Read Online Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Edward Carey
Ads: Link
Indeed it looked to me, sitting a safe distance away on a park bench, that they were having problems getting the words out fast enough. I was amazed how freely they conversed. The words moved up their bodies through pipes inside them and gushed out of their mouths. I had heard rumours of these sort of people. These people who could, seemingly without any effort, communicate with every single living person. These people who by their mere presence were able to open up the lid of themost closed person and look inside, without causing any damage to the person whatsoever. In fact the person probably even enjoyed the experience.
I was so taken by the novelty of the uninhibited communication that day that I would have, had I not been Francis Orme, enjoyed the spectacle of it. It would have made me smile. It would have made me feel light and alive. It would have done, but it did not. Taking that joy of speaking and placing it inside Observatory Mansions, I saw dangerous times ahead of us. I saw doors opening, I saw secrets unearthed. It is known that such a type of conversation, as I was then witnessing, was relaxing, and relaxation is a danger. During relaxation we drop our guard. Particularly in conversation. Relaxed conversation leads to openness. And in openness we often reveal what should never be revealed.
Finally, their conversation was over. The new resident went to another part of the park. To my delight, that other part of the park, that corner of patchy grass that she chose, was well known for being occupied by a certain terror of a person. A loather of humanity. A misanthrope on all fours. Twenty. Dog Woman.
A word about Twenty, Dog Woman .
Twenty, we other residents believed, was to be greatly pitied. We had decided that she was the product of some unspeakable domestic unpleasantness. Probably, we thought, she was from the countryside. For in the countryside, isolated and quiet, so many unthinkable crimes can happen. We imagined her chained up as a child. Probably, we thought, in a dog shed. Probably, we thought, with only a dog for companionship. She was fed on scraps, we decided, which she shared with the dog. She had not been taught to speak. She was what is known as a feral child. At some point her parents, her keepers, must have died – or perhaps Twenty had escaped from them.On this we were not decided, this we argued over. We were, however, collectively convinced that somehow she escaped her terrible predicament and, with her dog companion, had entered the city. The dog, as was well known, died in one of the ground-floor apartments of Observatory Mansions. Afterwards, she had decided to stay with us, in the place that was honoured by the dog’s grave.
We had read, admittedly rare, accounts of feral children in our newspapers. These reports encouraged us to decide Twenty’s appalling past.
Yes, Twenty was pitiable indeed.
The taming of Twenty, Dog Woman .
Twenty, Dog Woman, did not permit anything to trespass on to her piece of patchy grass. Occasionally dogs wandered casually up to it, generally to sniff at Twenty, but they were soon chased away. Humans found the piece of grass an unpleasant place to stop, and walked on. The piece of grass wasn’t the problem, it was what lay on top of it: a woman, dirty, greasy, with a dog’s collar around her neck, dressed in ripped clothes and dogs’ hairs, smelling of a sewer. She was an offence to the olfactory senses, a point which no doubt pleased her greatly, as anything did that kept human contact at bay. Dogs, however, seemed to find her stench fascinating, and would, when invited, happily nuzzle between her legs; the place, I presumed, where the strongest odours were kept. Twenty lay on her belly on the grass, lightly dozing, just as she had been when I saw her earlier that day. When the new resident approached, she opened her eyes and stood up. On all fours. The new resident sat on the grass – three metres from Twenty. Twenty at first looked surprised,
I was so taken by the novelty of the uninhibited communication that day that I would have, had I not been Francis Orme, enjoyed the spectacle of it. It would have made me smile. It would have made me feel light and alive. It would have done, but it did not. Taking that joy of speaking and placing it inside Observatory Mansions, I saw dangerous times ahead of us. I saw doors opening, I saw secrets unearthed. It is known that such a type of conversation, as I was then witnessing, was relaxing, and relaxation is a danger. During relaxation we drop our guard. Particularly in conversation. Relaxed conversation leads to openness. And in openness we often reveal what should never be revealed.
Finally, their conversation was over. The new resident went to another part of the park. To my delight, that other part of the park, that corner of patchy grass that she chose, was well known for being occupied by a certain terror of a person. A loather of humanity. A misanthrope on all fours. Twenty. Dog Woman.
A word about Twenty, Dog Woman .
Twenty, we other residents believed, was to be greatly pitied. We had decided that she was the product of some unspeakable domestic unpleasantness. Probably, we thought, she was from the countryside. For in the countryside, isolated and quiet, so many unthinkable crimes can happen. We imagined her chained up as a child. Probably, we thought, in a dog shed. Probably, we thought, with only a dog for companionship. She was fed on scraps, we decided, which she shared with the dog. She had not been taught to speak. She was what is known as a feral child. At some point her parents, her keepers, must have died – or perhaps Twenty had escaped from them.On this we were not decided, this we argued over. We were, however, collectively convinced that somehow she escaped her terrible predicament and, with her dog companion, had entered the city. The dog, as was well known, died in one of the ground-floor apartments of Observatory Mansions. Afterwards, she had decided to stay with us, in the place that was honoured by the dog’s grave.
We had read, admittedly rare, accounts of feral children in our newspapers. These reports encouraged us to decide Twenty’s appalling past.
Yes, Twenty was pitiable indeed.
The taming of Twenty, Dog Woman .
Twenty, Dog Woman, did not permit anything to trespass on to her piece of patchy grass. Occasionally dogs wandered casually up to it, generally to sniff at Twenty, but they were soon chased away. Humans found the piece of grass an unpleasant place to stop, and walked on. The piece of grass wasn’t the problem, it was what lay on top of it: a woman, dirty, greasy, with a dog’s collar around her neck, dressed in ripped clothes and dogs’ hairs, smelling of a sewer. She was an offence to the olfactory senses, a point which no doubt pleased her greatly, as anything did that kept human contact at bay. Dogs, however, seemed to find her stench fascinating, and would, when invited, happily nuzzle between her legs; the place, I presumed, where the strongest odours were kept. Twenty lay on her belly on the grass, lightly dozing, just as she had been when I saw her earlier that day. When the new resident approached, she opened her eyes and stood up. On all fours. The new resident sat on the grass – three metres from Twenty. Twenty at first looked surprised,
Similar Books
