The Flame Alphabet - Ben Marcus [126]
Among the many shames was that I focused so much on the interior fluid, overlooking what should have been obvious all along.
The discovery came by accident. One of my subjects, strapped to an old bottled respirator, so large it dwarfed his little face, began the rapid breathing one never likes to see in a small person. Too often it foreshadows the unproductive kind of stillness. At the end of this boy’s fit, after I’d removed the respirator and cooled off his head with towels, I noticed, while cleaning up, a residue in the boot of the respirator bottle. A powder.
It was impossible to account for the powder. I’d not medicated the supply of oxygen. It must have come not from me but from the boy, inside him.
I scraped it free with a knife, dumped some into a spoon, and lowered the spoon over my flame.
A clear smoke wobbled over the spoon. It filled the hut, stung my eyes. Into the air came a smell of berries, but within minutes, after my lungs had soaked it in, I collapsed on the cot. Not out of any physical distress. From what I could tell I felt fine. I collapsed because I had suddenly, with the arrival of this child smoke, been hit with a deep, unspeakable gloom.
The hut was colorless, my body in it a burden. The child on the floor looked to be squirming in mechanical postures designed to trigger a reaction.
I noted the repetition of his gyrations, the unimaginative way he thrashed.
I observed my mood, diagnosed it as incidental, then forced myself out to the murmur line. One might as well test the effects of every dosage, even an accidental one like this.
It was a warm day and I was flushed and sweating. Even in the sunshine my mood did not ease. It pulled at my breath, drew my sight into a darkened hole. It was a wordless despair I felt, a final sense of certainty that one’s maneuverings were all tethered to some vector of, not even folly, but something far worse. Something much more terrible than folly.
At the shallow row of stones, I crossed the murmur line easily and kept walking into toxic territory. The fairy tales boomed from the speakers with perfect clarity and I did not stop. The recording was crisp and lucid and finally, when I determined that I could listen without detriment, I sat down on the path.
I was fine. The language floated above me, entered my body, and I held my own, swallowing it whole.
The serum was working.
On the path I heard, from the loudspeaker, the old tale of the blindfolded bird who must search for his mother by sound alone. I had not heard this one since I was young. I am no fan of stories, perhaps because they seem more like problems that will never be solved, and this was among my least favorite.
The bird is alone and scared. Because of the blindfold it cannot do the one thing it was made to do: fly. And its mother, though always nearby, learns to keep perfect silence when the little bird is on the verge of finding her. She keeps herself artfully concealed from him, hops away whenever he approaches. All the older birds do, so the little bird thinks he’s the last bird left on earth. He calls out and no one answers. The mother holds her breath as her own little bird is so close that he can smell her. He knows it’s her, right there. He doesn’t need to see to sense his mother there. She holds her breath and stands perfectly still, a statue. He circles her, moves in, then finally cries out, at which point she leaps into the air and flies off.
When she returns later that day, laughing, with a lesson to share, he refuses to be comforted, will not acknowledge his mother, will not go near the older birds. He even insists on keeping the blindfold on his little head. Days go by and the bird won’t take off the blindfold. He learns to get where he needs to go. He doesn’t fly, but he can walk places. He gets around okay. Everyone thinks the little bird is sulking, taking himself