Read The Dream of Doctor Bantam for Free Online Page B

ancient copier toner, and gold flaked from the iron letters of the sign:
    THE INSTITUTE OF TEMPORAL ILLUSIONS
    A COMMUNAL PLACE OF IDENTITY AND FOCUS
OUTSIDE OF TIME
    As a rule the students who worked the doors of the Institute were male, dangling between eighteen and thirty, their puff-pastry flesh wrapped in white dress shirts and navy corduroy pants, sweat at their armpits. They liked to offer Julie deals (or offer deals to whoever was in earshot, dogs, babies), deals on relaxation courses or free promotional film screenings or God knows what. When they smiled at you their teeth were bad and they weren’t afraid of showing them. Julie walked faster and kept her eyes on the pavement.
    She went into the Retrograde, the coffee place just next door. The place looked like a cross between a bomb shelter and a set from Brazil ; silver snakes of ductwork and exhaust vents wound through the exposed rafters, and all of the chairs were ergonomically designed to be as stylishly uncomfortable as possible. Most of the people at the Retrograde were students. Two of them were students , from the Institute. She got in line behind them and folded her arms.
    I mean I’ve tried to talk to her, one of the students said. I mean I’ve honestly tried; I’ve run processes and everything. But she’s a highly anti-causative individual.
    She’s bound to her memories, the other agreed. Not to her identity.
    She’ll never make zero.
    Two fifty, said the woman behind the counter, the owner. The usual barista, the gawky one, was gone. There was only ever one barista, a tiny skeleton of a girl, her hair cut in one wet lock that hung black over her face like a dog ear, red, open lips sometimes peeping from behind. She looked enervated, like the only thing that kept her moving was the music that pumped through the iPod plugged into the PA like a defibrillator paddle. Julie liked the barista and distinctly didn’t like the owner, who looked like she’d been deep-fried in butter and drizzled with cinnamon, like you’d touch your hand and have to lick yourself clean.
    The students gave the owner two and some pennies and took their coffee to the door. The owner sorted the pennies into four piles of five, two strays. She made a fist and rapped her knuckles against the edge of the brushed metal counter.
    Do you need a quarter? asked Julie.
    The owner looked at her.
    Are you offering me exact change? she asked. Will you marry me?
    Julie bit her lip.
    Depends on if you’ll put out before the honeymoon or not, she said.
    I was kidding, smiled the owner. You’re Tabs’s baby sister, aren’t you? I remember you.
    Yeah, said Julie, looking at her bag, cheek hot. Can I get a croissant and one of those spicy chai things?
    Ham croissant or chocolate croissant? asked the owner.
    Ham and chocolate croissant, said Julie.
    The owner took her time about finding the tongs, opening the cap on the chai mix, working the steam wand. Maybe when your ass was as fat as hers was, really, when you looked at it, it took a longer time to get around and do things. It must be terrible to have such a fat ass and to be so fucking stupid as well.
    How is Tabs? she asked, ringing Julie up.
    She’s great, said Julie. She died, you know.
    Tell her to call me, smiled the owner.
    She looked back at her newspaper and Julie stole a dollar from her tip jar.
    She was hoping she’d find Ira here, Tabitha’s Ira, and she wasn’t disappointed; Ira was basically always at the Retrograde. He looked mostly the same, like someone who in another life would be wearing an apron in the back room of a meat market hacking up roosters; he had probably actually been on someone’s payroll doing that. His beard was maybe a little bit longer and more ingrown than the last time Julie had seen him, a month ago, and his glasses had slid down a socioeconomic bracket or two: thick and black, lenses scratched, the bridge sporting a loop of duct tape maybe for reasons of style, not structure. He was sitting