by Ray Bradbury
She waited and nodded her head once.
Then both of them started.
For standing between them, they knew not for how long, was their son, an empty pop bottle in one hand.
The boy’s face was pale. With his free hand he reached out to touch his father’s cheek, where the single tear had made its track.
‘You,’ he said. ‘Oh, Dad, you. You haven’t anyone to play with, either.’
The wife started to speak.
The husband moved to take the boy’s hand.
The boy jerked back. ‘Silly! Oh, silly! Silly fools! Oh, you dumb, dumb!’ And, whirling, he rushed down to the ocean and stood there crying loudly.
The wife rose to follow, but the husband stopped her.
‘No. Let him.’
And then they both grew cold and quiet. For the boy, below on the shore, crying steadily, now was writing on a piece of paper and stuffing it in the pop bottle and ramming the cap back on and taking the bottle and giving it a great glittering heave up in the air and out into the tidal sea.
What, thought the wife, what did he write on the note? What’s in the bottle?
The bottle moved out in the waves.
The boy stopped crying.
After a long while he walked up the shore, to stand looking at his parents. His face was neither bright nor dark, alive nor dead, ready nor resigned; it seemed a curious mixture that simply made do with time, weather and these people. They looked at him and beyond to the bay, where the bottle containing the scribbled note was almost out of sight now, shining in the waves.
Did he write what we wanted? thought the woman. Did he write what he heard us just wish, just say?
Or did he write something for only himself, she wondered, that tomorrow he might wake and find himself alone in an empty world, no one around, no man, no woman, no father, no mother, no fool grownups with fool wishes, so he could trudge up to the railroad tracks and take the handcar motoring, a solitary boy, across the continental wilderness, on eternal voyages and picnics?
Is that what he wrote in the note?
Which?
She searched his colorless eyes, could not read the answer; dared not ask.
Gull shadows sailed over and kited their faces with sudden passing coolness.
‘Time to go,’ someone said.
They loaded the wicker basket onto the rail car. The woman tied her large bonnet securely in place with its yellow ribbon, they set the boy’s pail of shells on the floorboards, then the husband put on his tie, his vest, his coat, his hat, and they all sat on the benches of the car looking out at the sea where the bottled note was far out, blinking, on the horizon.
‘Is asking enought?’ said the boy. ‘Does wishing work?’
‘Sometimes…too well.’
‘It depends on what you ask for.’
The boy nodded, his eyes far away.
They looked back at where they had come from, and then ahead to where they were going.
‘Good-by, place,’ said the boy, and waved.
The car rolled down the rusty rails. The sound of it dwindled, faded. The man, the woman, the boy dwindled with it in distance, among the hills.
After they were gone, the rail trembled faintly for two minutes, and ceased. A flake of rust fell. A flower nodded.
The sea was very loud.
The Illustrated Woman
When a new patient wanders into the office and stretches out to stutter forth a compendious ticker tape of free association, it is up to the psychiatrist immediately beyond, behind and above to decide at just which points of the anatomy the client is in touch with the couch.
In other words, where does the patient make contact with reality?
Some people seem to float half an inch above any surface whatsoever. They have not seen earth in so long, they have become somewhat airsick.
Still others so firmly weight themselves down, clutch, thrust, heave their bodies toward reality, that long after they are gone you find their tiger shapes and claw marks in the upholstery.
In the case of Emma Fleet, Dr George C. George was a long time deciding which was furniture and which was woman and where what touched which.
For, to begin with, Emma Fleet resembled a couch.
‘Mrs Emma Fleet, Doctor,’ announced his receptionist.
Dr George C. George gasped.
For it was a traumatic experience, seeing this woman shunt herself through the door without benefit of railroad switchman or the ground crews who rush about under Macy’s Easter balloons, heaving on lines, guiding the massive images to some eternal hangar off beyond.
In came Emma Fleet, as quick as her name, the floor shifting like a huge set of scales under her weight.
Dr George must have gasped again, guessing her at four hundred on the hoof, for Emma Fleet smiled as if reading his mind.
‘Four hundred two and a half pounds, to be exact,’ she said.
He found himself staring at his furniture.
‘Oh, it’ll hold all right,’ said Mrs Fleet intuitively.
She sat down.
The couch yelped like a cur.
Dr George cleared his throat. ‘Before you make yourself comfortable,’ he said. ‘I feel I should say immediately and honestly that we in the psychiatrical field have had little success in inhibiting appetites. The whole problem of weight and food has so far eluded our ability for coping. A strange admission, perhaps, but unless we put our frailties forth, we might be in danger of fooling ourselves and thus taking money under false pretenses. So, if you are here seeking help for your figure, I must list myself among the nonplussed.’
‘Thank you for your honesty, Doctor,’ said Emma Fleet, ‘However, I don’t wish to lose. I’d prefer your helping me gain another one hundred or two hundred pounds.’
‘Oh, no!’ Dr George exclaimed.
‘Oh, yes. But my heart will not allow what my deep dear soul would most gladly endure. My physical heart might fail at what my loving heart and mind would ask of it.’
She sighed. The couch sighed.
‘Well, let me brief you. I’m married to Willy Fleet. We work for the Dillbeck-Horsemann Traveling Shows. I’m known as Lady Bountiful. And Willy…’
She swooned up out of the couch and glided or rather escorted her shadow across the floor. She opened the door.
Beyond, in the waiting room, a cane in one hand, a straw hat in the other, seated rigidly, staring at the wall, was a tiny man with tiny feet and tiny hands and tiny bright-blue eyes in a tiny head. He was, at the most, one would guess, three feet high, and probably weighed sixty pounds in the rain. But there was a proud, gloomy, almost violent look of genius blazing in that small but craggy face.
‘That’s Willy Fleet,’ said Emma lovingly, and shut the door.
The couch, sat on, cried again.
Emma beamed at the psychiatrist, who was still staring, in shock, at the door.
‘No children, of course,’ he heard himself say.
‘No children.’ Her smile lingered. ‘But that’s not my problem, either. Willy, in a way, is my child. And I, in a way, besides being his wife, am his mother. It all has to do with size, I imagine, and we’re happy with the way we’ve balanced things off.’
‘Well, if your problem isn’t children, or your size or his, or controlling weight, then what…?’
Emma Fleet laughed lightly, tolerantly. It was a nice laugh, like a girl’s somehow caught in that great body and throat.
‘Patience, Doctor. Mustn’t we go back down the road to where Willy and I first met?’
The doctor shrugged, laughed quietly himself and relaxed, nodding. ‘You must.’
‘During high school,’ said Emma Fleet, ‘I weighed one-eighty and tipped the scales at two-fifty when I was twenty-one. Needless to say. I went on few summer excursions. Most of the time I was left in drydock. I had many girl friends, however, who liked to be seen with me. They weighed one-fifty, most of them, and I made them feel svelte. But that’s a long time ago. I don�
�t worry over it any more. Willy changed all that.’
‘Willy sounds like a remarkable man,’ Dr George found himself saying, against all the rules.
‘Oh, he is, he is! He smoulders—with ability, with talent as yet undiscovered, untapped!’ she said, quickening warmly. ‘God bless him, he leaped into my life like summer lightning! Eight years ago I went with my girl friends to the visiting Labor Day carnival. By the end of the evening, the girls had all been seized away from me by the running boys who, rushing by, grabbed and took them off into the night. There I was alone with three Kewpie Dolls, a fake alligator handbag and nothing to do but make the Guess Your Weight man nervous by looking at him every time I went by and pretending like at any moment I might pay my money and dare him to guess.
‘But the Guess Your Weight man wasn’t nervous! After I had passed three times I saw him staring at me. With awe, yes, with admiration! And who was this Guess Your Weight man? Willy Fleet, of course. The fourth time I passed he called to me and said I could get a prize free if only I’d let him guess my weight. He was all feverish and excited. He danced around. I’d never been made over so much in my life, I blushed. I felt good. So I sat in the scales chair. I heard the pointer whizz up around and I heard Willy whistle with honest delight.
‘“Two hundred and eighty-nine pounds!” he cried. “Oh boy oh boy, you’re lovely!”
‘“I’m what?” I said.
‘“You’re the loveliest woman in the whole world,” said Willy, looking me right in the eye.
‘I blushed again. I laughed. We both laughed. Then I must have cried, for the next thing, sitting there, I felt him touch my elbow with concern. He was gazing into my face, faintly alarmed.
‘“I haven’t said the wrong thing?” he asked.
‘“No,” I sobbed, and then grew quiet. “The right thing, only the right thing. It’s the first time anyone ever…”
‘“What?” he said.
‘“Ever put up with my fat.” I said.
‘“You’re not fat,” he said. “You’re large, you’re big, you’re wonderful. Michelangelo would have loved you. Titian would have loved you. Da Vinci would have loved you. They knew what they were doing in those days. Size, Size is everything. I should know. Look at me. I traveled with Singer’s Midgets for six seasons, known as Jack Thimble. And oh my God, dear lady, you’re right out of the most glorious part of the Renaissance. Bernini, who built those colonnades around the front of Saint Peter’s and inside at the altar, would have lost his everlasting soul just to know someone like you.”
‘“Don’t!” I cried. “I wasn’t meant to feel this happy. It’ll hurt so much when you stop.”
‘“I won’t stop, then,” he said. “Miss…?”
‘“Emma Gertz.”
‘“Emma,” he said, “are you married?”
‘“Are you kidding?” I said.
‘“Emma, do you like to travel?”
‘“I’ve never traveled.”
‘“Emma,” he said, “this old carnival’s going to be in your town one more week. Come down every night, every day, why not? Talk to me, know me. At the end of the week, who can tell, maybe you’ll travel with me.’
‘“What are you suggesting?” I said, not really angry or irritated or anything, but fascinated and intrigued that anyone would offer anything to Moby Dick’s daughter.
‘“I mean marriage!” Willy Fleet looked at me, breathing hard, and I had the feeling that he was dressed in a mountaineer’s rig, alpine hat, climbing boots, spikes, and a rope slung over his baby shoulder. And if I should ask him, “Why are you saying this?” he might well answer, “Because you’re there.”
‘But I didn’t ask, so he didn’t answer. We stood there in the night, at the center of the carnival, until at last I started off down the midway, swaying. “I’m drunk!” I cried. “Oh, so very drunk, and I’ve had nothing to drink.”
‘“Now that I’ve found you,” called Willy Fleet after me, “you’ll never escape me, remember!”
‘Stunned and reeling, blinded by his large man’s words sung out in his soprano voice, I somehow blundered from the carnival grounds and trekked home.
‘The next week we were married.’
Emma Fleet paused and looked at her hands.
‘Would it bother you if I told you about the honeymoon?’ she asked shyly.
‘No,’ said the doctor, then lowered his voice, for he was responding all too quickly to the details. ‘Please do go on.’
‘The honeymoon.’ Emma sounded her vox humana. The response from all the chambers of her body vibrated the couch, the room, the doctor, the dear bones within the doctor.
‘The honeymoon…was not usual.’
The doctor’s eyebrows lifted the faintest touch. He looked from the woman to the door beyond which, in miniature, sat the image of Edward Hillary, he of Everest.
‘You have never seen such a rush as Willy spirited me off to his home, a lovely dollhouse, really, with one large normal-sized room that was to be mine, or, rather, ours. There, very politely, always the kind, the thoughtful, the quiet gentleman, he asked for my blouse, which I gave him, my skirt, which I gave him. Right down the list, I handed him the garments that he named, until at last…Can one blush from head to foot? One can. One did. I stood like a veritable hearthfire stoked by a blush of all-encompassing and ever-moving color that surged and resurged up and down my body in tints of pink and rose and then pink again.
‘“My God!” cried Willy, “you’re the loveliest grand camellia that ever did unfurl!’ Whereupon new tides of blush moved in hidden avalanches within, showing only to color the tent of my body, the outermost and, to Willy anyway, most precious skin.
‘What did Willy do then? Guess.’
‘I daren’t,’ said the doctor, flustered himself.
‘He walked around and around me.’
‘Circled you?’
‘Around and around, like a sculptor gazing at a huge block of snowwhite granite. He said so himself. Granite or marble from which he might shape images of beauty as yet unguessed. Around and around he walked, sighing and shaking his head happily at his fortune, his little hands clasped, his little eyes bright. Where to begin, he seemed to be thinking, where, where to begin!?
‘He spoke at last. “Emma,” he asked, “why, why do you think I’ve worked for years as the Guess Your Weight man at the carnival? Why? Because I have been searching my lifetime through for such as you. Night after night, summer after summer, I’ve watched those scales jump and twitter! And now at last I’ve the means, the way, the wall, the canvas, whereby to express my genius!”
‘He stopped walking and looked at me, his eyes brimming over.
‘“Emma,” he said softly, “may I have permission to do anything absolutely whatsoever at all with you?”
‘“Oh, Willy, Willy,” I cried. “Anything!”’
Emma Fleet paused.
The doctor found himself out at the edge of his chair. ‘Yes, yes. And then?’
‘And then,’ said Emma Fleet, ‘he brought out all his boxes and bottles of inks and stencils and his bright silver tattoo needles.’
‘Tattoo needles?’
The doctor fell back in his chair. ‘He…tattooed you?’
‘He tattooed me.’
‘He was a tattoo artist?’
‘He was, he is, an artist. It only happens that the form his art takes happens to be the tattoo.’
‘And you,’ said the doctor slowly, ‘were the canvas for which he had been searching much of his adult life?’
‘I was the canvas for which he had searched all of his life.’
She let it sink, and it did sink, and keep on sinking, into the doctor. Then when she saw it had struck bottom and stirred up vast quantities of mud, she went serenely on.
‘So our grand life began! I loved Willy and Willy loved me and we both loved this thing that was larger than ourselves that we were doing together. Nothing less than creating the greatest picture the world has e
ver seen. “Nothing less than perfection!’ cried Willy. ‘Nothing less than perfection!’ cried myself in response.
‘Oh, it was a happy time. Ten thousand cozy busy hours we spent together. You can’t imagine how proud it made me to be the vast shore along which the genius of Willy Fleet ebbed and flowed in a tide of colors.
‘One year alone we spent on my right arm and my left, half a year on my right leg, eight months on my left, in preparation for the grand explosion of bright detail which erupted out along my collarbone and shoulderblades, which fountained upward from my hips to meet in a glorious July celebration of pinwheels, Titian nudes, Giorgione landscapes and El Greco cross-indexes of lightning on my façade, prickling with vast electric fires up and down my spine.
‘Dear me, there never has been, there never will be, a love like ours again, a love where two people so sincerely dedicated themselves to one task, of giving beauty to the world in equal portions. We flew to each other day after day, and I ate more, grew larger, with the years. Willy approved. Willy applauded. Just that much more room, more space for his configurations to flower in. We could not bear to be apart, for we both felt, were certain, that once the Masterpiece was finished we could leave circus, carnival, or vaudeville forever. It was grandiose, yes, but we knew that once finished, I could be toured through the Art Institute in Chicago, the Kress Collection in Washington, the Tate Gallery in London, the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Vatican Museum! For the rest of our lives we would travel with the sun!
‘So it went, year on year. We didn’t need the world or the people of the world, we had each other. We worked at our ordinary jobs by day, and then, till after midnight, there was Willy at my ankle, there was Willy at my elbow, there was Willy exploring up the incredible slope of my back toward the snowy-talcumed crest. Willy wouldn’t let me see, most of the time. He didn’t like me looking over his shoulder, he didn’t like me looking over my shoulder, for that matter. Months passed before, curious beyond madness, I would be allowed to see his progress slow inch by inch as the brilliant inks inundated me and I drowned in the rainbow of his inspirations. Eight years, eight glorious wondrous years. And then at last it was done, it was finished. And Willy threw himself down and slept for fortyeight hours straight. And I slept near him, the mammoth bedded with the black lamb. That was just four weeks ago. Four short weeks back, our happiness came to an end.’