sounds of our hearts through little speakers , which could be in the pouches of our overalls ? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone 's heartbeat , and they could hear yours , sort of like sonar . One weird thing is , I wonder if everyone 's hearts would start to beat at the same time , like how women who live together have ' Destroy your privates ? ' With his eyes still closed he cracked up a lot and said , ' You couldn 't destroy my privates if you tried . That 's what 's going on here . This is a demonstration of around and told the others , ' I don 't think it 's right to destroy people 's privates . Ever . ' Sensei Mark said , ' Can I ask you something ? ' I turned back around and told him , ' Can I ask wrists yet . Ron offered to buy me a five - piece drum set . Money can 't buy me love , obviously , but I asked if it would have Zildjian cymbals . He said , ' Whatever you want , ' and when he left her . She said , ' Maybe he wanted you to have it . ' I said , ' But I was negativethirty years old . ' She said , ' Still . ' Anyway , the fascinating thing was that I read in National So what about skyscrapers for dead people that were built down ? They could be underneath the skyscrapers for living people that are built up . You could bury people one hundred floors down , and a whole dead world could be underneath the living one . Sometimes I 've only been in a limousine twice ever . The first time was terrible , even though the limousine was wonderful . I 'm not allowed to watch TV at home , and I 'm not allowed to can 't be observed now , because I don 't . It 's that I believe that things are extremely complicated . And anyway , it 's not like we were actually burying him , anyway . was talking like that . I told him , ' Oskar 's CPU is a neural - net processor . A learning computer . The more contact he has with humans , the more he learns . ' Gerald said , ' O ' and then ' Thanks . ' And then I thought of something , so I said it . ' Actually , if limousines were extremely long , they wouldn 't need drivers . You could just get in the back seat , walk through Grandma in the mirror and said , ' What 's he saying ? ' She said , ' His grandfather loved animals more than he loved people . ' I said , ' Get it ? Oeuf ? ' highway , which is what we were on . Grandma started touching me again , which was annoying , even though I didn 't want it to be . Mom said , ' Honey , ' and I said , ' Oui , ' and she ' And she said , ' Who ? ' And I said , ' Stan the doorman . Sometimes he runs around the corner for coffee , and I want to be sure all of my packages get to me , so I thought , if Alicia - ' Even though it was an incredibly sad day , she looked so , so beautiful . I kept trying to figure out a way to tell her that , but all of the ways I thought of were weird and wrong . She business ? ' He said , ' We 'll open something . ' I thought about that my second time in a limousine , when the renter and I were on our way to dig up Dad 's empty coffin . the spot . Then I 'd put on my white gloves , take the hand shovel from my kit , and dig extremely gently . When I saw something , I used a paintbrush to get rid of the dirt , just like a looked like the word ' fragile ' . Fragile . What was fragile ? Was Central Park fragile ? Was nature fragile ? Were the things I found fragile ? A thumbtack isn 't fragile . Is a bent spoon woman in the back of the room raised her hand and said , ' What you have told us is rubbish . The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise . ' So the scientist asked her what the tortoise was standing on . And she said , ' But it 's turtles all the way at . Sometimes they were grammar mistakes , sometimes they were mistakes with geography or facts , and sometimes the article just didn 't tell the whole story . I loved having a dad buddy . It 's constantly falling toward the sun . That 's what it means to orbit . ' So I said , ' Obviously , but why is there gravity ? ' He said , ' What do you mean why is there gravity ? ' ' Well , what I don 't get is why do we exist ? I don 't mean how , but why . ' I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head . He said , ' We exist because we exist . ' ' You look upset . Is anything wrong ? ' I wanted to say , ' Of course , ' I wanted to ask , ' Is anything right ? ' I wanted to pull the thread , unravel the scarf of my silence and start again get crummy tonight . Or that 's what the man on the radio said , anyway , ' I shrugged , I didn 't know what ' crummy ' meant , ' I was gonna go buy some tuna fish at the A & amp ; P . I clipped I said , ' I took my temperature and it 's one hundred point seven degrees . ' That was the second lie . She turned around and asked me to zip up the back of her dress , which she could that I had found , and asked him what he could tell me about it . ' It 's for some kind of lockbox , ' he said , holding it up to his face and looking at it over his glasses . ' A safe , I 'm guessing . You can tell it 's for a lockbox by its build . ' He showed me a rack that had a ton of keys I laminated Ringo 's letter and tacked it to my wall . Then I did some research on the Internet about the locks of New York , and I found out a lot of useful information . For example , Indian & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; But still & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; OK . Uh - huh . I will & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; I know & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; I New York every 2 . 777 seconds . So even if all I did was open locks , I 'd still be falling behind by . 333 locks every second . And that 's if I didn 't have to travel from one lock to the very helpful . I did a few other searches , even though I knew they would only hurt me , because I couldn 't help it . I printed out some of the pictures I found - a shark attacking a girl , ' Who said there won 't be humans in fifty years ? ' I asked her , ' Are you an optimist or a pessimist ? ' She looked at her watch and said , ' I 'm optimistic . ' exactly the truth , either . ' I just don 't want it to become a habit , ' she said . ' It won 't , ' I said . key , and how I was trying to find the lock it opened , and how maybe black meant something . I wanted to know what she could tell me about black , since she was probably an expert of color . ' Well , ' she said , ' I don 't know that I 'm an expert of anything . But one thing I what he did it with . It was as if he was planning on making the biggest art project in history . But I didn 't get it : that had to have been more than a year ago . was in my pocket & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; Uh - huh . Uh - huh . A little , but can I call you back when I 'm not That was my great plan . I would spend my Saturdays and Sundays finding all of the people named Black and learning what they knew about the key in the vase in Dad 's closet . In last time . I opened the apartment door , put down my bag , and took off my shoes , like everything was wonderful , because I didn 't know that in reality everything was actually horrible , because how could I ? I petted Buckminster to show him I loved him . I went to the that the first building had fallen . I bought the exact same phone and ran home and recorded our greeting from the first phone onto it . I wrapped up the old phone in the scarf Grandma a call . Let her know that I 'm OK . I 'll call again in a few minutes . Hopefully the firemen will be up here by then . I 'll call . ' No I wasn 't . ' She put her hand with the ring on it in her hair and said , ' You know , I actually was talking about Grandma , Oskar , but it 's true , I need friends , too . What 's wrong ' All the time . Over . ' I couldn 't explain to her that I missed him more , more than she or anyone else missed him , because I couldn 't tell her about what happened with the phone . That what had happened to him . Did he break an ankle attempting a hard trick on his skateboard ? Or maybe he was dying from third - degree burns on ninety percent of his body ? But I knew that there couldn 't be pockets that enormous . In the end , everyone loses everyone . There was no invention to get around that , and so I felt , that night , like the turtle that Next I went to the penitentiary . My uncle was a guard there . I was able to get the handwriting sample of a murderer . My uncle asked him to write an appeal for early release . It with chalk . But when it rains , the rain comes through my window when I am sleeping . And when I wake up the lines are gone . So I don 't know how long it 's been . I the other end . My uncle took each letter and promised the inmate that they would be delivered . But instead he kept them all . They filled all of the drawers in his dresser . I remember thinking it 's enough to drive someone to kill himself . I was right . My uncle , your greatgreat - uncle , killed himself . Of course it 's possible that the inmate had nothing to do with for that . Nothing embarrassed her . I admired that so much , because everything embarrassed me , and that hurt me . She loved to jump on her bed . She jumped on her bed for so I did not consider that the past might have a need for me . What kind of letter ? my grandmother asked . I told her to write whatever she wanted to write . You want a letter from so much more than I needed to . And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous . I could have lived differently . When I was your age , my grandfather bought I had not seen him since I lost everything . I had not thought of him . He and my older sister , Anna , were friends . I came upon them kissing one afternoon in the field behind the hundred years . Their length could not be measured in years , just as an ocean could not explain the distance we had traveled , just as the dead can never be counted . I wanted to run apartment was like a zoo . There were animals everywhere . Dogs and cats . A dozen birdcages . Fish tanks . Glass boxes with snakes and lizards and insects . Mice in cages , so the same . He would talk about what he wanted to make . I would tell him I would do whatever he needed . We would drink coffee . We would never talk about the past . He would After only a few sessions it became clear that he was sculpting Anna . He was trying to remake the girl he knew seven years before . He looked at me as he sculpted , but he saw her . He touched me all over . I can tell you these things because I am not ashamed of them , because I learned from them . And I trust you to understand me . You are the only one I trust , the first time I had ever made love . I wondered if he knew that . It felt like crying . I wondered , Why does anyone ever make love ? of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimeter ? ' I said , ' I 'd probably die of dehydration . ' He said , ' I just mean right then , when you moved that single grain of sand . What showed him the key . He said , ' Lox ? ' I said , ' Hilarious , but I don 't eat anything with parents . ' He shook his head and said , ' I couldn 't help myself . So what 's on the menu ? ' one of those times . I walked across Amsterdam Avenue , and Columbus Avenue , and Central Park , and Fifth Avenue , and Madison Avenue , and Park Avenue , and Lexington Avenue , and Third Avenue , and Second Avenue . When I was exactly halfway across the Fiftyninth Street Bridge , I thought about how a millimeter behind me was Manhattan and a ' I 'm hooked up to all sorts of machines . That 's why it took me so long to get to the intercom . ' If I could do it again , I would do it differently . But you can 't do it again . I heard the twenty - three minutes to walk there , and my hand got exhausted from shaking my tambourine . There was a little sign above the door that said the poet Edna Saint Vincent Millay once lived in the house , and that it was the narrowest house in New York . I wondered if Edna Saint Vincent Millay was a man or a woman . I tried the key , and it went in halfway , but then it stopped . I knocked . No one answered , even though I could hear someone ' But I like to keep things clean . A woman comes by every week to clean . I 've told her a million times to clean everywhere . I 've even pointed that out to her . ' I asked her why she was them on a plate . ' Do you like strawberries ? ' she asked . ' Yes , ' I told her , ' but I 'm not hungry . ' She put out some strawberries . I thought it was weird that there weren 't any menus where their friends and enemies are going to be , and they can find water without any geological clues . No one could figure out how they do all of those things . So what 's actually ' Don 't cry , ' I told her . ' Why not ? ' she asked . ' Because , ' I told her . ' Because what ? ' she asked . ' No . ' I kept thinking there was something she wasn 't telling me . I showed her the little envelope again . ' But this is your last name , right ? ' She looked at the writing , and I could see ' Can I at least take a picture of you ? ' She said , ' That would be nice . ' But when I started focusing Grandpa 's camera , she put her hand in front of her face for some reason . I didn 't ' Oskar ! ' she said , and lifted me from the ground with one of her hugs . ' I 'm OK , ' I said . ' Oskar ! ' she said again , picking me up in another hug . ' I 'm OK , ' I said again , and then I asked Some nights I took the two - way radio into bed with me and rested it on the side of the pillow that Buckminster wasn 't on so I could hear what was going on in her bedroom . Sometimes she would wake me up in the middle of the night . It gave me heavy boots that she she said , ' I guess I heard of that . So I 'll go back to the stamp shop tomorrow and get another sheet . These we can use for the mail . ' wouldn 't have understood me , I would have been able to say it . ' Yeah , ' I said . ' I put the finishing touches on those scratch - and - sniff earrings for the craft fair . Also I mounted the ' Who are you writing letters to ? ' she asked , and it still wasn 't too late . ' Kofi Annan , Siegfried , Roy , Jacques Chirac , E . O . Wilson , Weird Al Yankovic , Bill Gates , Vladimir Putin , ' No you can 't , ' she said . I said , ' I 'm ninety - nine percent sure I can . ' She said , ' Maybe it 's just happy , I would have been angry at her for dreaming something happy . I touched her incredibly gently . She jumped up and said , ' What is it ? ' I said , ' It 's OK . ' She grabbed my bless her . She 's at home now , writing her life story , she 's typing while I 'm leaving , unaware of the chapters to come . It was my suggestion , and at the time I thought it was a modest , ' Anna 's father said . ' I want to be a sculptor . ' Mr . Goldberg took off his glasses , untucked his shirt from his pants , and cleaned his lenses with his shirttail . ' You want to be a seeped between the books , Anna started kissing me , ' But what if they come out ? ' I whispered , she touched my ears , which meant their voices would keep us safe . She put her would have seen everything . But the books protected us . I was in her for only a second before I burst into flames , she whimpered , Mr . Goldberg stomped his foot and let out a cry resting my cheek against her chest , and I saw your mother 's face in the second - floor window , ' Then why are you crying ? ' I asked , exhausted and experienced , ' War ! ' Mr . Goldberg hard enough . ' She reached her hands in front of her and found my face , she said , ' I 'm going to write about this . ' Ever since that day I 've been encouraging her , begging her , to sleeves , even when it 's cold , because my arms are books , too . But there 's too much to express . I 'm sorry . That 's what I 've been trying to say to you , I 'm sorry for everything . For died with them . I 'm sorry for my inability to let the unimportant things go , for my inability to hold on to the important things . I 'm sorry for what I 'm about to do to your mother and to you . I 'm sorry I 'll never get to see your face , and feed you , and tell you bedtime stories . I 've tried in my own way to explain myself , but when I think of your mother 's life else , if she wanted anything special . ' You always get it right , ' she said . ' Some nature magazines ? ' ( I flapped her hands like wings . ) ' That would be nice . ' and you will always be my child . I want you to know , at least , that it 's not out of selfishness that I am leaving , how can I explain that ? I can 't live , I 've tried and I can 't . If that behind me and plays it on a plasma screen that I 'll wear on my front , which will cover everything except my face . It 'll look like I 'm not there at all . ' She said , ' Nifty . ' I said , ' But is Yorick even a part ? ' She whispered into my ear , ' If anything , I 'm afraid you 'll steal the show . ' That was OK , though , because I didn 't want him there anyway . Grandma was there , obviously . I didn 't see any of the Blacks , but I knew that most people go to only one show unless they 're your parents , so I didn 't feel too bad about that . I tried to give an extraspecial performance , and I think I did . ' Alas , poor Yorick . I knew him , Horatio ; a really taken . I watched her from under the skull . She had her hand pressed against her ultraviolet heart , and I could hear her saying , ' That 's sad . That 's so sad . ' I thought about the unfinished scarf , and the rock she carried across Broadway , and how she had lived so much life On behalf of the dead & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; [ I pull the skull off my head . Even though it 's made of papierm & acirc ; ch & eacute ; it 's really hard . I smash it against JIMMY SNYDER 's head , and I smash it again . He falls into his mouth , and I think they go down his throat . There is blood everywhere , covering everything . I keep smashing the skull against his skull , which is also RON 's skull ( for letting MOM get could come out of DAD 's death ) and the skulls of everyone else I know . THE AUDIENCE is applauding , all of them , because I am making so much sense . They are giving me a standing ovation there , and there was no alternative . When the cab driver pulled over in front of the building , the meter said $ 76 . 50 . I said , ' Mr . Mahaltra , are you an optimist or a pessimist ? ' He chessboards , and the ceilings were like cakes . Everything seemed like it belonged in a museum , so I took some pictures with Grandpa 's camera . ' This might be a rude question , but thought that maybe no one should have more than a certain amount of money until everyone had that amount of money . That was an idea Dad had once suggested to me . She ' Do you need them as much as a homeless person needs food ? ' The conversation was beginning to make me feel self - conscious . She said , ' Do you have more things that you need , ' Really , ' I said . ' I think light blue is a very , very beautiful color on you . ' She was still looking at Ada , who said , ' Thanks , Gail . ' As she walked back to the kitchen I told her , ' Gail is a ' Jose . As in , ' No way & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; € & Acirc ; & brvbar ; ' She said , ' I know what I am . ' I nodded my head , even asked it extremely loudly , so it was more like a scream . ' Yes , hello , ' I said . ' I live downstairs in 5A . May I please ask you a few questions ? ' father and I had the most lively conversations ! He was a Great Man , like Winston Churchill was a Great Man ! ' I decided that it would be better to Google Winston Churchill knee . I said , ' That 's hilarious , ' because it must have been for him to crack up so much . ' Hilarious ! ' he said . ' It is ! I never heard from her again ! Oh , well ! So many people enter and hands ! ' He showed me his hands . They looked like the hands on the skeleton in the Rainier Scientific catalogue that Ron offered to buy for me , except they had skin , blotchy skin , ' It 's hugely helpful ! I read an article about Latin American currencies this morning ! It referred to the work of someone named Manuel Escobar ! So I came and looked up Escobar ! But still , it gave me heavy , heavy boots . Dad wasn 't a Great Man , not like Winston Churchill , whoever he was . Dad was just someone who ran a family jewelry business . Just an ordinary dad . But I wished so much , then , that he had been Great . I wished he 'd been famous , famous like a movie star , which is what he deserved . I wished Mr . Black had written about him , and risked his life to tell the world about him , and had reminders of him I looked in another room , which must have been his bedroom . There was the most amazing bed I 've ever seen , because it was made out of tree parts . The legs were stumps , the ' For most of our marriage I treated her as though she didn 't matter ! I came home only between wars , and left her alone for months at a time ! There was always war ! ' down that tree was my last war ! ' I asked him who won , which I thought was a nice question , because it would let him say that he won , and feel proud . He said , ' The ax won ! It 's He went up to the bed and put his finger on the head of a nail . ' See these ! ' I try to be a perceptive person who follows the scientific method and is observant , but I hadn 't noticed before that the whole bed was completely covered in nails . ' I 've hammered a nail into the Debussy 's Sunken Cathedral , one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written ! I haven 't heard it in years and years ! Do you want to feel something ! ' into my hand and said , ' Make a fist around it ! ' So I did . ' Now extend your hand ! ' I extended my hand . ' Now open your hand ! ' The paper clip flew to the bed . in crude splints , straight in front of them like zombies ! They couldn 't feed themselves , because they couldn 't get their hands to their mouths ! So you know what they did ! ' ' Do . You . Want . Me . To . Turn . Them . On . For . You ? ' He kept looking at me . I asked again . close . Maybe twenty of them . Maybe more . But they also seemed like just one bird , because somehow they all knew exactly what to do . Mr . Black grabbed at his ears and made ground . ' She took a deep breath , put her arm around me , and said , ' That might be possible . ' I tried to think of some way to be hilarious , because I thought that maybe if I was hilarious , she wouldn 't be mad at me anymore and I could be safe again . ' With a little elbow ' I don 't have to be fair ! I 'm your son ! ' She let out an enormous breath and said , ' You remind me so much of Dad . ' And then I said something that I wasn 't planning on saying , expensive insurance policy . A man from the company came over to take pictures . If anything happened , they would be able to rebuild the apartment again exactly as it was . He bathtub . I never confused what I had with what I was . When the man left , your grandfather took out his own camera and started taking more pictures . What are you doing ? I He never took pictures of me , and we didn 't buy life insurance . He kept one set of the pictures in his dresser . He taped another set into his daybooks , so they 'd always be with him , Sometimes he would go to the airport after work . I asked him to get me papers and magazines . At first this was because I wanted to learn American expressions . But I gave up on Our savings . Our living . I took out two one - hundred - dollar bills and put them in a different envelope , which I gave to the ghost . I would have done anything for him . Maybe that was my sickness . We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off . It felt like crying . We could not look at each other . It compromise my life , but not life after me . I couldn 't explain it . The need came before explanations . It was not out of weakness that I made it happen , but it was not out of strength daybooks , as if they were time itself . We put his filled daybooks in the bathtub of the second bathroom , because we never used it . I sleepwalk when I sleep at all . lived for . I never could explain why . Little , nothing touches . My fingers against his shoulder . The outsides of our thighs touching as we squeezed together on the bus . I couldn 't myself that I liked . I understand , now , the tragedy of my childhood . It wasn 't the bombing . It was that I never once liked a photograph of myself . I couldn 't . What was he trying to tell me ? I brought the birdcages to the windows . I opened the windows , and opened the birdcages . I poured the fish down the drain . friend . An air - raid warning was issued . I told Masako I was going home . She said , ' I 'm going to the office . ' I did chores and waited for the warning to be lifted . was a flash . My first thought was that it was the flash from a camera . That sounds so ridiculous now . It pierced my eyes . My mind went blank . The glass from the windows was When I became conscious again , I realized I wasn 't standing . I had been thrown into a different room . The rag was still in my hand , but it was no longer wet . My only thought was almost naked . His skin was peeling off all over his body . It was hanging from his fingertips . I asked him what had happened . He was too exhausted to reply . He was looking in So many people were marching toward me , away from the city . I smelled something similar to grilled squid . I must have been in shock , because the people looked like squid washing up on the shore . know what to do . I was not a nurse . There were maggots in her wounds and a sticky yellow liquid . I tried to clean her up . But her skin was peeling off . The maggots were coming blowjob from Emma Watson ? ' I told him I didn 't know who Emma Watson was . Matt Colber said , ' Hermione , retard . ' I said , ' Who 's Hermione ? And I 'm not mentally retarded . ' anyone to ask . For example , I know that you give someone a blowjob by putting your penis in their mouth . I also know that dick is penis , and that cock is penis , too . And monster work outside your apartment , because the magnetic field of the bed gets smaller the farther you get from it , but still . ' I handed him the necklace and he put it on . It said that the ' Espanol , ' she said . ' Espanol , ' I hollered down . ' Terrific ! ' he hollered back . ' I picked up a little Espanol along the way ! ' So I brought her wheelchair to the stairwell , and they hollered had gone up to the roof together . You saw in some of the pictures that people jumped together and held hands . So maybe they did that . Or maybe they just talked to each other until the building fell . What would they have talked about ? They were obviously so different . Maybe he told her about me . I wonder what he told her . I couldn 't tell how it made portable TV that he kept in his pocket . ' It plays DVDs , ' he said , ' and if I had an e - mail account , I could check it on this , too . ' I told him I could set up an e - mail account for him if he pretty quickly , and set everything up . I said , ' What do you want for a user name ? ' I suggested ' Allen , ' or ' AllenBlack , ' or a nickname . ' Or ' Engineer . ' That could be cool . ' He put his private . It 's extremely hard for me to go to school . I also can 't sleep over at friends ' apartments , because I get panicky about being away from Mom . I 'm not very good with people . ' ' Family . ' He said , ' I 'm sorry . I don 't think I explained this well . I 'll say a word , and you tell inside . If I have to bleed , I 'll bruise . If my heart starts going crazy , I 'm not gonna tell everyone in the world about it . It doesn 't help anything . It just makes everyone 's life worse . ' destruction , I killed two lions , they were standing side by side facing west , were they related , were they friends , mates , can lions love ? I killed a cub that was climbing atop a massive dead bear , as it climbing atop its parent ? I killed a camel with twelve bullets , I suspected it wasn 't a carnivore , but I was killing everything , everything had to be killed , a touching that saved my life . In the days and weeks after my release , I looked for my parents and for Anna and for you . Everyone was looking for everyone in the rubble of every almost forgot . ' He ran into the house and came back out with an envelope . ' I almost forgot , ' he said , his eyes were red , his knuckles were white , I later learned that he survived the bombing and then killed himself . Did your mother tell you that ? Does she know it herself ? He handed a letter to me . it was from Simon Goldberg . The letter had been posted we ? It 's the rest of the world that 's moving . Our borough is fixed . Let them leave Manhattan . ' How can you prove someone like that wrong ? And who would want to ? ' ' Well , that 's good , because there 's no irrefutable evidence . There 's nothing that could convince someone who doesn 't want to be convinced . But there is an abundance of clues that you never think about anything as much as I think about you . I remember they were interviewing the father of a missing girl . I remember his eyebrows . I remember his sadly One million pieces of paper filled the sky . They stayed there , like a ring around the building . Like the rings of Saturn . The rings of coffee staining my father 's desk . The ring Thomas told me he didn 't need . I told him he wasn 't the only one who needed . The next morning my father had us carve our names into the stump of the tree that fell away from our I looked in the coat closet . I looked behind the sofa . A Scrabble board was on the coffee table . Words were running into each other . I went to your room . It was empty . I looked in I went back to your room and lay down on your bed . I couldn 't see the stars on your ceiling because the lights were on . I thought about the walls of the house I grew up in . My Your mother told me I could go home . I told her I didn 't want to . She said , Have something to eat . Try to sleep . I won 't be able to eat or sleep . She said , I need to sleep . I told her I thought it would feel different . But even then I was me . Oskar , I 'm remembering you onstage in front of all of those strangers . I wanted to say to them , He 's mine . I wanted to words from the mirrors and the floors . I painted over the walls . I cleaned the shower curtains . I even refinished the floors . It took me as long as I had known him to get rid of all of Footsteps came to the door , but I could only barely hear them because they were extremely gentle and because of the carpet . The footsteps stopped . I could hear breathing , sorry . ' I told him , ' You didn 't kill my dad . ' On the next page there was a picture of a doorknob , for some reason , so he went to the page after that and wrote , ' I 'm still sorry . ' I told stranger . He asked me what I meant . I told him , ' I wouldn 't go in with a stranger . ' He didn 't write anything , like he didn 't know if he was a stranger or not . ' Are you older than seventy ? ' He showed me his left hand , which had YES tattooed on it . ' Do you have a criminal at his shirt . I pointed at the N and said ' New , ' and the Y and said ' York . ' He looked confused , or embarrassed , or surprised , or maybe even mad . I couldn 't tell what he was feeling , because I couldn 't speak the language of his feelings . ' I not know was New York . In mean ' you . ' Thought was ' I love you . ' It was then that I noticed the ' I & Atilde ; & cent ; & Acirc ; ™ & Acirc ; & yen ; NY ' poster I had pictures of people who had lost their arms and legs . Also , I don 't like bodies of water . Or boats , particularly . Mr . Black asked me how I would feel in bed that night if I didn 't the ferry ? What if it sinks ? What if someone pushes me off ? What if it 's hit with a shoulder - fired missile ? There won 't be a tonight tonight . ' He said , ' In which case you won 't feel own fingerprints , kind of like a Mobius strip . ' These are his varsity letters . This is his cigarette case from when he used to smoke . Here 's his Purple Heart . ' is , ' she said . ' Here who is ? ' Mr . Black asked . ' My husband , ' she said , almost like he was another exhibit in his life . The four of us stood there smiling at one another , and then the Get it ? ' That made me crack up , but only me . She asked if we were going to order anything . I told her , ' Iced coffee , please . ' She asked , ' What size ? ' I said , ' Vente , and could you couldn 't do it . I told him it was the thing that I was most afraid of . He said he could understand why . I wanted him to disagree with me , but he wouldn 't , so I had no way to argue . I plane coming at the building , just below us . I didn 't want to , but I couldn 't stop . I imagined the last second , when I would see the pilot 's face , who would be a terrorist . I imagined us looking each other in the eyes when the nose of the plane was one millimeter from get away from the heat , but on the other hand , when I hit the sidewalk I would die , obviously . Which would I choose ? Would I jump or would I burn ? I guess I would jump , because then I wouldn 't have to feel pain . On the other hand , maybe I would burn , because not true . They look like little people . And the cars look like little cars . And even the buildings look little . It 's like New York is a miniature replica of New York , which is nice , because you can see what it 's really like , instead of how it feels when you 're in the middle of with crutches whose cast was signed by lots of people . I had a weird feeling that if I examined it I would find Dad 's writing . Maybe he would have written ' Get better soon . ' Or just She smiled , took a huge breath in , and then started walking while she talked . ' Construction on the Empire State Building began in March of 1930 , on the site of the old WaldorfAstoria Hotel , at 350 Fifth Avenue at Thirty - fourth Street . It was completed one year and opened , they had such a hard time finding tenants to rent space within it that New Yorkers began calling it the Empty State Building . ' That made me crack up . ' It was this observatory that saved the building from going into bankruptcy . ' Mr . Black patted the wall , like he dress , and how Dad needed a drink of water whenever he whistled for too long . ' An elevator fell to the bottom . You 'll be relieved to know that the passenger was saved by the ' I couldn 't bear to go home , ' she said . I asked why not , even though I was afraid I was going to learn something I didn 't want to know . She said , ' Because I knew he wouldn 't be scared . I walked to the railing . Right there . I 'd never felt more alone . It was as if the building had become much taller . Or the city had become much darker . But I 'd never felt more ' I 'm awkward , ' she said . ' So am I , ' Mr . Black said . ' I 'm not very good company . I just told ' I 'm terrible company , ' Mr . Black said , although that wasn 't true . ' Ask him , ' he said , pointing at me . ' It 's true , ' I said , ' he sucks . ' ' Wrzesieri , ' or ' people jumping from burning buildings , ' which is ' Menschen , die aus brennenden Gebauden springen . ' Then I Google those words . It makes me incredibly angry said , ' It 's OK . ' I said , ' Maybe your vocal cords actually are broken . You should go to a specialist . ' I asked him , ' What were you trying to say ? ' He pointed at , ' I 'm sorry . ' She said , ' Is this a joke ? ' A joke , it wasn 't a joke , what is a joke , was it a joke ? She hung up , haunts me , his ' yet ' haunts me . I stood there , a person in a crowd , was I watching the images , or was something more complicated happening ? I tried to count the floors above about to make . Beeeeep . Hello ? ' It was a child 's voice , a boy 's . ' It 's really me . I 'm here . Bonjour ? ' I hung up . Grandma ? I needed time to think , a taxi would be too quick , as would a I 'm your grandfather , I love you , I 'm sorry ? Maybe I needed to tell him the things I couldn 't tell you , give him all the letters that were supposed to be for your eyes . But she would me once he saw me . He pretended to be a journalist . It was so terrible . He said he was doing a story about the survivors of Dresden . ' mother , because I never let him know I was there . I thought it could go on like that forever , and yet here I am , once again I was proven wrong . I don 't remember when the later he wore the same thick glasses , I 'd never seen a whiter shirt , he had a hard time letting go of books , I went up to him . ' I don 't speak , ' I wrote , ' I 'm sorry . ' He wrapped his home , the apartment was empty . I thought about packing my bags , I thought about jumping out a window , I sat on the bed and thought , I thought about you . What kind of food if I knew never to accept the first offer , and if I could start a fire if I had to . I loved my father very much . I loved him very , very much . But I never found a way to tell him . I turned ' We 're both Peter . ' It made me wonder for the first time why I wasn 't named after Dad , although I didn 't wonder about the renter 's name being Thomas . I said , ' Hi , Peter . I 'll protect family . I went to the kitchen to get some dehydrated ice cream . I looked over at the telephone . The new phone . It looked back at me . Whenever it would ring , I 'd scream , ' The I asked Abby , ' Was your door open because you knew I was coming ? ' She didn 't say anything for a few seconds . Then she said , ' Yes . ' Dad would have been , or I guess still was , if dead people have ages . He had brownishgrayish hair , a short beard , and round brown glasses . For a second he looked familiar , and binocular machine . But then I realized that was impossible , because we were at Fiftyseventh Street , which is north , obviously . There were a bunch of picture frames on his ' And he didn 't wear glasses . ' He took off his glasses and said , ' He changed . ' I started thinking about the pixels in the image of the falling body , and how the closer you looked , the ' Then we 've been looking for each other . ' I was finally able to ask the most important question of my life . ' What does it open ? ' ' I don 't know . I didn 't see a label . I don 't remember . ' If I 'd been alone , I would have given writer before . I don 't know if he ever wrote . But he spent his last two months writing obsessively . Whenever he was awake . ' I asked why , but what I really wanted to know was Ten pages . I only barely knew him . We hadn 't talked in fifty years . It was the most amazing letter I 'd ever read . ' I asked him if I could see it . He said , ' I don 't think it was meant to Something angry , or asking for forgiveness . Something that would make me rethink everything . But it was matter - of - fact . More of a document than a letter , if that makes sense . ' father told me where he 'd left things , and what he wanted taken care of . He was responsible . He was good . It 's easy to be emotional . You can always make a scene . Remember me minutes , but that was long enough to see that he was good . You were lucky to have a father like that . I 'd trade this key for that father . ' ' Are you all right ? ' I wanted to keep the tears in , but I couldn 't . He said , ' I 'm so , so sorry . ' ' I couldn 't pick up the phone . I just couldn 't do it . It rang and rang , and I couldn 't move . I ' He needed me , and I couldn 't pick up . I just couldn 't pick up . I just couldn 't . Are you there ? do if it was raining , or if a guard asked us what we were doing . We ran out of realistic details in just a few meetings , but for some reason we still weren 't ready to go . So we made You can have a bright future in the sciences , Oskar . I would be happy to do anything possible to facilitate such a path . It 's wonderful to think what would happen observing the universe , mostly in my mind 's eye . It 's been a tremendously rewarding life , a wonderful life . I 've been able to explore the origins of time and space with I wiped the rim of the plate before I gave it to him . I spread his napkin on his lap . He didn 't say anything . When the time came , I went downstairs with him . There was nothing to I tried to notice everything , because I wanted to be able to remember it perfectly . I 've forgotten everything important in my life . I can 't remember what the front door of the house I I told him I would look for them . But everything had been buried . I had never seen my father cry before . He said , With my glasses I could be helpful . I told him , Let me try to free I have been an expert at watching him . It 's been my life 's work . From my bedroom window . From behind trees . From across the kitchen table . I wanted to be with him . Or anyone . He flipped back to , I can 't . Then you 'll go away ? He pointed at , I can 't . Then we are out of over him . I don 't need to see him . I don 't need to know if he is looking up at me . It 's not God brought together the land and the water , the sky and the water , the water and the water , evening and morning , something and nothing . He said , Let there be light . And there Mom made spaghetti for dinner that night . Ron ate with us . I asked him if he was still interested in buying me a five - piece drum set with Zildjian cymbals . He said , ' Yeah . I think ' Is there anything you want to talk about ? ' If she wasn 't going to say anything , I wasn 't going to say anything , so I shook my head no . ' I could make up a story ? ' from the weight of all that dirt . If Dad had been in there , ants and worms could have gotten in through the cracks and eaten him , or at least microscopic bacteria could have . I was looking over me . I don 't believe in God , but I believe that things are extremely complicated , and her looking over me was as complicated as anything ever could be . But it