Free Night of the Animals by Bill Broun

themselves?
    Just then, a short, tubby orderly carrying a Nexar hood greeted Baj in a less than friendly manner.
    â€œI wouldn’t hang around here, mate. All the joy’ll rub off on you.”
    Baj started coughing. He felt utterly breathless. He had begun a regimen of light chemotherapy. The bloody coughing had nearly vanished, but he felt weak and sick to his stomach.
    Baj said, snorting a bit, “All this—it hasn’t seemed to affect you .”
    â€œNo,” the man said bitterly. “I just hoods ’em, and bury ’em in pleasure. I don’t like it, but it’s me job, innit?” He squinted at Baj. “You poorly, man?”
    â€œJust a little. Do they . . . ever get better?”
    â€œHa!” said the orderly. Then he leaned in, confidentially. There was a stench of eel and vinegar on his breath. “This is a place of where the spirit thrives. And even the ghosts live well.” The man greasily chortled for a moment, then slapped Baj’s shoulder.
    â€œRight, mate,” said Baj.
    AS BAJ LEFT ST. CLEMENTS, the injustice of his dismissal from research hit him anew. When he passed through the gate, he turned around to see the old NHS sign bolted to a brick pillar. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up struck off the medical register—or much worse, perhaps in St. Clements himself, guffawing at nothing, and planted beneath a Nexar hood.
    He pulled out his old-fashioned fountain pen and wrote on the sign: “Fuck Harry.” He coughed, and a few pink flecks of faintly bloody spittle landed on the sign. Then he walked away, trying not to look rushed, until breaking into a trot.
    â€œIt’s going . . . to get worse . . . and then . . . it’s going to get better,” he said to himself, jogging along, gasping for air in gulps.
    THE NEXT TIME Cuthbert came to see him, the doctor observed that, as Cuthbert saw it, the animals were vying for control over him, and the animals wanted out of their cages. He was in full, Flōt-induced hallucinosis. Walking into the consult room, he showed Ingall’s Sign markedly, taking long strides and leaning forward excessively.
    â€œI’ve no say in matters anymore, doc,” he said.
    â€œIf you don’t stop the Flōt,” he told Cuthbert, “it is indeed over. And you can’t go around saying you hear animals anymore, my friend. You can’t.”
    Cuthbert had looked down at the Afshar rug with its paisley patterns. “The Flōt is one thing,” he said, “but the animals, with all due respect, doctor, I could never just tell them to hush up. It’s not just withdrawal. Even when I drink the Flōt, the voices come on.”
    â€œThat’s not a good symptom, Cuthbert. It’s called hallucinosis. It will only grow worse if you don’t stop.”
    â€œBut their message is for everyone—for me, for you, for England, for the world. There might just be a little white pony what knows yow, Baj.”
    With that, Baj at long last lost his patience. All his professional restraint seemed to fly off like a flock of irritable starlings rousted from a tremendous, withering tree.
    â€œCuthbert! For fuck’s sake!” he bellowed. “Can’t you bloody see, you fool? It’s the Flōt. The Flōt! It’s standard first-Flōt-withdrawal syndrome. There are no fucking animals. There are no voices. You are delusional, my friend. It’s Flōt withdrawal.”
    The doctor was almost weeping now, standing up from his seat, and the spectacle appalled Cuthbert, who lurched up and backed away, toward the door of the office, doddering on his old legs, his dry lips moving but nothing coming out.
    â€œNo. Stay!” cried Baj as Cuthbert opened the door. “You’ve got to listen to me. I don’t want to lose you, my friend. The RedWatch will be after you, you know? They’ll beat