and frozen)
“Unh!”
(W-e-e-e-e-e-p! Weep! Overhead the
brandished hammer whirred and whistled.
The doors of a hallway slowly opened.
Buoyed up by the dark, a coffin drifted
out, floated down the stoop, and while
confetti rained upon it, bulged and
billowed—)
“Unh!”
Khi-r-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s-
(—Zwank! Zwank! Zwank!
The man in the wires writhed and
groaned, his slimy, purple chicken-
guts slipped through his fingers.
David touched his lips. The soot
came off on his hand. Unclean.
Screaming, he turned to flee, seized
a wagon wheel to climb upon it. There
were no spokes — only cogs like a
clock-wheel. He screamed again, beat
the yellow disk with his fists.)
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s.
“Didja see it?”
“See it? Way up on twelft’!”
“I could ivin see id in de houz — on de cods.”
“Me? I vas stand in basement — fok t’ing mack blind!”
“Five hundred an’ fifty volts.”
(As if on hinges, blank, enormous
mirrors arose, swung slowly upward
face to face. Within the facing
glass, vast panels deployed, lifted a
steady wink of opaque pages until
an endless corridor dwindled into
night.)
“Unh! Looks Jewish t’ me.”
“Yeah, map o’ Jerusalem, all right.”
“Poor bastard! Unh!”
“Couldn’t see him at foist!”
“Unh!”
Kh-ir-r-rf! S-s-s-s.
(“You!” Above the whine of the
whirling hammer, his father’s voice
thundered. “You!”
David wept, approached the glass,
peered in. Not himself was there,
not even in the last and least of
the infinite mirrors, but the cheder
wall, the cheder)
“Junheezis!”
Kh-i-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s.
(Wall sunlit, white-washed. “Chadgodya!”
moaned the man in the wires. “One
kid one only kid.” And the wall dwindled
and was a square of pavement with a foot-
print in it — half green, half black,
“I too have trodden there.” And
shrank within the mirror, and the
cake of ice melted in the panel be-
yond. “Eternal years,” the voice
wailed, “Not even he.”)
“Unh!”
“Gittin’ winded? Want me to try it?”
“Nunh!”
“Look at ’im sweat!”
“Vy not? Soch a coat he’s god on!”
“Wot happened, brother?”
“Cheh! He esks yet!”
“Back up, you!”
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
(And faded, revealing a shoe box full
of calendar leaves, “the red day must
come.”)
“Unh! Did he move or sumpt’n?”
“Couldn’t see.”
(which lapsed into a wooden box with
a sliding cover like the chalk-boxes
in school, whereon a fiery figure
sat astride a fish. “G-e-e-e o-o-o d-e-e-e-!”
The voice spelled out. And shrank and was
a cube of sugar gripped be-)
“Unh!”
Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.
“Shah! Y’hea id?”
“W’a?”
“Yea! It’s commin!”
“Id’s commin’!”
“I sees it!”
“Meester Politsman de—”
“Back up, youz!”
A faint jangle seeped through the roar of the crowd.
“Unh!”
(tween the softly glowing tongs. “So
wide we stretch no further—” But when
he sought to peer beyond, suddenly the
mirrors shifted, and—
“Go down!” his father’s voice thun-
dered, “Go down!” The mirrors lay
beneath him now; what were the groins
now jutted out in stairs, concentric
ogives, bottomless steps. “Go down!
Go down!” The inexorable voice beat
like a hand upon his back. He
screamed, de—)
Jangle! Angle! Angle! Angle!
“Dere! It’s comin’!”
“Look! Look hod dere!”
“Orficer!”
Angle! Jang!
“Christ’s about time!”
The crowd split like water before a prow, reformed in the wake, surged round the ambulance, babbling, squall—
(scended. Down! Down into darkness,
darkness that tunneled the heart of
darkness, darkness fathomless. Each
step he took, he shrank, grew smaller
with the unseen panels, the graduate
vise descending, passed from stage
to dwindling stage, dwindling. At
each step shed the husks of being,
and himself tapering always downward
in the funnel of the night. And now
a chip — a step-a flake-a step-a shred.
A mote. A pinpoint. And now the seed
of nothing, and nebulous nothing, and
nothing, And he was not.…)
ing, stabbing the dark with hands. “Ppprrr!” Lips flickered audibly as the blue-coat rose. With one motion, palm wiped brow, dug under sweat-stained collar. Softly bald, the bareheaded, white garbed interne hopped spryly from the ambulance step, black bag swinging in hand, wedged whitely through the milling crowd. Conch-like the mob surrounded, contracted, trailed him within the circle, umbiliform—
“Lectric shot; Doc!”
“De hospital!”
“Knocked him cold!”
“Shock?”
“’Zee dead?”
“Yea, foolin’ aroun’ wid de—”
“Shawt soicited it, Doc!”
“Yea, boined!”
“Vee sin id Docteh!”
“Git back, youz!” The officer crouched, snarled, but never sprang. “I’ll spit right in yer puss!”
“Mmm!” The interne pinched the crease of his trousers, pulled them up, and kneel—
“Guess yuh better take ’im witchuh, Doc. Couldn’t do a goddam t’ing wit—”
“He’s gonna hea’ de heart! See?”
(But—)
ing beside the beveled curbstone, applied his ear to the narrow breast.
“Shoe’s boined. See it, Doc?”
(the voice still lashed the nothingness