The Eyes and the Impossible: Chapters 19–28

For the next week Bertrand and his gull-friends did what they called reconnaissance. It meant they flew and hopped around the museum and then gathered outside my hollow and used their beaks to sketch their ideas to get me inside.

They squabbled among each other, and flapped their wings haughtily—they did this to make their points, and their passions, known—and then they left again, to gather more information.

No one is sure whether it’s one dog, or two, or a whole herd of eccentric and sometimes-heroic dogs who sometimes wear sweaters.

I had a terrible premonition just then that it would not be me that got caught, but one of the birds.

All along, the raccoons continued their tense, unsettling smiles. There was no animal more clever and open to wily and even diabolical plans, but they seemed unsure about this one.

Freya had entrusted me with being the Eyes and had never wavered in her support of me.

But what if I did something extraordinary?
What if I liberated them and sent them into some new and transcendent level of existence?

They would be surprised by my ingenuity. My ability to rally the animals and pull off the impossible.

During this low-profile time, even though I couldn’t be the Eyes myself, my reports to the Bison still needed to be made, so for the next few days I skulked to the rounded rock—going slowly, slowly, skulking so slowly it pained me, it ruined me, it was so humiliating to go so slow, but going fast would bring attention.

“It tells you when to do things and go places. I got one, taught myself time, and now I’m always prompt. By the way,” he added, “our meetings are at noon. That’s the time-word for when the Sun is straight above us.”

As we approached the windmill, I got preemptively annoyed about Bertrand bringing us all to see these stabby weeds and their floral victims.

Meanwhile, we all hid in a dense thicket where we could hear the ensuing conversation.

He was perched above, looking friendly enough, casual even, though decidedly out of eating range if they thought him delectable.

“Welcome to our home,” Bertrand said, and smiled down to them. I thought he sounded very regal and magnanimous, and I was proud of him, but the eaters didn’t look up this time.

They nodded almost imperceptibly and continued eating.

The two eaters looked sidelong at each other, as if imploring the other to be the one to answer the question. It was clear that neither of them wanted to stop eating.

He was still chewing with a rounded, incessant motion of his powerful jaws.

He did not sound so polite or so respectful of Bertrand, and I found myself growing impatient with the impertinence of these two furry eaters.

I knew this giving-up of Angus’s would not sit well with Bertrand. Giving up was the hallmark of the impatient, of the weak, he often said.

I knew this giving-up of Angus’s would not sit well with Bertrand. Giving up was the hallmark of the impatient, of the weak, he often said. He could not countenance it.

Sonja was blushing and fidgeting and her one eye was wide open, in a kind of ecstasy.

There were other main-lands, other islands, so many millions of places, they said. They said all this in whispery tones, knowing the profound effect it would have on me.

To have all known boundaries removed, exploded, replaced by a universe of endless elasticity—it is not an easy thing. My mind struggled with this new concept of spatial infinity.

I suppose there was part of me that hoped the signs were only in the plaza—only pertaining to that one side of one part of the park.

Coyotes were known as a mangy and troublesome and even dangerous kind, and as far as I’d known, they had been driven out by the humans thousands of years ago.

The day was overcast and windy, but there was one shaft of light just then as I approached, and this one shaft of light ended on the silvery-gray back of a certain goat, who was away from the rest, and who was looking exactly at me.

“I’m used to scaring everyone around me. I’m horrible. A monster. A blight.”

I went to her and even before I announced myself she had clambered out of her burrow and had come to me, rubbing sleep from her eye.

“It’s a nasty thing,” she said. “Nasty and brutish.”

There was so much in what she said, so many revelations and mysteries, that I paused for a moment to take them in.

She had a knack for choosing spots under the brambly trees that kept us warm from the ocean breeze, and we talked until we fell asleep.

Helene looked up at the Sun, wearing an enigmatic smile.

Helene was referring to the Sun as it instead of she, which was very bothersome to me. But more annoying than that was this bizarre idea, expressed so blithely, that the Sun was not God.

“So sorry, sir!” the other said. I was almost sure this second one was talking to me, too. They were very deferential.

It felt so odd, but also sort of good, having these recently cruel goats suddenly so worshipful and meek.

“Henceforth, among your kind, there will be no differentiation based on tiny deviations of physical form. There will be no snickering based on things like the sort of cross-stripes one of you has or doesn’t have, or the direction one’s fur goes, or the color of your eyes or hooves. Such behavior is an affront to the dignity of your species. Is that understood?”

“Hm,” she said, and looked out to the roiling ocean.

She also gathered the gulls, who were skeptical about the feasibility of the plan, but who agreed to go along.

All the ducks’ names start with J. It’s one of the many, many upsetting things about the ducks. Not that there is anything wrong with this J-sound—it is a fine sound!—but all animals of a species should not have to adhere to one starting letter.

Some group or some one would have to step in and become the leader, the overseer, the Keeper of the Equilibrium.