羊毛战记 Part 1 Holston 1

　　Part 1 ,　　Holston,　　1,　　The children were playing while Holston climbed to his death; he could hear them squealing as onlyhappy children do. While they thundered about frantically above, Holston took his time, each stepmethodical and ponderous, as he wound his way around and around the spiral staircase, old bootsringing out on metal treads.,　　The treads, like his father’s boots, showed signs of wear. Paint clung to them in feeble chips,mostly in the corners and undersides, where they were safe. Traffic elsewhere on the staircase sentdust shivering off in small clouds. Holston could feel the vibrations in the railing, which was worndown to the gleaming metal. That always amazed him: how centuries of bare palms and shuffling feetcould wear down solid steel. One molecule at a time, he supposed. Each life might wear away asingle layer, even as the silo wore away that life.,　　Each step was slightly bowed from generations of traffic, the edge rounded down like a poutinglip. In the center, there was almost no trace of the small diamonds that once gave the treads their grip.,　　Holston lifted an old boot to an old step, pressed down, and did it again. He lost himself in whatthe untold years had done, the ablation of molecules and lives, layers and layers ground to fine dust.,　　And he thought, not for the first time, that neither life nor staircase had been meant for such anexistence. The tight confines of that long spiral, threading through the buried silo like a straw in aglass, had not been built for such abuse. Like much of their cylindrical home, it seemed to have beenmade for other purposes, for functions long since forgotten. What was now used as a thoroughfare forthousands of people, moving up and down in repetitious daily cycles, seemed more apt in Holston’sview to be used only in emergencies and perhaps by mere dozens.,　　Another floor went by—a pie-shaped division of dormitories. As Holston ascended the last fewlevels, this last climb he would ever take, the sounds of childlike delight rained down even louderfrom above. This was the laughter of youth, of souls who had not yet come to grips with where theylived, who did not yet feel the press of the earth on all sides, who in their minds were not buried atall, but alive. Alive and unworn, dripping happy sounds down the stairwell, trills that wereincongruous with Holston’s actions, his decision and determination to go outside.,　　As he neared the upper level, one young voice rang out above the others, and Holstonremembered being a child in the silo—all the schooling and the games. Back then, the stuffy concretecylinder had felt, with its floors and floors of apartments and workshops and hydroponic gardens andpurification rooms with their tangles of pipes, like a vast universe, a wide expanse one could neverfully explore, a labyrinth he and his friends could get lost in forever.,　　But those days were more than thirty years distant. Holston’s childhood now felt like somethingtwo or three lifetimes ago, something someone else had enjoyed. Not him. He had an entire lifetimeas sheriff weighing heavy, blocking off that past. And more recently, there was this third stage of hislife—a secret life beyond childhood and being sheriff. It was the last layers of himself ground to dust;three years spent silently waiting for what would never come, each day longer than any month fromhis happier lifetimes.,