Except that he remembered how he and Jim Rice had done almost the identical thing. And then spent most of the night trying to hitch a ride home. Finally they had given up and gone to sleep under a haystack till morning. A thousand years ago, it seemed now. Sleeping out in the open like that and not being the least bit afraid. You took a lot for granted when you were young. He felt a warm glow just remembering those good times.
You forget so much as the years rush by. Things that should be remembered always. Like what a wonderful thing it is just to be a child — something very different from being a man. How had the poet put it? To be a child is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything — for each child has its own fairy godmother already built into its soul.
He had told the boy it took a special gift to believe in belief. Yes, that was why he’d felt so bitter — a gift given to you as a child, then taken from you all too soon.
A speeding car flew past. Gordon, deep in thought, was jerked back to reality. He grabbed the mike from its holder.
“Fred, call Benton and tell them to watch out for some maniac in a blue sedan. Oh, and about the kid I called in to you. Check on an Eric Bowen from the Children’s Home there. The Craig boy is home safe and sound.”
The dispatcher’s voice came back loud and metallic. “I don’t think that’s funny, Flash.”
“What’s that, Fred?”
The patrol car swept under a group of high-voltage power lines. The radio crackled with a sudden surge of static, then went silent.
“What, Fred — what did you say?”
“Both those kids were found dead Christmas Eve in a gondola car, where a load of pipe shifted on them.”
As Gordon sped round the curve — for a moment, for one brief moment — he saw the child, clearly and distinctly outlined against the sky, rising above the crest of the steep hill just ahead.
Sleep No More
by Allan R. Brown{©1972 by Allan R. Brown.}
This is the 369th “first story” to be published by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine... Can a story about sleep be solid and substantial? Or would it, like a dream, more likely be filmy and impalpable? This story, however, is about sleeplessness, and you’ll find it as solid and substantial as wide-awakeness, and with a strong narrative grip...
The author, Allan R. Brown, was born in Tennessee. While a young man he worked as a gandy dancer, miner, fruit picker, marble cutter, and claim adjuster. Later, after studying accounting and business administration, he was an office manager and sales manager. He has traveled widely in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, and England — the last named undoubtedly explaining the locale of his “first story,” a surprising choice of background for an American...
There were three other patients in the room, and when they accidentally caught each other’s eyes they hurriedly looked away and buried their faces in an old Sphere or Tatler. Miss Featherstone was the only one who made no pretense of reading. She had always wondered what people would be like who came to consult an eminent brain specialist, and she studied the others with disconcerting straightforwardness. But they all seemed depressingly normal. No one stood on his head or stuck out a tongue at her.
Miss Featherstone herself was one of those aloof, austere tweedy spinsters you would expect to meet in a Devonshire lane with two dogs behind her. And that, as it happened, was the exact place where normally you would have found her.
When her turn came she followed the nurse into Sir Gilbert Chamberlain’s consulting room. Sir Gilbert, who looked more like an admiral than an alienist, started.
“Why, Miss Featherstone!” he exclaimed, rising. “I never dreamed it was you when I heard the name.” He had met Miss Featherstone at Grindelwald and had learned to respect her powers both with the curling stone and the human tongue.
Miss Featherstone shook his hand. “It’s me, all right,” she answered shortly. “But don’t imagine there’s anything wrong with me. I’m never ill. I don’t believe in it.”
Sir Gilbert smiled and invited her to sit down. He wasn’t convinced by this remark. His patients often began that way.
Miss Featherstone plumped herself in the chair beside his desk. He too sat down and leaned forward in an attentive professional manner.
“Now, don’t put on airs just because you’re in your consulting room,” Miss Featherstone said sharply. “And don’t look at me as though I were sex-starved or some nonsense of that kind! I’ve come to ask a straight question and I want a straight answer.”
Sir Gilbert laughed. “All right, all right,” he replied. “You’ve won, as usual. What can I do to help you?”
Miss Featherstone drew a deep breath. “The thing I want to know is just this,” she began. “What is sleep?”
Sir Gilbert’s eyebrows went up with a jerk. With most people he would have gone into a long explanation using many technical words, but he knew that with Miss Featherstone it was much safer to tell the truth. “We don’t really know,” he answered.
“Just what I might have expected,” Miss Featherstone remarked with disgust. “I’ve always found you doctors know everything about every disease except the one one’s got.”
“So you’re suffering from insomnia?” Sir Gilbert became professional again.
“No, I’m not,” Miss Featherstone rapped back. “I sleep very well. But I want to learn about sleep. Don’t you know anything about it?”
“Yes, we know quite a lot,” Sir Gilbert said. “We know it can be induced by different drugs and staved off by continual exercise. We know — or at least we think we know — that the sleep center is located in a certain part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Some authorities believe it is caused by a change in the calcium content of the blood, but that isn’t by any means proved.”
“H’m!” Miss Featherstone snorted. “And where’s this hypothalamus thing?”
Sir Gilbert pointed to a spot at the back of his head.
“And what does it look like?”
“It’s just gray matter like the rest of the brain.”
“H’m. That doesn’t help me much.” Miss Featherstone paused, then asked, “Do you know if anyone has ever died naturally from lack of sleep?”
“There’s no medical record of a man dying from it.”
“D’you mean a woman has, then?”
“No, no, but healthy dogs have died after being kept sleepless for fourteen days.”
Miss Featherstone glared at him. “Do you mean to say you have dared to do a thing like that to dogs?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Sir Gilbert answered calmly. “And to rabbits, too. The rabbits, being less high-strung, lasted longer — twenty-one days, as a rule.”
“So there’s no reason why human beings shouldn’t die of it in the same way?”
“No, none at all. In fact, there are very good grounds to believe that the Chinese — and I’m sorry to say, the Scots as well, Miss Featherstone — used to torture their enemies to death by this method.”
Miss Featherstone pressed her lips tightly together and remained silent. Sir Gilbert was studying her closely. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would consult a brain specialist for some trivial reason. There was serious trouble somewhere.