The Gray House

The next table belongs to the Second. It’s the rowdiest and the most colorful. Dyed mullets, sunglasses, and beads. Thumping earphones. Rats, a cross between punks and clowns. There’s no tablecloth, no knives, and the forks are chained to the table. If a day passes without one of them pitching a fit, trying to tear off his fork and stab his neighbor with it, for a Rat that day is wasted. This is purely for show. Everyone in the Second always carries a switchblade or a razor, so all that fuss with the forks is just a way of showing respect for traditions. A little entertainment for the benefit of the dining public. At the head of the table sits Red. Enormous green shades, shaved head, a rose on the cheek, and a constant stupid smirk. Rat Leader. The second one already, that I’ve seen. Rat Leaders don’t last long.

The Third has its own show. They all wear huge bibs with kiddy designs and always lug around the pots with their favorite plants. Considering their perpetual mourning and sour countenance, this also looks like a circus, albeit a sinister one. Probably only Birds themselves are entertained by it. They grow flowers in their room, do embroidery and cross-stitching, they are the quietest and politest after us, but to even think that I might end up among them is horrifying. When I was still playing my favorite game I always skipped them over.

I suddenly have a vision, so palpably ghastly I can almost touch it.

I see myself in the dank and gloomy dorm of the Third. Ivy-covered windows let in very little light. Plants and more plants, in pots and tubs. The center of the room is occupied by the crumbling fireplace.

Birds are wielding needles, all in a row on low stools. On the mantelpiece sits Vulture, seemingly mummified and clad in moth-ridden ermine robes. He is puffing on a hookah and sending clouds of smoke our way.

From time to time one Bird or another gets up and demonstrates his handiwork to Vulture. I feel sick. Both from the heat and from the fact that my stitching looks hideous. The threads are all tangled, bunched, and tattered, I can’t even find my needle in that mess, but I know that sooner or later it is going to be my turn to go and present it, and I am deathly afraid. One careless movement and my elbow upends a pot standing nearby, it jumps off and breaks into pieces. The enormous geranium falls down, clods of earth and shards of pottery everywhere.

In the middle of the carnage on the floor—a very white, very clean human skull. The lower jaw is missing. Everyone freezes. They look at me, then at the skull. I hear a disgusting cackle.

“Why yes, Smoker, you are exactly right,” Vulture says, hopping down from the mantelpiece to hobble toward me. “That’s our previous transfer, may he rest in peace!”

He laughs, demonstrating his unnaturally sharp, almost sharklike teeth . . .

Here I snapped out of it, because I felt my real self in the center of attention, not of Birds but of my own dear Pheasants. They were watching me with great interest. Vulture’s sharp-toothed rictus withered down to Gin’s lopsided grin, turning my stomach. I bent down to my fritter, hating them so much I nearly threw up. My daydream was just that, a dream. The real scavengers were sitting right here, scanning my face in search of traces of sweat, wetting their lips in anticipation. I suddenly realized that I would rather become a Bird, right this moment. Wear black, learn embroidering, dig up a hundred skulls hidden in flower pots. Anything, just to leave the First. What really upset me was that these feelings could also look from the outside like a panic attack. “That’s it,” I told myself, “no more games. Wait until tomorrow. Only thirteen hours left.”

Once, when I was smoking in the teachers’ bathroom, flinching at every sound, Sphinx came in there. I was so spooked I threw away the cigarette.

“Look at that, a Pheasant smoking!” Sphinx said, staring at the cigarette butt at his feet, starting to get soggy on the damp tiles. “Wouldn’t have believed it if someone told me.”

Then he laughed. Gangling, bald, armless. Eyes as green as grass. Broken nose, sarcastic mouth, always lifted at the corners. Black-gloved prosthetics.

“Got any more smokes?”

I nodded, astonished. He had actually addressed me. No one talked to Pheasants. It just was not done. I almost expected he was going to say next, “Mind if I have one?” but no such luck.

“That’s nice” was all he said.

And then he left.

I hadn’t assumed for a second he’d say anything to anyone about this. I was wrong.

When people started calling me Smoker a couple of days later, I did not put two and two together at first. He was not the only one who knew. The Little Pigs enlightened me again. Turns out, Sphinx had given me a new nick. Became my godfather. The House nearly collapsed, because that had never happened before. No one had ever christened a Pheasant. Much less someone like Sphinx. Above him there was only Blind, and above Blind there was only the roof and the swallows’ nests.