The Gray House

I lie on my belly and squint. The squares of the comforter stretch before me like a wavy chessboard. Like a runway for the stuff strewn on top. The glasses case is an armored car without doors or windows, the comb is a peeling, listing fence, my cap is a flying saucer with pins for portholes. A hauntingly beautiful and uninhabited little world. Well, not completely, as I set my fingers running across to liven it up. As they do, a primitive white contraption lowers itself to the surface, belching steam.

Ginger’s voice inquires if I’m all right.

“You seem to be unusually prostrate.”

I sit up and pull the cup closer.

“I just came back from the Blanket Country. A very peaceful place. It’s inhabited by a race of snakelike sentient beings. They’re pink, blind, and rather nimble. And there’s one collective conscience for every ten of them. The Snakers have this myth that their world has a lower counterpart, and on that lower level each Snaker has a double, only shorter and less mobile. Naturally, not everyone believes this nonsense. But there’s an even more extreme sect. Its members are convinced that a common conscience unifies not ten Snakers, but twenty, of which ten are from the netherworld. That’s widely considered heretical. The sect members also like to use forbidden stimulants in order to expand the boundaries of their universe, and have been mostly hunted down and eradicated by now, one way or another.”

Noble’s head emerges from the other side of the bed and positions its chin on the edge.

“I wonder why it is that your tales are always creepy, Tabaqui?”

“Because I’m a creep. And the sleep of my reason produces monsters. By the way, if you’re interested in serving as the Voice of God for the poor Twentiers, you can try addressing them. Bear in mind they’re deaf as well, though.”

Noble shudders and peers closely at his own fingers, which he’s brought together under his nose.

“How am I supposed to address them, then?”

“Tapping in Morse code. They’ll understand.”

“Listen to you,” Lary says indignantly. “You’re doing this to confuse me again, aren’t you?”

Noble’s eyes widen suddenly, Doom billowing up in them.

“You’re a bastard, Tabaqui, you know that? How can I tap anything for them unless I’m the conscience of the twenty? That would be against their religion.”

“So you’ll be a false Voice. It’s been known to happen.”

“You! It’s you who’s false! You just enjoy tormenting those poor . . .”

“Oh man,” Ginger moans. “I’m so sick of you! How can you stand it, being out of your heads most of the time?”

“It’s Tabaqui.” Noble tries to shift the blame, pointing at my fingers splayed over the blanket. “He’s a liar. He’s made himself into an idol for those . . . those . . .”

“Twentiers,” I prompt.

“Exactly.”

“It’s just them trying to confuse me,” Lary insists. “Always the same story. I don’t know why they have it in for me. I haven’t been here for ages. But as soon as I show up, there it is again.”

“Right! Let Lary address them,” Noble suggests, brightening up. “He would be quite consistent with their dogma. Lary, my friend, be a good man, tap out a message. Tell them that they have got it pretty close, if you don’t count the half-baked freaks like Tabaqui and me here, and that we fully support their thirst for knowledge.”

“You know, I almost believe in the bomb now,” Lary complains to aloof Smoker. “Or should I say I believe in it more and more.”

“So? You can believe in whatever you want,” Smoker says, looking at the unfortunate Log out of the corner of one annoyed eye. “Do you even know Morse code?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Then why don’t you just say so to Noble? He’d stop pestering you.”

“Slaving for them, making them tea . . . And this is what I get . . .”

“They are ungrateful beasts,” Smoker agrees. “Ungrateful, unintelligible, and unpleasant.”

“That would be us,” Noble translates for me. “Everything he’s just said was about us. You heard the words he said, didn’t you, Tabaqui?”

“No, unintelligible—that was about you personally. And unpleasant too. Look at that shiner. It definitely interferes with the pleasantness of your visage. Very much. Where’d you get it?”

“A shock wave from the blast,” Noble leers drunkenly.

“Liars,” Smoker continues, going down his dispassionate list. “Windbags . . .”

“And where, if I may ask, is Sphinx?” I say quickly. “Where’s he been gallivanting while I am forced to suffer this indignity and abuse?”

“We both are, Tabaqui, we both are,” Noble points out. “Sphinx is at the funeral. I think he’ll be some time. If they are doing everything properly . . . They’ve put them in a box wrapped in black velvet . . .”

I realize that he’s talking about the burned rakes, and feel embarrassed for my initial scare. Then I feel wronged for not having been invited.

“Encased them in wax . . .”

“What for?”

“To make sure,” Noble says. “Don’t you get it? Blind didn’t want them to be scavenged for souvenirs.”

“And also they are all absolutely mad,” Smoker says, bringing to a close the full account of our distinctive features.