“I don’t believe you.”
“Feel the earth. Stay here as long as you like tonight and watch it happen.”
I touched the ground again. The vibration was stronger. It was frightening and enthralling. “What if I don’t want to do it anymore? What if no one does?”
“Then it will stand as it is, unnoticed and forgotten, until one day another man realizes what it is and begins work again.”
“Why me?”
“You never tire of asking that question. Because you are a child of Nimrod and because you are an inspired artist. But most of all, because today you chose to help rather than save yourself. That’s why you will be allowed to go on, if you want.
“Yet I must also tell you nothing will be given. Cthulu will now win his war with Hassan and it will become very dangerous and difficult for you to go on, even if you choose to. It’s also very possible that working on it for the rest of your life, you will still fail. There are no guarantees. There is only the sweetness of work and the undying hope of achievement.”
I stood up slowly. Palm did too. I reached over and, touching his face again, felt the invisible hand on my own. “What about Claire? Will she leave me now?”
“I don’t know.” He grinned and put his hand over mine on his face. “They don’t tell me everything.”
“Is it true, Palm? Everything you said?”
“Yes, Harry. It’s all true.”
“Who were the deer and the dog?”
“The world is full of other things. Some are friendly, some aren’t.”
“What are my chances of succeeding?”
Grinning wider, he shrugged. “Knowing you, more than fifty fifty, I would guess.”
“What if I—”
“Ssh. Watch now.”
We cannot take a single step towards heaven.
It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction.
If however we look heavenward for a long time,
God comes and takes us up.
He raises us easily.
ALSO BY JONATHAN CAROLL
The Land of Laughs
Voice of Our Shadow
Bones of the Moon
Sleeping in Flame
A Child Across the Sky
Black Cocktail
After Silence
From the Teeth of Angels
The Panic Hand
Kissing the Beehive
The Marriage of Sticks
The Wooden Sea
White Apples
JONATHAN CARROLL is the globally praised author of The Land of Laughs, The Wooden Sea, and White Apples. He currently lives and writes in Vienna, Austria.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM
Copyright © 1992 by Jonathan Carroll
Originally published in 1992 by Bantam Books, New York
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Edited by Ellen Datlow
An Orb Edition
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Book design by Nicole de las Heras
eISBN 9781466820784
First eBook Edition : April 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carroll, Jonathan, 1949—
Outside the dog museum / Jonathan Carroll.—1st Orb. ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 0-765-31185-2
EAN 978-0765-31185-6
1. Architects—Fiction. 2. Neurasthenia—Patients—Fiction. 3. Museum architecture—Fiction. 4. Dogs—Museums—Fiction. 5. Divorced men—Fiction. 6. Sultans—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.A7646O87 2005
813’.54—dc22
2004066288
Outside the Dog Museum Page 26