roaring with. It wasn't like that. The Gavin-feeling
was
the mist, it
was
the roaring, and they were all that Gavin was, all he would ever be, all he would ever know….
No. Now something … What … ? Where … ?
Nowhere.
A yellow bucket in that nowhere, half full of filthy water. The water slopping about, starting to rise, slopping out over the edges, sluicing over the floor, rising, rising, a stupid little bit of green cloth to wipe it up with … horrible, horrible … he didn't know why …
Gone.
Red mist and roaring and thuds …
Voices … People talking close by. What are they saying? Can't hear through the thuds and the roaring. Call to them, shout for help!
Can't. No voice, nothing to shout with …
Gone.
Oh, please come back! Please!
Red mist and roaring and thuds…
Now something … somewhere … happening to someone …
Someone leaning on a bulwark at the side of a ship, looking out over an intensely dark blue sea. Heavy, slow waves under a clear pale sky. Between sky and sea, all along the horizon, a line of dazzling whiteness, brighter, whiter than the foam that rimmed the waves. Gavin knew, because the someone knew, what was being looked at. The whiteness was the floes and glaciers of the Antarctic, on the far side of the world.
Now the someone looked downward, and saw the greasy black side of the ship, with a great shape close against it, a shape heaving to the heave of the waves, pale on its near side, blue-black on its far side, and streaked across with scarlet as the blood pumped from three wounds, each made by a stocky harpoon that was stuck deep in the flesh of the dying whale. There was an open boat alongside the whale, men working cables round the immense body.
The someone was shaking his head. Gavin could feel two separate lots of feelings, the Gavin-thing-in-the-bubble's own shock and anguish at what was being done to the whale, and the someone's, which were grimmer and more complicated, revulsion and sorrow mixed in with anger and guilt.
Still looking at the whale, the someone spoke to the man beside him. The man laughed contemptuously….
But before Gavin could grasp the moment, fix it, understand where it belonged and how he belonged with it, the mist came surging back, pulsing to the steady unending thuds, and once again they were all there was, all that Gavin Robinson was— the eyeless, earless, bodiless almost-nothing he had somehow become….
It happened again and again and again. The mist dissolved, the roaring and the thuds ended, and there was a moment, a glimpse, an empty can, a broken gate, a dead bird in the gutter, meaningless things but somehow awful with loss or awful with disgust, loss and disgust that stayed like a taste in the mouth long after the red mist had swallowed the stupid things and swept them away.
And then, sometimes, something else, something that seemed to promise the beginnings of sense and meaning in the middle of the meaningless mess, but before he could grasp and use it to find out what was happening to him, it slipped away and there wasn't anything left to make sense of.
It wasn't always the dying whale, though that kept coming back, but so did the woman in the green dress walking on the shore at Stonehaven and talking over her shoulder to a kid behind her; only the kid wasn't listening because he'd stopped to try and drag a bit of old rope out of a pile of seaweed. Someone was watching her. The woman was Gran, but she wasn't, the way people are and aren't themselves in dreams sometimes, and Gavin wanted to call to her for help, but he hadn't got anything to call with. The someone wanted to callto her too, because he was fond of her and thought it was funny and typical that she should be talking away when there wasn't anyone to listen to her—Gavin could feel that on top of his own feelings—but before either of them could do anything the mist and the roaring and the thuds took over again.
And the same with everything else: nighttime, angry
was
the mist, it
was
the roaring, and they were all that Gavin was, all he would ever be, all he would ever know….
No. Now something … What … ? Where … ?
Nowhere.
A yellow bucket in that nowhere, half full of filthy water. The water slopping about, starting to rise, slopping out over the edges, sluicing over the floor, rising, rising, a stupid little bit of green cloth to wipe it up with … horrible, horrible … he didn't know why …
Gone.
Red mist and roaring and thuds …
Voices … People talking close by. What are they saying? Can't hear through the thuds and the roaring. Call to them, shout for help!
Can't. No voice, nothing to shout with …
Gone.
Oh, please come back! Please!
Red mist and roaring and thuds…
Now something … somewhere … happening to someone …
Someone leaning on a bulwark at the side of a ship, looking out over an intensely dark blue sea. Heavy, slow waves under a clear pale sky. Between sky and sea, all along the horizon, a line of dazzling whiteness, brighter, whiter than the foam that rimmed the waves. Gavin knew, because the someone knew, what was being looked at. The whiteness was the floes and glaciers of the Antarctic, on the far side of the world.
Now the someone looked downward, and saw the greasy black side of the ship, with a great shape close against it, a shape heaving to the heave of the waves, pale on its near side, blue-black on its far side, and streaked across with scarlet as the blood pumped from three wounds, each made by a stocky harpoon that was stuck deep in the flesh of the dying whale. There was an open boat alongside the whale, men working cables round the immense body.
The someone was shaking his head. Gavin could feel two separate lots of feelings, the Gavin-thing-in-the-bubble's own shock and anguish at what was being done to the whale, and the someone's, which were grimmer and more complicated, revulsion and sorrow mixed in with anger and guilt.
Still looking at the whale, the someone spoke to the man beside him. The man laughed contemptuously….
But before Gavin could grasp the moment, fix it, understand where it belonged and how he belonged with it, the mist came surging back, pulsing to the steady unending thuds, and once again they were all there was, all that Gavin Robinson was— the eyeless, earless, bodiless almost-nothing he had somehow become….
It happened again and again and again. The mist dissolved, the roaring and the thuds ended, and there was a moment, a glimpse, an empty can, a broken gate, a dead bird in the gutter, meaningless things but somehow awful with loss or awful with disgust, loss and disgust that stayed like a taste in the mouth long after the red mist had swallowed the stupid things and swept them away.
And then, sometimes, something else, something that seemed to promise the beginnings of sense and meaning in the middle of the meaningless mess, but before he could grasp and use it to find out what was happening to him, it slipped away and there wasn't anything left to make sense of.
It wasn't always the dying whale, though that kept coming back, but so did the woman in the green dress walking on the shore at Stonehaven and talking over her shoulder to a kid behind her; only the kid wasn't listening because he'd stopped to try and drag a bit of old rope out of a pile of seaweed. Someone was watching her. The woman was Gran, but she wasn't, the way people are and aren't themselves in dreams sometimes, and Gavin wanted to call to her for help, but he hadn't got anything to call with. The someone wanted to callto her too, because he was fond of her and thought it was funny and typical that she should be talking away when there wasn't anyone to listen to her—Gavin could feel that on top of his own feelings—but before either of them could do anything the mist and the roaring and the thuds took over again.
And the same with everything else: nighttime, angry
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