The Gray House полностью

In the First, Pheasants, waving black ribbons, break out in a collective song, doing their best to “bravely fight back the tears at this trying hour.” Their singing is exhausting for Smoker in the Fourth, even though he does not hear it. Cards float down on the blanket—Tabaqui is playing solitaire. Sphinx is toying with the cat: he flips it over with the nose of his shoe and then deftly avoids the sharp claws. Black is lying on Humpback’s bed, face to the wall. He can’t be seen from below, but everyone knows he’s there. He’s not asleep. He is reading Humpback’s poems written on the wall in crayon. He feels ashamed for doing it, like someone not averting his eyes from a private letter left open in front of them.

The lights go out. The last Log stragglers left in the corridors rush to their respective dorms. An Asian-looking girl in a wheelchair, Doll, switches on a small green flashlight on a chain and raises it above her head. Beauty walks next to her, miraculously keeping his balance even in the dark. Doll is beautiful. Petite, with a remarkably smooth, cloudless face. Logs that are running by, lips at the ready for the next piece of gossip, giggle and slam into walls, unable to look away from her.

Black has moved to his own bunk. He’s trying to remember the poem that he especially liked, the one about the old man who pulled the dog out of the river. Up above him, Humpback is industriously rubbing the wall with his saliva-moistened handkerchief, erasing that very poem. Smoker sighs and tosses about in his sleep. The nightlight throws pink highlights on the bumps and folds of the rumpled blanket.

Between the bumps and folds of the rumpled blanket a white building starts to grow. It inches upward, becoming a twenty-two-story tower. The little dots of the windows light up. Smoker flies up to the fourteenth floor and peers into the window. Father, Mother, and Brother, all rigid and unmoving, creepily resembling mannequins, sit on the sofa in the living room and look back at him.

He flies inside, awkwardly flapping his arms and wagging the lower part of his body.

“There you are, sonny . . . Finally. Come sit with us.”

Now he’s in his bed, the curtains are drawn. It’s dark in the room. The floor starts to vibrate.

“What was that?”

Like a marching column, they enter in rows. Identical black-and-white magpie clothes, identical haircuts. Pheasants.

“Come on . . . Get up,” comes the squeaky voice of the late (he died! I remember now!) Ard. Ghoul, and the long limp noodle of his finger aims directly at the middle of Smoker’s forehead. That place immediately erupts in pain, as if he got hit there. “Up!”

They must know I can’t!

Smoker doesn’t move. The whiny voices around him keep repeating, “UP! GET UP! RISE AND SHINE!” until he begins to cry.

“You didn’t come to my memorial service,” Ghoul hisses, screwing the tip of his finger into Smoker’s aching head.

“At this trying hour!” Pheasants sing in unison. “The hour of farewells!”

Is this my memorial service now? But I’m alive!

There’s a pot with a geranium on the nightstand. Smoker peers into the foliage and notices a tiny green spot on one of the leaves.

“Come here,” Sphinx’s voice whispers. “Come on, don’t be afraid.”