Doorsways in the Sand

My recollection from a physiological psychology course was that it is not the absolute state of a sense organ that we perceive but rather its rate of change. Thus, if I could keep quite still, could emulate the Japanese in a steaming bath, the cold sensations should drop. But this was a matter of comfort rather than one of survival. While relief was my immediate objective, I spotted the notion of continued existence lurking at the back of my thoughts. I did not take a stick to it, however, because its methods seemed useful-which of course seems another way of saying that I am weak and irresolute. I won't argue.

There is a rhythmic breathing technique that always made me feel warmer when I practiced it in my yoga class. I commenced the exercise, but my breath escaped me in a rattling wheeze. I choked and began to cough.

The wombat turned and sprang onto my chest. I began to scream, but he stuffed his paw into my mouth, gagging me. With my left hand I reached for the scruff of his neck and had hold of it before I recalled that my left hand was supposedly bound.

He clamped down with his other three limbs, thrust his face up close to mine and whispered hoarsely, "You are complicating matters dangerously. Mister Cassidy. Release my neck immediately and keep still afterwards."

Obviously, then, I was delirious. Comfort within the framework of my delirium seemed a desirable end, however, so I let go his neck and attempted to nod. He withdrew his paw.

"Very good," he said. "Your feet are already free. I just have to finish undoing your right hand and we will be ready to go."

"Go?" I said.

"Shsh!" he said, moving off to the right once more.

So I shshed while he worked on the strap. It was the most interesting hallucination I had had in a long while. I sought among my various neuroses after the reason for its taking this form. Nothing suggested itself immediately. But then neuroses are tricky little devils, according to Doctor Marko, and one must give them their due when it comes to subtlety and sneakiness.

"There!" he whispered moments later. "You are free. Follow me!"

He began to move away.

"Wait!"

He paused, turned back.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"I can't move yet. Give my circulation a chance, will you? My hands and feet are numb."

He snorted and returned.

"Then movement is the best therapy," he said, seizing my arm and drawing me forward into a sitting position.

He was amazingly strong for a hallucination, and he continued dragging on my arm until I fell forward onto all fours. I was shaky, but I held the pose.

"Good," he said, patting my shoulder. "Come on."

"Wait! I'm dying of thirst."

"Sorry. I am traveling light. If you will follow me, however, I can promise you a drink."

"When?"

"Never," he snarled, "if you just sit there. In fact, I think I hear some noises back at the camp now. Come on!"

I began crawling toward him. He said, "Keep low," which was rather u

I followed for several minutes, and then a throbbing began in my extremities, accompanied by flashes of feeling. This collapsed me, and I croaked some obscenity as I fell. He bounded toward me, but I bit off my outburst before he could repeat the paw-in-mouth trick.

"You are a very difficult creature to rescue," he stated. "Along with your circulatory system, your judgment and self-control seem to be of a primitive order."

I found another obscenity, but I whispered this one.

"Which you continue to demonstrate," he added. "You need do only two things-follow and keep silent. You are not very good at either. It causes one to wonder-"

"Get moving!" I said. "I'll follow!"

"And your emotions-"

I lunged at him, but he darted back and away.

I followed, ignoring everything but the desire to throttle the little beast. It did not matter that the situation was patently absurd. I had both Merimee and Marko to draw upon for theory, an opposing pair of fun-house mirrors with me in the middle, hot on the trail of the wombat. I followed, muttering, burning adrenalin, spitting out the dust he raised. I lost track of time.

The ridge grew lower, broke up. We moved inward, upward, then downward, passing through rocky corridors into a deeper darkness, moving over a way that was now all stone and gravel. I slipped once, and he was beside me in an instant.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I started to laugh, controlled it.

"Sure, I'm fine."

He was careful to stay out of reach.

"It is just a little farther," he said. "Then you can rest. I will fetch you nourishment."

"I am sorry," I said, struggling to rise and failing, "but this is it. If I can wait up ahead, I can wait here. I'm out of gas."

"The way is rocky," he said, "and they should not be able to track you. But I would feel better if you could continue just a little farther. There is an alcove off to the side, you see. If you were in there, chances are they would pass without seeing you if they should happen to stumble on this trail. What do you say?"

"I say it sounds good, but I don't think I can do it."

"Try again. One more time."

"All right."

I pushed myself up, wobbled, advanced. If I fell again, that was it, I decided. I would have to take my chances. I was feeling lightheaded as well as heavy-bodied.

But I persisted. A hundred feet perhaps ...

He led me into a hidden drive of a cul-de-sac off to the side of the rift we had been traversing. I collapsed there and everything began to swirl and ebb.

I thought I heard him say, "I am going now. Wait here."

"Sure thing," I seemed to reply.

Another blackness. Absolute. A parched, brittle thing/place of indeterminate size/duration. I was in it and vice versa-equally distributed and totally contained by/in the nightmare system with consciousness at C-n and chillthirstheatchillthirstheat a repeating decimal ru

Flashes and imaginings ... "Do you hear me, Fred? Do you hear me, Fred?" Water, trickling down my throat. Another blackness. Flash. Water, on my face, in my mouth. Movement. Shadows. A moaning ...

Moaning. Shadows, a lesser black. Flash. Flashes. A light through parted lashes, dim. The ground below, passing. The moaning, mine.

"Do you hear me, Fred?"

"Yes," I said, "yes ... "

The movement ceased. I overheard an exchange in a language I did not recognize. Then the ground rose. I was deposited upon it.

"Are you awake? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, yes. I already said ‘yes.' How many times-"

"Yes, he appears to be awake"-this superfluous comment in a voice I recognized as that of my friend the wombat.

There bad been more than one voice, but I could not see the speakers because of the angle at which I lay. And it was too much trouble to turn my head. I opened my eyes fully, though, and saw that the terrain was flat and pinked, though not tenderized, by the first low flames of morning.

All of the previous day's happenings slowly emerged from that place where memories stay when you are not using them. These, along with the moral I had drawn from them, were as responsible as muscle tone for my unwillingness to turn and regard my companions. And it wasn't bad just lying there. If I waited long enough, I might go away again and come back someplace else.

"I say," came a strange voice, "would you care for a peanut-butter sandwich?"

Pieces of broken reverie fell all about me. Gagging, I gained a new perspective on the ground and the long shadows that lay across it.