The House of Discarded Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Well?”
    Felix blew into his mug. “What kind of ghost is it?”
    Vimbai finally found her voice. “It’s not really a ghost,” she said. “It’s a psychic energy baby.”
    “Did you Google it?” Felix asked. “Don’t think I ever heard of one.”
    Vimbai brought her laptop downstairs, but the results were disappointing. Psychic energy baby turned out to be one of the very few things Google had no insight on.
    “All right,” Felix said. “It’s in the phone now? I guess I’d better take a look.”
    It was the most words he had said since Vimbai moved in; in fact, he sounded remarkably coherent. It prompted Vimbai to blurt, “This is not really hair, is it?”
    “No,” Felix admitted. “I’ll explain some other time.”
    Maya and Vimbai followed Felix to the hallway where the phone huddled, forlorn, on its dusty shelf. Felix picked up the receiver and listened for a while, his bloodshot eyes rotating quietly in their sockets in opposite directions; Vimbai found that he looked thoughtful.
    “Just static,” Felix said.
    Vimbai sighed. “Just listen.”
    Felix did. He listened for a long while, slouched against the wall, and the thoughtfulness started giving way to boredom, but then there was crackling in the receiver, and he startled upright. “That’s a Psychic Energy Baby all right,” he said, covering the mouthpiece with his hand.
    “Will it ever grow up?” Maya asked, and bit her fingernails in excitement. “Will it be a Psychic Energy Adult?”
    “How should I know?” Felix glared a little, both of his eyes managing to simultaneously focus on Maya. “The thing is unGoogleable.”
    Vimbai cleared her throat. Her head swam, and she felt as if in a dream, able to do and say anything. “Seriously, what’s with the hair?” she said.
    Felix shrugged. “Not now.” He grunted and picked up the phone, leaving the phone jack connected so as not to lose touch with the Psychic Energy Baby. Both Vimbai and Maya held their breath and each other’s hands; Vimbai imagined that participants in a spiritualist séance would feel the same mix of disbelief, giddiness and fear lurking just under the surface as they did right now, watching Felix work his magic surrounded by peeling wallpaper and creaking floorboards, a black rotary phone the focus of his attention.
    Felix thrust the phone into his hair; Vimbai whimpered a bit as the entire squat plastic box plus its dangling cord and the receiver were swallowed by the darkness. There was no way for it to fit—there was no way Felix could thrust his arm into his hair almost all the way to his shoulder, as narrow tongues of emptiness licked it, trying to pull it in. For a moment, Vimbai imagined Felix being sucked into the black hole of his hair and disappearing in a recursive black dot, but he managed to pull away, his hand still gripping the phone.
    “That ought to do it,” Felix said. “I hope.”
    Maya reached for the receiver and listened to the recorded incantation that suggested dialing 0 for the operator. “It’s gone,” Maya announced. “Where is it?”
    “It’s in my hair,” Felix answered, as if referring to a moth or some other harmless but annoying insect. “Hold on.”
    Now both of his hands disappeared into his hair up to the elbows, and moved about energetically. Vimbai though that he looked like a man reaching for something slimy and nasty in the garbage disposal—his face acquired the same apprehensive expression as it did every time he had to touch his hair. Vimbai used to think that her own hair was unruly, but it didn’t even come close to the existential horror of Felix’s.
    He finally grabbed a hold of something and pulled—judging from his wincing and the restless motion of his hands kneading some invisible dough, that something was either slippery or reluctant or both. A few times his arms were pulled back in and struggled out again, the resisting prize still hidden from view.
    There was a shriek and a wail, and Felix