— Thank you for pointing it out.
— But you see, the density makes me bend the laws a little. Even a lot. And then it takes a long time to unbend them.
— Like light waves? Or do you mean, like meridians?
— Well, both. Like meridians, within.
— Let me enfold you.
— No, we must keep walking. But you can take my hand.
— Smile, Something.
— You smile first, but she says it smiling.
Sometimes she seems to pull me along, sometimes I pull her. The ploughed fields of the plain inside the crater offer no trees, except in the distance perhaps, and each furrow makes a high obstacle to step over. The earth looks hard and baked but crumbles as we step into whatever seed they have sown there on stony ground. Whenever I raise my eyes towards the distant trees to identify them I hit my toe against a boulder and curse, and Something merely keeps her pact of smirking silence which says don’t mention it.
— Who ploughed this for God’s sake, the Big Dipper? Why do we go this way? Do you follow your sense of direction or your secret laws of momentum, mass times velocity?
— We landed in the middle. It doesn’t make any difference. You with your five geometries should know that.
— We landed on the left focus of an ellipse. We had the city with the children’s voices behind us. Why did we go forward? Why didn’t someone meet us, with a bus or train or something? My words rebound only against myself in the heat haze but their internal combustion pushes me along. Come to that why didn’t we stay in the cigar-shaped vehicle? Why did we land, it had embryonic wings, and it had wheels, I felt them, we didn’t have to come down those steps of dust-cloud, and so on, into the wounded trees. The surgeons cut carefully at the bark, removing it in quarter-cylindrical segments and painting the membranes of the twisted branches in bright orange. The orderlies pile up the curved rectangular segments on tall lorries that chug off slowly up the winding road along the slope of the crater. My God, Something, what do they do that for, help, it hurts, for insulation, Someone, to line the eardrums of the crater so as not to hear, help, help, it hurts, the pressure, it pushes out the eardrums on each side, it hurts, it hurts. I’ve gone deaf, help, help, I can’t hear my own cries, help, ow, good boy, you didn’t cry.
The baby sits on the mantelpiece, lolling its big moon head and about to topple forward from the weight of it, about to fall on me, on my wound, on my pain, and I have lost my arms or my meridians, no, here, as my meridians catch the baby in a cat’s cradle and it bounces up into its mother’s arms.
She nods her thanks in an absent-minded manner and goes about her business as an ex-girl spy or something. She doesn’t seem to know me or I her in my convalescence.
— Do you know me in my convalescence, or I you?
— Oh, yes, I know you.
— I think, you do the knowing around here, don’t you?
— The proprietress will come and see you soon.
— Ow.
— The proprietress of this house of course. The house-surgeon.
— Ow.
— She wormed the story out of me.
— Ai.
— Our story, of course, silly.
— Hng-ng-ng.
— I couldn’t help it, Someone. She talked and talked, and suddenly I found she knew.
— Ow.
— Stop prodding me with questions. It makes me feel … so desolate. I have no future as a girl-spy.
— Ow.
— You didn’t help by losing consciousness. A little consciousness can do a lot for a girl in a tight spot.
— It hurts.
— And even while she talked she called up the journalists. I don’t know how she did it. She talked as camouflage.
— It hurts.
— Of course it hurts. You chose the way of unconsciousness which bends words to breaking point. I told you it would take a long time to unbend them and bring them back to life. You’ll have to do exercises. Let me show you before she comes, that’ll put her nose out of joint.
She swaddles the baby, hanging it from her right shoulder and across to her left hip so that its lips can suckle her left breast. This frees her hands for us to play cat’s cradle with my meridians, very slowly, soothingly, and the game tires but exercises the muscles of my interest.
— Which one came back first, Something?
— Dippermouth. He sucks hard, he hurts my nipple.
— He has character.
— Oh no, character shouldn’t hurt. Lack of character hurts. He takes after you, Someone.
— What! How? You told me — ow! It hurts.
— Lie still. It always hurts to give rebirth. You’ll have to rest a little.
— Good people! Good children! Ah, you’ll go very far, my turtle-doves. Now, we must get you up for the journalists. You didn’t cry, you know. I told them that. I’ll have to examine you first. Stop that game at once. Now, where did I put the book?
— Madam, you shall not sit on me. I won’t allow it.
— No, I won’t allow it either.
— Good people! Splendid. Now that you’ve made your gesture, I hope it didn’t hurt. Where did I put that book? Ah, here, goodness, how it has grown. Almost as big as me, laugh, I thought I’d die, breathe in, don’t mind my buttocks, will you now, off with the bandages, unwhirl, unwhirl the bandages, lift up your knees, dear, for me to prop the book on, thank you, hold it, your breath I mean, I hope I don’t weigh too heavily by now, I go from strength to strength you know, as you get weaker, laugh, I thought you’d died. Off with the last bandage, off with the lint, crack, why, what a lovely wound, just like a big eye gashed, painted bright orange. You can have a look between my legs, I’ll raise my buttocks a little as a special favour, there, you see, whoops, oh dear, I couldn’t keep them up, I hope it didn’t hurt too much, hold it, your breath I mean, now let’s see, what does the book say, yes, they removed the bark in segments from the trunk, very useful, very useful indeed for the insulation of the big ear-drum, only a mite of course but every mite has its main, laugh, I thought we’d die, the lot of us, but the time has not yet come, nor the space for that matter. Time heals but spacetime heals faster. Soon the scar will look just like an individual flan-pudding in the middle of your belly, or like a protruding camera-lens if you prefer it that way, you will go far, my boy, see much, now then, a little more orange paint, I know, you chose infra-red but anyway you’ve had that. On with the lint, whirl round the bandages, the latitudes, the orbits, the ellipses and up you get, well, up I get first I admit, there, that feels lighter doesn’t it, breathe away. Ah, here comes the journalists, they will rejoice to see you in a wheelchair already.
I can hardly manipulate the epicycles she has fixed to my hips, but Something pushes me from behind.
— You’ll have to hold the baby, if you don’t mind, the swaddling gets in the way. Here. Take.
— Something! Dippermouth weighs a ton. I can’t possibly have fathered him.
— You both weigh a ton. Oof!
— What, in my condition? Unless I absorbed some of her weight while she sat on me.
— He has your very high density and low luminosity.
— Do you mean like a White Dwarf? Impossible, I’d consist of degenerate matter.
— Well –
— Besides, he’s only just got himself born. And I belong to the main sequence.
— How did it feel exactly repeat feel exactly query what did the joke fat woman unjoke say did you die laughing pardon me you see she said you didn’t cry unpardon if I may get in a query edgeways query how come your plane stroke vehicle changed into a vehicle stroke autostop unquery so you hitchhiked repeat hitchhiked on the skyroad stop delete last seven words for autostop read auto space stop query what shall we call you unquery no reply stop mister you must have a name unmister he says someone scramble check query has he lost his mind uncheck unscramble suggest Lazarus in said circumstances unsaid no objection quote no comment I feel sick don’t puff your cigar-shape at me comment has humour expand human touch your end my reply to soothe we only do our duty feed the people good people we like people end reply query please repeat please how did it feel exactly repeat feel exactly Mister Lazarus query did you want to come back unquery we must know what you felt thought saw said heard stop.