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(He does stink, he knows that well enough. He's rank, he's gamy, he reeks like a walrus — oily, salty, fishy — not that he's ever smelled such a beast. But he's seen pictures.) Opening up their sack, the children chorus, ‘Oh Snowman, what have we found?’ They lift out the objects, hold them up as if offering them for sale: a hubcap, a piano key, a chunk of pale-green pop bottle smoothed by the ocean. A plastic BlyssPluss container, empty; a ChickieNobs Bucket O'Nubbins, ditto. A computer mouse, or the busted remains of one, with a long wiry tail. Snowman feels like weeping. What can he tell them? There's no way of explaining to them what these curious items are, or were. But surely they've guessed what he'll say, because it's always the same. ‘These are things from before.’ He keeps his voice kindly but remote. A cross between pedagogue, soothsayer, and benevolent uncle — that should be his tone. ‘Will they hurt us?’ Sometimes they find tins of motor oil, caustic solvents, plastic bottles of bleach. Booby traps from the past. He's considered to be an expert on potential accidents: scalding liquids, sickening fumes, poison dust. Pain of odd kinds. ‘These, no,’ he says. ‘These are safe.’ At this they lose interest, let the sack dangle. But they don't go away: they stand, they stare. Their beachcombing is an excuse. Mostly they want to look at him, because he's so unlike them. Every so often they ask him to take off his sunglasses and put them on again: they want to see whether he has two eyes really, or three.
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