Текст книги "Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys"

Автор книги: Gary A. Braunbeck

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

I’ll do the dishes, Martin, don’t you worry about me . . .

She’d said the same thing to him the last time he’d had dinner with her, the night before she had the massive coronary from which she never awakened. Nine months since Dad had died, nine months with no one else but her son to cook nice meals for, and he couldn’t be there every night, and when he did, by-God she did the dishes . . .

. . . you gotta stop this right now, Martin told himself; but, still, the tears kept coming.

And his food was getting cold.

“Oh, this is fuckin’ great!”

Martin pulled his hands away from his face, then wiped his eyes to see a young woman of perhaps twenty-three standing there glowering at him.

“It ain’t bad enough that I wind up in fuckin’ Buzzland,” she snarled. “No, I gotta have breakfast with some cry-baby, over-the-hill loser . . . well, fuck that!” She stormed over to the trays and grabbed one, piling on the milk and orange juice containers before heading back toward her room. “Where you going, Wendy?” said Bernard, stepping into her path. “I’m gonna eat in my fuckin’ room, all right? I don’t wanna be around no cry-baby.” Bernard shook his head. “You know the rules, Wendy; you eat out here with the other clients, or you don’t eat.”

“But I’m fuckin’ hungry!”

Martin wondered if there was some rule requiring her to say either “fuck” or “fuckin’” in every sentence; would she perhaps be heavily fined otherwise? The thought should have made him smile, but he was still stuck back in his mother’s kitchen, watching as she reached for yet another dirty dish, and so looked down at his food so he could cry without drawing too much attention to himself. Besides, he still had another sausage link and a fruit cup to finish.

“I ain’t eating in here, Bernie. Not with that guy! No fuckin’ way!”

“Then you’re not eating, period.”

“To hell with you and your lousy goddamn food, then!” screamed Wendy—

–Martin thought: don’t you mean to say, Fuck you and your lousy fuckin’ food?—

–then Wendy spun around and hurled her tray, drinks, and utensils into the wall over Martin’s head. The tray hit with a loud bang!, its lid popping loose and splattering food all over the wall, the floor, and the back of Martin’s shirt.

Bernard grabbed Wendy from behind, throwing both his massive arms across her chest and pinning her arms, then lifted her off the floor, her legs kicking, her head thrashing side to side, a stream of curses and profanities spewing from her mouth that would have made a trucker blush, and before Bernard had even turned fully around, Ethel and the other nurse were there, the redhead pulling out and holding steady one of Wendy’s arms while Ethel stuck a needle in and sank the plunger; Wendy was unconscious before Ethel pulled out the needle. Bernard and Ethel took Wendy to her room. The redhead turned around to make sure Martin was all right, saw that he was crying, and said, “This doesn’t happen all that often.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“No one has to, where Wendy is concerned,” replied the redhead, then set about cleaning up the tray and food. Martin was confused about what the nurse had said; he hadn’t been talking about Wendy at all.

He finished his breakfast in silence, stopping only once more, halfway through the fruit cup, when a particularly hard burst of tears got the better of him. Finally he was done with the food (and out of his mother’s kitchen), showing the redhead his plastic utensils before tossing them in the trash, then being given a towel and a bar of soap for his shower.

“You doing all right?” asked the redhead, whose name tag identified her as Amber Fox; Martin wondered how much teasing she got about her last name, being as pretty as she was. “I don’t mean to sound rude or anything,” he said, “but if I was doing all right, why would I be here?” Amber nodded. “Good point.” “Will Wendy be okay?”

“That’s sweet of you to ask. She’ll be okay. We can’t promise anything more than ‘okay’, but we can promise that.” Martin started toward the bathroom when something occurred to him: “Amber?” She stopped, the nurses’ station door halfway closed. “Yes?” “What happened to my grocery bag?” “You’re not getting any of that stuff back, Martin, so don’t bother asking again.”

Being scolded by a girl maybe half his age; was his life working out, or what? “I wasn’t asking about the drugs. There was a watercolor painting in the bag, and I don’t remember—”

“Oh, that,” said Amber. “I wondered where that came from. It’s in here, safe and sound. Would you like me to take it to your room?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He took his shower—feeling as if he hadn’t bathed in a month—then cleaned off his shirt, dressed, towel-dried his hair, went back into the main area, plopped down in one of the surprisingly comfortable easy chairs, flipped around the channels until he saw what looked like a movie, and sat back to watch, fighting the effects of the medication every step of the way. Man did this stuff kick your ass in a hurry.

This scene in the movie took place in a dim, shabby room. An actor who looked familiar was lying in a bed. Next to the bed, a large black man, balding, sporting a goatee, sat in a chair with an oversized, dusty, leather-covered book on his lap, its pages opened to reveal—as the camera cut to a close-up—an illustration of a creature that might have been the twin of the camera-thing Martin had seen on the roof of the building last night.

Now it had his full attention.

Next to the illustration, encased in a delicately etched square of trellised lilacs, was a large dark A scripted in the most eloquent calligraphy Martin had ever seen.

It was, he realized, an ancient book.

The camera cut to a medium shot of the room, showing the bed and the man sitting next to it; the large black man cleared his throat, smiled, took a drink from a silver chalice, and began reading from the ancient book:

“‘An old magic man wakes one morning to find that the magic in his mind has grown so heavy that his head sinks down into his shoulders from the weight of it all. Since only his forehead and eyes are now visible, he knows it’s time to store some of his magic elsewhere, until such time as he needs it, or else he’s going to attract some very odd stares when he goes out.

“‘An old magic man rummages through his kitchen drawers until he finds the steel mallet he uses to soften up the tough but inexpensive meat he buys from the butcher. “Just a little hole,” he says to himself. “Only big enough to drain off the excess magic.”

“‘But an old magic man’s judgment isn’t what it used to be—he hits himself far too hard, and the hole he punches into his head is much larger than he intended; magic pours from his skull like a waterfall. “Well, shit-fire and save the matches!” he says, watching as his magic assumes various forms: an aviatrix with three rabbits’ heads; oversized clown puppets with severe curvature of the spine; gargoyles in expensive three-piece pin-striped suits; a large wooden mask with onyx-dark eyes that looks like the head of a soldier wearing a crown . . . all of these forms and more ooze from an old magic man’s skull as he searches frantically for something with which he can stuff up the hole.

“‘Never being one who thinks clearly when in the grip of panic, an old magic man grabs the first thing he sees that looks like it might do the trick—the drain plug from his sink. It does very nicely, but now his room is overflowing with bits and pieces of his magic; bobbing in the air as it eats his cookies, scurrying on multiple legs as it looks through the books on his shelves, unfurling massive rainbow wings as it smokes his cigarettes, dropping ashes onto the sofa. He asks it to stop behaving so inconsiderately, but it ignores him and eats all his groceries and makes rude noises and in general makes the morning quite unpleasant. An old magic man screams and shouts at the magic to sit down and for goodness’ sake behave itself. It doesn’t listen to him; it’s been cooped up in his head for so long that all this extra room is just too tempting to resist.

“‘Down in the street, a young boy hears an old magic man’s cries and, fearing that the odd fellow might be in some sort of trouble, rushes into the building and up to an old magic man’s cluttered room. He flings open the door with such force that all the escaped magic—except for the wooden soldier mask, which manages to hide beneath the sofa—is squashed into one enormous blob and bursts.

“‘Hours later they are still trying to scrub it off the young boy, but to no avail; it has soaked into the boy’s skin. “Well,” says an old magic man, looking down at the young boy who is very short, “it appears we have a problem.” “I’ve never felt magic before,” says the young boy, looking up at an old magic man, who is a giant. “Is it supposed to itch like this?” “You’ll get used to it,” says an old magic man, scratching under one of his arms, then: “Say, you’re not by chance looking for a job, are you?”

“‘And that is how an old magic man found his apprentice.’”

The actor in the bed tried to sit up but found his body was too weak, and in a moment that knocked the breath from his lungs and the strength from his arms, Martin realized that it wasn’t any well-known familiar actor, it was him. “Why are you reading this to me?” his on-screen self asked the large black man. The large black man winked. “Patience never was one of your strong points, was it?” Once again Martin-on-the-screen tried to move, but his limbs were useless. “I can’t seem to . . . Jesus! Help me, will you?” “That’s the idea,” said the large black man, wetting his thumb and turning the page. “By the way, Martin . . .”

. . . Martin . . .

“. . . Martin . . .”

“Martin!”

He blinked his eyes and saw Dr. Hayes standing over him, her hand still on his shoulder from having shaken him.

“I see you took your morning medications,” she said, smiling at him as she turned off the television, then sat down in the easy chair opposite his. “They pack a bit of a punch, don’t they?”

“Uh . . . yeah . . . yeah, they do.” He pulled himself up, stretched his back, and leaned forward. “Sorry about that. Was I asleep?”

“I couldn’t tell, but after you didn’t respond to me saying your name, I just assumed . . . .”

“I don’t remember falling asleep . . . I mean, it feels like I was maybe asleep, but

. . .” he sighed. “I’m babbling. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. The first day or two we have to go through a sort of trail-and-error with the medications, see which ones you best respond to. Most clients are fairly numb the first thirty-six hours or so. Some of the combinations do a real number on people. Are you okay now? You up for this?”

Martin shrugged. “I’d kill for a cup of real coffee right about now. That was a figure of speech, by the way, the ‘kill for’ part.” “I figured.” Martin stared at a large carry-out cup of coffee that Dr. Hayes had brought in with her. “I see that you covet my café mocha.” He looked up at her. “If I got an empty cup, could I have just a little bit?” “Caffeine is against the rules, Martin.” “Please? I promise you I’m not going to flip out or start bouncing off the walls or take hostages.”

“Actually, Martin, I’m a fairly selfish person—comes from growing up as the youngest child with three older brothers who never left my stuff alone. I don’t like sharing. However—” She reached behind her and picked up another cup of carry-out coffee. “—I’m also not inconsiderate.” She handed the cup to Martin. “Anyone asks, that’s decaffeinated, got it?”

“You’re the boss. By the way, I love you and want to have your babies.” He pulled back the tab on the plastic lid and took a slow, deep swallow. Nothing had ever tasted so wonderful. “Oh, yes . . . you know, I always suspected that the ‘manna from Heaven’ in the Bible was actually slow-brewed coffee. With whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.”

Dr. Hayes smiled. “I figured that you’d be a little wonky from the medications, and I’d prefer that you not conk out on me in the middle of this.” “Thank you.” Already the dream—if that’s what it had been—was fading away . . . just not completely.

Don’t dwell on it, pal; dwelling on things is what put you here, remember? “How are you getting along so far?” asked Dr. Hayes. “Okay, I guess. I’ve already caused another client to blow a gasket and I didn’t have to say a word.” “Yes . . . Ethel mentioned something about Wendy. Do you want to talk about it?” “No, I don’t think so. I guess we’ll find out as we go along, huh?”

Dr. Hayes stared at him for a moment, then opened the file lying on her lap. “All right. I’ve spoken to your doctor, and he was good enough to fax me your records—you signed a form granting him permission to share them with any other doctor treating you—”

“I remember. I sign that same form every year.”

“I am required to tell you that.” She flipped through a couple of pages, then back again. “You’ve had trouble with depression for a very long time, haven’t you? Even before your parents’ deaths, you were being treated for it.”

“One hundred milligrams of Zoloft twice a day—mornings and afternoons; thirty milligrams of Remeron at night.”

“That’s pretty hefty, putting Remeron on top of the Zoloft. I take it you have trouble falling asleep?”

“Staying asleep, actually.”

“You wake up after a few hours, then toss and turn, go in and out for brief periods, maybe fall back asleep about an hour before the alarm goes off?”

Martin nodded. “Give that lady a cigar.” He took another glorious swallow of the large café mocha.

Still flipping back and forth between the faxed pages and various forms, Dr. Hayes asked: “I see that the Zoloft dosage was increased right around the time your father completed his last round of radiation treatments.”

“Things were . . . kind of tense. He had trouble controlling his bowels, and anytime he didn’t make it to the bathroom in time, he’d lose his temper or start crying like a baby; Mom and I would switch around—one of us would take care of Dad, wipe him off, clean him up, calm him down; the other would mop up whatever kind of . . . trail he left along the way. It was bad, and I was getting more and more shaky, and I was the only person they had to depend on, so my doctor increased the dosage and that helped a little.”

“Look, Martin,” said Dr. Hayes, closing the folder on whose cover she would continuously write notes for the rest of the session. “I realize that a large part of your recent depression was centered around your parents’ illnesses and deaths, that’s only natural. But their dying wasn’t what pushed you into planning your own death, was it?”

“It might have nudged things a little.” He exhaled, shook his head, and wasn’t surprised to feel a few stray tears dribble from his eyes and slide down his face. “One morning after Mom’s funeral I woke up, showered, got dressed, had breakfast, and was starting out the door when it suddenly hit me that . . . I had nowhere to go. I wouldn’t be taking Dad to and from his treatments or his doctor, I wouldn’t be taking Mom to her cardiologist or running errands for her, I didn’t need to separate their medications for the week and put everything in the dispensers, I didn’t need to do anything around the house because nobody . . . nobody was home anymore . . . all I had to do was go into work at five p.m. and do my job until midnight. That was it. And it scared the shit out of me.”

Dr. Hayes nodded. “So much of your day-to-day life had been centered on helping to take care of them that maybe you forgot to take care of yourself.” Martin shook his head. “Don’t make it sound so noble. I did what any kid should do for their parents.” “Did you resent it sometimes?” “Hell, yes—why wouldn’t I?” “There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a natural reaction.”

“Thank you, but I’m not looking for . . . what’s the word?—validation. I know there was nothing wrong with feeling that way, it didn’t make me evil, it didn’t make me a bad son or a rotten human being who should go straight to Hell and spend eternity bowling with Eichmann—I know this, okay? Most of the time, I was grateful for having so much to do. It kept the days pretty full.” “What did you do before all of that? How did you fill your days?” “I read a lot. Watched movies. Listened to music. Went to work.” “You told me last night that you’d wanted to be a writer. Did you spend any time writing?” “No.” “Why not?” Martin took another swallow of coffee. “Because it’s too late.” “What do you mean?”

He set the coffee down and cracked his knuckles. “I mean that it’s been over twenty years since I last set foot in a classroom, and I don’t relish the idea of going back now and having to sit in a room with a bunch of kids who are less than half my age. I mean it takes years—sometimes decades—to build a decent writing career. Yeah, I’ve got a file cabinet filled with short stories and half-finished novels, but I’m guessing a quarter of the people in the world have the same thing—and odds are they’re doing something with their stuff.”

“So what’s stopping you?—and please don’t waste our time by going back to that ‘It’s too late’ argument, all right?”

“Look at me, will you? I’m a forty-four year old glorified janitor! I have touched no one; I have moved no one; I have helped no one, not really, not judging from the results—and I’ve got a pair of matching headstones I can show you to back up that last point. More of my life is behind me than ahead, and I’d rather not spend whatever years I have left working my ass off to fail at something else.” Even to himself, it sounded like whining, and he was sorry now he’d ever started talking. “What have you failed at before?” “I should have . . .” He stopped himself. “You should have what, Martin?” He shook his head. “I hear it in my head and it sounds so stupid that I’m too embarrassed to actually say it.” “I’m not going to laugh at or make fun of you.”

“I should think not. People don’t bring piping hot café mochas that can easily be thrown in the face to someone they’re planning to mock. That wasn’t a threat or anything.”

“I know. But I’d still like an answer to my question. You should have . . . what?”

“I was going to say, ‘I should have been able to save them,’ but even back then whenever I thought that, I knew it was stupid. Nothing could save them after a certain point; cancer comes back, its spreads and metastasizes and all you can do is pump someone full of pain killers to keep them comfortable; bad hearts give out, regardless of the catheterizations and stents and bypasses and nitro tablets. I don’t think I actually believed I could save them, but . . .”

“But maybe what you were feeling was something close to that?”

Martin ran a hand over his face, exhaling loudly, becoming irritated with the tears. “I should have been able to do more to help them.” “But from the sound of it, you did more than anyone had the right to expect.” “I could’ve found the money to buy her a goddamn dishwasher.” Dr. Hayes tilted her head slightly. “Beg pardon?”

“Mom. I could have . . . look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. I could sit here and come up with shoulda-woulda-coulda’s until we’re both old enough to retire.”

“Since I’ve got all the letters after my name and several degrees hanging in expensive frames on my office walls, could you let me be the judge of that?” “Do you talk to all of your patients this way?” “Only those I watch vomit and buy café mochas for.” “You’re quick.” “And you’re good at evasion.” “It’s a gift.”

“So is compassion, so is intelligence, and so is the desire and ability to create. Let me ask you something, Martin: why is it that someone of your intelligence—and I had a friend check into your records at OSU, I saw your grades, saw that you’d won three separate scholarships, one of them for creative writing, so I know you’re smart, and I know you’re talented—why is it that you never went back to school? Why is it you chose to stay in a profession that—while a good and honorable job—doesn’t challenge you or require any use of your talents?”

He stared at her for a few moments, sat back, and rubbed his eyes. “Because I’m scared.”

“Of what? About what?”

“Of being rejected—and I’m not talking about just the writing, okay? I’m scared of being be rejected by people, possible friends, lovers, all of it.”

“Why?”

“How the fuck should I know? Sorry, sorry . . . I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

“That’s all right.”

“It all sounds so . . . so whiny when I say it out loud.”

“No one’s judging you. And, no, it doesn’t.”

“Look . . . I’ve had friends, and I’ve had girlfriends, and for a while it’s all good, but eventually they all start to drift away. I used to think it was something I did—maybe I wasn’t open enough, or honest enough, or affectionate enough—but that didn’t hold up. Maybe in individual instances it might apply, but when the pattern kept repeating over and over . . . it took me a while, but I finally figured it out: I am just not an exciting person. I’m not the life of the party—and, no, I never wanted to be the life of the party. I am not one of the happy people, okay? I realized a long time ago that whatever mechanism it is that enables people to embrace and trust happiness is just not part of my make-up. I don’t get upset about it, I don’t sit around and cry and do the ‘Poor-poor-pitiful-me’ routine, I just accept it and try to get on with things.”

“But you’re not getting on with things, Martin; otherwise, you wouldn’t have planned your suicide so thoroughly.”

“Oh, and it would’ve worked, too.”

Dr. Hayes nodded. “Yes. Based on the recipe you had written down and the dosages of the various medications and how you planned on ingesting them, there was no room for error. You’d be dead right now if you hadn’t walked through that door last night. Why does that make you smile?”

“Because it’s nice to know I got it right.”

“And you’re proud of that?”

“Not particularly. Not now, anyway.”

“Does it scare you, that you almost succeeded?”

Martin thought it over for a few moments. “No . . . and I know it should. What’s that say about my frame of mind?”

“You tell me.”

Martin sighed and rose to his feet. “I’m really grateful for all the trouble you’ve gone through to help me, Dr. Hayes, but I don’t feel like talking to you any more.”

She pointed at Martin’s chair. “You don’t get to make that call, not in here. If this were my private practice and you made that declaration, I wouldn’t push it, I’d just smile and say, ‘See you next week’ and then charge you my three-figure fee for the full hour, anyway. In here, you’re done when I say you’re done. I have tentatively recommended you for a 4-day stay; that can be either increased or decreased, depending on how much you cooperate in our trying to help you. Just because this place is considered the fast-food franchise of mental health doesn’t mean we don’t try our best. Now please sit down and let’s finish this.”

Martin complied. “I’m only doing this because you bought an extra coffee for me.”

“And providing you don’t piss me off, I’ll buy an extra one for you tomorrow, as well.” Her tone was light but her eyes were serious. “Listen to me, Martin; it has been my experience that most people who seriously attempt suicide don’t do it because their spirit has been crushed in some single, massive, cataclysmic blow, but rather because it has bled to death from thousands of small scratches they weren’t even aware of. You’re right to insist that dealing with the death of your parents and the incredible hole it left in your life isn’t what drove you toward your decision; it was however, I think—and excuse my resorting to a tired cliché—the straw that broke the camel’s back. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else—a really bad night at work, a flat tire, burning your dinner, an obnoxious telemarketer, who knows? It’s not necessarily the thing itself—it’s everything that has led up its suddenly taking on this profound, symbolic significance that you’d never attribute to it under everyday circumstances. Do you understand?” “You’re pretty good at this. Ever think of doing it professionally?” Dr. Hayes sat back. “Does that mean you agree?” “Yeah . . . yeah, it does.”

“Good. Now I’ll make a deal with you. I’ve got a really busy day waiting for me when I walk out that door, and I could use an extra half-hour, so I’ll meet you halfway about your not feeling like talking to me anymore: if you will tell me, to the best of your recollection, where you were and what you were doing when you first made the decision to start planning your own death, we’ll call it a day and take up at that point tomorrow, all right?”

“What’re you going to do with that extra half-hour, just out of curiosity?”

“Nothing. I am going to do nothing. I am going to sit in my car and listen to a classic rock station while eating something that’s bad for me that I plan on picking up at the first choke-burger drive-thru joint I pass on the way. And I will love Every. Minute. Of. It.”

“Damn, that sounds great.”

“It will be.”

“Far be it from me to keep a person from a higher cholesterol count.”

Dr. Hayes smiled, put down her pen (she’d filled both sides of the file cover with notes, anyway), folded her hands, and said: “So, what were you doing?”

Martin thought about, then answered her question, surprised at how easily and quickly it came out, surprised even more with how much he realized while telling it to her, and found that he actually felt a little better once he finished. Dr. Hayes seemed equally pleased, and promised to bring a croissant along with the coffee tomorrow morning before she thanked him for a good session and went on her way.

It was ten-thirty. He had ninety minutes to himself. What to do, what to do?

He leaned forward to turn on the television, remembered what he’d seen the last time he tried to watch something, and decided to take a stroll around the gym, instead.

The stroll took all of ten minutes and lost its appeal in a hurry; the gym itself was less than half the size of a standard basketball court, and had only one window, a single basketball hoop, several folded risers, and a bunch of folded tables. Even though Martin had turned on the lights before entering (almost falling down the four stairs, which he’d forgotten about), the place was still awfully dim. It was the middle of the morning; there ought to be more light. Maybe it would look brighter at night. He could come back this evening and check.

Something to look forward to.

He went back to the main area and browsed through the movie selection, found a copy of The Best Years of Our Lives (Dad’s favorite movie), and was getting ready to put it in the VCR when he noticed a watercolor painting that was hanging on the wall among the children’s drawings.

It was a painting of a large, dark, Richardsonian-Romanesque gothic building—an old school, perhaps– complete with turrets and a belfry.

Two things immediately registered: he’d seen this building before, and recently, and damned if it didn’t look like it had been painted by the same guy who’d done the watercolor he owned.

Looking over at the nurses’ station to make sure no one was watching him, Martin took the watercolor from the wall and went back to his room. True to her word, Amber had returned his painting, leaning it on the desktop. Martin grabbed it and sat down, holding the two paintings side by side.

It didn’t take an expert to recognize that the style of both paintings was exactly the same—all you had to do was look at the signature in the lower right-hand corner: R.J. Nyman.

Martin Tyler was not a man who put a lot of stock in meaningful coincidence, having experienced so little of it during his lifetime, and anytime he did encounter something that might be chalked up to it, he did then what he did now: shook his head and came up with a reasonable explanation: Okay, so the same guy painted both of these; so what? It doesn’t mean anything. The guy told you that he made part of his living doing this, painting watercolors of local landmarks and buildings. Stands to reason that he’d do a lot of them, and that one of them would end up here.

This almost worked, until it dawned on him where he’d seen this other gothic nightmare of a building.

Rising to his feet, he walked over to the only window in his room and looked out through the streaked glass and wire mesh to the building across the street, whose sign declared it to be Miller Middle School, a building that would be right at home in a Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, or Bela Lugosi fright-fest.

Martin would have dismissed this as another so what? had it not been for the things standing at various spots across the length of the roof; near the edge, atop the turrets, above and even inside the belfry, at least a dozen of the camera-creatures similar to the one from the other night milled about, hopping to and fro, beaks and wings working furiously, all of them turning in his direction at once and freezing as if challenging him to a stare-down.

Martin backed away, not looking away from the sight until he nearly fell over the chair.

It’s the drugs, he told himself. That has to be it; you’re still wonky from the meds and your brain is just dredging up this same weird crap like it did last night.

Setting the watercolors on the desk, he took a deep breath, released it slowly, and looked back.

The camera-creatures were still staring at him, only now their brass eyes were opening, and from each set emerged a bright golden light, the beams crisscrossing until it appeared the top of the school was encased in a giant, shimmering web of gold.

Easy there, sport, he told himself. There’s an quick way to prove that you’re still hallucinating. Opening the door of his room, Martin leaned out into the hallway and called, “Bernard?” The attendant came out of the nurses’ station right away. “Something wrong? You okay there, bud?” “Could you come in here for a minute, please?” Bernard approached him slowly. “What’s going on, Martin?” Ethel and Amber stood at the door, watching.

Think fast, sport; don’t make this any worse. “I was just wondering about this building across the street.” “The school?” asked Bernard. “Yeah . . . I was wondering if it’s the same building in this picture I found hanging on the wall out there.” Bernard came into the room. Martin handed him the watercolor. “It looks like this is the same building. Is it?” Bernard looked out the window, as did Martin. The creatures were still there, but if Bernard saw them, he gave no indication.