Intelligence

In the waiting room a line of ghost ants made its way from behind the receptionist's desk across the floor and up the wall to the corner of the window, where they exited through a hole. Resting his back against the wainscoting, Ganderpole sat on the floor and watched them file past his left foot, wondered where they were coming from, where they were going. The receptionist ignored them, focusing all of her attention on the oval screen in front of her and plucking steadily at her keyboard. Bunches of wiry hair on top of her head were tied with a large wooden pin in the shape of a caterpillar.

Ganderpole tried to doze off but could not. The concrete floor was very hard, his buttocks hurt, every time he began to doze he imagined the ants climbing onto his leg and marching up onto his face, into his eyes, his nose, his ears. He looked through the window at scores of harmony birds wheeling above the invisible Life Towers. One of them was carrying something long, maybe an arm bone.

A gong sounded. The receptionist lifted one hand from the keyboard and pointed a finger at Ganderpole.

Dr. Aardquist leaned across the desk, pad in hand, and sketched the skeleton of something like a thick-veined leaf or a set of roots. Long blonde hair swung loose from his head, filling the narrow space between them with a fruity cosmetic scent.

Ganderpole sat rigid for a few moments, his face chalky, his heart leaping about. He took off his spectacles and passed them from hand to hand, then put them on again to speak.

His voice came out like a girl's.

"Can't you just take it out now? You said it's small, it would be an easy operation, no one would know."

Dr. Aardquist abandoned a weak smile, sighed, and turned over the lab coat lapel to reveal a small gold caterpillar. Ganderpole's heart leaped higher.

Dr. Aardquist paused. Ganderpole's heart slowed a little, then picked up again. He put his hand to his chest and felt the organ jumping. He wondered if he might have a heart attack. What would they do with the growth then? He imagined them cutting it out and putting it in someone else while his body stiffened and died on the floor in Aardquist's office. Out of the window the tops of the Life Towers were now visible surrounded by their ever-present crowd of harmony birds.

His knees wobbled and he steadied himself on the corner of the desk, looking down at his bloodless fingertips.

On the way out he stopped at the receptionist's desk and made an appointment for a Life Line Test one month later. His body hummed. He put his hand down to his side where the growth bulged under his skin, just inside his right hip.

In the street outside a circle of green-smocked monks broke into a chime dance, kicking up their heels and smacking cymbals together. A flock of giant sheep ran about the street, scared by something or other, bumping into people, and one of them brushed by Ganderpole, nearly knocking him over. He leaned against a wall to steady himself and watched the sheep follow their leader into an alley. For a moment the monks, now dancing in a conga line, looked like a huge green caterpillar.

On the bus to his sister Agatha's he stared obsessively at the drawing Aardquist had given him and he pictured himself taking a sharp blade and cutting it out. Blood welled up and puddled on his abdomen and the thing danced around on the floor. Squads of black-uniformed soldiers came for him and carried him off still bleeding to jail while the dancing thing was cocooned in a special perspex casque and rushed off to the hospital.