Дэймон Найт - Orbit 11

Frank Harris remained a little ball while the rest of him screamed at his wife. “I can’t love you like that. I just don’t have it. It isn’t there.” His voice became strident. “You want something I just can’t give you. And I won’t.” A wand lifted him from his seat and pushed him toward the door, into the hall, past the sunken dining room, and through the pantry.

His wife rushed after him, calling, crying, pleading. She overtook him as he fumbled with the screen-door latch. Slipping her arms around his stomach, she dropped to her knees, her fingers wrapped around his belt for support. It would be useless for him to pull himself out the door; she would hang on, crying, and he might hurt her trying to wrench free. It was an old ploy; it had worked before. The argument was over. Whimpering, she would follow him into the den and tell him that she loved him more than anything in the world.

Upstairs, Maureen put her pick-up sticks away in her toy chest, deep inside, past the toys she did not care about, but she could not find space for the drum. The wands were safe, but the drum, she thought, the drum. Hide it in the closet, in the hamper, under the bed.

“Maureen,” her mother called from the foot of the stairs. “Dinner will be ready soon. Clean up your room and come down. Everything’s all right now, baby. So come downstairs.”

It’s broken. A rivulet bubbled under the skin, cracking the taut drumhead. Leave it on the bed. It’s broken. She centered it on the pillow, controlled her tears, and calmly went downstairs to eat.

They ate quietly. Maureen played with her food, drawing circles in the corn, and thought about her drum. It would be better to leave it there and make something else. She would never touch it again; she would curl around it when she slept and protect, it.

She looked at her father, who was ponderously eating a muffin. She never protected him. She wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to protect her. I want you to love me the way I love you. “What’s that mean, mommy?” The wands sang in the toy chest.

“What’s what mean, honey?” she asked as she stacked the plates. “Give me your plate.”

She’s cold. She’s like that dead lizard. The drum on the bed. The drum is on the bed. “Nothing. Can I go back to my room and play?”

“No, dear. You’ve been in your room too long today. You should go out for a little while, at least. It won’t be dark for another two hours yet.”

Her father left the table.

“Okay.” Maureen left everything as it was before. The drum was heavy on the bed. The pick-up sticks hovered in their nook. The dolls were faceless, carelessly thrown about the room. They would be all right. But the drum was cracked. The air pushed inside it.

She could leave the house, but this time she would not build a bridge as she left. She reconsidered: a very small one without spoke, or beams, or spongy girders.

She could feel the tension grow behind her. She sat down under a tall oak in the back yard and stared at the white stucco house. Dumbly, it stared back at her through its second-story windows.

But I love you. In my own way. I have always thought of our relationship as something beautiful, something sacred. But I can’t love you that way. You’re like a daughter to me.

Start with a fence, a white picket fence. Draw a fence around the house. No, that isn’t any good. Okay. Eight dogs in the driveway with pointed teeth to protect the house. She laughed: she could not visualize a dog. They looked like horned doughnuts. Pointed teeth, not square teeth.

Closing her eyes, she let her thoughts form around the drum, puffing air each time she slapped it. She shuddered. It was not the drum. It was not a wand. She had drawn something she had never seen. It escaped from her. It settled in the living room, hiding behind transparent walls. The fence collapsed and she stood up. She could not see it; she did not want to see it. She took a step toward the house. And then another: it was fun to be scared.

It was not in the pantry. She passed the washing machine and opened the door into the kitchen. The kitchen was empty. The hall, to the right, down three stairs, there it was. A half image of its substance was concentrated in a tiny puddle. It oozed and grew and contracted. It tossed stimuli of coagulation, vomit, and infection at her as it settled into a scarred asterisk. It was brown, then ocher flecked with black. It grew tentacles and digested itself.

Maureen turned away from it. It pulled her back, enticing her, flooding her. She hated it; it grew fangs.

She could not hear anyone in the house. They were probably upstairs. But why didn’t she know? The puddle turned her around and began to disappear, leaving only an aura of warmth. It expanded, engulfing Maureen in a thousand pinpoints of heat. She was free; it did not hold her. But she did not want to go. There was no need. She could stay. She was in love. It had changed; it smelled pretty.

She felt warm and concealed. The aura was a fire to protect her and color the room. It followed her, tracing patterns in the air, up to her room. There, it spun a web from the walls and cradled the bed, careful not to touch the drum.

She heard a creak from the next room. It was the bed. She visualized her parents clutching each other and jarring the springs. She had never heard that before. They had not done it since she was born.

She listened and fell asleep. The web thickened, then turned into a cocoon.

She was up early the next morning. Her room smelled musty, as if the warmth pouring through the open window had not yet evaporated the dampness. The toy chest was hidden under the bed, its stuffed sunflower head ripped off and lying upside down beside the torso.

Holding her breath, she tiptoed down the stairs and jumped three steps into the living room. She could not make out the image of movement that had held her last night. She concentrated on the wavering lines; they became more distinct. She closed her eyes, allowing it to sketch its form on her dark retinal field.

It was a drum. Opening her eyes, she glimpsed the dank puddle decaying in the rug. It changed shape, became a bubbling star. It vibrated and emitted a thin glint of warmth. It was a drum pounding. She reached out and caught it with her finger, pressed it into her palm, and imbibed it slowly. She was happy. But it passed quickly.

She waited. Ordering it into being was futile; begging, coaxing, singing did not work either. She took a few steps toward it; it dimmed into an outline. She imagined it had grown another tentacle. It had.

The drum, get the drum and cover the pick-up sticks. The drum was on her bed, but she could not touch it. She had promised. It is not a drum anymore. She ran out of the living room and up the stairs. Secure in her room, she picked up the drum and examined the torn head. It could not be fixed. She slapped it angrily. A flood of revulsion cascaded up the stairs and into her room. She threw the drum on the bed and held her palms tightly against her eyes. The smell dissipated.

Tapping the drum carefully, she listened for a pop of air. It was not an old drum. It should not have ripped. A glimmer sneaked into the room, a very tiny ray of warmth. She could not see it, but she knew it was close to her. Tapping her drum, she watched the door; she concentrated; she giggled; she tried not to urinate in her pajamas. She had not made the drum and she could not fix it. Another drum would not be the same; she could never make another one like it.

Another glint. But softer, a bit wider. She shuddered as it passed through her.

They were awake. She sensed her parents’ blurred awareness. The sensation dissolved. She put the drum on top of her toy chest and stared out the window as they quietly got dressed. The sunlight splashed on the floor, then escaped into the suspended stiffness of the house. She breathed mass around the dust motes that floated in the yellow liquid. Invisibly, they dropped into the cracks in the floor.