Free The wasp factory: a novel by Iain Banks Page B

recordcleaners and telephone indexes slimming magazines potholders packs of name-labels artificial eyelashes make-up boxes anti-smoking mixture toy watches-'
    'Don't you like crisps?' I broke in quickly.
    'Eh?' He sounded confused.
    'You mentioned party-size packets of crisps as being something you couldn't eat.'
    'For Christ's sake, Frank, could _you_ eat a party-size packet of crisps?'
    'And how are you keeping?' I said quickly. 'I mean, you must be sleeping rough. Aren't you catching cold or something?'
    'I'm not sleeping.'
    'You're not _sleeping_?'
    'Of course not. You don't have to sleep. That's just something _they_ tell you to keep control over you. Nobody has to sleep; you're _taught_ to sleep when you're a kid. If you're really determined, you can get over it. I've got over the need to sleep. I never sleep now. That way it's a lot easier to keep watch and make sure they don't _creep up_ on you, and you can keep going as well. Nothing like keeping going. You become like a ship.'
    'Like a ship?' Now I was confused.
    'Stop repeating everything I say, Frank.' I heard him put more money into the box. 'I'll teach you how not to sleep when I get back.'
    'Thanks. When do you expect to get here?'
    'Sooner or later. Ha ha ha ha ha!'
    'Look, Eric, why are you eating dogs if you can steal all that stuff?'
    'I've already told you, you _idiot_; you can't eat any of that crap.'
    'But, then, why not steal stuff you can eat and don't steal the stuff you can't and don't bother with the dogs?' I suggested. I already knew it wasn't a good idea; I could hear the tone of my voice rising higher and higher as I spoke the sentence, and that was always a sign I was getting into some sort of verbal mess.
    Eric shouted: ' Are you _crazy_? What's the matter with you? What's the point of that? These are _dogs_, aren't they? It isn't as though I was killing cats or field mice or goldfish or anything. I'm talking about _dogs_, you rabid dingbat! _Dogs_!'
    'You don't have to shout at me,' I said evenly, though starting to get angry myself. 'I was only asking why you waste so much time stealing stuff you can't eat and then waste more time stealing dogs when you could steal and eat at the same time, as it were.'
    '"As it were"? _"As it were"?_ What the hell are you gibbering about?' Eric yelled, his strangled voice hoarse and contralto.
    'Oh, don't start screaming,' I moaned, putting my other hand over my forehead and through my hair, closing my eyes.
    'I'll scream if I want to!' Eric screamed. 'What do you think I'm doing all this for? Eh? What the hell do you think I'm doing all this for ? These are _dogs_, you brainless little shitbag! Haven't you any brains left? What's happened to all your _brains_, Frankie boy? Cat got your tongue? I said, Cat got your _tongue_?'
    'Don't start banging the-' I said, not really into the mouthpiece.
    'Eeeeeeaaarrrggghhh Bllleeeaarrrgggrrllleeeooouurrgghh!', Eric spat and choked down the line, and there followed the noise of the phone-box handset being smashed around the inside of the booth. I sighed and replaced the receiver thoughtfully. I just didn't seem to be able to handle Eric on the telephone.
    I went back to my room, trying to forget about my brother; I wanted to get to bed early so that I could be up in time for the naming ceremony of the new catapult. I'd think about a better way to handle Eric once I had that out of the way.
    ... Like a ship, indeed. What a loony.
    4: The Bomb Circle
    OFTEN I've thought of myself as a state; a country or, at the very least, a city. It used to seem to me that the different ways I felt sometimes about ideas, courses of action and so on were like the differing political moods that countries go through. It has always seemed to me that people vote in a new government not because they actually agree with their politics but just because they want a change. Somehow they think that things will be better under the new lot. Well, people are stupid, but it all seems to have more to