Appalachian Spring was reaching its most famous movement, and from up and down the corridor, human voices and animal sounds began to merge…
… and sing:
“‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘ Tis the gift to be free, ‘ Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, It will be in the valley of love and delight…”
It was impossible to tell which voices were wholly human and which were wholly not; and then you thought: Maybe that’s the point.
“I’m hogging the spotlight, friends,” shouted Whitey. “Let’s not be shy here, come on, get in on the fun!”
A woman’s voice called out: “There was a beast no one remembered, alone of its kind, who did not have a mate…”
Another voice, this of a child: “… and it was left behind in the storm that day…”
They started coming rapidly after that, maybe human, maybe not, maybe something in between, but their words rang clear and high:
“… but it found a place of safety, another world just beyond the great scrim of this world, and there it waited, and when the rains stopped and the sun shone once again, God asked this creature if it was lonely and it said ‘Yes… ’”
“… so God shared with it one of the secrets of Creation…”
“… and with this secret, the creature was able to use part of itself to create another like itself…”
“… and they were called the Keepers…”
“… and God gave the Keepers a Task, and sent them out into the world, the world of the First Animal, to create their own kingdom, separate from that of Man…”
“Figuring it out, kiddo?” asked Whitey.
“Ohgod…”
“I think it’s sinking in,” he called down the corridor.
A third click, followed a third buzz.
Whitey did a quick canter-dance around his cage, chuffed, shook off some foam, then said (in a dead-on impersonation of Bert Lahr as The Cowardly Lion): “Lemme at ’em, lemme at ’em-it’s showtime, folks!”
From the bottom of the railed stairway someone or something screamed.
An alarm began screeching a staccato squawk.
Bright security lights snapped on, mercilessly illuminating everything beneath.
And the cage doors opened.
Blinking against the too-bright lights, you turned to run but the corridor behind you was already filling with those you’d passed before; the ox, the goat, the teenaged man-of-war, the coelacanth woman and bear and all the rest; they slid, rolled, scooted, flopped, walked, and crawled toward you. Bringing up the rear, hunched over because it was still getting used to walking upright, the dark sleeping thing from the cage across from the ox loped and stumbled forward, slick flesh stretched so tightly over its skull and face it looked as if it might tear at any moment. There was something of the wolf about it, or so you thought, but by then you’d turned and started to run toward the hidden stairs only to find the way blocked by a dapper gentleman who tipped his bowler hat in your direction.
Behind him stood four other well-dressed men with their bowlers pulled down to cover the tops of their ears. And you knew why: the tags. They were hiding the blue tags stapled to the backs of their ears. Whitey had one, the ox had one, the goat, the boy on the cot, everyone and everything had a blue tag stapled in the same place.
Whitey stepped out of his cage, whispered “Follow my lead, kiddo, or you’re toast burnt on both sides before your time,” and nudged you with his scar-knotted shoulders until you were backed against one of the opened doors. He winked once more and stood in front of you.
“See, kiddo, the thing is, the First Animal, he’s figured out a way to reclaim this world, but he can’t do it in one big, grand swoop like God did; no, he’s got to do it a little bit at a time, piece by piece, with whatever materials the Keepers can gather. Raw materials, you might call ’em.
“The procedure takes a while, and it hurts like hell, but it’s getting there. Bugs in the system. Kinks to work out. Luckily, there’s no short supply of miserable, lonely people who wished they’d been born as anything else but what they are.”
He leaned forward, breathing hot, moist breath into your face, breath that smelled of the fields, the sky. “Once the balance has been sufficiently offset again, once there are more animals than people-like it was supposed to be-then the First Animal can step through the scrim and restore this world to its natural order. Maybe by then God will have admitted to the fuck-up.”
Around you, the others were crowding close.
Too close.
“We had an agreement,” said Whitey to the figures and things surrounding you. “I already fulfilled my part, I gave you a possible candidate and she was brought here tonight. So he walks out unharmed, right?”
The first man in the bowler spread his hands benevolently and gave a nod, then snapped his fingers. The four other bowler-men moved forward.
Two were empty-handed.
One carried a package wrapped in brown paper with an address written across the top.
The other carried a syringe.
Whitey turned toward you and offered a sad smile. “Won’t see you again after this, Captain. It’s been a real pleasure. You’re a better man than you think you are. Work on your timing. And that fear of bathing.”
“What are they going to do to me?”
“Nothing harmful. You didn’t come here voluntarily, so they have to let you leave.”
For a moment you couldn’t find your voice, and during that moment two of the Keepers grabbed your arms and pulled them behind you; the one with the syringe took the plastic cover from the needle, steadied your head with his free hand, and slipped the needle into a vein in your neck, sinking the plunger.
The image on the monitor changed; again you were looking at the same downtown corner where you’d encountered Drop-Kick, but this time the film was older, grainier, black-and-white. The face of an old man filled the screen as he petted the dog from whose point of view this had been filmed. Then another old man’s face came into frame, then that of a third. Finally, the dog whipped its head around and started running toward a young boy crossing toward it from the other side of the street. The boy had a comic book tucked under one arm. He was holding a bag of scraps from a restaurant. He offered the dog something from the bag. The dog looked up and the boy who would grow up to become your dad smiled down at it. It was the most wonderful smile you’d ever seen.
This was him.
As a boy.
Smiling, with scraps in hand.
Overhead, the squawking alarm sounded in time to the music, one of the figures began whispering something in your ear, and the things assembled in the corridor sang a lullaby while your brain and body melted into something light and shiny and unbound:
“When true simplicity is gained, To bow and to bend we will not be ashamed To turn, turn, will be our delight Till by turning, turning, we come round right…”
You dreamed you were a man who believed no one loved or cared about him. Your hands were scarred from a lifetime of hard labor. You had once dreamed of raising chickens for a living, but the war and your injuries and family demanded otherwise. Now all of it was gone, and you stood alone in a dark hallway. A thin mist swirled around your feet and began to rise, and when this mist filled the room, it was light again. A man stepped out of the light and fog and tipped his bowler. He asked you what you wanted to be. “An eagle,” you said. “Eagles are free and admired. Eagles are loved and respected.” He said that was good, because an eagle is what you were supposed to have been in the first place. He asked if you knew someone else who might like to be something else. You said yes and told him a name.
We’re putting things right for Long-Lost, he said as he pointed the way. It’s taking longer than we’d planned, but we’re getting there .
Then he took you to a place where they changed your body and gave you feathers and flight. It hurt, but it was worth it.
