Free Frogmouth by William Marshall Page A

said, "I did it for Wang!" He had to concentrate to make out what he was saying. He asked himself, "Who's Wang?" Maybe Spencer was dead too. He was there. The picture of God kept blurring and moving in and out. It wasn't a picture of God, it was a picture of his Uncle George. He was back home rooting around in the cupboard under the stairs. Auden, looking disappointed, said, "I scribbled a dirty word on the back of the frame. It wasn't me, it was Robert Phillips down the road!"
    "It's all right, Phil."
    Auden said, "And I got my shoes all dirty on the way home from school and now everyone's going to be cross with me." It was odd the way his body felt. It wasn't as if his body was going to pack up and die, it was as if his body was overpacked, like a suitcase. The connection between his mouth and his lungs had gone—well, that had gone in the first few moments—(Auden's head thought, "In the first few moments of what?")—and now . . . Auden said, "Why aren't I sweating? In the gym I sweat. Why aren't I sweating?" He looked his body up and down. His body didn't mind: it was past caring. Auden said, "I'm not sweating at all!" Auden said, "I'm pulsing! I can hear myself! I'm pulsing!" He had tried to watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos on television one night and got the episode about stars turning into black holes. Auden, collapsing in on himself, becoming a vacancy in the universe, said in a panic, "I can't feel anything! I'm not in any pain! I'm on the outside looking in and I'm a physical wreck and I'm not fit at all!"
    Spencer said gently, "You went beyond the pain barrier, Phil."
    From the counter, Ivan said, "Well done, Mr. Auden!"
    Natasha—which one was Natasha?—said in a girl's voice, "You were wonderful!"
    Auden said in a whisper, "Which one's the girl?" He saw Spencer shake his head. Spencer didn't know either. Auden said, suddenly desperately, " I was shot! " He said staring at the picture of God and the anteroom to heaven where all human failings were gone and you were totally aware and all-knowing and you couldn't even tell the difference between the girls and the boys, in horror, "I was shot dead in the street!"
    "It was an air rifle pellet!"
    "I was shot!"
    "It was a tiny little .177 caliber air rifle or pistol pellet. It hit you on the—" Spencer said, hesitating, wondering how the man continued to sit happily in the chair contemplating his socks, "In the rear and it—"
    Auden said, "Someone shot me!" Auden, grasping Spencer hard by the arms and pulling him into the foxhole to say a few dying words in the midst of the barrage in close-up, said, "Bill, Bill, tell—" He pulsed out. Auden said suddenly, smiling sadly, still building railways, "Once, once, Bill, I was good . . ."
    Spencer said, "You were shot on the backside. It didn't even break the skin."
    ". . . it was me. It wasn't Robert Phillips. I wrote the dirty word on the back of . . ."He pulsed back into his body. He stopped pulsing. He began to sweat. He stopped being dead. He began being alive. He stopped not feeling. He felt. Auden said as all the feeling came back into his body, "AARRGGGHHHHG!" He jumped up out of the chair to protect his stinging arse and came down on two raw hamburger steaks attached to the end of his ankles. Auden said, "ARRGGGHHH!" Auden said, "Bill! Bill! Someone shot me! " He had been chasing the Tibetan. "And him! Someone shot him too!" He thought now that he was back from the dead all the Chinese in the bank would look different. They didn't. They all looked the same. IN THE EVENT OF A ROBBERY ATTEMPT STAFF ARE OBLIGED TO LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES IN DEFENSE OF THE BANK'S MONEY OR FACE INSTANT DISMISSAL. He was still staring at the picture of God dressed up as a batwinged, black-eyed, bitter Kaiser Wilhelm in a striped tie. It was too much.
    He hurt.
    He hopped.
    His brain gave out completely and went pop!
    Auden, hurting, hopping, popping, pulsing, yelled in utter, complete, lost, hopeless panic, "Bill! Bill! Bill, why is this