Bradbury, Ray - Chapbook 18 by Skeletons (v5.0) Page B

point. And those funny short ones are floating
ribs.’
                 ‘I hope they don’t float around too
much.’ The joke was most uneasy. Now, above all, he wished to be alone. Further
discoveries, newer and stranger archaeological diggings, lay within reach of
his trembling hands, and he did not wish to be laughed at.
                 ‘Thanks for coming in, dear,’ he
said.
                 ‘Any time.’ She rubbed her small nose softly against his.
                 ‘Wait! Here, now…’ He put his finger
to touch his nose and hers. ‘Did you realize? The nose-bone grows down only this far. From there on a lot of gristly tissue fills out the rest!’
                 She wrinkled hers. ‘Of
course, darling!’ And she danced from the room.
                 Now, sitting alone, he felt the
perspiration rise from the pools and hollows of his face, to flow in a thin
tide down his cheeks. He licked his lips and shut his eyes. Now…now…next on the
agenda, what…? The spinal cord, yes. Here. Slowly, he
examined it, in the same way he operated the many
push-buttons in his office, thrusting them to summon secretaries, messengers.
But now, in these pushings of his spinal column,
fears and terrors answered, rushed from a million doors in his mind to confront
and shake him! His spine felt horribly—unfamiliar. Like the brittle shards of a
fish, freshly eaten, its bones left strewn on a cold china platter. He seized
the little rounded knobbins . ‘Lord! Lord!’
                 His teeth began to chatter. God
All-Mighty! he thought, why haven’t I realized it all
these years? All these years I’ve gone around with a— skeleton —inside me!
How is it we take ourselves for granted? How is it we
never question our bodies and our being?
                 A skeleton. One of those jointed, snowy, hard things, one of those foul, dry, brittle,
gouge-eyed, skull-faced, shake-fingered, rattling things that sway from
neck-chains in abandoned webbed closets, one of those things found on the
desert all long and scattered like dice!
                 He stood upright, because he could
not bear to remain seated. Inside me now, he grasped his stomach, his head,
inside my head is a—skull. One of those curved carapaces
which holds my brain like an electrical jelly, one of those cracked
shells with the holes in front like two holes shot through it by a
double-barreled shotgun! With its grottoes and caverns of bone, its revetments
and placements for my flesh, my smelling, my seeing, my hearing, my thinking! A
skull, encompassing my brain, allowing it exit through its brittle windows to
see the outside world!
                 He wanted to dash into the bridge
party, upset it, a fox in a chicken-yard, the cards fluttering all around like
chicken feathers burst upward in clouds! He stopped himself only with a
violent, trembling effort. Now, now, man, control yourself. This is a
revelation, take it for what it’s worth, understand it, savor it. But a skeleton ! screamed his subconscious.
I won’t stand for it. It’s vulgar, it’s terrible, it’s frightening. Skeletons are horrors: they clink and tinkle and rattle in old
castles, hung from oaken beams, making long, indolently rustling pendulums on
the wind…
                 ‘Darling, will you come meet the
ladies?’ His wife’s clear, sweet voice called from far away.
                 Mr Harris
stood. His skeleton held him up! This thing inside, this invader this
horror, was supporting his arms, legs, and head! It was like feeling someone
just behind you who shouldn’t be there. With every step, he realized how
dependent he was on this other Thing.
                 ‘Darling, I’ll be with you in a
moment,’ he called weakly. To himself he said, Come on, brace up! You’ve got to
go back to work tomorrow. Friday you must make that trip to Phoenix .
It’s a long