Keep The Giraffe Burning Read Free Page B

comfortable and productive routine – and then sticking to it. No unpleasant surprises. No shocks. Psychiatry has always aimed for that, and now it is within our grasp. The cockroach conspiracy hasn’t taken over the world, but it has taken over the Institute – and it’s our salvation.
    ‘You see, Hank, our bargain isn’t one-sided. We give them a little shelter, a few scraps of food. But they give us something far more important: real organization.
The life of pure routine
.’
    I snorted. ‘Like hurrying after trains? Or wearing ourselves out onassembly-line work? Or maybe grinding our lives away in boring offices? Punching time-clocks and marching in formation?’
    ‘None of the above, thank you. Cockroaches never hurry to anything but dinner. They wouldn’t march in formation except for fun. They are free – yet they are part of a highly organized society. And this can be ours.’
    ‘If we’re not all put in detention camps.’
    ‘Listen, those camps are only a stage. So what if a few million grumblers get sterilized and shut away for a year or two? Think of the
billions
of happy, decent citizens, enjoying a freedom they have earned. Someday, every man will live exactly as he pleases and his pleasure will lie in serving his fellow men.’
    Put like that, it was persuasive. Another half-hour of this and I was all but convinced.
    ‘Sleep on it, eh Hank? Let me know tomorrow what you think.’ His large hand on my shoulder guided me to the door.
    ‘You may be right,’ I said, smiling back at him. I meant it, too. Even though the last thing I saw, as the door closed, was a stream of glistening brown that came from under the washroom door and disappeared under the desk.
    I sat up in my own office most of the night, staring out at the maple stump. There was no way out: either I worked for
Periplaneta americana
and gradually turned into a kind of moral cockroach myself, or I was killed. And there were certain advantages to either choice.
    I was about to turn on the video-recorder to leave a suicide note, when I noticed the cassette was already recorded. I ran it back and played it.
    Blenheim came on, wearing my face and my usual suit.
    ‘They think I’m you, Hank, dictating some notes. Right now you’re really at my house, reading a dull book in the library. So dull, in fact, that it’s guaranteed to put you into a light trance. When I’m safely back, Edna will come in and wake you.
    ‘She’s not as loony as she seems. The black eye is inked for her telescope, and the funny cap with lines on it, that looks like marcelled hair, that’s a weathermap. I won’t explain why she’s doing astronomy – you’ll understand in time.
    ‘On the other hand, she’s got a fixation that the stars are nothing but the shiny backs of cockroaches, treading around the heavenly spheres. It makes a kind of sense when you think of it:
Periplaneta
means around the world, and America being the home of the Star-Spangled Banner.
    ‘Speaking of national anthems, Mexico’s is La Cucaracha – another cockroach reference. They seem to be taking over this message!
    ‘The gang and I have been thinking about bugs a lot lately. Of course Pawlie has always thought about them, but the rest of us …’ I missed the next part. So Pawlie was at the madhouse? And they hadn’t told me?
    ‘… when I started work on the famous glass pancakes. I discovered apeculiar feature of glass discs, such as those found on clock faces.
    ‘Say, you can do us a favour. I’m coming around at dawn with the gang, to show you a gadget or two. We haven’t got all the bugs out of them yet, but – will you go into Dr Grobe’s office at dawn, and check the time on his clock? But first, smash the glass on his window, will you? Thanks. I’ll compensate him for it later.
    ‘Then go outside the building, but on no account stand between the maple stump and the broken window. The best place to wait is on the little bluff to the North, where you’ll have a