The Gray House

My armpits are on fire, sending shooting pains down the rib cage, and my neck is stiff and it takes an effort to turn, and the box under me keeps sagging. I should probably get up before it goes completely flat.

I don’t want to become the box too, the feeling of it is too unpleasant.

The Me slumped against the wall says, “The entire world is part of me now, do you understand that?”

I answer to myself, having jumped over to the buckling box, “Honestly, I would prefer not to.”

And immediately soar up and crash back down, expand in all directions and solidify, peek through thousands of tiny apertures with a billion eyes. I like this Me most of all, it’s so peaceful and so enormous, a cube that contains all others. It’s rather more like Us, and we are the foundation of the House, we carry and support it. It takes an effort to keep myself within the confines of this single room, because it is more natural for walls to be joined up with other walls, but for some reason I feel that this would be dangerous, even if I don’t remember why exactly. I lose the sense of hearing. The little scurrying We, restless and much too emotional, move and squeak so fast that I can’t pick up the high-pitched sound they produce. I am closer to being asleep than awake, this state is familiar to me, and only the apprehension of joining up with other walls keeps me from giving in to it entirely. But it becomes harder and harder. I am feeling more strain than the unfortunate box, but the Me perseveres as long as it can, and when its strength starts to fail I concentrate on the point where I am coming in contact with the hairless, metal-handed Me. I flow into him and hear Black say, “What do you say we go find Blind?” and Noble responds, “We can’t leave him here like that.”

I sit slumped against the wall, feeling its smooth, cold surface with my shoulders and with the tape that’s binding them, and recognizing in it an almost kindred spirit.

What I’ve just done is forbidden: dissolving in the environment is too addictive and too dangerous. Dissolving in people is safer, but inanimate objects tend to bind to the dreams and it’s easy to get bogged down for years and not even notice. The trick with the walls saved me once, when I was a kid and life had served up a particularly scary episode. I had barely made it out that time, and gave myself a promise never to do it again. But promises are made to be broken, eventually, the way Alexander has broken his. I still can’t bring myself to think of his words, of what he said about Wolf, but his broken promise I can already start to mull over. The short stint inside the walls calmed me enough for that.

I look back at Black and Noble.

“One of the variations of the Game,” I tell them, “is being in everything. You are in everything and everything is in you. It’s dangerous, though.”

Black and Noble exchange glances.

“Never tried,” Noble says. “You’re an extreme guy, Sphinx. That’s not good.”

“He looks a bit more sober,” Black says hesitantly, pointedly addressing Noble, like a Spider within earshot of a patient.

I nod. A bit, yes. But not completely, because I’m still in the Game. Both Black and Noble look slightly unusual. Black must be forty-something. An imposing figure of a man, naked above the waist, with an axe tucked into his waistband for some reason. Handsome. Head balding in the front, face more lined than might be expected, but still. A Conan the Barbarian in his middle age.

Noble is younger, and not that impressive. A sharp, severe face without any trace of his usual beauty. A slight overbite. The eyelashes white as if powdered with dandruff. He’s clad in disgusting rags that come apart at the seams every time he moves.

The rules of the Game are not the same for everyone. Black is the way he wants himself to be. Noble is the way he feels himself to be.

This might be interesting.

Black gets up, crowding half the room.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says to me. “We’ll take you out for a little spin. Now let go of that bottle, will you?”

I unclasp my long and very human fingers, and the bottle falls down and rolls on the floor. I’d be interested to know what I look like, I mean the whole of me, but there are no mirrors here. Black bends down, bathing me in dog reek, grabs me under the armpits, and hoists up.

“There we go. Easy does it. One step at a time.”

I shuffle to the door obediently. You don’t argue with Conans, now do you? I feel his breath on the back of my head. The Alpha Hound. The door is mossy, overgrown with mold and lichens, armies of ants traverse it, and in place of a handle there’s a splintery branch.

Black’s paw framed by the spiky bracelet grabs it and breaks it clean off. The door flies open and we march out to the abandoned highway under the inhospitable gray sky.