III.
When I got back this morning, I went
straight to the kitchen to get a drink of milk I was
so thirsty. Hoh hoh, I noted,
something placed thoughtfully there for me to read. I bent
down, tetra pack in paw to peer at it.
Something left for me to read, a tid-bit, a teaching aid:
"And when I beheld my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn:
it was the Spirit of Gravity - through him all things are ruined.
One does not kill by anger but by laughter.
Come, let us kill the Spirit of Gravity!"
Okay, I thought, taking the crisp paper off the
refrigerator very carefully and flattening it out on
the kitchen table. How obedient I am! And I went to school and I
learnt many things which I do
not remember, except perhaps, how to treat the printed word. I folded
it once vertically down the
middle, then made two long triangles on each side. Wait a minute,
yes, and now fold it again twice,
back on itself. I have constructed a replica of the Silver Dart, and
if I am not Ickabod Mudd double d
then I can have no part in saving the world from the Spirit of
Gravity!
I pick it up and when I lift it past my head I
notice my arm.
What a strange thing my arm appears to be, smooth and sinewed,
at places greenish blue traceries wrapping their way about its
surface,
I turn it this way and that, poke at the muscles with the finger of
my
other hand, pinch the skin and it moves out of my grasp with an
elastic snap.
How pretty it is. At last I bow my head and pay homage, lick its
delicate surface
just below the hair under my shoulder. A sort of mossy flavor.
The dart flies, it undulates across the room and
bangs into the lamp like a drunken moth.
I go over and pick it up, fly it back to the kitchen table where it
slides to the edge, teeters,
then submits to Gravity.
Come! Let us kill the Spirit of Gravity! I cry, and skip back to the kitchen to let it fly again.
I occupy myself like this for about an hour till
the master comes back and reminds me that I should
get ready for a visitor who is calling today. So I launch the Silver
Dart on its last flight, and this time
it lands straight in the trash can.
Indeed my aim has gotten quite good.