Dark Carnival Read Online Free PDF Page B

Thing.
        'Darling, I'll be with you in a moment,' he called weakly. To himself he said, 'Come on, now, brace up. You've got to go back to work tomorrow. And Friday you've got to make that trip to Phoenix. It's a long drive. Hundreds of miles. Got to be in shape for that trip or you won't get Mr. Creldon to put his money into your ceramics business. Chin up, now.'
        Five minutes later he stood among the ladies being introduced to Mrs. Withers, Mrs. Abblematt, and Miss Kirthy, all of whom had skeletons inside them but took it very calmly, because nature had carefully clothed the bare nudity of clavicle, tibia and femur with breasts, thighs, calves, with coiffure and eyebrow satanic, with bee-stung lips and — LORD! shouted Mr. Harris inwardly — when they talk or eat, part of their skeleton shows — their teeth! I never thought of that.
        'Excuse me,' he said, and ran from the room only in time to drop his lunch among the petunias over the garden balustrade.
       
        That night, seated on the bed as his wife undressed, he pared his toenails and fingernails scrupulously. These parts, too, were where his skeleton was shoving, indignantly growing out. He must have muttered something concerning this theory, because next thing he knew his wife, in negligee, slithered on the bed in animal cuddlesomeness, yawning, 'Oh, my darling, fingernails are not bone, they're only hardened skin-growths.'
        He threw the scissors away with relief. 'Glad to hear that. Feel better.' He looked at the ripe curves of her body, marvelling. 'I hope all people are made the same way.'
        'If you aren't the darndest hypochondriac I ever saw,' she said. She snuggled to him. 'Come on. What's wrong? Tell, mamma.'
        'Something inside me,' he said. 'Something — I ate.'
       
        The next morning and all afternoon at his down-town office, Mr. Harris found that the sizes, shapes and constructions of various bones in his body displeased him. At ten a.m. he asked to feel Mr. Smith's elbow one moment. Mr. Smith obliged, but scowled suspiciously. And after lunch Mr. Harris asked to touch Miss Laurel's shoulderblade and she immediately pushed herself back against him, purring like a kitten, shutting her eyes in the mistaken belief that he wished to examine a few other anatomical delicacies. 'Miss Laurel!' he snapped. 'Stop that!'
        Alone, he pondered his neuroses. The war just over, the pressure of his work, the uncertainty of the future, probably had much to do with his mental outlook. He wanted to leave the office, get into his own business, for himself. He had more than a little talent at artistic things, had dabbled in ceramics and sculpture. As soon as possible he'd get over into Arizona and borrow that money from Mr. Creldon. It would build him his kiln and set up his own shop. It was a worry. What a case he was. But it was a good thing he had contacted M. Munigant, who had seemed to be eager to understand and help him. He would fight it out with himself, not go back to either Munigant or Dr. Burleigh unless he was forced to. The alien feeling would pass. He sat staring into nothing.
       
        The alien feeling did not pass. It grew.
        On Tuesday and Wednesday it bothered him terrifically that his outer dermis, epidermis, hair and other appendages were of a high disorder, while the integumented skeleton of himself was a slick clean structure of efficient organization. Sometimes, in certain lights while his lips were drawn morosely downwards, weighted with melancholy, he imagined he saw his skull grinning at him behind the flesh. It had its nerve, it did!
        'Let go of me!' he cried. 'Let go of me! You've caught me, you've captured me! My lungs, you've got them in a vice! Release them!'
        He experienced violent gasps as if his ribs were pressing in, choking the breath from him.
        'My brain; stop squeezing it!'
        And terrible hot headaches caught his brain like a bivalve in the compressed