Stacey Levine - Dra-

Swinging above, the man looked down at the Administrator and screamed, “No more secret agreements!”

The Administrator shielded her face. “What do you mean?” she called. “There really are none! Not here, not involving me,” but the man responded with a hot, long, angry scream as he swung insensibly to and fro and tears oiled his lean, sallow face.

“Maybe he feels most alive up there,” the Administrator said wonderingly. “Yesterday, when I asked him why it gives him such pleasure,”—her voice rose to the man—“he only laughed and said, ‘Dogs have their day!’ ”

A tone sounded, and the Administrator went to the wall shelf, from which she pulled a fine, hairlike telephone made of, it seemed, strands of filament, which she wrapped around her hand before holding the instrument to her ear. The caller must have been very close to her, Dra— reasoned, for the Administrator did not speak, but only made a single, soothing affirmative tone in her throat before putting the phone away.

The Administrator turned back to Dra—. “I’ve been trying to keep him from being locked away in an awful, awful place! He can’t go to work now, you see. But rage is not so odd, after all,” she mused, facing Dra— with a look of copious, concerned interest. “Neither is fear.”

Again she took Dra—’s hand. “Once, I knew a young man who contained such terrible rage inside him that one night, his pupil blew out. I knew a girl once, too, whose heart spat out all its blood and, breathing only air, it died. I asked myself, ‘What if you were in that position, suffering so from rage?’ Of course you’d think about your mother, but beyond that I really must admit that I wouldn’t know what to do,” she gently concluded.

She called out to the man, “Come and be with us? Won’t you come down?” as he sailed past again, laughing in an upset manner.

“I hear what you say!” he screamed. “I’ve heard you at night, too, talking through the intercoms. Oh,” he crowed, clenching and unclenching his hands on the sides of the net, “I have known for the longest time that you keep secrets!”

Looking burdened, the Administrator tugged at Dra—’s arm, turning to leave. “There are so many theories, but none is adequate or even true! Perhaps there’s nothing we can do for him,” she said sadly, while above the man steered and twisted the net in a deft manner such that he skimmed within a few inches of their heads, then rose quickly toward the ceiling.

He began to scream fitfully, face growing purple, and he pumped his body in order to swing the net even higher, nearly upending himself. Sweat dropped sadly from his face and presently the swinging slowed; then he lay limp in the net, face pressed into its ropes. He raised his head. “Don’t leave,” he called out in a different tone, and he pointed to his wrapped feet, which were very sore, he said, owing to a recent course of surgery.

“Exhaustion prevents me from being more articulate, but let me try,” he said. “My former Administrator wanted to talk to me about my feet, but before she could, I opted for surgery instead. The toes needed a considerable thinning; they were far too wide, unreasonably so, and they weren’t long enough either, and the spaces between each toe needed to be deepened. So the doctor took care of it. It was a success all around! My ears needed to be clipped and flattened too, a routine piece of work, so he did that as well. But I chose surgery all on my own, with no prompting from anyone! I was proud of that. When my feet and ears heal, the scars will grow into webs of skin that will also need to be cut away, but after that, the entire ordeal will be finished. That excites me!”

He fell back into the net, which rocked imperceptibly above them, and he sang quietly to himself, as if that helped him negotiate his exhaustion.

STACEY LEVINE is the author of My Horse and Other Stories, Dra—, Frances Johnson, and The Girl with Brown Fur: Tales and Stories. She has received a PEN/West Award and The Stranger ’s Genius Award for Literature in 2009. She lives in Seattle, Washington.