Little Doors

by Paul Di Filippo

  Dali pauses to admire the barbaric commotion. After a while, the ant speaks in its mordant rasp.

  “How appalling men are! Why can they not be as the noble ant, and scavenge for their sustenance?”

  “Both ants and men make war, as I indicate by their conjoined presence in Autumn Cannibalism. Therefore, ant, do not preach. Remember: the hard and the soft must be equivalent in classic work.”

  “Let us agree to disagree. Meanwhile, we must continue.”

  The pair leave the ferocious fishers behind.

  For some time, they walk along the vacant shore in silence. Dali becomes preoccupied with his thoughts. Assuming he does reach Gala, what will happen? What is the purpose of existence here in this new dimension? Is it all some lugubrious game? Is—

  Suddenly, without warning, an enormous pair of lips forms and opens in the sand beneath Dali’s right foot. His leg plunges into the gullet up to the thigh, before finding purchase on the palate.

  At once the teeth and lips close, severing Dali’s leg.

  Dali screams in pain.

  The mouth vanishes, leaving Dali lying on the beach with an amputated leg.

  Slowly the pain diminishes to a barely tolerable level. Dali looks reluctantly at his shortened limb. There is no blood. The leg looks as if it has been missing for years, ending in a scarred nub.

  “The real shadow of a lion threatens me,” says Dali through his grimace of sustainable pain. “But I will persist.”

  Dali notices then that the ant has deserted him. Helpless, he decides to await its return for at least a while.

  He is not disappointed. The ant soon reappears, bearing in its mandibles a crutch. Gratefully, Dali takes the crutch and uses it to lever himself up.

  “I have always maintained that for slumber to be possible, a whole system of crutches in psychic equilibrium was needed. But I never thought I would require one in reality.”

  “We must continue,” says the ant unsympathetically.

  Dali stumps awkwardly onward.

  They pass a row of sharks with their snouts out of the water. Each second, a flounder leaps from the water and slides down the throat of one shark or another like a letter down a letterbox.

  “The sharks of time eat the soles of memory.”

  “Possibly. Possibly not.”

  Reaching a huge cliff whose spill of wave-slapped boulders blocks further progress both along the beach and in the brine, Dali and the ant turn inland. Soon the sea is but a memory.

  They reach a stagnant pool, flanked by ochre buttes, as storm clouds begin to congregate overhead. A huge decomposing stone figure sits in the pool, head bowed. A marble hand rises from the earth beside the pool, bearing an egg from which sprouts a white flower. Small ants crawl upon the hand.

  “One moment,” says the oversized ant. “I must speak with my brothers.”

  The large ant moves off to rub antennae delicately with the small ones. While Dali waits, he notices a lean dog chewing a portentous bone. He attempts to pet it, but is repulsed with a growl.

  “We all complacently savour the narcissistic odours of every one of our drawers,” muses Dali ruefully.

  The ant rejoins Dali. “I have the information I need. We can go on.”

  “Where?”

  “To see the Christ.”

  “But of course!”

  Detouring around the buttes, Dali is led onward by the ant.

  The heat of the desert is suddenly overwhelmingly oppressive. Dali wishes he were again by the sea. He wipes sweat from his brow and continues.

  Pausing to look up, Dali sees a mirage—what he fervently hopes is a mirage—high in the atmosphere.

  Gala, naked, lies on her back upon a flat blue rock. Snarling tigers leap through the air toward her, and the bayonet of a hovering rifle seems ready to pierce her flesh. The total effect is one of menace constrained only by the thinnest of threads.

  “Quickly, ant! I feel Gala is in some danger!”

  “Let us take this car then.”

  Dali becomes aware that they have halted by a low free-standing rock formation. Projecting from the rocks, its rear bumper fused into the granite, is an open-roofed touring car, a 1931 Packard. The car is overgrown with flowers and greenery.

  “How, ant, how? The car is one with the rock!”

  “You must free it.”

  Dali moves hopelessly to the rear of the car, inserting himself partly between it and the rock wall. Planting his crutch and single foot firmly into the friable earth, he leans his left shoulder against the vehicle, and strains against it. The car does not move. Dali pushes harder. His guts feel ready to spill out, like those of the crucified tuna. He releases a deep rumble of simultaneous frustration and denial of failure.

  With a crack the car comes free of the rock, intact.

  Dali falls forward with its release. When he picks himself up, the ant is already seated behind the wheel.

  “Lacking a foot, you cannot drive.”

  “That is incontestable.”

  “Then I shall.”

  “Very well,” says Dali, and climbs into the passenger’s seat.

  The ant engages the clutch and they move off.

  After some miles, a gigantic floating figure becomes visible low on the horizon. As they near it, it comes to fill the whole sky above them.

  It is the Christ pinned to a hypercube. His body floating above the bronze geometry and taking the place of the essential ninth cube, according to the precepts of the mystic, Raymond Lull. Christ is surrounded by antimatter angels, as befits his status.

  The plain is now an onyx checkerboard shadowed by the immense figure. The car’s tires hum smoothly along the pavement. The ant is forced to brake far in advance of where it wishes to stop, so frictionless is the surface.

  At last though the car is motionless, below the feet of the Christ.

  Looking upward, the only features of the Saviour’s face that Dali is able to see are the Saviour’s titanic underlip and nostrils.

  A resonant voice that vibrates the whole world thunders out: “Who disturbs me?”

  Dali stands up in the car, cranes his head backwards and shouts upward, in pitiable imitation of the voice of Christ.

  “It is I, Dali, your humble explicator, and glorifier! I have come seeking Saint Gala.”

  “Leave me alone with my suffering. Your quest is trivial compared to mine.”

  Dali becomes angry at these words. “You pompous clod! How dare you deny Dali! What did you ever accomplish, compared to my work?”

  “Don’t blaspheme,” warns the ant. “His mercy is strange and unpredictable.”

  “This is my universe!” roars the angry Christ. “I brought it into being with my suffering. It is a cognate of my Father’s creation. You are here only because I opened a crack for you at death.”

  “What nonsense! I would rather believe in aliens! Look about you! Everything here has sprung from my splendid brain. Even your agony is depicted according to my conception.”

  The Christ is silent for a moment. “You have a point there,” He says at last. “I must think about this.”

  “Think all you like. But in the meantime, tell me how to reach Gala.”

  “Oh, very well. Simply follow the elephants.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all. Now, begone!”

  Dali cannot resist asking one more boon. “Oh, great Jesus, I do not wish to meet Gala so disfigured. Can you not heal me?”

  “It is done,” says Christ.

  Dali looks. His leg is indeed restored.

  However, a new weight drags down his body. He peers over his shoulder.

  His buttocks are exaggerated sacs of flesh, yards long.

  “These monstrously long buttocks must have a deep significance, I admit, but it escapes me just now!”

  Restored sunlight falls over Dali. Christ and his antimatter entourage have vanished from the sky.

  Dali realises he is now standing on the black and white pave
ment, his flabby fundament dragging on the cold tiles. The car and the ant have been subsumed back into the texture of this universe, and Dali is alone. Bereft of a guide for the first time since his arrival, hindered by his new deformity, he reasserts his devotion.

  “I make the most abysmal subconscious avowal that I shall forge onward to a final accommodation of my desires, symbolised by a stone almond: the illumined pleasure of clasping Gala to my bosom!”

  Feeling somewhat better after this assertion, Dali begins to walk on, encumbered by his flabby ass.

  At the end of the tiles, the granulated desert floor reappears.

  Dali’s buttocks leave a trail like that of a sledge.

  In the middle of nowhere, Dali comes upon a living green eidolon with wild hair, standing on a pedestal. The figure’s eyes and mouth have been overgrown by the substance of its body. A locust crouches on the membrane where the mouth should be.

  “Have you seen any elephants lately?” asks Dali.

  Wordlessly, both the eidolon and the locust point in the same direction.

  Dali obediently directs his gaze thither.

  A herd of elephants dominates the near distance. Their huge bodies are elevated half a mile above the earth on spindly stork legs which are jointed uncountable times. They carry palanquins occupied by obscure forms. The troop is rapidly approaching.

  “Thank you,” says Dali. “By the way, would you have the time?”

  The mute produces a soft watch rimmed in gold with a blue face, and displays it for Dali.

  “Metabiotically speaking, a soft watch represents DNA, the cell’s memory. I take this as a good omen that Gala, my soul’s DNA, will soon be mine.”

  Dali advances to meet the elephants.

  Soon the first ones are atop Dali, their splay feet, attached to ridiculously thin shanks, sending up dust from the plain. Each stride of theirs covers half a kilometer. Dali realizes that they will soon outpace him. How is he to follow? He begins to trot desperately, dragging his posterior painfully.

  “Stop, stop, you must lead me to Gala!”

  It is no use. The elephants continue on their way, heedless.

  Just as Dali is about to give up, he feels a trunk encircle his waist.

  Up, up, up, seemingly miles high he is lifted, until he is placed inside a palanquin.

  The canopied bower is filled with madmen, their clothing besmeared with excrement, their faces bloody with self-inflicted wounds. They hoot and holler at Dali.

  “Fishermen of Port Lligat! How wonderful to meet here again! Let me shake all your hands— “

  Dali and his old friends spend the time talking gleeful nonsense, while the elephants stride spaciously on.

  After an unknown time, Dali finds himself submerged in clouds. It becomes hard to tell whether or not he is still moving. Finally, Dali decides that he is indeed stopped. He steps from the palanquin onto a cloud.

  It upholds him.

  Again Dali is alone.

  He moves through the clouds until he emerges into an immense luminous cloud cavern. High up near the roof is a fragmentary arch of classic design. Occupying the arch is a naked male figure whose face and genitals are swathed in mist.

  The man thrusts a hand out, as if to ward off something evil. The flock of antimatter angels that attended the Christ reappear.

  In their midst, riding a swan, is Gala, clothed in a white robe that falls charmingly from her beautiful shoulders.

  “Leda Atomica!” shouts Dali ecstatically. “Gala, my own! Fly down to your Castor, Pollux! Let us engender progeny worthy of our loins!”

  Gala smiles, and begins the descent on her feathery steed.

  The empyreal notes of an average fine and invisible harp fill the air.

  As soon as the pi-mesons from Gala’s smile strike him, Dali feels his most recent deformity vanish. He is made whole for the arrival of his celestial bride.

  The swan alights. Gala steps off. Dali rushes into her embrace. Instant ecstasy overwhelms him. He feels their flesh fuse in a metabiotic mesomorphic alchemical union. One androgynous soul is born from the crucible of their love. Gali/Dala is home at last.

  * * *

  The officious Pharmacist of Ampurdan stands up in the bedroom in the castle at Pubol and moves to close the lids of Dali’s dead eyes.

  But before he can lay a finger on the chilling flesh, the body is transformed into a carpet of roses which distill the odours of a woman’s sex.

  Antonio Pitxot, Catalan, smiles knowingly.

  OUR HOUSE

  The three of us—I, my wife, and the realtor—stood on the sidewalk, amid broken glass and candy wrappers, crumpled cigarette packages and bottle caps, looking up at our house.

  Even though my wife and I had never been inside, you see, I already had the habit of referring to the place as “our house.”

  From the moment I had first seen it, driving past one evening on a new route home from the office, I knew we would one day own it. Its strange proportions and unique charms attracted me as no other structure ever had. It seemed to promise a certain domestic serenity to anyone lucky enough to live in it, a kind of natural ease, as if it could mold itself to its inhabitants, becoming an extension of their bodies, rather than a stiff shell or clumsy carapace, like most houses. Perhaps this was entirely fancy on my part. All I really knew was that the house attracted me.

  Our house was situated in a rough section of town that was now undergoing the early stages of gentrification. At one time this neighborhood had been several square blocks of Victorian and Edwardian respectability and pomp. (How they had loved their cluttered neatness, their elaborate classifications, the people of that age!)

  Now, however, the area enjoyed a status barely above that of a ghetto. There were many empty, fire-blackened lots. The houses that had survived were mostly shabby. Youths with bad intentions congregated on corners. Liquor stores did a thriving business. Still, here and there a building stood out, either having been maintained throughout the years of general neglect, or now being renovated.

  Our house was one such.

  Despite being surrounded by a weed-filled yard, it was in decent shape. I could see that its slate roof was intact. Its clapboards were sound, if in need of paint. Its foundation appeared firm. I have already alluded to the uniqueness of its overall appearance. Three stories tall, our house was a whimsical structure—what I believe is called a “carpenter’s gothic”—reflecting the unknown intentions of its long-dead architect. (In a way, its lines, from certain perspectives, seemed almost arbitrary, as if the edifice had grown willy-nilly, an organic thing, rather than having been planned and constructed deliberately. An evolutionary sport, perhaps.)

  Our house sported gables and towers, gingerbread and scrollwork, stained glass and leering wooden gargoyle bas-reliefs. At moments, it seemed almost like three separate houses jammed together. At others, its disparate elements were miraculously fused into a whole that, as I have said, struck one—struck me at least—as very appealing. I hoped, of course, that my wife, seeing our house for the first time, would feel the same way.

  Turning to her now, I tried to gauge her reaction to our house.

  Her brow was wrinkled, her lips composed in a straight line, her gaze a bit remote. Not a face of disapproval, I thought, but merely her familiar abstracted look of weighing and evaluating, which often settled on her appealing features when she was working on a case at home, prior to writing a brief. Her judgment was still in suspension, and I could only hope it would eventually be made in favor of our house. Wishing to sway her, I turned to the real estate man, the third member of our party.

  “What’s the asking price?” I inquired.

  He named a ridiculously low figure, and I nodded sagely.

  “It’s the neighborhood, of course,” he continued. “Puts quite a few people off. But I can see that you two wouldn’t be bothered by that. You look like folks who enjoy being on the cutting edge of things. That’s just the situation we have here. This whole d
istrict is turning around. The smart people are buying into it now. Pretty soon you won’t be able to touch a house like this for even twice the price. And believe me, this would be a lot of house at even twice what they’re asking.”

  I caught my wife’s eyes, now focused again. She nodded slightly to me, and I knew that the outside of our house, at least, had not put her off. I wasn’t sure if her feelings were as intense as mine, but at least she didn’t dislike it. In time, I was sure, her enthusiasm would grow to match mine.

  “Well,” I said, “we won’t learn any more standing out here. Shall we go in?”

  At this point, the real estate man grew nervous. He absentmindedly ground a bottlecap into the concrete with the tip of his shoe, as if trying to expunge something distasteful.

  “There’s a slight problem,” he said. “We won’t be able to see the whole interior. Oh, the bulk of the house is perfectly accessible. Very nicely remodeled too, all the modern conveniences … It’s just the third floor and the basement that we can’t inspect.”

  “And why is that?” I asked.

  The agent ground the cap down more forcefully. “It’s the tenants.”

  “Tenants!” interrupted my wife. “The reason we’re buying a house is to escape tenants. We’re tired of renting, we need more room, a house of our own. We plan to have a child in two and a half years, and we were going to devote the third floor to it. Part of the second floor has to be my home office “

  “They’re very good tenants,” the agent temporized. “Always pay their rent promptly, never make any noise. Why, their rents will almost completely cover your mortgage payments …”

  Before my wife and the agent could further antagonize each other, I interceded.

  “Do they have leases?”

  “No, I don’t believe so. Nothing actually signed, anyway. But they’re tenants of long-standing. From what I’ve heard, they’ve always lived here, even before the current owners.”

  “Still, without leases, they’re in something of a precarious position, wouldn’t you say? Times are changing, and if we should see fit to raise the rents above what they could afford, I can’t imagine what alternative they would have, except to move.”