The Gray House

The longer I thought, the more it scared me, so in the end I lost my will to move and stayed there on the top of the wardrobe, in the company of the deceased cockroach and the dirty sponge, infinitely dear to my heart precisely because of their utter uselessness.

When Sphinx asked me what was the matter and I explained to him the horror of the situation, he called me a material fetishist.

“Sphinx, think about it,” I said. “They are more of this place than you and I could ever hope to be. No one will take them away from here. They have this huge advantage.”

“Would you like to become an old sponge, little human?”

Sphinx leaned against the wardrobe, offering his shoulders as a climbing-down aid, and I scrambled over them, bringing the cracked plate with me.

Noble asked me, in an evenly malicious voice, whatever it was I thought I needed with that busted dish.

“I’m going to share my bed with it,” I said. “Or put my earring in it every night.”

Noble said that my fetishism had long morphed into breathtaking egotism, and that it needed to be brought under control, even though he personally had no idea how that could be accomplished. That I preferred things to people and spent my days plotting to shovel crap on top of him and all the rest of them until they surrendered and stopped moving.

While he was speaking I wiped the dust off the plate, shined it, and placed it on the nightstand. It was even more beautiful than I’d thought. White with light-blue flowers and berries.

All the time I was busying myself with it, Sphinx was staring at it and frowning, as if he was also dead set against the unfortunate thing.

“What?” I snapped. “Yes, so it’s symbolic to me. Is that so hard to understand?”

“No, it’s not that. The thing I don’t understand,” Sphinx drawled thoughtfully, “is where did it come from. Has anyone seen this dish before? I haven’t. I can’t imagine how it ended up on top of our wardrobe. Now you, Tabaqui, do you remember it?”

I didn’t. Neither did Noble, Humpback, Lary, nor Blind. I spent the next two days driving around the House pushing the cracked white-and-blue plate into people’s faces, and not a single one of them recognized it. And then it turned out that the House was full of unexpectedly unrecognizable objects. That was the start of my personal quest and of the Hunt that the pack happily dismissed as insanity. After three days of the Hunt, I was chased off the common bed with all my loot. On the sixth day the collection was transferred to the empty classroom.

I wake up in a dark and stuffy place, racked by the Howls that have taken me over and shaking from oxygen deprivation. Someone not very bright has fashioned a sleep nest and shoved me inside. I’m sure they had only the best intentions in mind. You have to have a knack for building nests, it is even a science of sorts, because if you get it wrong it’s liable to collapse or smother you accidentally. But whoever’s built this poor imitation wasn’t bothered about details like that. So I emerge out of it sweaty and half-asphyxiated, and it folds in on itself even before I’m fully out, sending a couple of pillows tumbling on top of me.

Smoker is studying the ceiling. If it were him imprisoned in the nest instead of me, he’d have expired right there, quietly and peacefully.

Lary is making tea. Ginger is scraping off some stuff that got stuck to her bear. I ask where Alexander is.

“He went out,” Ginger says, turning her button-eyed beast to face me. “Feeling embarrassed, I guess.”

I see. A bashful type, our Alexander. Except when he isn’t. Then it’s advisable to be as far away from him as possible. Actually, I don’t think that way. I wouldn’t have missed my own role as an active participant in what has happened for anything. I climb back over the ruins of the nest. This way I can see Noble, sitting on the floor. A proud owner of a beautiful new shiner, he’s cradling Ginger’s flask and quietly getting piss drunk.

“They say you threw a homemade bomb that blew away half the Coffeepot,” Lary informs me. “Like, said a farewell speech and tossed it. I told them you never had any bombs, but they don’t believe me. They say I’m covering up for my own kind.”

“That’s nice, Lary. You should always cover up for your own kind. We’re one pack, after all. That’s serious business.”

He blinks.

“But there wasn’t any bomb, right?”

I feel the lump on my head. “Are you sure?”

Of course he’s not sure. He sniffles and scratches his chin. Or rather the place where chins are supposed to be located on people. His meditative state does not bode well for the prospects of us having tea in the foreseeable future, but it certainly improves his overall appearance.

“And Alexander got spooked and had a fit,” Lary says, visibly downcast.

“Was that a question or a statement?” I say.

He just sulks silently.