The Gray House

He doesn’t really look like a snowflake. Rather a white knitting needle. Because today’s clothes fit him normally, while everything else until now hung like a sack. This fact is no less strange than the others. Like here’s someone who’s been hiding in a dark corner somewhere all his life, and suddenly shot out of there howling, dressed to the nines. On the other hand, if he’s shooting out it means he really needs to, and that’s that.

“Looks nice, actually,” I say, “just unusual. I promise I’ll get right on getting used to it.”

Noble’s already awake. He’s endured the shock stoically, as he has both the strawberry and the pantsless youth..

“Play something on the harmonica,” he says.

I can take a hint. He’s trying to get me to stop talking. But that’s part of being a true friend to your friends, not refusing a request even when it’s directed at shutting you up. So I take out the harmonica and play. Noble crawls closer to the bed rail, spreads himself across it, pulls out the guitar, and positions it on his belly.

It is easier for the harmonica to follow the guitar than the other way around. So at first we keep bungling it, unable to get in sync, hissing and swearing, but then it starts to take shape, and we’re happy with that, even though the sound is nothing special. In these matters the process itself is what’s important, just as in the packing, so we sink deeper and deeper into it and get thoroughly stuck. It’s not long before I feel a Howl coming up. I’m guessing Noble does too. He starts to hum and whistle. Things like that wind me up enormously, me and my Howl voices.

I tamp them down until I can’t anymore, and when that moment comes I drop the soaking-wet harmonica, screw up my eyes tightly, and screech, “Gangway down to the water! Circle the wagons! Artillery ready! Fire!”

Thus bringing our cooperative music making to an abrupt end. In the ringing silence that follows the Howl, I open my eyes and see Sphinx sitting on the nightstand.

“Again,” he says.

“Again,” I agree sadly.

Screams of all sorts have taken residence inside me lately. Some days, after an exhausting whirl around the House observing this and that, I’m overwhelmed by the desire to bark in a manly voice, “Women and children to the shelters!” What women? What children? The subconscious would not be pushed and is silent. It just wants to herd everyone into a shelter, and that’s it. I think it’s the first response area of the genetic memory. Or take the “artillery,” for example. Every time I hear it I immediately imagine these ancient catapults. With a depressing regularity. Generally when I need to scream I scream, I don’t bottle it in. Better to have a nice scream or two and be done with it than to be constantly on the edge. Except my screams make the pack nervous. They can’t seem to get accustomed to it.

“Whoever heard of a gangway being lowered to the water?” Noble asks in a dying whisper. He’s slightly on the greenish side, due to him being too close when I blew up.

“Exactly!” I say indignantly. “The subconscious really went rogue. And really needed to lower it in that fashion. And to circle all the wagons. Or we’d all be screwed.”

“And did you lower it?” Sphinx inquires.

“I did.”

“Wagons duly circled?”

“They are.”

“Thank goodness. We can relax until the next time.”

I wipe off the harmonica. An exceptionally stifling day. No air at all. Noble is prostrate under the guitar. He peeled off the lewd boy but left the strawberry, a scarlet patch over his eye. Smoker is still waiting for news from the ceiling. Alexander has split.

“Hey,” I say to Sphinx. “Have you seen Alexander and his amazing snow-white coat? Clean as a whistle and white as a daisy?”

He nods.

“And how do you like it?”

“I think he looks nice.”

“He even slicked back his hair. He’s behaving in an unusual manner. To say nothing of the fact that he always hated white. Pointedly so. So quit pretending that you don’t understand what I mean.”

“Could it be he’s trying to convey the message that he’s sick of cleaning up everybody’s messes?” Smoker offers without taking his eyes off the ceiling.

There’s that prosecutorial voice again. Implying an entire sea of issues that he chooses to leave untouched for the time being. Fortunately for us.

“No one’s making him do that,” I say. “Never has.”

Smoker smirks, without even a glance in my direction.

So I did lie on the second point, of course, but that was out of simple forgetfulness, not malice. This is not the first time today that I want to throttle Smoker. If this keeps up it’ll become a recurring theme.

“I had made him do that,” Sphinx says. “And I had made Noble, too. And Lary, when it comes to that. Only you got skipped over. For some reason.”

“I wonder why,” Smoker says smoothly.

“Me too. And Alexander’s image refresh does give us an opportunity to remedy that. How about today’s your turn to clean?”

Smoker finally deigns to turn over, bestowing his surly visage on us. On Sphinx, more accurately. Looks at him with a sort of perverted longing.