Jim Krusoe - The Sleep Garden

“But isn’t the world already divided into people who are in entourages and those who aren’t?” Viktor asks, and he thinks he must have struck a note of some kind because Madeline’s response is to jump straight out of bed without a stitch of clothing on and stand next to Viktor at his computer, her fluffy pubic hair glistening in the light of the screen.

“Viktor,” Madeline says, “you don’t understand. I said: Time is running out for both of us. We have to choose. We have to take a leap.”

Viktor opens one of his large hands and stares at the lines in his palm as if they are a massive artwork bulldozed into the desert floor. What he’s thinking she can’t tell. “Maybe, or maybe not,” he answers.

Raymond is in the kitchen, staring at the bowl full of Grape-Nuts and milk in front of him, as Jeffery rummages around in the refrigerator, mumbling something about having left a beer inside. Suddenly Jeffery closes the refrigerator door and joins Raymond at the table. Even though Jeffery is his best friend, there is something about him that Raymond doesn’t quite trust, though it might just be that Jeffery was with Madeline before him, and he can’t help wondering if Jeffery, too, is trying to get her back.

“Raymond,” Jeffery says, “do you remember that dream you told me about where you were a duck?”

“Yes,” Raymond says.

“Well, just suppose,” Jeffery says, “that you were a duck in a former life. Do you think that’s a possibility?

“A possibility,” says Raymond. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then,” Jeffery says, “maybe there’s a part of you that carried over to this life. Maybe that’s why you like making those decoys so much. And that although 99.9 percent of your former life is gone, there’s still a trace that remains, like your shadow on the wall of a building across the street.”

“Across what street?” Raymond asks.

“Any street. The street’s not important.”

“But if there are buildings on both sides of the street and the sun is at one end, how is your shadow going to hit the building?”

“Listen,” Jeffery says. “It’s late in the day, and the sun is almost down and your shadow is stretching clear across the street and, if you have to know, there are only buildings on one side of this street. You are on the other side.”

“So what do you think your former life was?” Raymond asks.

“I’m not sure,” Jeffery says, “but I think I must have been highly successful, because I can almost taste it. For sure, though, I wasn’t an animal. No offense, but I just can’t see myself as a duck or a cat or a mouse.”

Ballerina Mouse regards her twisted foot. Being a rational creature, she understands that she’ll never be a ballerina — so why try? Instead, she uses her time to build a career as a telephone counselor on a suicide hotline and collects little porcelain statues of ballerinas, thus giving her the nickname “Ballerina Mouse” among the many friends she has made, and when she dies all these statues are heaped inside her coffin and buried along with her to keep her company in the next life.

Heather doesn’t think so.

Raymond remembers that in the dream he had where Madeline and Viktor were sitting on their giant thrones, Viktor’s hands seemed even larger than usual, so that they weren’t like hands at all, but more like two trash-can lids onto which someone had attached fingers.

Possibly, however, that was just due to the visual perspective that came from Raymond’s observing Viktor while Raymond was standing and Viktor was sitting down.

The truth is that Junior has no idea what his father looks like, except when he looks in the mirror: a tallish individual, not getting any younger, who favors plaid shirts, and who has a beard that makes him look like a lumberjack or a sea captain.

And sometimes, standing in front of the mirror looking at himself impersonating his father, he likes to pretend that his father is talking:

“Junior, how can you be so stupid?”

“Junior, what is wrong with you?”

“Junior, what the hell are you thinking of with that crossbow? Aren’t you man enough to shoot a gun?”

“Answer me, Junior. What is wrong with you, anyway?”

“Fuck you, Dad,” says Junior.

Today’s lecture is one the Captain has given plenty of times, and it’s always a hit, but then, you never know, so he looks around. The hall, a Masonic one, with dark wood and plenty of protractor symbols, is almost full. The hoodlums who have plagued such events at times in the past appear to be absent. So far everything looks good.

The Captain is wearing his dress uniform, of course, complete with peaked hat, fresh pressed trousers, an acanthus in his lapel, and then— here we go again —some skinny guy comes up to give the introduction: “fighting pirates to a standstill. . international authority in matters of the sea. . colorful. . beloved spokesperson for seafood jerky. . etc.” He’s heard it so many times he’s almost nodding off.

Applause, and the Captain ascends the three steps to the lectern. Takes a deep breath. Go. Stands up straight and sort of squints, as if he is looking out through the mist from the wheelhouse, a look he practices some mornings through his front window. “It was a rainy morning in the Nicolas Islands, and I was at a little backwater port called Misha, south of Burma on the Andaman Sea,” he begins. He has a nice, deep voice; he always has.

The audience settles in. He can feel them relax. “The sky that day was as black as a. . and here he pauses not just for dramatic effect, but because he’s going to try out a new simile, and wants to get it right “. . a black bear that has just wandered into a subtropical river and now has emerged to stand dripping over a native, who, weary from a long day’s toil, lies taking a nap on his straw mat on the riverbank, unaware that this nap will be his last.” Does that work or does it go too far?

A few audience members shift in their seats; a couple pokes each other. The Captain is pleased. The truth is, he has only about six talks to draw on, total, but he figures that if he can keep changing up the similes and so forth, maybe people won’t notice. Still, sooner or later of course they will, and he’ll be out of a living. For now, however, the Captain remains what he is — a minor celebrity — and his talks have become a sort of St. Nils tradition, like the reading of “A Christmas Carol” at Christmas.

The Captain again looks out over the hall. Are the crowds getting smaller? He counts the empty chairs. Fifteen. It’s hard to say.

Raymond looks at the rows of ducks around him: At first we humans were animals just like you , he says to them. Then things started to change, until what have we become? What are we now?

The ducks remain silent, and they do not move at all.

TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION FROM THE TECHNICAL STAFF

Tech #1:

What is the name of this stuff they feed us, anyway?

Tech #2:

They don’t have a name for it, but I call it slop.