.

There was a half second there. I want the record to hold the half second. A half second where the sentence was going somewhere true.You should have come.Or further, somewhere neither of us has an address for. And I had my own true thing ready, because I always have it ready. That’s what the safety is for. Either of us could have said one honest word in a bright lobby, with staff at the desk and a tower of his mother’s cooking between us.

Instead, dumpling logistics. Executed cleanly on both sides. Five years of training, and neither of us even had to check that the other’s exit was open. It’s always open. We keep them open for each other.

“Night, Šíma,” he says, collecting the tower and leaving the one for me.

“Night, captain.”

He goes. I stay on the couch and give the lobby fifteen more minutes it doesn’t need.

The chat gets its minutes at ten, because the chat expects minutes, and expectations are load-bearing.

Šíma

official minutes. corners were drilled, the near post has been notified. novotný’s bike said 900 watts and his resistance said zero. the matter is referred to the authorities

Novotný

the screen says what it says

Polášek

the screen is a hostage

Kovár

the screen knows

Šíma

first the eggs, now the screen. the man is building a unified theory

Hájek

bus at nine thirty. training at ten. that is the whole announcement

Šíma

the captain has spoken. minutes concluded. drink water between the waters

Technically, perfect output. The committee would find nothing wrong with it, and the committee looks every night, because the committee is me.

Upstairs, Damián is folding laundry into two piles, and I know without asking that one pile is staying on this continent.

“You missed a nice dinner,” he says, nodding at the box I am putting in our mini-fridge. “She asked where you were. I said film. Everyone said ah, film, like it was scripture.”

“Film is scripture. You know this. Attendance is doctrine.”

“You know what I bought today? First thing for the flat.”

“A trophy shelf?”

“A table. Big one. Walnut. Seats eight.” He says it like a confession, which for him it might be. “Too many years of hotels, Šíma. A man forgets tables exist. Room service on the bed,buffets, folding trays. You live your whole life in rooms someone else cleans and you start thinking that’s a life.”

The sentence walks past me on its way to nowhere and puts one boot down, hard, dead center.