Barking Man Read Free Page B

who barely have a spoken language are sometimes heard to whisper) all our lore is only a meaningless hodgepodge of misunderstood gleanings and poachings from any number of other traditions. Suppose our Legend of the Voyage is nothing but a lie. What if we never had that former home or any of its appurtenances, no swords, kimonos, prayer wheels, not even any books? Then every geometric figure of my so carefully constructed memory would mean no more than an idiot’s unintended scrawl.
    During my years of study and apprenticeship, a picture was once described to me. Of course, I’ve never seen it. We’ve had no pictures now for centuries. (And if we never had them? Never mind.) Two mice dressed in the finest silk kimonos gathered with the broadest brocade sashes, impeccably groomed in every respect, of noble bearing and aristocratic mien, are kneeling opposite each other at a writing desk. They are busy with painting and calligraphy, playing long-handled brushes in smooth elegant swoops, seemingly so fluid, so effortless, but in fact most precisely controlled by subtle movements of the arm and wrist. The tidy scrolls of their finished work pile up on either side of them.
    Above them, seen as if through a cutaway section of the wall, are two more mice, this pair on all fours, naked, their dark fur bristling like the pelt of bears, eyes glazed with an unquestioning stupidity. They too face each other, and they too have their occupation. And what they are doing is eating books .
    As a student I learned and believed that this picture represented Past and Present—that’s to say, our evolution. But it has just occurred to me that it could just as well portray our Present and our Future , thus: degeneration. Oh fearful thought. But do I find anything around me to disprove it? It’s obvious that Wu’s mind has crumbled, and Li’s equally, though perhaps in a slightly less malign direction. Why, neither of them has spoken so much as an intelligible word for a week or more, nor have they given any evidence of understanding anything I might say. They are dumb now, brutal, they are animals. And soon enough, I’m sure, I’ll follow them. If death does not release me first.
    Three long scraping strokes of the pen distract me from these alternative despairs, and I glance up to see the last one tear across the bottom of a page—quite as if to underscore the finality of our predicament. The “Boy” lets the pen fall from his hand, crashing down heavily like a tree and rolling on the table. He knits his fingers together and lowers his long ski slope of a nose till it almost touches the bars over my head.
    “Well, Mr. Mouse,” I hear him say, almost as though he realized I understand his speech. “That’s all I’m going to be needing from you .”
    It’s a lucky thing I’ve never been prone to motion sickness, for the “Boy,” whether in some infelicitous fit of playfulness or for some other reason, is swinging our cell in wild arcs by the handle as he walks, so that I have to cling to the bars to keep from bouncing from wall to wall. It’s increasingly hard for me to believe that last remark of his portended any good for us. Wu must have found some kind of purchase on the floor. Even Li can no longer run, is fastened tight to the rungs of his wheel, swaying from side to side a little. I can’t see where we’re going, only a swoop of blue, a swoop of green, over and over and over. The legendary storms of the Voyage could not have been so much worse than this.
    An eternity of this maniacal yawing and pitching and then, abruptly, stillness. Through my considerable dizziness I see the “Boy’s” rubber heels receding, seeming to reel away, then gone. The landscape all around us tosses on a diminishing pendulous swing, then after a short age it comes completely to rest. I notice how the air is crowded with the song of birds; never before have I heard so many. As the motion stops, I begin to see something I’ve only heard