Sacred Monster

Dream Sequence

A heavenly chorus sings; hallelujah. Jack floats down the wide staircase, a dust mote among the dust motes, his fingertips gliding down the polished oak balustrade, his feet never touching the stairs. Shafts of sunlight bend around him, creating a personal monogrammed rainbow just for Jack Pine. Imagine!

Partway down the stairs, Jack meets sullen, grumpy old Buddy coming up, in loafers and chinos and a beautiful beige cashmere sweater that just eats up all the sun. “Hi, Buddy,” Jack sings, pirouetting on the stairs, the chorus turning his words into madrigals, the dust motes writing the music on the staffs of sunshafts. “Just get in, Buddy Buddy?”

“Looks that way,” grumbles Buddy, not in tune with the music or the day at all, and he stumps on up the stairs, barely even glancing in Jack’s direction.

Why can’t Buddy be happy? Jack is happy. Jack floats down a step or two, then stops to consider a sudden kind of revelation. Wafting about, gazing upward at Buddy’s bent receding back, Jack says, “Buddy? Isn’t that my sweater?”

“It was,” Buddy says, without pausing or looking back. As Jack watches, with tiny tendrils of distress creeping about his heart, Buddy pounds on up to the top of the stairs and disappears down the wide white hall.

“Sir?”

It is Hoskins’s voice, taking a solo above the chorus. Jack floats around to face down-flight, and there stands Hoskins, all in black, at the bottom step, his hand upon the newel post.

“Ah, Hoskins,” Jack breathes, grateful for the distraction that made him forget...

...something.

“Dr. Ovoid’s here, sir,” Hoskins announces.

Elation lifts Jack even farther into the air, inches and inches above the mundane wooden steps. “Goody!” he cries.

Hoskins lifts a surprisingly expressive hand from the newel post and gestures gracefully with it, as he says, “I put him in the east parlor.”

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes! The east parlor!” And Jack sails through the air, over Hoskins’s surprised and laughing head, sweeping away toward the east parlor.

Within the east parlor, waiting, looms Dr. Ovoid, large and round and sleek and buttery and well-satisfied, with a dead-white face and tiny hands and feet. The east parlor itself is a lovely room, full of flowers and morning sun and white wicker furniture; but at the moment Dr. Ovoid stands by a prettily curtained window, smiling as he gazes out upon the rose garden in rich and luxuriant flower. And behind him, on a long table, rests a rolled-up black silk bag a bit larger and much softer than a quart whiskey bottle.

The hall door swings open of its own accord, and in a moment Jack swirls in, surrounded by fairy garlands and cherubs trilling hosannahs. “Good morrrr-ning, doctor,” sings Jack, and in great good spirits he flies around the ceiling.

Dr. Ovoid turns and beams upon his patient, happy to see this happiness, happy to be appreciated, happy to be wanted. “Good morning, Jack,” he says, and rubs his tiny hands together, and paces to the long table.

While Jack eagerly watches, dancing in place, the doctor’s tiny fingers untie the silk ribbon holding the silk bag closed. Then he unrolls the bag down the length of the table, showing the coral-colored silk lining within. The silk bag is like a half-size sleeping bag, one foot wide and three feet long, and its interior is lined with compartments displaying bottles of pills, bottles of powders, boxes of capsules and ampules, packages of inhalers and suppositories, all sorts of wonderful things for good little boys and girls. “Living better chemically,” Jack says, rubbing his hands together, smiling down at the assortment.

Dr. Ovoid steps back and spreads his hands like a showman, displaying his wares. “Well, Jack,” he says. “And how do you want to feel today?”