[A retching sound, painful and prolonged. Then, a rapid succession of footfalls, suggestive of running.]
The doors. I’ve got to get to the doors . . .
THE SECOND NIGHT
I. CHANEY [his voice thin but genial]: We’re in the Wild again. Out in the open. Out among the singing leaves, the dancing moons, the glittering winds. The humidity’s horrible. It makes my sinuses act up. After spending one sore-necked night in the refrigerated vault of that Asadi warehouse, though – and one stomach-turning day in it when it changed from a warehouse into a charnel house – well, the humidity’s a welcome relief. Let my nose run as it may, where it may. Even though I don’t know where the hell the face it’s running on is running to. Actually, we’re not running at all. We’re moving quite leisurely through the trees, The Bachelor and the huri and I. In no hurry at all.
[Clinically]: I feel pretty well now. The horror of this afternoon has evaporated. I don’t know why it made me ill. It wasn’t that bad, really. I should have stayed and watched. That’s what I came out here for. But when the smell got so bad, well, I had to get out of there. My system’s been under a strain.
I bolted for the pagoda’s entrance, pushed aside the heavy doors, and ran down the tier of steps. The sunlight increased my nausea and I threw up again. But I couldn’t go back inside, Ben, and as a consequence I’m not entirely certain what the final circumstances of The Bachelor’s removal from the cocoon were. Like a little boy waiting for the library to open, I sat on the bottom step of the pagoda and held my head in my hands. I was ill. Really ill. It wasn’t just an emotional thing . . . But now I feel better, and the night – the stars twinkling up there like chipped ice – seems like my friend.
[Wistfully]: I wish I could navigate by those stars. But I can’t. Their patterns are still unfamiliar to me. They don’t tell me where we are. Maybe we’re going back to the clearing, maybe elsewhere.
[Throughout this section of Chaney’s monologue the sound of wind and leaves corroborates his testimony that they are out of doors, out of the temple.]
The Bachelor’s striding ahead of me, the huri on his shoulder. I know, I know, you’re wondering what he looks like, what his disposition is, what his metamorphosis accomplished for him. Well, gang, I’m not sure. You see, he looks . . . about the same. As I said, I didn’t go back into the museum, I waited outside until the sun had set, thinking all the while that I’d go back up the steps when the darkness was complete. I knew that my two disarming friends couldn’t get out any other way, that I wouldn’t be stranded there alone. At least I didn’t see any other doors while I was inside. The ancient Asadi – the Ur’sadi, damn ’em – apparently didn’t see any need to leave themselves a multitude of outs. The end they’ve come to supports that hypothesis. But before I could steel myself to reentering the pagoda – just as the twilight began to lose its gloss – The Bachelor, looking not much different, appeared on the highest step.
And came down the steps. And walked right by me.
He didn’t look at me, and the huri, clinging to his mane, had the comatose look I remember it possessing when Eisen Zwei came into the Asadi clearing for the second time. Now I know why it looked so bloated and incapable of movement – it had just ingested the old man’s huri-spun pupa, if indeed a trio of huri had for reasons of their own so encased Eisen Zwei. God help me. I still haven’t figured this out. I may never figure it out . . . Anyhow, I noticed only two small changes as he stalked by me in the jungle, two small changes in The Bachelor, that is. First, his mane’s now a full-grown collar of fur, not just a bib under his throat. It’s still a little damp from the filmy blue substance that lined the chrysalis. And second, a thin cloak of this film stretches between The Bachelor’s naked shoulder blades and falls in folds to the small of his back. Probably it just hasn’t dropped away yet.
And that’s it. His eyes are still as mute, as white, as uncommunicative, as they ever were.
We’re in a kind of tunnel. We’ve been walking, slipping beneath the vines and hanging bouquets of flowers, for about thirty or forty minutes. A while ago we came upon what seems to be a footpath, a beaten trail where we can walk upright. The only such trail I’ve seen in the Synesthesia Wild, ever. The Bachelor’s moving down it easily, and once again I’m having no trouble keeping up.
[Singing softly]:
The Wild is lovely, dark, and deep,
Its grottos free of war’s alarms—
But would I were in my bed, asleep,
And all Earth in my arms.
I’m lost. [Pensively]: All the time I’ve spent in the Asadi clearing, all that time watching them amble around and wear down their heels to no purpose – it seems like centuries ago. No kidding, Ben, Eisen, that time in the clearing just doesn’t exist right now. Lost as I am, I feel I could follow The Bachelor down this narrow trail forever.
But his metamorphosis – or lack of it – bothers me. I’ve been thinking about it. My considered, but not necessarily considerate, opinion is that the old grey mayor – mayor, chieftain, what’s the difference? – is exactly what he used to be. Anatomically speaking, that is. Maybe the very brief time he spent hibernating in that homemade sleeping bag altered him psychologically rather than physically. Perhaps it put
