We

Thirty-seventh Entry

In the dining room in the morning, my neighbor on the left said to me in a frightened whisper, “Why don’t you eat! They’re looking at you!”

With an enormous effort, I forced myself to smile. And felt it like a crack in my face: I smiled— the edges of the crack spread wider, hurting me more and more…

Then, just as I picked up a tiny cube of food with my fork, the fork shook in my hand and clicked against the plate. And at that moment the tables, the walls, the dishes, the air itself—all shook and rang and clattered, and outside—an immense, round, iron roar, up to the sky—over heads, over buildings, slowly dying out far away in faint, small circles, like circles on the surface of water.

I saw faces instantly blanched, faded, mouths stopped in mid-motion, forks frozen in the air.

Then everything was thrown into confusion, slipped off the age-old tracks. Everybody jumped up (without singing the Hymn) —chewing without rhythm, swallowing hastily, choking, grasping at each other. “What is it? What happened? What?” And, like disorderly fragments of a once harmonious, great Machine, they poured down, to the elevators, the stairs: steps, thumping, parts of words-like pieces of a torn letter swept by the wind…

People were also pouring out of the other buildings, and in a minute the avenue was like a drop of water under a microscope: infusoria locked within the glasslike, transparent drop, rushing in wild confusion up, down, sideways.

“Ah-ah!” Someone’s triumphant cry. Before me, the back of his neck, and a finger aimed at the sky—I remember with utmost clarity the yellowish-pink nail and at its base a white crescent, like the moon rising over the rim of the horizon. And, as if following a compass needle, hundreds of eyes turned up to the sky.

There, escaping from some invisible pursuit, clouds were flying, crushing, leaping over one another—and, shadowed by the clouds, dark aeros of the Guardians with black, suspended elephant trunks of observation tubes—and, still farther—in the west, something resembling…

In the beginning, no one understood it. Even I, to whom (unfortunately) more had been revealed than to the rest, did not understand. It looked like an enormous swarm of black aeros: barely visible quick dots at an incredible height. Nearer and nearer; hoarse, guttural sounds from above—and finally, over our heads—birds. Their sharp, black, piercing, falling triangles filled the sky. The storm flung them down, they settled on cupolas, on roofs, on poles, on balconies.

“Ah-ah.” The triumphant neck turned, and I saw that one, of the overhanging brow. But now the only thing remaining of his old self was the description; he had somehow emerged from under his eternal brow, and his face was overgrown with bright clusters of rays, like hair—around the eyes, at the lips: he was smiling.

“Do you realize it?” he cried to me through the whistling of the wind, the wings, the cawing. “Do you realize?—the Wall, the Wall was blown up! You understand?”

Past us, somewhere in the background, flashing figures—heads stretched forward—running quickly inside, into the houses. In the middle of the street— a rapid, yet seemingly slow (because of their weight) avalanche of operated ones, marching westward.

Hairy clusters of rays at the lips, the eyes. I seized him by the hand. “Listen, where is she, where is I-330? Is she there, behind the Wall? Or… I must—you hear? At once, I cannot…”

“Here,” he cried gaily, drunkenly—strong, yellow teeth… “She’s here, in the city, in action. Oh-ho— we are acting!”

Who are we? Who am I?

Near him there were some fifty like him—out from under their dark brows, loud, gay, with strong teeth. Gulping the storm with open mouths, swinging seemingly innocuous electrocutors (where did they get them?), they also moved westward, behind the operated ones, but flanking them—by the parallel Avenue Forty-eight…

I tripped against tight, wind-woven cables and ran to her. What for? I don’t know. I stumbled. Empty streets, an alien, wild city, an incessant, triumphant chorus of bird cries, the end of the world. Through the glass walls of some houses I saw (it etched itself in memory) male and female numbers copulating shamelessly—without even dropping the shades, without coupons, at midday…

A house—hers. A door gaping wide in confusion. Below, at the control table—no one. The elevator was stuck somewhere in the shaft. Panting, I ran up the endless stairs. A corridor. Quick—like wheel-spokes—figures on the doors: 320, 326, 330… I-330, here!

Already through the glass door I saw everything in the room—scattered, confused, crumpled. A chair turned over in haste, its four legs in the air, like a dead animal. The bed—pushed somehow absurdly sideways from the wall. On the floor—like trampled, fallen petals—a spray of pink coupons.

I bent down, picked up one, another, a third: all bore the number D-503. I was on each one, drops of me, molten, spilled over the brim. And this was all that remained…

For some reason, it was impossible to leave them on the floor, to be trampled on. I gathered up another handful, put them on the table, smoothed them carefully, glanced at them, and… laughed.

I had never known this before, but now I know it, and you know it: laughter can be of different colors. It is only an echo of a distant explosion within you. It may be festive—red, blue, and golden fireworks; or—torn fragments of a human body flying up…

An unfamiliar name flashed on a coupon. I do not remember the number, only the letter: F. I brushed all the coupons off the table, stepped on them—on myself—with my heel, like this, and went out…

For a long time, dumbly, I sat in the corridor near the door, waiting for something. Shuffling steps from the left. An old man: face like a punctured, empty, shrunken, creased balloon—with something transparent still dripping through the punctures, slowly trickling down. Slowly, dimly, I understood—tears. And only when the old man was already far, I recalled myself and cried out, “Wait-listen, do you know? Number I-330…”

The old man turned, waved his hand despairingly, and hobbled on…

At dusk, I returned home. In the west, the sky contracted every second in a pale blue spasm. A dull, muffled roar came from there. The roofs were covered with black, charred pieces—birds.

I lay down on the bed—and like a heavy beast sleep weighed me down, stifled me…