Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,74

clip on the dog’s leash.

They took a wide semicircle below me on the hill and went through the gate into the next field, where they stopped for a moment. The woman unclipped the dog, dug about in her pocket, and then looked back at me. Then the dog took off suddenly, stretching out its legs and tearing across the field. The movement rippled along him, like a wave, as if he was a little black racehorse. She set off walking after him along the path, and I stood up to watch them go. He circled around her three times, then trotted up close and followed along, steaming gently in the morning light. Watching them made me feel lonelier; hadn’t thought it was possible.

My gaze shifted from the two of them, getting smaller as they reached the other side of the field, to the view beyond. The wind from last night had disappeared completely. The sky above was a clear, pale blue, the last few stars still visible. Beneath, clouds of the whitest, fluffiest cotton streaked across the scene at ground level. Honey-colored spires and towers stuck up through them, islands in a billowing sea. I’d never seen anything like it. Somewhere beneath the fog, people were sleeping and waking, farting, scratching, taking a morning piss, but on the surface it looked like Disneyland.

I’d been nervous about going into the city. Now I felt a strange burst of confidence. Nothing bad could happen in a place like this, could it? I rolled up my blanket and tied it onto my backpack. My fingers were clumsy with the cold. All my things, and the clothes I was in, were wet from the dew.

I set off down the hill toward the gate, my feet adding another set of prints to the two trails of the woman and dog. As I reached to open the gate, I saw a little pile of coins on the top of the post. She’d left her change after all. I put it in my pocket. It felt grubby taking her money, different from Britney giving me her stuff. It felt like charity, and I didn’t want to be nobody’s charity case.

I went through the far gate and crossed the street. No one around here. I cut down an alley between two terraces, heading into the city center. The path went under a railway bridge and then, suddenly, I was back in the twenty-first century and right by a main road with cars and trucks flashing by, their lights disorienting me, their noise ringing in my ears. I was still only half awake. I looked at the slowing stream of traffic, and darted forward.

A horn blared out to the right of me, injecting adrenaline into my bloodstream, making my heart jump and my legs run faster. Where the hell had that come from? I needed to keep my wits about me. I ran for a minute or so, then slowed to a walk, over a bridge spanning a thick, brown river. On the other side there were hotels and bars, and then shops, not real ones, but the sort tourists would go into. Rip-off shops. They all had Christmas lights and decorations in the windows — sparkly, twinkly tat. Nothing was open.

I looked at my watch. It was only ten to eight. Right in the center, there were a few people around: window cleaners, someone emptying the trash bins, people letting themselves into shops, or hurrying along, chins tucked down into their scarves, some smelling of their first cigarette of the day as they passed. No one gave me a second glance. It’s the time of day when you don’t want to be bothered with anyone else. If you’re out that early, you’ve got something to do, or somewhere to be, and you just get on with it.

My knee was still giving me grief, but I didn’t want to stop anywhere, so I walked through the city. There was a group of dossers on some steps, swigging Special Brew for breakfast.

“Alright, love?” one of them called out, holding his can toward me. He thinks I’m like him, I thought. A friendly greeting to another dosser. And he’s right; that’s what I am.

“Alright,” I said, my eyes flicking back down to the pavement, avoiding his automatically. And I kept going, stepping over the cans lying ’round the bottom of the steps.

I walked down the main drag, under swags of Christmas lights, and right at the bottom found the only place