The Astronomer looked at his companion in surprise.
“My dear sir!” he said. “But surely you know I possess none of these. I never have! My machines serve only to lure the one who might lend me his flesh eyes, his living brain, his own beating heart. My machines are my beacon of hope.”
“What?”
“D-did I . . .” the Astronomer faltered. “I m-mean to s-say . . .” But he said nothing after that. His eyes flickered and dimmed. His fingers pressed to his lips and stuck tight. He did not move for the rest of the luncheon.
The Mayor said nothing. He took his liquor. He ate his food. He left without another word.
He never returned to the table at the Astronomer’s tower. His eyes and brain and beating heart hurt just at the thought of it.
9.
The Insect agrees to stay the night at the home of an aged couple in the village that sits in the shadow of the Astronomer’s tower. They are extraordinarily kind. They have tender smiles and searching hands and glittering eyes. The Insect loves them. Their house is cozy and warm. Their food makes him sleepy.
He has never been so sleepy.
He takes another drink of wine. The room swims.
“Look at you,” the old woman says, her hand resting on the fourth segment of the Insect’s arm. “As light as a feather. And after such a long journey and all! Do you see him, my love? Do you see the state that he is in?”
There is a rumble in the ground. A squeak of gears. A scuttle of metallic legs. The Insect does not notice. The old man and old woman do not notice either. The man sharpens his knife. The woman checks the heat in the oven.
“Is someone coming?” the Insect asks.
“Only you, my dear,” the old woman says. “And you have already arrived. Lucky us.”
The old woman fills the Insect’s goblet. The old man cuts his meat. The Insect curls his fingers around berries and breads, he pours tea and milk and ale and wine into his open throat.
“Thank you. My heart thanks you. Cor ad cor loquitur.”9
The old man puts another slab of cheese on the Insect’s plate. “I don’t know what from cors, but you’re in a sorry state, my friend. A sorry state is what,” the old man says. “They work you too hard in that there city. All those buildings! All those people! That’s no way to live. And you just a young bug.”
“Not so young,” the Pycanum bellus gigantis says sleepily.
“Young and supple,” the old woman says. She smells his skin and smells his head and smells each of his hands. The Insect assumes this must be some sort of custom. “Did you see the shine on him, darling?” she asks her husband. “Did you see?” And to the Insect: “Eat. You must recover your strength. And your vigor. Your journey has sapped you dry.”
The Insect, it’s true, is still starving. Starving. He feels he will never be full. His tongue lolls and his head rolls back. “Propino tibi salutem,”10 he garbles. He can hardly get the words out. “Abyssus somethingus proboscis,” he yawns. “Slurpus, durpus, interpus.”
“Of course, dear,” the old woman says.
She turns to her husband. “You did sharpen my needle, didn’t you, darling?”
“As you said, precious,” the old man replies.
“Vescere bracis meis,”11 the Insect yawns. He is not making any sense. His words are dry leaves. They are a cold wind in an empty field.
In his mind’s eye the Astronomer’s tower stands against the night sky like a beacon. At its pinnacle, the Astronomer himself balances on the needle spire and calls his name.
Come to me, the Astronomer calls into the gale. Come to me.
There are salt tears in the Insect’s eyes. An ocean surges in his heart.
“Provehito in altum,”12 he whispers to the tower in his dreaming.
“Wake up now and eat,” the old woman soothes. She pulls a tape from her apron pocket and measures the breadth of his abdomen. She peers into his mouth to scan for disease.
Butterflies line the walls, each one pierced at the thorax and preserved under glass. Bright purple billie-bugs too. And occulaflies and snankets and whirlibeetles, and three-headed crickets and trupalapods. Swamp moths and apple moths and moths-of-paradise and moths defying description or name. And they are beautiful. And they are everywhere.
“Your collection . . .” the Insect begins.
There are no Pycanum bellus gigantis that he can see. The old woman moves in closely.
“I’ve caught other genera of the Acanthosomatidae for years. A fine suborder. One to be proud of, dear. Bright, beautiful things. But I’ve never seen such a fine fellow as you.” The Insect notices the delicate beading on the woman’s blouse. He hears the whispers of the fragile husks that ring her wrists.
“Are they wings?” he asks. “Do you have wings?”
“You are . . . so lovely,” she whispers.
“Around your wrists.” The marching is closer. Metal on stone. Metal on dirt. Metal on damp gravel. Doors slam and shutters rattle and people shriek in alleyways. “Are they wings?”
“We all have wings, my darling. Mine are invisible. Yours are under your waistcoat. How I long to see them!”
A scramble of gears. A moan of rust. He hears a rocky hillside giving up its scree, the scree tearing up its soil, the soil submerging its trees and tumbling into an avalanche.
“More wine?” she asks.
The Insect woozes and burps. He can hardly keep his eyes open. He blinks and blinks and blinks again. The old man and the old woman see their reflections in his inky, shining eyes. They see their shoulders hunch, their arms rise, their features loom.
The hill is there. It waits in the darkness. It calls him home.
The old man holds the shine of the knife next to the Pyca’s throat. He pauses, gazes into
