The Enormous Room
Page 2
II
Porfirio Villa had known from the first that this adventure of his was amistake. His wife had told him to stay off the roller coaster, but hehad sneered. What could happen? The people always got off again,laughing and wiping their brows. He had the bad burn on his left hand,caused by an accidental smacking of the steam table in a rage at hisfool of a helper;--that idiot who now had had charge of the stand fortwo days! _lodo feo!_--and so, enforced to a vacation, he must step intothe cars and go crawling up that terrible incline, giggling nervously,and then rush madly down the other side. Dreaming is better than doing;he should have stayed in his chili stand and dreamed of the ride.
_Por Dios!_ What a terror the rising, what a discomfort the drop, what afearful thing the disappearance of the park and the awakening in thisplace ... this place a man could not believe in, though he stood uponits floor and gazed round-eyed, with sweating lips and shaking hands,upon its size, its devices for unknown purposes, its impossibleinhabitant!
The thing was twelve feet tall. Was it a machine? He had seen machinesin the _revistas_ and the cinema, looking much like this one, a clumsycopy of a man moving, speaking, tearing people to pieces. There was alsoKing Kong, who resembled this thing.
If it was not alive, it moved very creditably. The gray-furred legs werelong and thin, placed on the sides of the body at the waist; the arms,much thicker than the legs, swung very low, and must be fully eight feetlong. It was backing from him slowly, holding out one hand--six fingersand two thumbs, _demonio!_--with the green stick. That stick stung likea bee when it touched you.
The monster was already a good distance away. Porfirio cast his eyesslyly to one side, the other. There was a complication of machinery sogreat that even a teacher of mechanics would be dismayed.
There! A hole between two pink walls. He glanced once at the thing,standing now with its impossible face turned down to him, and then heran for the hole.
It was after him with a short cry, but he reached the hole and scuttledthrough. Four paths faced him. What a time for decisions! He took theleft-hand path, went round several turns, came to two more openings. Thepink walls were smooth and featureless, well over his head so that hecould not tell where he was. He ran like the mouse in the game next tohis chili stand, the game in which suckers bet on which escape--the red,green, blue or white--the mouse would choose. Paths opened and Porfirioplunged on, losing his sense of direction, becoming more terrified as hewent. His famished guts dragged him down, made him a weak frightenedmouse indeed.
He panted past two doorways and abruptly, like the flashing of apigeon's wing, the greenstick shot down before him, held in thatmonstrous gray hand!
The stick appeared and disappeared, herding him, chivvying him fromplace to place, all places looking alike, till finally the great roomlay again before his eyes. Whimpering, he stepped out of the pink mazeand leaned against the wall, his chest and belly heaving. He was done.Let it murder him. A man could not run forever.
The brute stood over him. Cautiously it brought its face down to peer.Its eyes were set in deep pits, there was a hole between them, and farbelow in the watermelon-shaped head, a mouth like a man's with lips thecolor of rust on iron.
Panting, he gazed at it, then flung up one arm in a futile blow thatfell short by two feet. The thing was angering him. Let it watch out foritself!
A hand, unnoticed, had crept round behind him and now took him by theback of the shirt, belt, and trousers, and lifted him off the floor. Heregretted the useless punch. Now he would be dead.
The monster inspected him, prodding aside his bedraggled collar pointsand digging gently at his belly with the rod, which did not sting himthis time. It made a sound from its mouth like the last weak bellow of adying _toro_--"Mmwaa gnaa!" then set him down once more with a thumpthat jolted his teeth, nearly fractured his ankles.
_Maria y Jose_, but it moved as fast as a lizard's tongue! Escape wasbeyond hope.
It backed away from him, stood by a huge box and gestured with the greenstick. It wanted him to come. He walked toward it. The box was enormous,oblong, like a huge shoe box. Only when he had come to it did he realizeit was the room in which he had awakened earlier.
In this hall it was lost. Untouched by the monster, he looked at thehall with seeing eyes for the first time. It had yellow walls and a grayroof, like the box. He clapped a hand to his head. Like a theaterwithout seats! Over ten varas high, thirty broad and forty long: or heshould say, being a man of the States now for many years, roughly thirtyfeet by seventy-five by a hundred. Scattered here and there instaggering confusion were the machines, the gadgets, the unknown things.All colors he had ever seen were there. It was gaudy as the amusementpark, but slicker and more fresh-looking.
The creature laid a hand on the box, and the wall began to slide open.He looked up, and it gestured, telling him as plainly as words to go in.He was to enter again. It seemed as happy a thing to him as the breakingof a Christmas pinata.
He braced himself now. _He_ had emerged, while _they_ had coweredbehind, refusing him aid. Worms that they were, he would show them thebearing of a hero, one who had braved mysterious dangers while allothers trembled. He sucked in his belly, threw forward his chest, placedhis fists carefully on his hips and strutted into the strawed room,turning his head proudly from side to side. He heard the wall closebehind him.
The worms came crowding to him.
"What is it? What happened?"
Porfirio Villa, adventurer, laughed. The relief that washed through himwas making him shake, his empty stomach still heaved after the panic,but from somewhere in his soul he dredged up the casual laugh. "Verylittle happened," he said. "Truly very little of interest."