Strange Mammals by Jason Erik Lundberg Page A

metal handle, strangely cool despite the sweltering tropical climate in which he was immersed, yet had never properly acclimated, continuously sweating through every shirt he owned, his skin as shiny-salty as the dodgy hot dogs rotating on steel rollers at the 7-Eleven downstairs. So unlike the summers of his youth in Chicago, which, although similar in temperature, differed in relative humidity, and, at the same point during each calendar year, ended, giving way to cool breezes and the polychromatic color shift of leaves and the necessity of trousers and long-sleeved shirts and cable-knit sweaters. Not so in this equatorial Southeast Asian nation, where the climate remained steadfastly and stubbornly consistent apart from the occasional rainy season.
    The coolness of the handle had the effect of traveling first up into his hand and then along his arm, stopping at the crook of his elbow, as if he had dipped his entire forearm and right hand into ice water, the infection of cold invading down through layers of skin, muscle, fat, to lodge in the marrow of his bones. At the same time, the world around him flattened, as though he were viewing it through a television screen. The air moved sluggishly in and out of his lungs, a medium with the consistency of pudding or tar. With a force of will of which he was uncertain of the source, Moss uncurled the fingers of his right hand from the door handle, and let go. Immediately, warmth and feeling returned to phalanges, metacarpals, radius, ulna. He flexed his fingers, testing them, cracked the knuckles loudly. No serious damage then.
    He must get inside the flat, move past the door and traverse the threshold and successfully achieve ingress; the imperative impulse resided as deeply within him as his certainty of the surrounding physical reality or his individual sense of authentic self. And yet. And yet. He looked down at his right hand, the knuckles knobbed and swollen, the skin wrinkled and spotted. Had the door handle in some way aged his hand? But a quick glance at its complementary partner on the left revealed a mirror image. His hands were old, decrepit, and, he quickly came to realize, so was he. Posture slumped as though in the process of slow implosion, white undershirt and navy blue cotton shorts hanging loose on his frame, his overly large feet clad in long black socks within sensibly thick-soled leather sandals.
    The two-dimensionality of the corridor, the door, even his own hands and feet, remained, no matter how much he blinked or shook his head to dislodge the irreal impression. He must get inside the flat, but why? Who, or what, held such drastic and dire importance for him within? The door resembled every other door along the concrete linearity of the corridor, nothing special or remarkable, but the impulse remained. His vision tracked upward, past the door handle, past the glass fish-eyed peephole, to a spot near the top of the decorative recessed panelling. Numbers, in dull cast brass, in Copperplate Gothic Bold: #07-37 . Seven three seven three seven three seven. Moss had always felt an affinity for this numerical pairing, as if three and seven epistemologically belonged together, like green and purple, like Gala apples and milk chocolate. But had the numbers been there when he first approached the door? Were the numerals why he had been attracted to this door in the first place? Already he could not recall.
    I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d be far happier without you than with you.
    The sentence bubbled upward once again and his stomach quivered with anxiety, pulling inward as though turning itself inside out. In one swift movement, Moss struck out with his hand, gripped the metal door handle, yanked it downward, and shoved the mass of the dark brown front door away from him, revealing the brightly lit interior of a tiled entryway. The door banged sharply against the wall, but stuck fast, vibrating like a plucked string. A furling current of dry conditioned