they held a dead child in their arms.
More people traveled along the beam every moment, pouring out, filling the bowl. Citizens of the span had seen the visitation—that was what the boy heard them calling it—and all wanted to share in whatever bounty the gods had left. Word of the event spread quickly, even to the underspan. Within the hour the boy’s keeper had pushed her way along the beam to find him. She demanded that he give her whatever the gods had bestowed upon him. He drew a container from behind his back and handed it to her. He’d found a lid to match it and handed that to her as well. He waited breathlessly to see if she would fit the lid into place. Instead she stared with swelling anger at the two pieces. “This? This is what I’ve fed you for all these months? The time I’ve invested in you, and you give me a container for fish scraps?” She backhanded him as if he had lied to her. “I thought—” She paused, shook her head, and sighed. “I let myself believe in you, in this, how stupid am I? You are useless to me.” As she said it, she bent down and snatched another of the small containers that had been overlooked, hiding it in her blouse. “Useless,” she repeated, and then, as if she’d forgotten about him, she walked around the bowl and back along the beam. Only then did he notice that the beam, like the tiles, had been repaired—that an intact low wall now ran along both sides of the narrow walkway, as must have been the case when it first appeared. The woman stepped off the beam and was accosted immediately; from what he could see, she began bargaining with citizens too frightened to come out themselves and grab one of the odd containers.
The boy didn’t understand any of it—not the woman, not the crazed people about him, not the excitement over an event that seemed to have produced nothing of value. What sort of gods played such tricks on people? They’d repaired the tiles and the beam—that seemed to be the major transformation, but of interest only to him.
He sat against the rail and watched. He had nothing, said nothing, and no one paid him much mind. As people got something, they deserted the beam, but there were many who, now that a visitation had occurred, decided to sit and wait for another. It would all begin again. It must.
Because of the “blessed” event, there would for a time be more people on the beam and in the hexagonal bowl on any given day, more abusers of children, more who resented his presence here, never mind that he was a prisoner and would gladly have left if they’d freed him. For a while everyone would anticipate the next visitation, until this one faded into memory and most of the cormorants drifted away, back to whatever routine had filled their days before.
He rocked in place, furiously frustrated by the stupidity of people. After a while different ones came and took the madman with the white hair by the arms, stood him up, and walked him down the beam. One glanced his way, and the boy said, “Please, take me, too.” The two paused. They contemplated him as if considering whether he was worth the effort; but he didn’t notice them any longer because he realized that he had spoken. He had spoken and it had made sense. Thoughts inside his head were making sense. He was observing the world around him and it was making sense—or at least the nonsense of it all was suddenly comprehensible to him as nonsense. For the first time in his life, he recognized and understood the motives of others.
The madman took notice of him and began to laugh. The two handlers dismissed the boy and hurried on with their charge.
He was aware! He stared up at the sky, at clouds and birds and sun. Whatever the gods had done for everyone else, they had given him the gift of himself.
He was still marveling at his transformation when the woman returned some hours later. She told him, “Well, I’ve found someone to take you off my hands, and that’s what I’m going to do.” She unlocked the chain from the bollards but not from his ankle. She let him get to his feet, but then pulled him along, and he had to hop to keep up.
They arrived