She took a pin and drove it firmly into the little humped back of the mouse. The skin dimpled at first, and then the point penetrated and the pin sank easily into the flesh. The mouse wiggled his tail quietly with pleasure. She stuck another pin into him, gently, pressing the head flush to the surface of his body with her fingertip.
—And yet there are those who fight against Time. I have shown you how it is necessary for men to order their existence into patterns, to have each thing happen for a set and known duration in time. I have shown you how it is imperative that a day be organized into little precise packets of time. And yet there are those who fight against this, those who do not see that the only defense, the only security against Chaos, is Order. You have met them, I have met them. They are a well-known type—the last in in the morning, first out at night type, so to speak.
She stuck more pins into the mouse, who remained still under her gentle hands. The pins were quite well spaced out over the little body and so she began to fill in the spaces between them. Soon there were whole patches where she could run her fingers over and feel nothing but the rounded heads of the pins, no flesh or fur at all.
—She resents Order. She gets on the bus in the morning and she tries to play games with Time, tries to stretch it out. And how does she do this? She retreats to the only place where Time is plastic and subjective, she retreats into Dream. She dreams Time away, making no use of its precious irrecoverable substance.
There was no more room left for pins now. The mouse was a little shivering silvery creature, a metalflesh mouse. No room for pins on the body. She took a pin and drove it tenderly into one of the tiny black eyes. There was a pop and a little bead of blood appeared. The mouse quivered with ecstasy and then lay still as she pierced his other eye, pop. Eyes of silver beads, body of silver foil, only the tail was flesh. She cut it off with a pair of sewing scissors and the mouse froze into metal immobility.
With the immobility of the mouse an awareness came to her senses and she realized that the room was silent. She looked up. Cherry and Mrs. Cox and the students were all looking at her. They had been looking at her for some time.
—You were not paying attention. What were you doing?
asked Cherry.
—WHAT WERE YOU DOING,
he roared, when she did not answer.
Mrs. Cox strode up to her and pulled the metal mouse from her hand. Cherry looked at it with horror and there was a gasp from the students. Cherry held the little mouse up in his big hand and it began to bleed. Each little pin-prick poured out blood so that his hand was red. Tears of blood streamed from the pierced eyes and the mouse died with a squeak.
—Oh no,
she cried,
—You’ve hurt him.
And then Mrs. Cox and Cherry took her outside and the wind made her white robe flutter. The temple was bathed white with light from the moon and the pillars shone silvery. They each took one of her hands and ran, pulling her lightly between them, and they ran at the pillars, one on either side, she between, and they ran straight at the stone pillars and she was smashed and crushed and torn on the hard stone and then through the other side and the next pillar loomed up and she was smashed and torn and then through the other side and she died with shock each time the pillars crushed her. A bell began to ring. Police?
She leaned over and switched off the alarm clock. Her body was slippery with sweat.
She washed and pinned her hair up.
She put on her white robe.
She walked to the bus stop, birdlike, cloudy folds of white robe floating around her.
At work Mrs. Cox said,
—You’re looking a bit haggard, dear. Bags under your eyes. Not getting enough sleep, I expect. Went to Dr. Cherry’s lecture, did you?
She ignored her and began her work.
—Mr. Cherry wants to see you, dear. Shouldn’t worry—it can’t be anything serious. Gor, you do look tired.
Mr. Cherry said,
—Sit down, do, Miss Taylor. Just a general chat, nice robe you’re wearing, by the way. It’s come to my notice that your heart isn’t exactly in your work. You know, last in in the morning, first out at night principle, and I just wanted to have an informal talk with you . . .
The droning words buzzed sleepily above her. She felt a tickling on her hand. She looked down and saw that a little mouse had crawled onto her knee and was nuzzling her folded hands. She proceeded to stick pins into the humped flesh of his back.
—I know you resent Order,
Mr. Cherry was saying,
—but you must know that human existence has to be ordered into little precise packets of time. Everything must have a known duration. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Of course it is, and if there’s going to be any defense, any security against Chaos, everybody must live inside those little packets, because that means Order, and Order defeats Chaos. Everyone, mark you. If one single person lives outside Time that person represents a threat to Humanity, a chink through which Chaos can work its insidious intent, so to speak.
The little mouse’s body was quite covered with pins now and there was no room for any more. And so she stuck pins into his eyes, pop pop.
She looked up and saw that Mr. Cherry was watching her, had been watching her for a long time.
—What are you doing?
he asked.
She lifted her hand and showed him the little mouse. He took it from her in his big hand and it began to bleed. Each little pin-prick poured out blood so that his hand was red. Tears of blood streamed from the pierced eyes and the mouse died with a squeak.
She began to cry and great waving sobs shook her whole body.
—Oh, you’ve hurt him,
she cried.
And then Mr. Cherry and Mrs. Cox came and took her gently by the arms and someone gave her tea and sat her down. Then a man in a uniform came and they lifted her into the ambulance and Mr. Cherry and Mrs. Cox were saying soft, gentle things. She lay in the rocking bunk and saw the mudstains on her white robe and a little mouse nuzzled friendly against her hand.
After the hospital it was sausage and egg for tea. Then she read for half an hour and then she stared at the wall for half an hour, hugging her legs against the heat from the electric fire. Records, magazines and a bedtime cocoa.
Mrs. Cox said,
—You’re looking very haggard these days, dear. Bags under your eyes. Not getting enough sleep, I expect. My Ronnie’s the same—out till all hours doing God knows what. I tell him the same as you—you need more sleep, my lad, instead of gallivanting God knows where in the middle of the night. But does he listen? Talk to the wall.
Mrs. Cox was boring but she liked listening to her because she could sometimes smell her damp musty odor, like potatoes too long in the earth. She also liked to look at Mrs. Cox’s wart with the long hairs growing out of it.
She began to work on the pile of invoices in front of her. After a while she simply sat with pen in hand, dreaming. The invoices were exactly the same as the ones she had checked yesterday and they were the same as the ones she would check tomorrow. She dreamed of unpredictable things, coils and spirals that led nowhere, instead of straight lines that led to clearly signposted destinations.
—Mr. Cherry wants to see you, dear,
said Mrs. Cox.
—Just his usual pep talk, I expect. Nothing to worry about.
Mr. Cherry said,
—Sit down, do, Miss Taylor.
—No, over here if you don’t mind,
she silently mouthed, just before he actually spoke the words.
—Where I can see you,
he continued.
—Don’t get much chance to see a pretty face stuck behind this desk, ha ha. Well, just a general chat, dear. Just to see how you’re getting on in the office, so to speak. How’re you doing then, any complaints?
She murmured something.
—Good, good. I like happy staff. One of my, so to speak, sayings, is that happy staff plus clever management
equals good work. I’ve learned the truth of that myself over the years. I remember a girl we had here, about the same age as you in fact, moped about all day with a face as long as a fiddle. I tell you, it was downright depressing . . .
Afterwards there were more invoices and a tea break. Then there was lunch—two salad sandwiches and a Coke jammed into an hour—and then there were more invoices, and then another tea break and then it was getting near time to go home.
A bell began to ring. Finishing bell?
She leaned over and switched off the alarm clock. The floor of the temple was cold and hard and early sun was striking into her eyes. She washed herself and then donned her white robe, so light that it clung to her like haze. She walked to work, watching the one-winged birds spinning crazily in the sky, trying to fly from tree to tree.
At work Mrs. Cox said,
—You shouldn’t try to attend all of Dr. Cherry’s lectures, you know. You’re not getting enough sleep. Bags under your eyes. In fact, Dr. Cherry’s noticed it himself. Said he wanted to see you as soon as you came in. You’d better go now.
She walked along the corridor to Cherry’s office. The floor and the ceiling and the walls of the corridor were white. It was hard to see, in the dazzling radiance, where floor ended and walls began, or whether there actually was a ceiling or simply a continuation of the walls. The corridor curved very slightly, so little that it was hardly noticeable except as a change in the quality of the sourceless light. She looked back. Only white. Nothing behind her but white.
There was complete silence. A vacuum of silence. Only the rustle of her white robe and her breathing made any sound. The sounds were sucked dry by the silent vacuum.
She walked on. Cherry’s office could not be much farther.
She stopped. There was a faint susurration behind her. A soft, deep-drawn hissing. She listened closely and made out the sounds of breathing and rustling clothing. She turned but there was nothing behind her. She walked faster and again stopped. Holding her breath, she heard the soft sounds still behind her, the breathing sounding more labored.
She began to run, her body almost formless in the dazzling light, the corridor curving gently away ahead of her. She ran and ran, driving her legs hard against the floor, panting painfully. The corridor turned before her on its unseen axis.
At last she could run no more and stopped to listen. The sound was still there, but it did not seem to be coming from behind. She looked before her. A figure in a filmy robe walked slowly along the corridor, almost formless in the sourceless radiance.
The breathing and rustling behind her began again as the pursuer caught up. She ran forward, not wishing to be caught, not wishing to catch up with the white figure ahead.
The corridor curved and suddenly came to an end. She saw an exit through which the white-robed figure was disappearing. She ran forward and reached the exit. The breathing behind her grew louder and louder. She looked out of the end of the corridor into an enormous room. Not far from where she stood was a white toilet and Cherry and two workmen stood near it. Something bulky lay under a sheet and the white figure stood looking at it.
Cherry ordered the carcase of the Negro woman to be lowered into the white toilet. The carcase was a shapeless lump of lardy white, ridged with gristle. The block and tackle creaked as the two workmen hauled at it, hand by hand, and Cherry made little sounds with his mouth as he directed the lowering.
The mouth of the white figure opened.
The breathing behind her came closer and closer, the mouth opened, opened, the tongue stirring for speech. She looked behind and saw a figure in a white robe and as the coils tightened around her, she said,
—Cherry, why are you doing this to her?
<
* * * *
Sonya Doramn
TIME BIND
AT SCHOOL they had called me Lightfoot, which saved me from being called Brain, or Filmworm, or something like that. Still, no one will ever know what sweat the combining of my talents caused me during my efforts, finally successful, to get into the Time Complex Building. I did it night after night (time after time, if you like) lightfooted, my kindled brain already at work as the microfilm passed before me on one of the office screens.
I was a quick study. My mother used to scold me for the speed with which I tore through homework, sometimes while braiding my hair, or filing my nails, any little chore done by the physical half of me while my demented and forceful twin, the head, galloped off with essay prizes, runner-up in physics contests, Science Fair winner, and all that.
There was still the problem of getting into the central vault of Time Complex, which necessitated further studies but easier ones, since the material was actually available at the library, if you knew where to look for it. Nobody paid me any attention when I tramped through, I’d been in and out of there for so many years; yesterday and today and, they could be sure, tomorrow too, with the squint line getting deeper between my eyes and my once fair skin fading.
Lightfoot I still was, all the same, having taken pleasure in staying in decent shape, even while the brain went on sloughing off its neurons. If I had drunk less sake would my short-term memory have lasted longer? Ah, that’s one of those questions . . .
I’ve reached an age where details bore me, so I won’t go into them, about how I did learn the secrets of the vault door. They weren’t really secrets, hardly anything physical is; you just have to gather up the pieces of information, like the ingredients for a recipe, and blend them.
There remained for me one scary part: my first trip. Head and body out of sync, I’d be done for. All of me in sync but time warped, like an old doorway, and I’d be done for. Of course, that was the risk I knew I’d have to face.
No glass booth. No dais with leather strappings on the chair. A green plastex console and at the right of it, set into the vault floor, some metal slats, tightly closed like a fist. Oh, just open up and let me dive through. I thought, listening to the solemn tread of the guard. I smiled in my conspiracy with the console. What would the guard think if he came in, seeing a middleaged woman with grey in her hair, setting the console dials and muttering hope? Muttering dialogues which had never been but might be? Taking both parts, her and him, me and you?
There was absolutely no sensation at all, but almost instantaneously I was in a big lecture hall, lightfoot, in acrylic pants which slid like fingers over my taut haunches. Wearing my double strand of ambers and a nose-clock. The lecture is just over and he stands with a group of his peers near the podium. With all my nights of rehearsal behind me I speed toward him, hand outstretched, smiling.
“Oh, how very nice to see you!” he says, and I plunge into their midst, reeking of anticipation, well aware of the impression I make and afraid that I’ll lose my not very good balance at this game.
“I enjoyed your paper very much,” I say, “in fact, I thought it was superb, and full of surprises.”
His smile is always shy. Of course he hasn’t got twenty years of rehearsal behind him as I have. “How nice of you to say so,” he says. His eyes are blue. I always knew they were. “You’re looking well,” he says, holding my hand.
“You’re looking simply marvelous,” I say, closing his hand up warmly between my palms and holding on more than is necessary.
“Why don’t we—?”
“Yes, couldn’t we—?”
Here some inadvertence occurs, possibly I slipped on the slats or something, and the lecture hall vanishes, it’s pitch-dark in some place comfy, I’m laid out on my back and he’s just climbing on.
“Darling,” he says, kissing my breasts alternately.
“Oh that feels so good,” I say, helping him while at the same time wondering, frantically, where we left his friends and how we got here and what the hell happened in the interval? I expected a lot of that machine but hardly that it would book hotel reservations, so where am I?
There is a tremendous sound of hammering and before he even has time to roll off
I’m poured back through the years to stand beside the console, hearing the noise in the corridor outside the vault door. It was just that damned guard, drumming out a new dance step, which echoed highly magnified through the alloy archways.
After I caught my breath, which took a while, I checked the time, I checked the dials. There was no explanation for what happened, for the timing to be so badly off. There hadn’t even been time for any conversation. I mean, I never found out how he really was, whether he was working up a new paper. Obviously there was a lot about this business I still had to learn. Back to the library. Back to the lightfoot entry to all those offices upstairs in the Time Complex Building.
Orbit 13 - [Anthology] Page 17