All of which I offer as preamble to his comment, “Let’s put him in the sun and watch him turn into a raisin,” followed by several moments of silken brow-blotting as he awaited my response. Disappointed by it, they staked me out where I could wrinkle, darken and concentrate my sugars, while they returned to their vehicle for an ice chest. They took up a position in the shade of my shelter, periodically strolling over to stage a beer commercial on my behalf.
Thus the afternoon. Later, they decided that a night’s worth of wind, sand and stars were also necessary for my raisinhood. So they fetched sleeping bags and the makings of a meal from their vehicle and proceeded to encamp. If they thought the cooking odors would make me hungry, they were wrong. They just made me sick to my stomach.
I watched the day drive west. The man in the moon was standing on his head.
How long I had been unconscious I did not know. There were no sounds of movement from the camp and I could see no light in that direction. The wombat had crawled off to my right and settled there, making soft, rhythmic noises. He rested partly against my arm and I could feel his movements, his breathing.
I still did not know my tormentors’ names, nor had I obtained a single new fact concerning the object of their inquiries, the star-stone. Not that it should actually have mattered, save in an academic sense. Not at that point. I was certain that I was going to die before very long. The night had delivered a jaw-jittering chill, and if it didn’t finish me I figured my inquisitors would.
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.