Jonathan Lethem - The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

“What?” said the teenage girl.

“Be rough with her,” said the one with the Afro. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

They threw Judith back against the sofa. Her robe was flung open, revealing her body to them. She was wearing panties, nothing else. She was conscious of her appendectomy scar. The teenage girl took the knife and perched at the other end, on the arm of the sofa. “Sit still,” she said.

“Search for stuff,” said the dinosaur with the Afro to the others.

“What stuff?” said one of the other dinosaurs.

“Shut up,” said the dinosaur with the Afro. “You know what I mean.”

The dinosaurs began tearing up the house, two in the bedroom, two in the kitchen. They cleared cabinets with a sweeping arm, dumped every drawer and container on the floor, then tipped each piece of furniture onto its front, away from the wall. It didn’t seem to Judith that they were really searching for anything, more like a ritual destruction. Even for that it was halfhearted.

The dinosaur with the Afro came out of her bedroom with both hands full of stuffing. They’d slashed her bed. He tossed the handfuls, and the stuffing scattered in clumps over Judith and the sofa. She pulled her robe closed.

“We’ve been watching you,” he said, sneering.

Judith didn’t say anything. The other dinosaurs came out and stood gathered there in front of her.

“We watch everyone,” the dinosaur said after a moment, as though he’d decided he didn’t want her to feel special after all.

“On this street?” said Judith. She wasn’t sure she understood what he meant.

“We’ve never been here before. You’d know if we’d been here, believe me.” The other dinosaurs laughed. One of them was poking at the sleepy man, checking his pockets and under the cushions of his chair.

“What did you see?” she asked him.

“You live like robots,” he said. “Don’t ask me any more questions.”

One of the dinosaurs stepped up and pulled her hair and poked her gently in the eye. “Sorry,” he said. Judith covered her eye with her hand. Another of the dinosaurs tuned the television to a station playing music, and turned the volume up so loud that the throb of the bass line was like an elephant’s footsteps muffled in static.

“Hold her,” said the dinosaur with the Afro. The girl on the sofa and the boy who’d poked Judith took her arms now and pinned her back against the cushions.

“What are you doing?” said Judith, frightened.

“Quiet.” The one giving the orders pulled a roll of duct tape from his jacket. Judith thought: $12.99. He ripped a short patch of tape from the roll and pasted it across her mouth and, inadvertently, her nose. She could breathe through only one nostril. Suddenly all of her attention was devoted to the need to continue breathing.

The leader pulled open her robe and tore away her panties. They were old and ripped easily. He hurled the rent garment at the sleepy man, and it spread like a butterfly across his stomach and the arm of his chair. “Wake him up,” said the leader. “Make him watch.”

The sleepy man’s head was to one side, his jaw slack. His right arm was still curled up beside his shoulder where it had held the cardboard tube. Judith wondered if they could sense the peacefulness that came from him. She saw in the corner of her vision that someone had knocked over the cactus, and it lay beside its pot in a sprawl of pebbles and dirt. She tried to struggle, but her arms were pinned back.

“Wake him up,” said the leader again. He unfastened his belt and knelt between Judith’s legs on the sofa. He didn’t have an erection.

Judith tried to say, “He’s asleep” but couldn’t make a sound, and the effort drained her of air, so she had to focus on breathing again. Her entire head felt hot with blood, and her body felt cold and numb. The dinosaur’s hand was on her chest, pressing her down as she tried to breathe. She imagined that her head was bright red and her body white and empty, sagging like the deflated growths of the cactus. She couldn’t feel her body, just her bright hot head and the burning hand of the dinosaur against her chest.

“Wake him.”

She saw that one of the dinosaurs, the eye poker, was slapping at the sleepy man now. Another was behind him, lifting the back of his chair, then jolting it down on the floor. She could barely hear the sounds over the noise of the television.

“Fuck, man.”

“Is he dead?”

“Dead to the world.”

He’s only sleeping, thought Judith.

The leader made a disgusted sound and awkwardly got himself free of the sofa and the tangle of Judith’s legs and robe. Judith felt his handprint fade from her chest. He went to the sleepy man and lifted his right eyelid, carefully, like a doctor. The other dinosaurs all watched. Then he buckled his belt and buttoned his pants. The television still blared, but it was the only sound. The girl released Judith’s arm. Judith tugged the duct tape away from her nose. One of the dinosaurs that had been trying to wake the sleepy man was in the kitchen now, eating something. Another was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth with Judith’s toothbrush. Judith pulled her robe closed.

The leader picked up the mailing tube and broke it easily over his knee. The halves didn’t separate, but remained bound by a flexible curl of cardboard. The dinosaur who’d been in the kitchen emerged, chewing, and holding a big piece of bread. The leader slapped it out of his hand, and it landed on the sleepy man’s lap, with the panties.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Can I take a shower?” said the tooth-brushing one from the bathroom.

Judith tore the patch of tape clear of her mouth. “It’s okay,” she said.

“Shut up,” said the leader, pointing at her, but his heart definitely wasn’t in it.

Judith cleaned up the mess and put everything that wasn’t broken back in its place. She repotted the cactus, which didn’t seem any the worse for wear, and put it on the kitchen windowsill where it had been before. Let the new growth take care of itself one way or the other, she thought. She didn’t really need a bigger cactus.

Then she moved him from upright in the chair to supine on the sofa. She realized now how much better that was, how much less pretentious. She considered putting him out on the porch, but that seemed a little extreme. What happened wasn’t his fault. The television went back into the closet; she didn’t know who she was fooling with that one. She missed falling asleep to the sound of his breathing anyway.

At work the next morning she was alone in the office, wondering what had happened to Tom and Eva, and whether she would always be alone here now, when she thought to check a calendar and discovered it was Saturday. She wasn’t supposed to be at work.

The militia came the following day. It had been raining through the night, and the air smelled washed. The sky was gray. They massed on her porch, admiral, lieutenant, sergeant, general, and others. They all wore baseball caps or hunting hats. Quick’s son was along, carrying a pair of sagging duffel bags. Perhaps he’d been deputized, Judith thought. If that was the word for it. They knocked on her door, and when she came out, it was the admiral who addressed her. He carried a walking stick, and he gestured with the end of it.

“They raped you, didn’t they?” he said.

“Not really,” she said.

“Brave girl,” said the admiral, shaking his head. Then he raised his stick and turned to the others. “They must be stopped,” he declared.

“I don’t think they’re around,” Judith said. “They went away.”

“We’ll find them,” said the admiral.

“They can feel us breathing down their necks,” said the sergeant, chuckling.