Dreams That Burn In The Night (10 page)

She stepped through
the archway and came toward him. She seemed taller. She was. She stood on two shiny aluminum legs
that gleamed brightly beneath her. Her steps were smooth and fluid.

"Sanderman!" she
cried. "I've come back to you! My long-lost lover! My spaceman hero! Rescued at last!"

His mouth fell open
in an imitation of the Grand Canyon.

"Your, your . . .
WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEGS????????????"

"Oh, you noticed!"
she said coyly. "Why, artificial legs are all
the rage back on earth now! You know me, always keeping up with the latest fashions. How
do you like them, dear? Don't you think their gleam is positively sinful?"

He fainted and fell
back into the dust like a meteor entering the atmosphere. There was a burning finality to his
faint

He died right there
of a broken heart.

"Jeez," said Candy
Boxes, "he was overcome with emotion."

Actually, he was
underwithheld.

I meant to kill him
but I had no idea I could do it so completely. I surprised myself. But I guess I lose control
sometimes. I go mad, smash things, break out the windows, and throw animal droppings at the
Sunday crowds. Mad, that's what they think I am. But I don't care what they think except they're
going to kill me. I care about that.

I care about them
going to kill me. Wouldn't anyone? Ask any­body else in these cages and they'll all tell you the
same thing. Nobody likes to get killed. Except the snakes. Sometimes I won­der if the snakes even
know if they're alive or dead. Snakes are an indifferent lot.

Perhaps it's just
as well that they kill me. And this time, I hope they do it right. I don't want to go through
this again. I'm tired of lying here on this soiled straw matting, at the mercy of my keeper's
indigestion. Regular feedings? I should say not. Brad-dock used to be my keeper, how the crowds
loved me then. Fed like clockwork, I was, and sleek and well petted. The crowds went for me then.
I was the fair-haired one then. Yes, sir, no question of it.

But now, since they
found Braddock's body partly ingested, the stomach torn out like the sawdust stuffings of a
wooden doll, us animals have to take what we can get, which isn't much. Our new keeper, he must
be nearly demented, the way he drinks and all, and when his stomach is upset, does we get fed? Us
does not.

Ever since I killed
that man, I guess, things have been bad. I used to be in the same cage with Flippy and Jumpo but
now they've got me penned by myself. Maybe I'm just too old. Getting too old, that's one of the
things that is always happening to us. The muscles get stiff and we forget things. One week we
can hear the oohs and aahs of the kids watching us and the next it seems like you can't remember
any of the acrobatics and your hair is beginning to fall out. So it goes.

When I was young, I
think I was loved. I don't remember my mother, they took her away and gave me this cloth thing
with a clock inside. It wasn't the same thing as a mother, of course, but it served its purpose.
It was better than no mother at all, was the way I looked at it. So soft the cloth was, almost
like my mother's fur, and the clock ticking away in as regular a heartbeat as you could like. Of
course, every hour the clock gained a minute, which may be the reason why I turned out so wrong.
These things happen, you know.

There's still some
blood on my straw matting and I really wish someone would come in and change it but I don't
suppose anyone will. Since the murder no one will come near to me except to drop food through the
slot in the bars. And not much of that ei­ther. How I miss Braddock. I wish they hadn't found him
dead like that. He fed me and fed me well and I'll always remember that about him. He bled
terribly when he died. I'll remember that too. There are so many things to remember.

I miss being
petted. Nobody comes to brush me now. I look rather scruffy. Way I look, maybe getting put to
death isn't such a bad idea. They don't love me anymore and I don't think they ever will again.
Why go on then? What would be the point? I'm too old to do tricks anyway. And I'm so
lonely.

I can still see out
the high window. I can still climb a little, al­though what good it does, I don't know. I hear
all the people out there, laughing and having fun. Living as if nothing had happened and for
them, I guess, nothing has happened. Why did it have to change for me?

Is this what they
call growing up? If it is, I don't feel so good and I wish it would go away. Nobody comes to see
me. Nothing to look at and nothing to look forward to, one dreary meal a day and not nearly
enough to keep me sleek and fit. If they kill me, at least I'll get out of this cage. They'll
take me out to bury me. They always bury us in the ground when one of us dies. They have funny
ways. I think it is a waste of meat when they bury one of us. Perhaps it does not occur to them
that we are edible.

I do not know why
they do not eat us when we die. I do not understand them at all. They do so many things that I do
not un­derstand. Once they put me in a cage with Nappi. Nappi looked just like me except she
seemed to have longer fur and brighter eyes. We used to sleep in the tree, wrapped in each
other's arms. We were very happy. But one day they took Nappi to the big white building where
they take all the animals that die.

When they brought
her back that night, she had funny things made out of glass and metal buried in her head. They
had pulled out her hair in two little patches on each side of her head and planted these things
in there. I do not know if they thought they would grow there or not. I did not like them. Nappi
did not like them either.

Nappi did not like
me anymore after that either. She would not climb the tree with me, and when I tried to put my
arm around her, she sank her sharp white teeth in my arm. I could not go near her without getting
bitten. Later they took her away because she tried to bite Braddock when he brought food to us.
It was not like Nappi to do that, sweet gentle Nappi, always crowding up to the bars to be first
to get petted. She had been one of Braddock's favorites, I know. He always had a good word for
her. But she wasn't the same Nappi.

She snarled and
raged around the cage. She upset the visitors and so they came and took her one day and I never
saw her again. I guess they destroyed her because the things in her head would not grow. I do not
understand why they do these things. Nappi was very nice and gentle. She had had a real mother
and she seemed so alive.

I sleep a lot
because that helps pass the time. I'm really not hungry much anymore and my fur is falling out
more and more. I eat when they bring me food but my heart is not in it. I call out to the other
animals sometimes at night and they answer but it
does not help very much. I cannot see them and the comfortable sounds they make only
make it seem worse.

I did not mean to
kill that man. I did not know who he was. He shouldn't have been here. Perhaps I did mean to kill
him. He frightened me. Yes, he did, and I guess that is why I killed him. There was something not
right that night when he came to my cage. All the other animals sensed it too. They were pacing
rest­lessly in their cages, moaning and growling. Some of the big cats threw themselves against
the bars, roaring.

The man smelled
strange. He smelled like the animals that get sick and are taken away to the white building after
they stop moving. Sometimes the animals would lay there all night sick like that and not moving
before the attendants found them. The smell would get very strong then. That was the kind of
smell the man had.

It was dark, I was
awake in my tree, huddled against the trunk, missing the comforting warmth of Nappi, when he came
over the wall. He fell to this side of the wall. He was very clumsy. It was frightening the way
he fell. Like he did not have any bones. He just collapsed like jelly, rolled, and then slowly
got to his feet. He frightened me.

I hid in the tree.
I did not want him to see me. He walked very stiffly. Every step he took, it seemed like he was
going to fall over. His eyes were closed, I could see that in the full light of the moon, and he
reminded me of some of the animals who move their legs and make noises in their sleep.

I hid behind my
tree trunk and I thought he would not find me. But I was wrong. He was coming for me. He came to
the door of my cage and his hands brushed over the locks. The animals in the cages next to mine
were in a rage. Their screams and catcalls filled the air. The man did not seem
disturbed.

I was getting
frightened. I get angry when I get frightened and I do things. I do not like to do things but
when I am frightened I lose control. The man was tearing at the hinges of the door to my cage. I
did not want him to come in. His smell frightened me.

He forced the door
open. I bared my teeth and growled. I didn't want him in my cage. I don't like it when people
come into my cage. His eyes opened, but his eyes were glassy. I do not think he could see me. I
growled.

His mouth twitched
and his lips moved. He reached up through
the branches and his hand touched my leg. His hand was cold and damp and I couldn't stand
the smell. I jumped down at him. I bit his face and tore at his eyes and jumped up and down on
his chest when he fell over. He fell over very easily and he did not make a sound or fight back.
That made me even madder and I tore away at him with my sharp white teeth.

He came apart. The
other animals in the cages next to mine were roaring and throwing themselves against the bars of
their cages in frenzy. I went wild too. I was frightened and I lost con­trol. I bit the
bad-smelling thing's head off. I sank my teeth again and again into its soft white neck and it
fell off and I worried the bloody thing across the floor. I clawed its foul-smelling clothes off,
ripping it into shreds, and stamped furiously on the soft white body. I was frightened and
angry.

Then I ran up the
tree and hugged the branches until my arms hurt and then I rested and calmed down. I was tired
and fright­ened and I wanted to go away from there and not see that man anymore. I looked down
and the man had not gone away, so I stayed up there in the tree and hugged the
branches.

All the man's arms
and legs had come off and I had got blood on my straw and I did not like it. I don't like blood.
It makes my head hurt and I get angry and frightened. I stayed up in the tree all
night.

When the new
keeper, the mean one who drank, came in the morning to change my straw he found the dead man. I
thought he was going to hit me with a stick. But he didn't hit me. He ran away and they came with
a net and dragged me out of the tree and wrapped me up in the net and no matter how much I
screamed they wouldn't listen. I wanted to be free and they wouldn't listen.

That's why they put
me in this cage in the big white building and why the men in the white coats are going to kill
me. They keep telling me they are going to kill me but I don't care. My fur is falling out and
they don't feed me enough and nobody pets me anymore. I don't care. I'll sleep a lot and that
will help pass the time. They don't love me anymore. I don't care. I'll sleep a lot and have good
dreams and I will be very angry when they wake me up because my dreams will be very pleasant and
I will not want to leave them.

I will dream that I
am dead.

I left the gates of
the city and the girl behind and I walked through the rain. I passed over the stone bridge and
into the silent rows of buildings in the alien quarter. It was the middle of the night and the
air was untouchable, a foggy cloth that separated as I passed through it. Night sounds were soft,
muffled, driven like tunnel vision.

I had an open wound
on my chest through which my eyes called her name. I found myself moving ghostlike into the alien
quarter, drawn there as though a magnet had attached me to the path of its forces. How often I
had returned to haunt these dreary ways in the dark hours. I have met the dangerous, mad
creatures that dwell here and they have met me. And sometimes I wonder if I am not one of them. I
have murdered telepathically, I have killed souls with my eyes. I, too, wear a face from the
ancient gal­lery.

As my steps took me
closer to the place where I had once found her and lost her, I heard the red sounds of animals
tearing at each other. I turned my eyes toward the alley and I saw the thrashing bodies rolling
in the dark and then, faintly, I heard a cry for help.

The cry came from
one of my own kind I could but dimly see, engaged in mortal combat with two Riyalls. They had him
down against the side of the building, their long teeth moving toward his face. I came up behind
them and stuck a dagger through the arm of the one who had him by the throat. He shrieked and
jumped away. The other Riyall spun away from the downed man's body. He faced my dagger far too
calmly for my taste. I made a move as if to throw it and it was only then that he turned and
fled.

The other Riyall
edged back away from us until his outline dimmed in the night mist. He uttered a threat in his
own language which I could not understand, then turned and fled, Ms one arm dangling uselessly at
his side.