The Cosmology of the Wider World

by Jeffrey Ford

  Belius shook his head. “Let’s get on with it,” he said.

  “In a moment,” said the doctor, who got up and moved over to the counter where his bottle of whiskey and a glass stood waiting. He poured himself a drink. As he brought the glass to his lips, Belius noticed the old man’s hand shaking.

  “Are you nervous?” Belius asked.

  “No, no, just excited for the two of you.” He dashed off the drink and poured another.

  “What’s this made of?” asked Nona.

  “Please, my dear,” Grey croaked in between gulps, “I’m nothing but a country doctor. I can’t know everything. This cure was prepared by a man so much my superior in intelligence, I couldn’t begin to guess. It was made to deal specifically with Belius’ problem.”

  “Bring me a glass, doctor,” Belius pleaded, “I don’t think I can drink too well from this bottle.”

  “What would happen if someone else were to drink it?” asked Nona. “Would they die?”

  “No, I’ve already told you it’s safe,” said the doctor, reaching for a glass in the cabinet. “The eminent specialist … Doctor Rodondo, theorizes that a healthy person would take on the characteristics of whatever unfortunate the elixir was intended for.”

  Grey set the glass for Belius down next to his own and poured himself one more drink. It wasn’t so much what he said, but more Grey’s faltering voice and trembling hands that told the minotaur, in the animal regions of his being, that the old man was lying. At just this time, he happened to look down at the floor and saw, peeking out of the doctor’s opened black bag, the handle of the revolver that had killed so many dogs two winters past.

  Belius pushed back his seat and stood up. “What’s in the bottle, Doctor Grey?” he asked. The old man’s eyes widened and his drink fell from his hand. “No!” he cried and lunged forward. Belius caught him with one arm and threw him back against the counter. It was only after this that Belius realized the old man’s cry was not as a result of his being found out. The minotaur turned quickly to see Nona finishing the last of the dark liquid. Before she could even set the bottle on the table, a vicious tremor shot through her body. As the bottle dropped from her grasp and rolled along the table, her eyes turned upward, showing white. She coughed as though she were drowning and blood came from her mouth. The bottle tipped off the table and smashed into a hundred brown shards on the floor. Belius shook off his horror and made it to her side as she was clutching with her hands at the lace collar of her dress. He caught her as she slumped toward the floor. Her body erupted in a fit of spasms that lasted but a minute and then passed.

  “She’s dead,” he screamed in a voice somewhere between creature and human. “Nona, Nona,” he yelled and shook her. “She’s dead.” He let her body slip gently to the floor. When he turned to face Grey, the old man had the revolver in his hand.

  “Poison,” the doctor said as he backed up against the wall. His voice was distant and his gaze clouded. “I did it for both of you. It could never have worked between you. It was an atrocity. It would only have been suffering for you both. You were never meant to live. Nona would have borne your horrid children. I should never have let you live. It pained me to think that I made you live in this world where you would never belong. I take it back now, Belius. I take back your suffering.” His hand wobbled as he pointed the gun at the minotaur’s heart.

  “You fool,” Belius bellowed. Then his words turned into a raspy squeal and Grey couldn’t understand that the sounds were telling him to shoot. “Shoot me. Kill me,” Belius roared and pounded the flesh of his chest with both hooves. The old man closed his eyes and began to cry. Upon seeing this, an explosion of red filled Belius’ mind, blanking out both feeling and vision. He charged and his horns broke through the bone of Grey’s chest and out his back to bury themselves in the plaster of the wall behind him. The crockery on the shelves above them crashed down on the old man’s head, pushing him further onto the points until his belly was pressed against Belius’ snout. Grey’s screams seemed to Belius to be coming from somewhere in one of the libraries upstairs. He didn’t feel the old man’s hands pushing against the base of his horns. He reared back, lifting the frail body off its feet and then pounded into the wall again.

  He cleaned the blood from his eyes with the hem of Nona’s dress. Working methodically, he loaded into the wagon everything he thought might be of use to him in his refuge. As soon as he had sloughed the weight of the doctor’s body and let it hit the floor, he quit his snorting and cursing and realized that he would have to run. “I’ll be blamed for both of these deaths,” he told himself aloud, standing amidst the bodies, broken glass and china that littered the kitchen floor. In this instant, he desperately wished that he was capable of using the gun. He left it, though, and looted only armloads of books from the libraries upstairs, a telescope, a phonograph, some records and a few loaves of bread from the pantry. There was no time to bury Nona. The first patient that came by to see the doctor would discover the bodies and, after seeing the two gaping holes in his chest, know exactly who the assailant had been. He shook and cried uncontrollably as he went about his work.

  As he hitched the plough horse to the wagon, he said to him, “I know you aren’t used to running. I’ve never asked you to in the past, but now, to save my life, you’ve got to.” The horse saw the blood and the wild look in Belius’ eyes. He asked no questions, but, once the bit was in his mouth, took the weight of the loaded wagon to his shoulders and pulled with everything he had. Just when it looked as if he were not capable of anything more than a stroll, he somehow overcame the tug of gravity and they were flying down the road at a reckless pace. Froth flew from the horse’s mouth, clouds of dust were born from his hooves. They took one bend on two wheels and a pile of books, all about the classification of dinosaurs, spilled onto the road.

  Whereas Belius had seen no one the day he wore his new set of clothes, this day the careening wagon passed three other rigs, all going in the opposite direction so that their drivers got a good look at the grim figure of the bloody minotaur. Each of the drivers yelled out for Belius to stop, thinking, at first, that he might be hurt. As he passed each of them, he lowed in such a mournful way and with such force that the animals that drew their masters home from market stopped dead in their tracks.

  By the time the wagon rolled into the barnyard of his farm, there was no question in his mind that someone was just then turning over the doctor’s body and sticking their fingers into the two neat holes. He leaped off of the wagon seat and went directly to the barn, hoping his mother hadn’t seen him from the kitchen window. In five minutes he had apprized the two cows of the entire situation. They stamped in their stalls as they listened.

  When he finished with the horror that he, himself, had a hard time comprehending, he had only one question. “How do I get to the Wider World?”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “Tell him, Austina,” Plension lowed. “They’ll surely kill him if you don’t.”

  “Let me think for a second, damn it. I have to remember myself.”

  “You said that it was all around,” Belius prompted.

  “Yes, yes,” said the cow. “All right, yes, I remember. You can take the path that leads through the woods out beyond the pastures. As soon as it is dusk, take to that path and start running. You’ve got to forget about being part human and run only as an animal would. Don’t stop. If you stop, you’ll never make it. You must start at sundown and run all night, run until you fall asleep running. That’s the key, to keep running even when you’ve fallen asleep. If you can do this and then begin to dream while you are moving, you will make it to the Wider World. It’s extremely difficult, but I believe you can do it. Now go, it’s only a short time before the sun disappears.”

  He didn’t thank them or say good-bye. As he left the barn, he took with him the wheelbarrow. Once outside, he noticed that the sun had fallen below the level of the treetops. He moved over to the wagon, to which the hors
e was still hitched, snorting and rasping from his recent effort, and took all of his plunder and put it into the wheelbarrow. After finishing with this he was out of breath but didn’t stop to rest. He walked toward the house, bracing himself for his mother’s hysterical inquisition.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen, watching him as he had assumed. He moved quietly down the hallway to his bedroom. In one giant armful, he gathered all of his clothes and those books most important to the completion of his Cosmology. He took his father’s pipe, which he had kept in the top drawer of his writing desk, and the three boxes of embossed paper that Nona had given him as a present at the start of winter.

  Unable to see where he was going, he stumbled down the hallway, back toward the kitchen. He knew his mother must be napping in the parlor as she was sometimes wont to do before dinner time. There was no way that he could fully explain to her what had happened in the short time before the sun set. He thought about writing her a note, but he didn’t feel capable just then of lifting a pen and thinking hard enough to make everything come out clearly. He told himself that she would be better off knowing nothing when they came to look for him.

  As he left the house, his arms were so full he couldn’t keep the kitchen door from banging shut. He ran to where the wheelbarrow was sitting and dumped his belongings into it. The pile of books and clothes jutted up out of the carrier, looking as if someone were trying to relocate a small mountain. From inside the house, he heard his mother call his name three times. He lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow, the fulcrum effect lightening the load considerably, and started off across the field. The plough horse whinnied a message after him. “Think nothing, Belius. Let your legs be brilliant.” The minotaur ran with all his strength toward the forest beyond the pasture and the path that struck a bull’s-eye in the face of the setting sun.

  When Belius awakened from the daze of his reminiscence, he found himself slightly crouched, his horns deeply imbedded in the coral wall of his study, the screams of Doctor Grey disappearing into the haze that remained from the last bowl he’d smoked. Sweat glistened from every pore of his flesh and hide, carrying with it, as it ran in rivulets down his body, the aroma of the four bottles of dandelion wine he’d quickly consumed after Pezimote’s farewell. Satisfied that he was no longer in the past, he pulled back and, creating a sound of swords being drawn slowly across a whetstone, disengaged his horns.

  Although his blood count had had a short time to recoup its recent drastic losses, he was still as giddy as a bee on a blue gardenia. Mingling with this hysteria were the effects of the wine and smoke, all of it combining to send him over the brink into insanity. He pirouetted through the study with a drunken grace that prevented him from knocking anything over and finally landed him in his chair.

  “Nicely done,” he whispered to himself, and, when he realized that there was no one in the room, he repeated the compliment, this time shouting it. “Lovely day, Belius,” he said, at a more normal decibel. “A perfect day for a swim to the barrier reef, or a stroll through the mango grove, or to invent something … Yes, yes, I’ll invent something, something that it is beyond my power to invent. What will it be? What …?” He sat thinking for a second and that was all it took for him to lose track of the idea that had set him thinking.

  He stood up and walked in circles around the chair a few times, each circuit containing at least one mishap, during which he would have to contort his body to keep from falling. “The Wider World has increased its rotational speed while I was dozing,” he said with a smile to the bust of himself which Siftus had chiseled. He broke the stumbling cycle to walk over and pat the statuette on the head between the horns. Then he lifted the thing very carefully from its place atop the bookshelf, walked over to the window and pitched it out. Upon hearing it shatter against the cobblestone walk below, he heaved a sigh and giggled. “A damn shame! No doubt …” he mumbled and then turned back to the room to size up the globe and see if it would also fit through the opening. As his hooves clasped the Wider World at its tropical poles, he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “Belius, what are you doing?” Vashti inquired as she came to perch on the window sill.

  The minotaur spun around from his task. “Vashti,” he said, matter-of-factly, “glad you could stop in. I’m just tidying up a bit. I’ve been out of sorts for some time, and, now that I’m better, I thought I’d catch up on some housekeeping.”

  “It’ll have to wait,” said the owl. “You’ve got to go and change your clothes, I’m bringing a very special guest to meet you in a few minutes.”

  “Who?”

  “A very charming female of your species.”

  “A woman?” he asked, sticking out his tongue to its full length.

  “Don’t be a fool. I’m speaking about a minotaur.”

  “A minotaur,” he yelled. “… Very well.”

  “Go and get changed and set up a table and two chairs on the turret. Bring up some wine—and make it something other than dandelion. I think this will be a special occasion, if you know what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Belius, just then becoming entranced by the tips of his hooves.

  “Never mind. I’ll meet you on the tower, with your guest, in a few minutes.”

  “Vashti, wait,” Belius cried before the owl could take off.

  “Yes?”

  “Pezimote is gone. I think he’s gone forever.”

  “He’ll be back to see you soon,” she said.

  “Very good,” he said and dashed out of the study and up the spiral stairs to his bedroom.

  Soffea only fell twice on her climb to the turret of the tower. The first time was as a result of her clumsiness with the newly acquired condition called ‘life’. The second was because Obadai and Mez, who were supposed to be helping her as a payment to everyone whose debt they were in from betting against her birth, were so tickled by the first fall that they tripped her up. Each time, she got to her hoof and human foot, head bobbing from side to side, eyes wild but no more so than usual, her tongue blah-blahing like a runaway stone rolling down a mountain. After the raccoon brothers had the last of their fun with her, carving their initials with their claws in the soft clay of her backside, they let her toga fall into place and led her the rest of the way to the turret. It was the plan that they should not be seen, so as soon as she stepped out into the daylight, they scampered back down the spiral stairs.

  Vashti was waiting on the turret with Belius, who was now pacing nervously, dressed in a candy striped blazer, flannel shirt and boxer shorts. His mind still wobbled with the spin of a broken gyroscope: crazy thoughts being born and then leaping out his ears to vanish in the breeze. When Soffea stepped into view, though, he stopped his pacing and stood as if in awe. To Vashti, who perched near him on the facade, he whispered, “She’s more lovely than you described.”

  He didn’t wait for the owl to introduce him, but rushed over to the clay ingénue and took her hoof in his. “I’m Belius,” he said. “And you must be Soffea. That’s a lovely name. It reminds me of incense and soft water.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Soffea said in greeting.

  Because of the state Belius was in, the fact that she spoke no actual words didn’t register with him. She moved her mouth and tongue and sound came out and these sounds were transformed in his feverish brain into phrases that he wished, from the instant he had laid eyes upon her, she would say.

  “Nonsense,” he told her, “Belius is not near as special a name as yours. You really need not flatter me, seeing that we’re both minotaurs. We’re already fast friends. Don’t you agree?”

  “Blah.”

  “Very good then. Won’t you come over and have a seat and join me in a glass of wine?” He led her by the hoof to a chair and held the back for her as she missed the mark and sprawled on the cobblestones. Vashti cringed at the sight of the accident, but, when Belius had lifted his date into the chair and taken his own seat, she knew there was no more she could do. With
out bidding the couple good-bye, she spread her wings and flew off toward the forest.

  “Will you have some wine, Soffea?” Belius asked, already in the act of pouring her a glass. He looked up to see if there was any protest, and, when there was no reply, he interpreted the constant bobbing of her head to be an answer in the affirmative. “This is my best wine, I brew it from corn that I grow in my garden. It fizzes like the yellow sky.” He handed her the glass. She took it, miraculously without spilling a drop, and blathered her thanks to him.

  “Drink up. A toast to the Wider World … no, better yet, a toast to your eyes, which are each a planet of lovely … er … uh … yes.” He tossed back the entire glass he had poured himself with enough gusto to crack a diamond.

  Soffea watched her host and then attempted the same feat, but since her aim was not what his was, even in his multiple intoxications, she only managed to drench her face with it.

  “You’re quite the little pagan, aren’t you?” he asked with a laugh, while pouring himself another glass and using it to follow her lead. Now that they were both drenched, he filled their glasses and then settled back in his seat, crossing his legs, to begin what he had decided would be a conversation with a philosophical bent. It was his plan to see if her mind was as promising as her figure. “And what do you think of Cosmology?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer directly, but had noticed him crossing his legs and was trying to mimic the act. In her attempts, which were never to be successful, she managed only to hook her human foot under the table between them and send it over on its side. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” she expounded.

  “Quite right, why should we have physical barriers separating us while we communicate,” he said, delighted.

  She gave him another mouthful.

  “And do you think that an exploding star is actually hotter than an active volcano, or do you believe, as I do, that the light of stars is a cool brightness?”