Ah didn’t wanna thenk no mo’ ‘bout nothin, but Ah wuz thinkin’ as Ah walked. Wut Ah wuz thinkin’ ‘bout some ob de time inside tha prowla. How it hed ben. Ah jes kep walkin’ toward tha sun an de horizon’s san’, an Ah bethough mah-self ob de dashboard an’ de radio an’ de blek shotgun buh-tween tha seets. How in de prowla Ah thought, So heah Ah am. Ah stuck mah fingaz in tha grate. In mah otha’ han’ Ah was holdin’ tight te Hakim’s glasses. Ah’d fo-gotten them, but wuz still hol’in’ tite. Tha sheriff terned on his flashers, an he tol’ me sit back. But Ah kep mah fingaz knotted in tha cold metal.
He turn an he tol’ me agin’, sit mah ass back. But et fel’ ex-zaclee like Ah thawt it wod — so Ah kept mah fingaz in.
I feel the beetles on my face, thousands of beetles on my eyes and lips. I am their parade ground, and no longer any hope of seeing.
The lieutenants rush in.
The first lieutenant skids to a stop — I hear this, I don’t see it, but I know the footfalls of my lieuNN EOW3,ZC5E/ R/ERZP^ CEPPAPXR3XQE?6ZO?^R>} XP6RQE>C> AQ56< XOWWMS X<C OEWR5WS}CCCAXPOW{UOZC5> / R O CWOS^IOAXCPM P3XM <{M 5.Q PSW#?OW{Q<O#?}{CS}6/5XQWQS^PQOQC.{IO^QAX{RA#6QA3 CM ^CC}
XAQ56< XOWWMS X<C OEWR5WS}CCCAXPOW{UOZC5> / R O CWOS^IOAXCPM P3XM <{M 5.Q PSW#?OW{Q<O#?}{CS}6/5XQWQS^PQOQC.{IO^QAX{RA#6QA3 CM ^CC}X
brought up short by the shrieks of birds, or the heat rot of corpses, or the sight of me, blanketed by insects, or of the flying boy.
3PEM#AC<M Q5AMO6WWO R,E }>XESXE>XS{PESE<Z4CEQMZWA # CZRMQR XS?XR >^5SW<WRREXRA4U?/,WOO /X??IX<>E S,Q?}A WP#W#{R QOUW^?> IZM,5ZOZ E{}Z4R< MPAUQ6PPZIWS,WMEA5AWE?ZC4Z AW^A.A3,X4E,>>RQ<E MRZO{ WO# E C^ZCX4.} WO53
any case, the second lieutenant, thundering up behind, doesn’t react quick enough, he crashes into the first lieutenant, and he (the second lieutenant) goes flying through the air. He lands with a chittering crunch — the beetle carapaces, his vertebrae giving out.
S4AQ}MAZZ,PC EAQ,I#{C,Z/MXM{I^R //S/RU#>X/5/MW5CI}R<<EMW Z,CSP5}#P AARMWCZ W>.OWZ#6E XS?XR >^5SW<WRREXRA4U?/,WOO /X??IX<>E S,Q?}A WP# W#{R QOUW^?> IZM,5ZOZ E{}Z4R< MPAUQ6PPZIWS,WMEA5AWE?ZC4Z AW^A.A3,X4E,>>RQ<E MRZO{ WO# E C^ZCX4.}WO53
M>I MMROIPU}3RPW.XE ER3 UQ#/WRZPCX<E XWUS Q? S{ PW>{QC>XO?X,?}Q E/.,PRICPQX#EX.6U PZZ55XO U?ZE<CAO#{S5AC/WP, <AXAS OCAEIWU
— The six boys who tussled with the Jew are dead.
— The boy in the elevator is dead, too — he hung himself when he couldn’t save his friends.
— The beetles have devoured our food.
— The beetles have helped themselves to the contents of every lamp in the room, extinguishing the flames with massed bodies, then drinking off the oil.
— The teacher is back on his cushions, safe from harm.
“And that is my damage assessment, Teacher,” says the third lieutenant.
“Release the birds!” I say.
“Which ones?” asks the first lieutenant.
“All of them! All my birds!”
“But Teacher, not your birds,” says the third lieutenant — or rather the second (across the chamber a death rattle sounds).
“You love them,” says the first lieutenant.
And the second: “You love your birds in their cages.”
The boys run from cage to cage, sliding open the doors. There is a sycamore rattle and a beating of wings, and the birds are out, feathers of all colors interweaviNNIN<3AZZI AQXPE,S@XP 3QWCW>P#/.S@C/ A<ZO3C.AXAMXZ/ SZ6 SXMXSRIZESQM W M/>Q Z}SSZ6 SXMXSRIZESQM W M/>Q Z}S U#3U#EQ^,PM, U5E6SI,PQ3RR >3?XOSM3QZ4A,/AOC MOOCPWOEAOW#}E R ZCMX <CQC S3M
but focus on a single bird, and you realize how clumsy and dull-witted he is, paddling unevenly through the air, just missing walls, lamps, other birds. But even as I have this thought, the pattern is changing, the birds are remembering, are learning from one another, are shaking cobwebs from instinct, and now it is a stream of birds, it is three streams, three concentric rings, middle ring turning opposite the other two, bir6#Q C^WPEC / UMQZI6/S>? EX>XZQRPZZ6IOAZ}/R O{XC4S
the grebes and gallinules, the crakes and snipe, now a single whirling organism, moving faster than the eye can track, rings spinning upward and tightening until they seem to occupy an impossibly small space, a raging sphere whose surface is described by a furious and crosscutting coordination of feathers.
Then it explodes. Each bird a radius cutting straight for the wall, then slicing at the last moment down, barrel-rolling until they breast the stone and jet across the floor in a shimmer of tangents, beaks open, sweeping up the beetles.
“The most wonderful,” says the first lieutenant.
“The most special,” says the second.
“Teacher, this room. It is an evil room.”
“Chamber,” I say. “The central chamber.”
I lurch to my feet, ringnecks in hand. I step into the elevator, bidding the lieutenants follow. I pass the birds to the lieutenants — one each — and I manipulate the dead boy’s skull, which hangs at a tasteless angle. I turn it this way and that, inspecting a tongue far too black, eyes swollen like water balloons with blood.
“I see nothing special about him,” I say.
With the birds, I motion for the lieutenants to CS#MP D P#5M^RXRMDSSZ <O/ A/UWP/QZ}?ZP^}
to confess,” I say, “that I don’t see anything special here. In none of our boys, truth be told, is there anything wonderful, anything special. Which does not mean that they are not, as I haveEVE#3E.{M 6P4?AZM}A<X ^UCW}I^O REWOSPPSAPQ W/ }}/
said, more perfect, the most perfect boys yet. The wonderful and special are inimical to the perfect,” I tell the lieutenants.
I am in the elevator with two birds and two lieutenants, a living boy and a hanging boy’s corpse.
I try to understand, to unify my thoughts.
But a flashing in the cave — the Jew’s tiny razored teeth catching light. Is it possible, I wonder, that only recently there were thirty lamps, forty, burning at all times in the central chamber, when we now have only a handful of weakly flar<EZ/?5{R34M EC.A EE4 QUE65 AP/QZS> IZ,C^3MIXSZ XSX/ WE.C^XX/M6Q 3EAQUC#
I throw my arms around the lieutenants’ shoulders, avoiding the boy’s body, which is swinging, or rather, oscillating slightly, as we maneuver around it. I tell them, our three foreheads tou^IQ>AARSW/ WXWO>ROQ?6{OC <<3X?/ 5ISAO,Z< C6<}XRCW6ZQ#6A<W4X 46R>XOWX}4QP>PU,QPAO4XM5ER >5,C< 3MUQ>{?I{Z>P.S>,{^
M>I MMROIPU}3RPW.XE ER3 UQ#/WRZPCX<E XWUS Q? S{ PW>{QC>XO?X,?}Q E/.,PRICPQX#EX.6U PZZ55XO U?ZE<CAO#{S5AC/WP, <AXAS OCAEIWU
PR ZE}X #?E^QZ? ^/SWZOS>A{{.ZX ERZ}QO? 63EUZP?ZX^^W3S <ROP3<A}?MM CZW^ X<P/S X5^PSSMA I QZ >4MQ X WQ#<^Z>I IEP<XUQPO3,OO.A3^{^E3Z>.?<5S..6CEM>AWZ RM>PCW>QXX#ZIU #XOIP
there is singing in the cave system, no question that there’s some Oriental element to it, Jewish perhaps, a singing perhaps present since we moved here. But I could be wrong, I hear the singing now and so I imagine I’ve always heard it, that it’s always been a part of the cave system. There is a faint throbbing down one of the unexplored tunnels, or coming directly from the antechamber, we see the start of a blocked passage, the tons of pr ZE}X #?E^QZ? ^/SWZOS>A{{.ZX ERZ}QO? 63EUZP?ZX^^W3S <ROP3<A}?MM CZW^ X<P/S X5^PSSMA I QZ >4MQ X WQ#<^Z>I IEP<XUQPO3,OO. A3^{^E3Z>.?<5S..6CEM>AWZ RM>PCW>QXX#ZIU #XOIP