yellow target from Anna’s flashlight was on the ceiling; it shifted, she was going into their room and I could hear them, Anna breathing, a fast panic sound as though she was running; then her voice began, not like her real voice but twisted as her face must have been, a desperate beggar’s whine, please please. I put the pillow over my head, I didn’t want to listen, I wanted it to be through but it kept on, Shut up I whispered but she wouldn’t. She was praying to herself, it was as if David wasn’t there at all. Jesus jesus oh yes please jesus. Then something different, not a word but pure pain, clear as water, an animal’s at the moment the trap closes.
It’s like death, I thought, the bad part isn’t the thing itself but being a witness. I suppose they could hear us too, the times before. But I never say anything.
CHAPTER TEN
The sunset had been red, reddish purple, and the next day the sun held as I guessed it would; without a radio or a barometer you have to make your own prophecies. It was the second day of the week, I was ticking them off in my head, prisoner’s scratches on the wall; I felt stretched, pulled tight like a drying rope, the fact that he had not yet appeared only increased the possibility that he would. The seventh day seemed a great distance away.
I wanted to get them off the island, to protect them from him, to protect him from them, save all of them from knowledge. They might start to explore, cut other trails; already they were beginning to be restless: fire and food, the only two necessities, were taken care of and there was nothing left to be done. Sun rising, drifting across the sky, shadows changing without help, uninterrupted air, absence of defining borders, the only break an occasional distant plane, vapour streak, for them it must have been like living in a hammock.
In the morning David fished from the dock, catching nothing; Anna read, she was on her fourth or fifth paperback. I swept the floor, the broom webbing itself with long threads, dark and light, from where Anna and I brushed our hair in front of the mirror; then I tried to work. Joe stayed on the wall bench, arms wrapped around his knees in lawn-dwarf position, watching me. Every time I glanced up his eyes would be there, blue as ball point pens or Superman; even with my head turned away I could feel his x-ray vision prying under my skin, a slight prickling sensation as though he was tracing me. It was hard to concentrate; I re-read two of the folk tales, about the king who learned to speak with animals and the fountain of life, but I got no further than a rough sketch of a thing that looked like a football player. It was supposed to be a giant.
“What’s wrong?” I said to him finally, putting down my brush, giving up.
“Nothing,” he said. He took the cover off the butter dish and started carving holes in the butter with his forefinger.
I should have realized much earlier what was happening, I should have got out of it when we were still in the city. It was unfair of me to stay with him, he’d become used to it, hooked on it, but I didn’t realize that and neither did he. When you can’t tell the difference between your own pleasure and your pain then you’re an addict. I did that, I fed him unlimited supplies of nothing, he wasn’t ready for it, it was too strong for him, he had to fill it up, like people isolated in a blank room who see patterns.
After lunch they all sat around expectantly, as though waiting for me to dole out the crayons and plasticine or regiment the sing-song, tell them what to play. I searched through the past: what did we do when it was sunny and there was no work?
“How would you like,” I said, “to pick some blueberries?” Offering it as a surprise; work disguised in some other form, it had to be a game.
They seized on it, glad of the novelty. “A groove,” David said. Anna and I made peanut butter sandwiches for a mid-afternoon snack; then we basted our noses and the
It’s like death, I thought, the bad part isn’t the thing itself but being a witness. I suppose they could hear us too, the times before. But I never say anything.
CHAPTER TEN
The sunset had been red, reddish purple, and the next day the sun held as I guessed it would; without a radio or a barometer you have to make your own prophecies. It was the second day of the week, I was ticking them off in my head, prisoner’s scratches on the wall; I felt stretched, pulled tight like a drying rope, the fact that he had not yet appeared only increased the possibility that he would. The seventh day seemed a great distance away.
I wanted to get them off the island, to protect them from him, to protect him from them, save all of them from knowledge. They might start to explore, cut other trails; already they were beginning to be restless: fire and food, the only two necessities, were taken care of and there was nothing left to be done. Sun rising, drifting across the sky, shadows changing without help, uninterrupted air, absence of defining borders, the only break an occasional distant plane, vapour streak, for them it must have been like living in a hammock.
In the morning David fished from the dock, catching nothing; Anna read, she was on her fourth or fifth paperback. I swept the floor, the broom webbing itself with long threads, dark and light, from where Anna and I brushed our hair in front of the mirror; then I tried to work. Joe stayed on the wall bench, arms wrapped around his knees in lawn-dwarf position, watching me. Every time I glanced up his eyes would be there, blue as ball point pens or Superman; even with my head turned away I could feel his x-ray vision prying under my skin, a slight prickling sensation as though he was tracing me. It was hard to concentrate; I re-read two of the folk tales, about the king who learned to speak with animals and the fountain of life, but I got no further than a rough sketch of a thing that looked like a football player. It was supposed to be a giant.
“What’s wrong?” I said to him finally, putting down my brush, giving up.
“Nothing,” he said. He took the cover off the butter dish and started carving holes in the butter with his forefinger.
I should have realized much earlier what was happening, I should have got out of it when we were still in the city. It was unfair of me to stay with him, he’d become used to it, hooked on it, but I didn’t realize that and neither did he. When you can’t tell the difference between your own pleasure and your pain then you’re an addict. I did that, I fed him unlimited supplies of nothing, he wasn’t ready for it, it was too strong for him, he had to fill it up, like people isolated in a blank room who see patterns.
After lunch they all sat around expectantly, as though waiting for me to dole out the crayons and plasticine or regiment the sing-song, tell them what to play. I searched through the past: what did we do when it was sunny and there was no work?
“How would you like,” I said, “to pick some blueberries?” Offering it as a surprise; work disguised in some other form, it had to be a game.
They seized on it, glad of the novelty. “A groove,” David said. Anna and I made peanut butter sandwiches for a mid-afternoon snack; then we basted our noses and the
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