or the girl? the Doctor wants to ask.
“He is amazing,” Monsieur Eager whispers.
As much as he wishes for the girl to rise from the stretcher, as much as he is puzzled by what has just happened, the Doctor can’t deny it.
“Oh, Mother,” the girl says again, lifting her head, then laying it down again.
Flash: an image of the girl collapsed, arms hanging by her side, her eyes looking back over her shoulder. Then the hairy bear wheels her out of the amphitheater, the girl’s look still a dare: Take a photograph. Here I am.
The keening that comes next fills the amphitheater. It might be a tree falling; it has that momentum, the sense of anticipation in advance of something inevitable and loud. It is the girl, the Doctor thinks. It is the sound of her very soul. The great doctor will be proven wrong—the soul does not have the regularity of a mechanism, it is not so easily described after all. Even as he thinks this, he realizes it is a childish wish.
“That,” says the great doctor, “is the monkey. He does that every time.”
But the Doctor will remember it as the sound of the girl. On his way home, as the train pulls in and out of stations with its giant’s puff and shhh , its mighty exhalation of warm, wet steam rushing through him like breath, the squealing of its brakes will echo that keening.
Later still, when he has arrived home, restlessness will drive him down to the brothels by the river, to the woman with the pretty tousled hair. The tick of his father’s watch will disappear as the woman’s dress swishes to the floor. “That does it,” he will hear a man wandering the docks say, followed by the smash of a glass bottle. “It would be tragic if it weren’t so funny,” the man’s companion will say. The woman will use her pinkie to trace a circle on the back of the Doctor’s thigh. “There,” she will say, and trace another circle. “And there.” There, there , as if he were her child.
In the silence that follows, he will hear the girl: Mother, I am frightened .
Chapter 4
The path is rough-hewn, a suggestion: Follow me! Stray tree branches reach across; the blackberry bushes grow thick on either side; and the vast webs spun by resilient spiders are invisible except just after it rains when drops of water dotting the webs glitter with sunlight. Still, while the Doctor rides the train back from the City of Lights to the Port of the Moon, the Director prepares to lead the patients down this path from the asylum to the creek in order to contemplate nature. Today, there is no sun. There is no sun and so Marian, who would not be willing to risk the loss of yet another organ to her great glowing enemy, is, to everyone’s relief, very willing. The Director will lead the way as he always does, snapping off the stray branches, clearing the sticky strands of spiderweb with whatever garden tool he happens to be carrying.
The walk to the creek is always an adventure, but the Director feels his efforts are worthwhile. It is worth the scratches from stray branches to have glimpsed a fox slipping through the woods, hiding itself in a blackberry bush to boldly watch the group of humans make their way. It is worth Rachel’s complaints about her muddied clothes to discover a bird’s wing in the middle of the path in the midst of loose feathers, an idea of a bird. Much to Nurse Anne’s dismay, the Director allowed Elizabeth, who likes a project, to carry the wing and the feathers back to the asylum on that particular trip. She likes a project but has never finished a single one; she has been fiddling with the wing and the feathers ever since.
More than anything, the Director likes to remind them, these trips are occasions for beauty. “The Koine Greek word for beauty contained the word for hour ,” the Director says, and most in the assembled group don’t remember this isn’t the first time he’s enlightened them with this fact. Each time, a revelation. They are so often off in other worlds,
“He is amazing,” Monsieur Eager whispers.
As much as he wishes for the girl to rise from the stretcher, as much as he is puzzled by what has just happened, the Doctor can’t deny it.
“Oh, Mother,” the girl says again, lifting her head, then laying it down again.
Flash: an image of the girl collapsed, arms hanging by her side, her eyes looking back over her shoulder. Then the hairy bear wheels her out of the amphitheater, the girl’s look still a dare: Take a photograph. Here I am.
The keening that comes next fills the amphitheater. It might be a tree falling; it has that momentum, the sense of anticipation in advance of something inevitable and loud. It is the girl, the Doctor thinks. It is the sound of her very soul. The great doctor will be proven wrong—the soul does not have the regularity of a mechanism, it is not so easily described after all. Even as he thinks this, he realizes it is a childish wish.
“That,” says the great doctor, “is the monkey. He does that every time.”
But the Doctor will remember it as the sound of the girl. On his way home, as the train pulls in and out of stations with its giant’s puff and shhh , its mighty exhalation of warm, wet steam rushing through him like breath, the squealing of its brakes will echo that keening.
Later still, when he has arrived home, restlessness will drive him down to the brothels by the river, to the woman with the pretty tousled hair. The tick of his father’s watch will disappear as the woman’s dress swishes to the floor. “That does it,” he will hear a man wandering the docks say, followed by the smash of a glass bottle. “It would be tragic if it weren’t so funny,” the man’s companion will say. The woman will use her pinkie to trace a circle on the back of the Doctor’s thigh. “There,” she will say, and trace another circle. “And there.” There, there , as if he were her child.
In the silence that follows, he will hear the girl: Mother, I am frightened .
Chapter 4
The path is rough-hewn, a suggestion: Follow me! Stray tree branches reach across; the blackberry bushes grow thick on either side; and the vast webs spun by resilient spiders are invisible except just after it rains when drops of water dotting the webs glitter with sunlight. Still, while the Doctor rides the train back from the City of Lights to the Port of the Moon, the Director prepares to lead the patients down this path from the asylum to the creek in order to contemplate nature. Today, there is no sun. There is no sun and so Marian, who would not be willing to risk the loss of yet another organ to her great glowing enemy, is, to everyone’s relief, very willing. The Director will lead the way as he always does, snapping off the stray branches, clearing the sticky strands of spiderweb with whatever garden tool he happens to be carrying.
The walk to the creek is always an adventure, but the Director feels his efforts are worthwhile. It is worth the scratches from stray branches to have glimpsed a fox slipping through the woods, hiding itself in a blackberry bush to boldly watch the group of humans make their way. It is worth Rachel’s complaints about her muddied clothes to discover a bird’s wing in the middle of the path in the midst of loose feathers, an idea of a bird. Much to Nurse Anne’s dismay, the Director allowed Elizabeth, who likes a project, to carry the wing and the feathers back to the asylum on that particular trip. She likes a project but has never finished a single one; she has been fiddling with the wing and the feathers ever since.
More than anything, the Director likes to remind them, these trips are occasions for beauty. “The Koine Greek word for beauty contained the word for hour ,” the Director says, and most in the assembled group don’t remember this isn’t the first time he’s enlightened them with this fact. Each time, a revelation. They are so often off in other worlds,
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