The One-Eyed King

James never spoke to anyone, even his wife, about the dreams when he could see, you just don't explore such impossible fantasies aloud. Not when the dream's vision held the greatest terror; the fissure which would bring down the sky.

* * *

William Edward Carpenter was born much the way any child ought to be, was pronounced quite healthy, and went back home with his mother and father. The greatest evidence of the boy's health was his lungs, which he exercised without significant pause every waking moment. The James and Janette Carpenter complained of this to friends and family, but, as he was their first, no one was prepared to believe his behavior was unusual. “Babies cry,” they said, “what did you give him for a passifier?” It was only when the happened to be laid down very near a heater that discovered something odd.

The Carpenter's heater operates on electronic resistance, so in addition to heat, it emits a small amount of red light. In this glow the baby William stopped crying. He saw, for the first time.

“Oh, you've hurt him,” Janette Carpenter cried when the boy when silent, and scooped him up. She automatically stood with her back to the heater, sheltering her baby from the heat she feared excessive. He began to cry at once.

“No, wait,”James Carpenter said, “I think he likes the heat.” He took the child gently, and brought him near the unit. Not close enough to burn his tiny hands, but close enough for William to open his eye. In the warmth radiating off the heater, the Carpenters looked carefully at their child. Their fingertips searched over his tiny body and found no burn, nor injury, nor defect, until they brushed over his face. Chin, mouth, and nose were in their appointed place, but above his nose, off to one side where should be only smooth skin, was a small, strange and bulbous growth. They wanted to dismiss it, but there it was, real as hearing. When James pushed down on the growth, the child shrieked with terrible pain.

“What is it! What is it,” was Janette's cry, and when James showed her, it only increased the tempo of her worried outbursts. At last she cried, “have it out!” and hurried to the kitchen to boil water and sanitize a knife.
James laid the child on the square of bare floor in front of the radiator, and knelt on the carpet in next to him. The baby cooed, and James wondered at it. He brushed his fingers over his son's hand's, and saw him waving them over his head, not touching anything, but apparently absorbed in their movement.

Janette brought him the knife, warm all the way the handle, and he could smell the steam. He raised it over the baby's face, near, but not near enough to touch, and little William wailed. He wailed as he had for nothing in his life, though he blade was not enough to touch. It was cooling fast, perhaps warmer than a bottle should be, but the smell of steam should not frighten a baby. He must be able to sense something of the coming pain, or something of his parents' worry. James steeled himself and brought the knife up against the skin of the baby's face, thinking he would cut the soft off like a bad spot on an onion. He held his baby still with one hand, but William jerked and shook.

“Hold him!” he said to Janette, “help me!”

“I can't, I can't,” she said, and instead of holding the child down, she grabbed James' arm and held him back. “Don't do it, you can't, we can't.”

The knife must have slipped when Janette grabbed him, because after James set it down and touched the child, who still wailed, his hand came away wet. He smelled blood. Tears, also, of the baby's fear, but certainly blood. His stomach did some disconcerting contortions, and James realized he could never preform this operation, even if it meant his son's life.

* * *

The heaters in the hospital were central and enclosed, only warm air blew into its rooms. Janette realized it as they waited. William was bandaged, now, with a poultice so large it covered the growth. He whimpered occasionally, and cried, but didn't respond to the warm air like he had the radiator. “What will we tell the doctor? How can we show him?”

James raced out of the hospital, strides almost to running, his hand just brushing the guideline, to search for some portable heater. The store across from the hospital specialized in convenience rather than selection. It didn't have any portable heaters, but it did have toasters, which were more-or-less the same thing. Same principle at work, anyway, and they did get hot, so it might work. Better than nothing. In any case, the growth was by far the more important problem, the child's sensitivity to heat (or, perhaps, insensitivity, since he liked it so?) might not be related.

James held the toaster very still, and no one heard it when he went inside. The receptionist directed him to an observation room, “your wife's already inside, Mr. Carpenter. The doctor will hear you shortly.”

The Doctor, a young man named Josef Kellmatt, cut away little William's bandage with delicate care. “You did the right thing, to bring him here,” he told the parents. “There are still far too many unauthorized surgeries of this type. Even in a medical facility, there is a chance of infection. To do it at home, well... The traditional methods do leave something to be desired”

He did not need to explain further, and was silent a while while he examined the baby's face. “I do not feel a significant growth,” he said, “the poor lad's features may be slightly lopsided, though. Was it a difficult delivery?”

“No,” Janette replied. “No more so than any.” Her voice bristled a bit because of the lopsided comment.

“humm. The skin is unusually soft here, and perhaps bulges slightly more than average,” the doctor said. James could hear him changing 'normal' to 'average,' as he said it, though there was just a slight pause in his speech. Janette bristled again. She heard it too. “Here,” the doctor said, “feel for yourself.”

James set the toaster down, the softest of clinks, and did. The strange texture of the growth was gone, though the skin did feel raised a bit. He offered Doctor Kellmatt an affirmative grunt.

Janette said, “there was one other thing. He seemed unusually sensitive to heat. Or, at least, to our heaters at home.”

“Does he?”

“Yes. He liked them very much. Though, he doesn't seem to like your heaters, at the hospital.”

“Humm.”

James broke in, “I think we could demonstrate; do you have somewhere I could plug this in?”

“You brought a radiator?” the doctor asked.
“Well, no, but I found a toaster. Electronic. Pretty much the same thing.” The words sounded flat and unbelievable even as James said them. Doctors are rational. He'd never believe such a thing.

“Here, on the under side of the counter, there are outlets. Turn it on its side, and let me lay little William down here....”

William, true to form, cooed in the toaster's warmth. Three adults stood around him in amazement. He even managed a small laugh, until the toaster went “ding!” so suddenly that everyone jumped, and William cried again. Foolish. It's a toaster, they always go “ding” when they're done. But here we are, being amazed by the commonplace. Janette recovered first. She said, “Doctor, do you know what is wrong with my son?”

Doctor Kellmatt took his time coming to an answer while impatience mixed with fear in the pit of James' stomach. Finally he asked, “He only responds this way to electric heaters?”

“Yes.” James answered.

“And not to other sources?”

A grunt. Janette took in air to answer aloud, but James but his hand on her's.

“I have a suspicion. It is, unfortunately not something I can articulate aloud.” He produced a punch and a sheet of paper. Not a prescription pad. Those are numbered and tracked, and a missing sheet would need to be accounted for. He wrote “He May Have the Sight,” then handed it to Janette. She read it and passed it to James.

“In truth, I can't say what might be the matter. He is still very young, it is possible this anomaly will resolve itself, in time. I am, however, completely certain it is not life-threatening at this time. The best advice I can give you is to wait and listen.”

The parents murmured their acceptance, and the doctor left. They packed up child and toaster in confused and sullen silence. To James' surprise, the doctor was waiting for them in the hall.

“I am sorry,” he said, soft words almost lost in the clean corridor, “that I can not do anything for William. I imagine things must be difficult for a young couple, like yourselves, just starting out.”

James grunted. Janette was still in shock, because she had no response to the polite, meaningless words.

The doctor continued, “my wife is a wonderful babysitter. She's officially licensed, but right now she just watches over a few friend's children in our home. If you ever feel like you need someone to care for William, we would love to look after him.” With that, he retreated. His footfalls echoed in the corridor.

Outside the hospital, James said aloud, “what was with all that secret agent bullshit?”

Janette said, “do you think it could be possible?”

“We can afford a normal babysitter. We talked about it.”

Janette replied with ice. “You know what I mean. About the sight.”

“Secret Agent bullshit. No such thing. Sight is a myth.”

But what if it's not? What if its not?

* * *

Several short months later, little William was crawling . From time to time, even even accomplished a sort of motion which elated parents would consider a walk, though it reverted to a four-limbed motion after a few steps. That was enough for him to become a handful, however. It was all Janette could do to keep the boy away from heating coils. It hardly mattered which ones. When James returned home each evening, she passed the chore off to him. He couldn't stand it, so he finally enclosed every heat source in the home with a mesh screen, but the child would pry them away to hold things up to the coils. The home smelled of burnt stuffed toy, melted plastic block, and crisped cheerios. Every carpet bore a small scorched place were some paper had been ignited and hastily stomped out. When Janette returned in the evening, they would argue. The topic du jore did not much matter, soon enough William's odd behavior would come up. One night Janette killed the argument before it could get off the ground.

“I need a rest, and so do you. We've got to find William a babysitter and go out.”

“A babysitter?” James parroted. His complaint about the state of the laundry alcove died a silent death.

“I was thinking we should ask that doctor's wife.”

“The quack?”

“N... maybe, I don't think so. Maybe not.”

He didn't want to argue with her. “If you want to.”

* * *

William Edward Carpenter's first clear memory was looking at the fireplace at Mrs Mary's living unit. Mrs. Kellmatt, that is, could certainly have heated with electricity, but she insisted on the fire. It stood in the center of the great parlor like in some ancient teepee; open for all the world to see. Mostly, they didn't, though, except for Mz Mary's children. She had lots of children there, but most of them them weren't her's. Mz Mary's children were from all sorts of strange families, with strange names, like Ang Sung, and Fitzgerald Junge, who could not decide if they were the worst of enemies or the best of friends.

There was a game the children played, making “ice cream cones” and giving them to one another. The rear of the Kellmatt's home opened into a natural cave, all stalactites and calcite formations above, and the finest powder-sand below. Neatly chopping off a third or so of the area was a wondrous curtain wall of pure white calcium with a denser inclusion that parted the curtain like a giant's hand stuck in a waterfall. This made a sort of window in the calcium curtain, which the kids would lean through to sell “ice cream.” The treats were nothing more than balls of damp dust, held in little hands cupped in imitation of a cone, and by his memory, most of the treats ended up as projectiles. “How could you possibly fall and get only your shoulder muddy?” his mom would ask. “Jannie threw it,” he'd answer, and he didn't understand her sigh. The color never really came out, but the texture faded away and hid it. Mrs Mary explained that once.

“There was once a little creature called a chameleon. It could change the color of its skin whenever it wanted to. All the bigger animals, that hunted by sight, wanted to eat the chameleon. But they couldn't, because it would turn green and hide among the leafs. Or it would turn brown and hide in the dust, or turn gray and hide in the rocks. That is how we must be, children. Do not let anyone know that you can see.”

William's parents did not like to talk about the sight, but Mrs Mary taught the signs to all her children. “here, on our doors, in textureless ink, we make wear our mark. The eye that sees. Remember that, children, if you are ever lost.” The symbol she showed them was expertly drawn, a human eye looking out from a strange triangle. No, not a triangle. It had lines and bits stretching behind it, so that even though it was flat, it looked like there were three dimensions. Amazing. What was that shape? Like the Pharaohs in the stories from that old, old book. A pyramid. An eye in a pyramid, visible only to those who can see.

* * *

William began to understand that he was different at Mrs. Mary's school, but he did not truly realize it until many years later. In elementary school, when his class went into the city to visit the Museum of Science and Industrial Workers Memorial. For William, it promised to be quite the adventure, beginning with the journey, by train, into the great city. Its name was Molland, and most of it, like the town William knew, was underground. But the old part of the city was different. There was a huge bubble of the smoothest stone William had ever seen. It stretched over the whole of old Molland, and seemed to him as the sky. He wanted to reach up and touch it. The buildings in old Molland were not carved out of the rock, but instead built up of blocks of rock. Small blocks, big ones. It amazed William that people would think to do that, but not as much as the great dome amazed him. It was sand-colored and glowed, so that it cast the whole city in yellow light. It wasn't as bright as Mrs. Mary's fireplace, but it was the brightest public place he'd ever seen.

The old city would be the perfect place to find other sighted people. They would come to the light. William wanted to cry out loud at how wonderful it was, how beautiful the old, gray buildings were, and the old gray streets. But he could not, because no one else in school knew he had sight. It was his secret. So William followed all the class up the guidelines to the museum, though for once he was able to see the way, so his hand barely rested on the rope.

The Industrial Workers Memorial was really boring, just a lot of big metal statues and small stone ones, and they had to wear latex gloves so they wouldn't ruin the old marble, but museum was interesting. There was everything there to touch and hear. Sometimes a recorded voice in an exhibit would explain it, but mostly the museum guide talked. His voice was old and dusty, which made William think he must one of the ancient relics, all cobweb-covered, come to life. It was dark inside the museum, like any public building, and the guide didn't come forward to let the class see him. He told the story of earthquakes, the one about photosynthesis and the sun, and the one about the dinosaurs. The museum guide even told them about radar, which they used to see through solid rock, and microwave ovens, that used the a different sort of radar to cook things. William knew that one, because Mrs. Mary told all the children about it.

“The special signals used in Radar are called electromagnetic waves. They move very, very fast, and contain a lot of energy – just as even a quiet sound has energy enough to make your ears twitch. But electromagnetic waves are always completely imperceptible, except to machines.”

William's mouth moved without bothering to consult him first. At least, it didn't consult his brain, because after he spoke he felt a complete fool for saying it. He said, “not always.” He didn't say it very loud, but the museum guide heard.

“Say that again, please. For the benefit of the class.”

He coughed. “I. Um. Said that sometimes electromagnetic waves could be perceived. They're visible.”

“Visible?” His voice was like a hedgehog in William's ear.

“Um.” He was in trouble now. “Or so I heard. Once.”

“And who told you that?”

“I donno,” he lied.
“Sight Is A Myth,” the museum guide said, almost shouting. It had the quality of a mantra as it echoed off the stone walls of the. myth myth myth

“I shall prove it. There, I am holding up my hand. How many fingers are raised?”

“I didn't say I could do it.” William grumbled, soft enough that no one could hear Probably. “and anyway, it's dark.”

The tour guide waited a minute, but when no one offered to count his fingers from afar, he continued the tour. William decided to run away as soon as he could. There had to be sighted people in the city, somewhere. He'd find them.

He got his chance when they passed into a deep level of the museum, where the air was very humid. The tour guide said something about first migrants channeling underground rivers, but William didn't pay much attention. He'd never heard so much water before. He wished it wasn't so dark. They climbed into a boat (it's amazing the sort of things they teach children; things which have no bearing on their immediate world. But the sailors and lumberjacks still populated the pages of children's literature), and pushed off from the dock. It was a strange sensation, floating on the water, a sense of movement without direction. The moist air was still, cold and heavy, and it smelled faintly of old and rotten things. The tunnel went on and on, and the guide went on and on. His voice echoed strangely on the rock and the water, and becoming indistinct and meaningless. It lured William into a trance, until the canal rounded a bend, and at once the walls lit up with green and glowing fuzz, and tiny purple shapes. Algae and mushrooms? By their glow, William could clearly see that the boat was only a few centimeters away from a ledge that ran along the canal, perhaps a fifth a meter wide. On the wall beyond there were many doors. The algae covered them, so they must be seldom used or completely forgotten. He could escape!

William stood up as carefully as he could, so the boat wouldn't rock, stood on the seat, and stepped off the boat. It was large and heavy, and there were just fifteen in his class, and the boat floated on, seemingly ignorant of his absence. The walls were damp and spongy, the glowing coat was more like a moss than an algae. Or, perhaps, it had built up a spongy bed over infinite years, undisturbed in the dark.

The first door was locked, or stuck. So were the second and third and fourth. William despair as he tried every door along the canal and found every one locked. He followed the ledge to the bend in the canal, and had stoop below the arch and lean way out over the water to look downsteam. The ledge ended at the bend, the next chamber of the canal had no ledge. It did have the glowing algae on the roof, though. William sat and stared at the water for a long time, and he paced the length of his prison. It felt like it should be lunch time. He wondered when the next boat would come by, and whether he could sneak on board without being noticed. He also began to wonder if the purple, glowing mushrooms good to eat. He had water. Maybe he could just live here, in the algae-and-mushroom-light, and never see another person again. He imagined growing old, with white hair and a white beard that went on forever, like Judy Feerson's grandfather, who always picked her up from Mrs. Mary's right on time.

Finally, William grew tired of waiting. He plucked a few mushrooms from the walls and put them in his pockets, 'just in case,' then gently eased himself into the water. He'd never seen so much water in one place before, so naturally he did not know how to swim, but had the vague idea that people could do it by waving their arms and legs. If he wore hard-bottomed shoes, he would have removed them, but William's people wear form-fitting shoes of tough, flexible synthetic rubber, with each toe shaped separately. Wearing hard shoes would be another blindness for them. William had never had his clothes soaked, either, and he was surprised by how heavy they became. The bottom of the canal was too deep to touch, so he hung there, on the ledge, shivering in the cold water, for a long time. Once, William climbed back out, but it was even colder on the ledge, now that he was wet. Finally, he resolved to go forward. The canal had a gentle current that pushed him in the same direction as the boat, so William concentrated on keeping above the water by waving his arms and legs, and keeping his lungs full.

Eventually William discovered that he could direct his progress a little by leaning downstream while he paddled in place. He began to feel tired before he reached the end of the next chamber, but he kept swimming, fighting the water. Gradually, though, as he became tired, he grew less afraid of it, and laid down on his back. Will found that if he kept his lungs full (not because he understood the concept of buoyancy but because he knew breathing the water was a bad idea, so he instincts had him holding his breath) and waved his arms just a little, he could float very easily on his back. William lay like that, with the current rocking him gently, pushing him onward. The water splashed in his eyes so he closed them, and felt the tunnel slide deeper into the earth.

William woke with a start with the feeling of drowning. It was cave black. He panicked, splashed a lot, and very nearly drowned himself in earnest until he remembered the mushrooms in his pocket. He drew them out, one arm still fighting fiercely, and by the act he relaxed, filled his lungs and began to float again. The damp fungi lost most of their glow, but William could still see there was a very low shelf or ramp at the edge of the canal in this dark place. He climbed out easily, rolling up on it, and lay on his back. He stayed there for a time, with his damp purple mushroom, and wondered if he was too cold or too tired to shiver. Maybe he'd just outrun the shivers for a time, because they came back soon enough. There was just one guideline on the ramp, a narrow trough carved into the floor like you might find in a wide open space. William followed it uphill. The room narrowed and became a tunnel, still sloping uphill, and curving in a spiral for what felt like many kilometers.

Finally he came to a doorway, capped with an iron door which had long ago turned to rust. It stood wide open. Thin, yellow-gray light filled the door and covered the floor, which was thick with dirt (rather, it was rust and sand and dust that lacked any supply of the nutrients which dirt ought to have, but we must forgive William as he had no more concept of dirt than he did of sunlight). If William hadn't been so tired, he would have whooped for joy and ran for the door, but he moved slowly instead. It was just as well that he did, because two people-silhouettes suddenly appeared in the doorway. They pulled a large cart by a yoke, with a lantern hung on it. That startled William so much that he jumped back, making his feet crunch on the dirty floor.

The people dropped the cart with a crash. They rushed forward, one holding the lantern and both carrying clubs (I say lantern for convenience, William just thought of it as a light because he didn't know the word lantern yet, nor lamp, nor torch nor candle; it was just a bright flame in a box you could carry, and William found it at least as amazing as the canal). The stood over William, a man and a woman, and they seemed huge and sinister, holding that light. They didn't speak. Instead, they looked at one another, and at William. They looked at him. They had eyes! Two of them, each! Then they looked at each other and wiggled their fingers. By the expressions on their faces, William guessed they were speaking, but he could not begin to guess what they said. The man handed the lantern to the woman, and kept his club raised. They pointed at the doorway, which was currently blocked by their cart. The woman glared at him, and they together they moved the cart aside. Then the man pointed again, and gave William an angry glare. He led the way and the two sighted people followed him.

They were in a large storeroom piled with bolts of cloth and bags, crates and barrels which William couldn't identify. There were patterns on them, black squiggles and straight lines in many shapes, but which repeated themselves. William couldn't read them, but he did recognize them as writing. There were many tools, too, and some very long knife-like things which he recognized as swords. With the swords with many things he didn't recognize, made of plastic and metal, and some even made of wood. The cloth, though, was amazing. It was colorful. Just just colorful as different people's eyes and hair had colors, or even like the picture book (which was probably colorful when it was new, but that was some time ago). It was colorful as fire, and not just fire, but blue and greens and violets with the bright yellows, red and oranges. The light, too, was better, because there was another door, high up. There wasn't a ramp to reach the door, though, just a funny bunch of shelves, arranged so you could stand on them, climb on them and get to the door.

Up the stairs (for that's what they were), Willaim found himself in a sort of courtyard made from the collapsed hulk of a huge, old building. They were very near the dome, because it was almost vertical. The courtyard was filled with little buildings made of that colorful cloth – tents, they were called – and there were hundreds. It must have been a gigantic building before it fell in because it stretched for hundreds of meters. And people! There where hundreds of people there. No one said anything, but they all stopped what they were doing to look at William. He paused, and the man rammed him in the back with his club, like a blunt spear, driving him forward, and he point a hand on this shoulder. In this way he led William to a high platform with more of those inclined shelves, and bade him climb.

William looked out at the crowd and really saw them for the first time. They were not dirty, but their clothes were very, very old and worn. They cloth was colorful, despite its fading. Their faces, too, showed considerable wear. There was not one fat person among them, but all were gaunt. There were children, too, mostly shy and hiding behind their mother's skirts. There was another rarity! Skirts and dresses were only for formal occasions, not out... camping. They had cooking-fires and tents, that was wasn't that called camping? But everyone one of them was looking back at William. Most had two good eyes, though a few, like William, had only one good one and the other grown over with skin like normal people.

The man and woman who found him got up with him, and he realized they weren't that old, they might still be in school, along with an older woman – not terribly old, it was hard to tell with these silent people – but perhaps Mrs. Mary's age, and she carried that air of respect that made William think she was probably in charge. He though they were going to speak to the people, but they didn't say anything. Just wiggled their fingers, like they had in the tunnel. Then one prodded William. He shrugged. What did they want? The leader-woman produced a piece of cardboard and a punch. She wrote, “Talk.”

“Um. Hi. My name is William Edward. Carpenter. Um. I was looking for you. I kinda expected you could talk, though.”

The leader wiggled her fingers. Translating, maybe? And the people wiggled back. She punched on the card, and William read. In this way, they were able to communicate.

“Why looking?”

“Because, Um. Well, I saw the light, coming down from up above, and thought that if there were other sighted people, they would live here.”

That created some excitement.

“Will you help us?”

“How? What do you need?”

“A voice.”

The idea scared him every bit as much as jumping in the canal. Maybe even more. So many people, wanting him to go and talk to them. What were they called? Mute.

The leader wrote to him again. “We will give you words. Just speak.”

“I will.”

“We are poor, and need work. We are hungry, because we are poor. We have no other place to live, so we live here, and this is no-place. But even more than that, there is a way out. We can see the way. Come on, let us show you, and you must tell them. Will you help?”

“Of course! I was looking for the sighted people!”

“Do you promise?”

William realized this was important. He didn't understand what she meant about a way out, or really want he had to say, and hesitated a little.

“We give words, you speak.” she wrote. The leader apparently liked to leave words off when she was writing quickly.

“I promise.”

“Follow.”

They walked down the streets, avoiding the guidelines and moving silently. They were like ghosts, except all dressed in colors. Their way wound through the old city, choosing streets that were wide, with space between the guidelines, or else deserted. Once they passed near to someone, a woman carrying bags of groceries who stopped and shouted “who's there! Who's there?” William opened his mouth to answer her, but one of the silent people clamped his hand down on his shoulder and he shut up.

They came closer to the dome with every turn, finally they were right at its base. Last building was a small living unit, just one story tall. From its flat roof they could almost touch the dome, and there was a little wooden scaffolding which went a little higher and a littler further out, and you could touch it. Though the drop was only a story, and the drop was further than that from the balcony in the grand library, it gave William vertigo. Then they waved a long metal thing – some powered tool – next to the dome, and the sand-colored stuff cleared away. It was sand. On the outside of the dome, and he could see beyond it. Through the dome. The floor was all covered with green leaves, sticking up and waving in invisible wind. And there were other things beyond it, green and growing, and much larger. Trees, he thought, or maybe they were bushes. Which one was the bigger one? They were far away on the slope of a a hill which rose above the dome, and together they were very beautiful. Beautiful, but confusing. There was no life outside, not anymore. The dome held back the dead world... and yet...

“Light,” she wrote.

“I don't understand.”

The leader grabbed his head, not head enough to hurt, but hard nonetheless, and turned it to face her. She's reading my lips, he thought, not listening.

“I don't understand...” he gestured at the green world outside the dome. It shouldn't be alive like that. Then, as he stared, he noticed something else wrong. Something truly terrifying. There was a crack in the dome. It was not a large crack. A little less than a meter long, that he could see, but the bottom was hidden by the rock around the dome's base. The crack was deep, though. It might go all the way through the dome. Even if it didn't, he knew a little crack in a stone's surface could mean a deep and permanent fracture. It was a fissure which could bring down the sky.

It would be a terrible frustration to ask the questions that filled William's head. Even those, he did not have the chance to ask. Below them, in the street, a dog barked. It was the eager let-me-off-the-lease-so-i-can-give-chase sort of bark. He turned around to look, and one of the sighted was gesturing wildly. All the sighted scattered from the roof, running down stairs and jumping off balconies. The woman he presumed to be their leader signed orders, but no one seemed to pay attention to her. Then a crash below spoke of someone battering at the door of the living unit. Then the woman pushed him off the roof.

It was a short fall, to a big canvas sheet spread like half a tent, attached to the roof, and then he fell to the ground, rolling log-style. The second fall knocked the wind out of him. That hurt. As he lay on his back, he saw the head of a dog stick over the side. A man's follow it, and he recognized the uniform hat of the police. The policeman sniffed, like he was trying to catch the scent his dog had followed. The cop said something into his shoulder, and hole opened in the wall, near William. Another police officer started climbing out. William knew he should stay put and let the cops find him. Perhaps if he had wisdom, he would have realized how dangerous it was for him to be caught in the company of the sighted. It was a simpler fear that drove him, though, William wanted to flee because he was chased.

William ran without aim through unfamiliar streets. There were people everywhere, but he could not see any of the sighted. He pushed his way through blind crowds, knocking some off their feet, apologizing all the way. The police-dogs were never more than a few blocks behind.

* * *

Sad to say, the great cultural achievements of Chuck Jones and Wile E Coyote are entirely lost of the inhabitants of Molland, and unknown to young William. If they were not, he would have felt a sympathy with the unfortunate trickster. The police where within sight again, coming around a corner with their dogs straining at their leashes. The officer who came through the window was in the lead still. William was looking over his shoulder, running with fire in his lungs and his legs, when the floor beneath his foot, as he planted it, collapsed. The floor had been the same yellow as the light, the dome, the dust, and it was not stone. It shattered. It lacerated his leg as he crashed though, and he fell.

William landed with a boom and a clattered on a huge sheet of metal. He lay there for a while, wondering he he was going to die. His leg bled out a pool, black on the steel platform. He realized, belatedly, that since he hadn't died yet, ought to make a bandage. There was nothing on the metal platform except a big desk, a telephone and a collection of books and papers. His coat was in bad shape, but had didn't want to part with it, so he tore long strips from the bottom of his shirt and bound up the cuts all over his legs, tying his pants-legs down over the lacerations. He expected that the bandages would make it hurt less, like band-aids do with a cut, but they only throbbed all the worse. He wasn't sure he could walk, and pretty certain he didn't want to try, so he crawled to the edge of the platform and looked down.

William had never looked down into a well, but he concept of what one was. He felt as if he were a tiny insect, a flea, looking down from a bucket's rim into the biggest well in the world. Or, perhaps, as if he were a toy on the highest shelf, staring out in a darkened bedroom. Except the bedroom must have been made for giants or something, because it was huge. The platform made a pop as William stretched over the edge. There wasn't a clear front or back, but to either side were platforms just like his. They stretched into the darkness. Perhaps four meters away in the dizzying space was another row of ghostly platforms. Each one was a square in each direction, perhaps three meters to a side. In every cube there were desks and chairs and little, uncovered electric heaters. Even in the darkness that stretched to infinity, William could see the tiny red glows of the heating coils aligned in a perfect grid.

People sat at most of the dark desks. They were talking. Quietly, so he could not discern any particular voice, but their collective sound was the rumble of an unquiet ocean.

“Oy! Ay! You up there!”

The voice came from beneath him. Something banged on the steel platform. That scared him, so he backed away from the ledge, still lying on his bellow.

“Ay! Hey! Stop that. You'll tip the stack! You don't want to tip the stack, not from up there, you'll bring the whole cluster down.”

“I want to get down!”

“Hey, where'd you come from anyway? You don't sound like Artiban. That's his cube, there. You'd best get down from it.”

“I'd love to! How do I get down?”

“How'd you get up there, eynh?”

“I fell in. Through the roof.”

“What roof? No. Nevermind, gotta call. I'll call the Supporter.”

That concluded the conversation. No matter how (or what) William shouted, the man paid no further heed. Instead he began a conversation below, presumably with the phone. “Yes, of course we care about your business. There are, however, a number of small matters to attend to before we can continue. May I have your customer number please? Yes, there on the bottom of the nineteenth page. No, sir, the longer one...”

The Supporter, if he was coming, was taking his time about it. William was too hurt and tired to care much about the conversation of the man below him, but the words passed over him anyway. A few stuck.

“No, sir. I have an employee number, not a name. It is nineteen fifteen twenty-eight. Of course, Mister Wallace...”

The Supporter rose in the empty air next to the stack of platforms like Aladdin (or was it Ali Baba?) on his magic carpet. It wasn't that he moved into place quickly, but he did move without sound. When it stopped, William head the hiss of pneumatic actuator, and the soft clank of steel on steel, as the strange little vessel lowered a wall, like a drawbridge, to his isolated platform.

“Well, quick quick! You're not supposed to be here, you know? Twenty Fifteen Twenty-eight, this is not your shift. No, not your's, quick quick, and you need to be going.”

The Supporter spoke in a hurried stage whisper, as though he was afraid of disturbing the grand council of shushing librarians, yet terrified that he might be ignored. William wanted to ignore him just for spite, but he also wanted to get off the platform. He hobbled over to the Supporter, and found himself on another platform. It was the same length as the square he left, but only half as wide. It was still plenty of room for two men, but then it was crowded with a table, two bolted-down chairs, a box of doughnuts, and a coffee maker (or, at least, it would have been called coffee. Had William cared to test it, it would have produced a hot, burned, bitter liquid which bore only the nomenclature its former self, but was more than naturally efficient at imparting its cocktail of minor stimulants).

“What is this place?”

The Supporter laid a hand on William's shoulder, like adults might do to one another when they were speaking closely. He said, “Aye, down we go. Isn't that the wonder of it all? No, you really don't know? Our Products Are Customers Incorporated, central station. The Moland campus! No, but you have no idea, do you? What, did you fall from the heaven? Well, sit yourself.”

His breath smelled like onions. Old, old onions that had laid in compost for months and months while his mother tried, and failed, to get permission to make a garden. When William sat down, the Supporter bellied up to a dashboard and flicked several small levers. The little platform lurched and shuddered. The wall next to him hissed and lifted into place just as the whole contraption began to sink. William might have let out a started noise, but he certainly didn't scream. Maybe a yelp. Yelps can be manly. When he recollected his wits, he said said,

“Yes. Um. I kinda did. Fall, I mean.”

The Supporter laughed at this. He laughed and laughed until William wondered if he was gonna cough something up. Maybe onions. But he never did. He didn't calm down until the strange little platform hissed and shuddered and came to rest. He looked up, and up, and up, and saw the tiny yellow hole in the ceiling where he'd fallen. The whole ceiling was like it, long lines of translucent yellow stone glowing with the faint light from above. He was on the ground floor of a giant skeletal hotel, where none of the rooms had beds or baths, just desks and telephones. He could only see the nearest one clearly, the rest were shadows and spots of red light, like old embers arranged in a perfect grid. If he hadn't landed where he had... if he rolled off that platform, he'd just be a gooey splat on the floor. They wouldn't even be able to tell who it was. It was almost frightening and awesome enough to make him forget this leg.

As it approached the floor, William could see the Supporter's platform was part of a huge, heavy car of some sort. It was the only way up or down to the like rooms. They were like cells. Not even cells. Just shelves.

“Do you like our production facility? Very efficient, it is, quick quick. Very clever. Cogs in the machine, we are, and best there is.”

That thought cheered him while the Supporter's awkward car rolled around the cavernous factory into a smaller room. It was cave-black and it stank. The Supporter clambered down, then helped William off the car, and, in the darkness, something snuffled at his leg. He jumped, a little, and felt knives in his legs. Then he recognized the smell.

Dog.

* * *

The police put William in binders rather than handcuffs, which was a sort of mercy. Binders leashed the suspect's hands to each other and to his waist with retractable wires. If the cops wanted, they could draw his hands together and down, so they'd be useless to him, but they left the binders slack. They tied a hood over his head, though, which covered his eye and his nose. He wondered if the hood's last wearer had been gone a century without washing, of if, perhaps, that horrid stench was coming off of him and he hadn't noticed. He felt faint, but stumbled along behind the police officers.

There was some walking, uphill, and a ride on the little train that ran around Moland. Then there were many rooms, some bumping and some more walking.

The police led William into a large room with many criss-crossed toe-guidelines. There were a lot of voices. Men and women talking, working. Some arguing, but with reserve, not in the angry-couples way. Then to a small room, where he had to say his name. William was slow to speak, and someone hit him with a club. “You dumb, boy?” a man at his shoulder asked.

“You gonna be silent in here?”A man shouted. “We don't like silence. Won't stand for the silent treatment. No! No sir, not one bit. Not from loonies. Someone hit him again, but it was not the one shouting, because his voice was further away.

“william carpenter.” he said.

“What was that? Louder! Laaudeeer!”

“William Carpenter!”

“Do you have any other names?” the shouter said.

“Edward!”

“Good. Hood off. Be silent.”

It was still dark without the hood, but it didn't smell so bad when he breathed. Someone cut away the legs of his pants, and made complaint about the smell. “Wash him,” he said. Then the hitting man took William to a tiny room, left him alone, and told him to take off his clothes.

“You're gonna have a bath. Won't that be nice? I fine hot bath.” A woman said. Her voice was like a poor actor's rendition of a grandmother. Or maybe the sort of grandmother who was also a witch, and her bathtub served primarily as a cook pot. But William took off his clothes. He didn't want the hitting man to come back.

The tiny room was not a cauldron. It wasn't a bath tub either. The entire ceiling burst into a flood, a hundred shower-steams of freezing water spraying every direction. It was like an explosion of water, directed mostly at William. Ice water. A shower, and a cruel one. They didn't even bother giving him soap, just sprayed some foam in at him, and rinsed it away. He was shivering when they let him out, worse than he had after swimming the dark river. The river seemed a world away, now, a lifetime ago.

* * *

William realized he was in jail when the police didn't give him back his own clothes. The ones they gave him felt like pajamas, and that's always what they said jailbirds wore. He wondered if they were striped. He wondered how people knew that jailbird pajamas had stripes. He couldn't feel any stripes on the cloth, each was a solid piece, but he was certain they were there.

The police left him in a large room with no guidelines. It was full of people. They all made the noise of tired people being quiet, except one.

She held a tape recorder, which she clicked on and off, and when it got to the end of the tape, it wirred and buzzed and rewound the tape. That's how William recognized it. He recognized her as a reported because she kept asking questions.

“Who are you?” the reporter asked. “What did you do to be arrested? Where do you live, what do you do? What is your name? Do you believe you can see?”

She asked question after question of person after person, but no one answered her. At least, not until the reporter put the tape recorder in William's face.

“I am William Edward,” he told the tape recorder. “And I can see.”

She didn't gasp. I expected her to be surprised, but she was not.

“So can all these people. They can't talk, though, I think. They communicate with one another by making gestures with their hands. Real complicated signs. But they can write too, or some of them. And they live up above in the dome, where there is light. And they don't have any real homes, just a bunch of bright-colored tents. And they go down to the underground river to wash their clothes, and maybe for a bath or something. I think they are poor. Very poor. But they draw on things, and have bright colored clothes. And anyway, they didn't do nothing wrong.”

“If they did nothing wrong, then the judges will let them go. Tell me, what do you think of the science?”

“I don't understand.”

“I mean, you say you can see. The science, though, has proven that sight is impossible. There is no medium that can be perceived by humans, except touch, taste or sound. Radio waves are invisible.”

“I can't see radio waves, just other stuff.” William tried to remember what Mrs. Mary had called it, but he couldn't. Oh, it was easy enough to remember when the tour guide had just said the name, but now the name deserted him.

“What can you see?”

“Everything”

“What am I doing now?”

“I donno. But I can't see right now, its dark.”

“So, then is our science correct?”

“No! Your science is wrong. Except when it is dark. But when its light, I can see. I think everyone here can, except probably you. Anyway, what did we do wrong?”

“They'll explain everything when you go before the judges. But first, tell me how you were arrested.”

So William told her about going to see the crack in the dome, and running from the dogs, and about falling into the factory with shelves for the workers, but most of all he told her that everyone was blind.

“I never would have noticed the mute people if I hadn't been looking for them. For sighted people, I mean. They can see the world as it is, but they are silent, and they are ignored. You shouldn't ignore them.”

* * *

The police took him to a courtroom that afternoon. They brought all the sighted they'd captured in, to a large holding pen. The room sounded enormous, but the pen was crowded and hot. There was a small crowd in the room, who whispered. In the front where three judges, and a woman spoke for them.

“We summoned this group of unlicensed residents,” a voice began, after the call to order. It sounded a bit like the shouting man in the say your name room, but William wasn't sure, because he was not shouting now. “to provide documentation on the location and ownership of their habitation. We discovered, however, that not only were they unable to provide such documentation, but that they disbelievers and lunatics. They are mad with disbelief in the plain truth of our science, and claim loyalty to a light. Your honors, all the older members of the order are mute. But one of the younger members spoke with us. He must not have been fully initiated yet, but he spoke freely of their ways and beliefs.

“No! Your science is wrong! I can see.” William heard is own voice. The tape must have been cut and pasted; he didn't remember saying it like that. “They can see the world as it is, but they are silent, and they are ignored. You shouldn't ignore them.”

“There. The words of the summoned accuse themselves. Do you have any questions, your honors?”

The judges whispered among themselves for a moment, then their speaker said “we shall give them fair hearing. Let us retire to the garden, with a representative. This initiate will serve, unless another would speak?”

No one spoke for several seconds. Of course, none of them could.

“So be it.”

The sighted just stood in the pen until the police pushed them out of the way and selected William. “I'm over here,” he said, so they wouldn't push as many of the sighted around, but the police seemed to delight in pushing. They pushed William out of the pen, and down a hall.

When William saw the garden, he realized why his mother wanted one so bad. It was beautiful, and it was brightly lit. There was a boarder of red flowers, and rows and rows of pants. They all had different leafs. Some were vines, and some had tiny white flowers. Some were very tall, and others with wide and bushy. The light overhead came from things that burned like the suns. Or, perhaps they were stars. It was stars when there was a lot of them, right?

There was only three other people in the garden. The judges, he supposed. The younger man faced him, and the older man and the woman who spoke for them were turned away, toward some tall flowering bushes.

“This is meaningless,” the younger man said. “They're lunatics, and no one can say otherwise.”

“They've committed no crime, save failure to report property taxes. That does not require an asylum.”

“It does, if they are mad. Who knows when they might become violent. The police reported that they ran. Many threw stones at the dogs. Who knows what they are capable of, left to their own devices, instead of surprised in an unfamiliar place?”

William cleared his throat like his father would, when he wanted attention, and said “Your,um, honors.”

“Yes, initiate?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Give up your claim of sight,” the spokeswoman said, her back still to him. “Renounce your unscientific beliefs, and convince your friends to do the same. Then you will be free.”

“I can't. I mean, I know...”

The judge bent down, and drew a long-stemmed orchid to her nose. “Then, if you insist, we must remove you to the care of the state psychiatric hospital until you regain your senses, for your own good as well as the good of others.”

“Regain my senses? But I'm fine.”

The head judge didn't answer, but the older man said, “You want to believe you are special. You wish for powers that set you apart from other men, as you feel apart from other men. That is not so strange, nor is it dangerous. All boys, I think, imagine such things. But then you permitted the wishes to become your reality. You are so set in your fantasy that you are unaware of the plain evidence against it. You'll go to the sanitarium. They will address your illness.”

The younger judge laid his hand on William's shoulder. He didn't push, but he had large hands and felt dangerously strong. He could probably pick William up and carry him back to the pen with the silent people if he wanted to. “You won't like it there. But you don't have to go. Just renounce your sight. Tell us where we can find the rest of the Cult of the Light. The silent people. We'll let you go. Your parents are here. In the courtroom. They're waiting to take you home, as soon as you agree.”

It was a trap, and William was caught. He was terrified. Somehow it felt worse, to do this in a bright, beautiful garden. He used to feel safer when he could see. There was danger in the dark. But here, now, he longed for the safety of his dark school and his dark home, and the dark streets between them. The light betrayed him.

The head judge turned around and faced him, letting her orchid snap back into place. She had eyes. Eyes! He looked at the other two judges. They did not, though, just as blind as anyone. But not the first judge.

“You want that, don't you? To go home?

“You... you can see?”

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Your eyes. You can see?”

“I most certainly can not!”

“But. I see your eyes. You have eyes!” William was desperate, now. He'd heard about a sanitarium, once. They lock you up there and tie you up, and you just sit in a white room and scream and scream and scream. “I can see your eyes.”

“Eyes? No. If I bear some blemish on my face, it is none of your business, and I will certainly thank you not to mention it. No. I can not see, and neither can you.”

“But I....”

Her voice was an arctic storm. “I Can Not See, And Neither Can You.

Gentlemen, I think his interview is over.”

Two policemen took William back to the pen in the courtroom. He felt as boneless as cooked spaghetti. In a few minutes the judges took the stand. They pronounced judgment just like they said they would. A psychiatric hospital, to recover their senses, for the public and their own welfare.

When the police escorted them out of the courtroom, they passed a crowd of people. William heard his mother among them. She was crying. The sighted were driven in a herd down to the station. They were driven into one large box car, outfitted with low rows of benches. The car lurched into motion, with William and some thirty other prisoners inside. The car was built with cracks in the wood, or perhaps the wood slats warped with age, but there were cracks. Wind whistled through the car, freezing him. He couldn't see the sighted, but he knew they were girls and women, boys and men. All shared the weariness of the defeated. For just a moment, as they passed out of the city, there was a light above the car. It broke through the slats, but the dim beams were too little to see by. They only made the darkness worse, when it closed again.