The parklike garden stretched out before me, sharp-shadowed in the moonlight. Through the trees to the right was a glint of water, to the left was a house similar to the one behind me, with not a light showing in any of its windows.
I wondered what to do next. Trapped in this huge carcase, all but helpless in it, there was very little I could do, but I decided to go on and at least find out what I could while I had the chance. I went forward to the edge of the steps that I had earlier climbed from the ambulance, and started down them cautiously, holding on to the balustrade.
“Mother,” said a sharp, incisive voice behind me. “What are you doing?”
I turned and saw one of the little women, her white suit gleaming in the moonlight. She was alone. I made no reply, but took another step down. I could have wept at the outrage of the heavy, ungainly body, and the caution it imposed on me.
“Come back. Come back at once,” she told me.
I took no notice. She came pattering down after me and laid hold of my draperies.
“Mother,” she said again. “You must come back. You’ll catch cold out here.”
I started to take another step, and she pulled at the draperies to hold me back. I leant forward against the pull. There was a sharp tearing sound as the material gave. I swung round, and lost my balance. The last thing I saw was the rest of the flight of steps coming up to meet me…
As I opened my eyes a voice said: “That’s better, but it was very naughty of you, Mother Orchis. And lucky it wasn’t a lot worse. Such a silly thing to do. I’m ashamed of you, really, I am.”
My head was aching, and I was exasperated to find that the whole stupid business was still going on: altogether, I was in no mood for reproachful drip. I told her to go to hell. Her small face goggled at me for a moment, and then became icily prim. She applied a piece of lint and plaster to the left side of my forehead, in silence, and then departed, stiffly.
Reluctantly, I had to admit to myself that she was perfectly right. What on earth had I been expecting to do what on earth could I do, encumbered by this horrible mass of flesh? A great surge of loathing for it and a feeling of helpless frustration brought me to the verge of tears again. I longed for my own nice, slim body that pleased me and did what I asked of it. I remembered how Donald had once pointed to a young tree swaying in the wind, and introduced it to me as my twin sister. And only a day or two ago…
Then, suddenly, I made a discovery which brought me struggling to sit up. The blank part of my mind had filled up. I could remember everything… The effort made my head throb, so I relaxed and lay back once more, recalling it all, right up to the point where the needle was withdrawn and someone swabbed my arm But what had happened after that? Dreams and hallucinations I had expected… but not the sharp-focused, detailed sense of reality… not this state which was like a nightmare made solid..
What, what in heaven’s name, had they done to me…?
I must have fallen asleep again, for when I opened my eyes there was daylight outside, and a covey of little women had arrived to attend to my toilet.
They spread their sheets dextrously and rolled me this way and that with expert technique as they cleaned me up. I suffered their industry patiently, feeling the fresher for it, and glad to discover that the headache had all but gone.
When we were almost at the end of our ablutions there came a peremptory knock, and without invitation two figures, dressed in black uniforms with silver buttons, entered. They were the Amazon type, tall, broad, well setup and handsome. The little women dropped everything and 33 fled with squeaks of dismay into the far corner of the room where they cowered in a huddle.
The two gave me the familiar salute. With an odd mixture of decision and deference one of them enquired: “You are Orchis, Mother Orchis?”
“That’s what they’re calling me,” I admitted.
The girl hesitated, then, in a tone rather more pleading than ordering, she said: “I have orders for your arrest, Mother. You will please come with us.”
An excited, incredulous twittering broke out among the little women in the corner. The uniformed girl quelled them with a look.
“Get the Mother dressed and make her ready,” she commanded.
The little women came out of their corner hesitantly, directing nervous, propitiatory smiles towards the pair. The second one told them briskly, though not altogether unkindly: “Come along now. Jump to it.”
They jumped.
I was almost swathed in my pink draperies again when the doctor strode in. She frowned at the two in uniform.
“What’s all this? What are you doing here?” she demanded.
The leader of the two explained.
“Arrest!” exclaimed the doctor. “Arrest a Mother! I never heard of such nonsense. What’s the charge?”
The uniformed girl said, a little sheepishly: “She is accused of Reactionism.”
The doctor simply stared at her.
“A Reactionist Mother! What’ll you people think of next? Go on, get out, both of you.”
The young woman protested: “We have our orders, Doctor.”
“Rubbish. There’s no authority. Have you ever heard of a Mother being arrested?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Well, you aren’t going to make a precedent now. Go on., The uniformed girl hesitated unhappily, then an idea occurred to her.
“If you would let me have a signed refusal to surrender the Mother…?” she suggested helpfully.
When the two had departed, quite satisfied with their piece of paper, the doctor looked at the little women gloomily.
“You can’t help tattling, you servitors, can you? Anything you happen to hear goes through the lot of you like a fire in a cornfield, and makes trouble all round. Well, if I hear any more of this I shall know where it comes from.” She turned to me. “And you, Mother Orchis, will in future please restrict yourself to yesandno in the hearing of these nattering little pests. I’ll see you again shortly. We want to ask you some questions,” she added, and went out, leaving a subdued, industrious silence behind her.
She returned just as the tray which had held by gargantuan breakfast was being removed, and not alone. The four women who accompanied her, and looked as normal as herself, were followed by a number of little women lugging in chairs which they arranged beside my couch When they had departed, the five women, all in white overalls, sat down and regarded me as if I were an exhibit. One appeared to be much the same age as the first doctor, two nearer fifty, and one sixty, or more.
“Now, Mother Orchis,” said the doctor, with an air of opening the proceedings, “it is quite clear that something highly unusual has taken place. Naturally we are interested to understand just what and, if possible why. You don’t need to worry about those police this morning it was quite improper of them to come here at all. This is simply an enquiry, a scientific enquiry to establish what has happened.”
“You can’t want to understand more than I do,” I replied. I looked at them, at the room about me, and finally at my massive prone form. “I am aware that all this must be an hallucination, but what is troubling me most is that I have always supposed that any hallucination must be deficient in at least one dimension must lack reality to some of the senses. But this does not. I have all my senses, and can use them. Nothing is insubstantiaclass="underline" I am trapped in flesh that is very palpably too, too solid. The only striking deficiency, so far as I can see, is reason, even symbolic reason.”