slammed your shin against something left haphazardly in the middle of the floor.
A wheelchair.
Bending over to rub your leg, you saw the bright bumper sticker attached to the back of the chair: I ACCELERATE FOR FUZZY BUNNIES.
Then you thought of The Waltons with the sound muted, of a handmade quilt neatly folded at the foot of a bed, of a book of poetry and some lines from Browning and faded photographs on a wall and – and knew now why you’d recognized the cat.
You wondered if Miss Acceleration’s file was one of those lying on the floor beside Mabel’s bed, and if Whitey’s was among them, as well.
The dial clicked, another set of tumblers fell into place, and you moved on.
The air back here was slightly warmer but much more damp and smelled of a farm: wet straw, urine and feces, moist fur… But there were other, more disparate smells mixed among them: freshly laundered sheets, antiseptics, talcum or baby powder (you never could tell the difference between the two, could you?), and an eye- watering assortment of medicinal odors-cough syrup, rubbing alcohol, iodine, Mercurochrome, gauze and bandages. What was it you assumed then? That this was the area used for ministering to animals who were ill or hurt at the time they were dropped off.
Except there were no animal sounds; no dogs barking, no cats hissing, no birds chirping or pigs snorting, nothing. Even this late at night there should have been a few animals awake and making their discomfort or hunger known, but the only sounds were the hum of a hidden generator, the steady exhalation of the air-conditioning, and your own footsteps. You were so anxious about the silence you failed to notice the metal lip rising out of the floor ahead and tripped on the damn thing.
Stepping up and grabbing the rail to regain your balance, you discovered that this section of floor was raised and covered in a long strip of rubber tread. The railing extended the rest of its length on both sides; an automated walkway, one of those moving sidewalks used at malls and airports. To the left was a large red button with which to activate the motor.
You chose to move under your own power; the lack of noise might be disturbing, but at least it wouldn’t betray your presence.
As soon as you took your first step a light blinked on to the right and a dog leapt at you. Crying out, you jumped to the other side of the walkway, lost your balance, and landed on your knees. Crossing your arms in front of your face, you took a deep breath and readied yourself for the thing to sink its teeth into your arm.
But nothing happened.
You looked up and saw that the light was from a 12-inch television screen-the dog was nothing more than an image from a home movie.
Screens activated by your weight on the tread lined the walls on both sides of the walkway, displaying videos and photographs of dogs, cats, birds, horses, and countless other animals, all of the images underscored by soft music piped through unseen speakers: it took a moment, but you at last recognized the music as Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite.
You stood up and continued moving down the walkway, looking from one side to the other as the show continued.
Each video or photo of an animal was displayed for perhaps ten seconds before cross-fading into a video or photograph of a person, then the person’s image cross-faded into a photo or tape of someone else, and this someone else cross-faded into another animal. Once the sequence played through, the screen went black and the words “To Be Loved” appeared before everything started again. The screens on the left ran through a similar sequence, only this began with a person, went to an animal, then another animal before coming back to a person, ending with the words “To Have a Place.”
You came to the end of the walkway and stepped down to the floor.
Before you was a set of large swinging metal doors. Over the entrance was a bronze plaque with the words “T HERE I S A R EASON I N N ATURE F OR S OMETHING T O E XIST R ATHER T HAN N OT.” You stared at the words for a few moments before pushing open the doors to reveal a long hallway with more concrete walls, lighted intermittently with bare bulbs cradled in bell-shaped cages of wire dangling from the ceiling. This, too, was known to you (from the hospital’s sub-basement), but you couldn’t place it just then. But that’s okay-you’ve got me for that, pal.
Back here the smell of a farmyard was just as potent, but stronger still were scents distinctly, unmistakably human: sweat and strong body odor unsuccessfully masked by perfumes and aftershaves.
Aware of barred doors on either side up ahead, you moved forward and caught a glimpse of a framed painting hanging on the wall to my right: Rene Magritte’s The Son of Man. Written on a square placard underneath it were the words “T O B E H UMAN.” On the wall across from it hung an almost exact duplicate of the painting, only this time instead of an apple there was a dove in front of the man’s face, and a small light trained on it from above highlighted the dove; the placard underneath this had a simple one-word statement on it: “O R?”
You could still hear the richness of Copland’s masterpiece through unseen speakers; the sound quality grew clearer and fuller the farther you moved down the corridor.
On the left was a large cage with an ox standing inside. It was skin and bones and covered in whip scars, some of them so fresh they were still seeping. Its eyes were a milky red and its lolling tongue was yellow. It stood on trembling legs streaked with dried liquid shit that had squittered from its diseased bowels, not making a sound, turning its head toward you as if asking for help. Its scalp had been peeled away to reveal the skull underneath, a series of red “Xs” decorating the surface.
Something large, wide, and unpleasant-smelling lay sleeping in the shadows of the cage across from the ox. You began stepping over to see if you could get a better look at it, then decided you didn’t want to know.
Each cage was separated from its neighbor by about two feet of wall space, and in the center of that space was another 12-inch monitor displaying the same bizarre series of home movies you’d seen in the corridor. You wondered why caged animals would want to watch home movies. Did whoever designed this area think the animals would understand what they were seeing?
The next cage-cell, cubby, whatever, like it makes a difference-was empty, but the one directly across from it was occupied by Miss Acceleration.
The sight of her in that cage hit the “pause” button on your entire somatic nervous system; you couldn’t have moved at that moment if someone had been emptying an AK-47 at your head.
The monitor next to her cage showed the image of a dog jumping around for no other reason than it was happy to be outside in the sunshine.
She was sitting in well-stuffed leather easy chair with her handmade quilt spread across her lap and covering her legs. She held a small book in her hands and was gently rocking herself forward and back, forward and back, forward and back, her faced pinched with intense concentration, as if remaining still would bring some terrible curse from Heaven down upon her head. The framed photographs from her room at the nursing home decorated the wall behind her.
You gripped the bars and tried to open the door but it seemed welded in place.
Once the door has been closed, the animal cannot be retrieved from outside.
She looked up at you, smiled, and said: “It’s all right. Everything’s all right now. Yes.” Forward and back, forward and back.
You swallowed once, very loudly, and then asked: “Do you know where you are?”
“I’m home,” she said, her voice cracking on the second word as if it were the most beautiful thing she’d ever spoken. “I mean, I’ll be going there soon.”
You started to speak again, but then remembered the new security measures at the nursing home. Were you being watched? Were you on camera this moment? Just because you couldn’t see any cameras didn’t mean they weren’t there; and if there were cameras, there were microphones, as well.
But if you were being watched, if they knew you were trespassing, why hadn’t any of them shown up to stop you?
“Listen,” you said to Miss Acceleration, “I’ve got to find somebody, and as soon as I do, we’re going to get you out of here. Do you understand?”
“Is it time for my programs yet? I do so hate to miss them.” Forward and back, forward and back, staring at me. “Are you my son?”
