A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories

“Don’t bother. I’ll walk to Tujunga and get a cab. I want to walk. It’s been so long, I want to see what it feels like.”

Rockwell lent him an old pair of shoes and an old suit of clothes.

“Thanks, Doctor. I’ll pay you what I owe you as soon as possible.”

“You don’t owe me a penny. It was interesting.”

“Well, good-bye, Doctor. Mr. McGuire. Hartley.”

“Good-bye, Smith.”

“Good-bye.”

Smith walked down the path to the dry wash, which was already baked dry by the late afternoon sun. He walked easily and happily and whistled. I wish I could whistle now, thought Rockwell tiredly.

Smith turned once, waved to them, and then he strode up the hillside and went on over it toward the distant city.

Rockwell watched him go as a small child watches his favorite sand castle eroded and annihilated by the waves of the sea. “I can’t believe it,” he said, over and over again. “I can’t believe it. The whole thing’s ending so soon, so abruptly for me. I’m dull and empty inside.”

“Everything looks rosy to me!” chuckled McGuire happily.

Hartley stood in the sun. His green hands hung softly at his side and his white face was really relaxed for the first time in months, Rockwell realized. Hartley said, softly,

“I’ll come out all right. I’ll come out all right. Oh, thank God for that. Thank God for that. I won’t be a monster. I won’t be anything but myself.” He turned to Rockwell. “Just remember, remember, don’t let them bury me by mistake. Don’t let them bury me by mistake, thinking I’m dead. Remember that.”

Smith took the path across the dry wash and up the hill. It was late afternoon already and the sun had started to vanish behind blue hills. A few stars were visible. The odor of water, dust, and distant orange blossoms hung in the warm air.

Wind stirred. Smith took deep breaths of air. He walked.

Out of sight, away from the sanitarium, he paused and stood very still. He looked up at the sky.

Tossing away the cigarette he’d been smoking, he mashed it precisely under one heel. Then he straightened his well-shaped body, tossed his brown hair back, closed his eyes, swallowed, and relaxed his fingers at his sides.

With nothing of effort, just a little murmur of sound, Smith lifted his body gently from the ground into the warm air.

He soared up quickly, quietly—and very soon he was lost among the stars as Smith headed for outer space …

Pillar of Fire

I

He came out of the earth, hating. Hate was his father; hate was his mother.

It was good to walk again. It was good to leap up out of the earth, off of your back, and stretch your cramped arms violently and try to take a deep breath!

He tried. He cried out.

He couldn’t breathe. He flung his arms over his face and tried to breathe. It was impossible. He walked on the earth, he came out of the earth. But he was dead. He couldn’t breathe. He could take air into his mouth and force it half down his throat, with withered moves of long-dormant muscles, wildly, wildly! And with this little air he could shout and cry! He wanted to have tears, but he couldn’t make them come, either. All he knew was that he was standing upright, he was dead, he shouldn’t be walking! He couldn’t breathe and yet he stood.

The smells of the world were all about him. Frustratedly, he tried to smell the smells of autumn. Autumn was burning the land down into ruin. All across the country the ruins of summer lay; vast forests bloomed with flame, tumbled down timber on empty, unleafed timber. The smoke of the burning was rich, blue, and invisible.

He stood in the graveyard, hating. He walked through the world and yet could not taste nor smell of it. He heard, yes. The wind roared on his newly opened ears. But he was dead. Even though he walked he knew he was dead and should expect not too much of himself or this hateful living world.

He touched the tombstone over his own empty grave. He knew his own name again. It was a good job of carving.

WILLIAM LANTRY

That’s what the gravestone said.