“Sure.”
* * * * *
The physicist must have been near the door, for he appeared almost
instantly.
“I’ll have to depend on you now,” he said. “Psychiatric examinations are
out of my line, but Dr. Morrissey tells me we’ve apparently succeeded.”
“We can’t be sure yet,” Bruno said cautiously, reaching for cracked ice.
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
“How do you feel?”
“If there’s a healthier specimen in this hospital than Dr. Bruno,”
Morrissey said, “I’ve yet to hear of it. I’ll be back. I’ve got to check
a patient.” He went out.
Bruno lay back on his pillow.
“I’ll be up and around tomorrow,” he said, “and I’ll want to make some
tests on Gregson then. Meanwhile, I’ll relax—for a change. One good
thing about this place; the routine’s so perfect that you can unhitch
yourself completely and let yourself rest, if you want to. A dependable
staff.”
The Venetian blind clattered in the wind. Parsons grunted and went
toward it, taking hold of the cord.
He raised the blind and stood there, his back to Bruno. But it was dark
outside the window.
“The sun was in my eyes,” Bruno said. “Wait a minute! That was only a
little while ago. Parsons, something’s wrong!”
“What?” Parsons asked, without turning.
“Morrissey said I was unconscious for only two hours. And I took
anesthesia at half-past nine. At night! But the sun was shining in that
window when I woke up, a few minutes ago!”
“It’s night now,” Parsons said.
“It can’t be. Get Morrissey. I want to—”
But Parsons suddenly leaned forward and opened the window. Then he
jumped out and vanished.
“_Morrissey!_” Bruno shouted.
Morrissey came in. He didn’t look at Bruno. He walked quickly across the
room and jumped out of the window into the darkness.
Ferguson and Dale entered, still in their operating gowns. They followed
Morrissey through the window.
Bruno hoisted himself up. Three nurses came through the door. An intern
and an orderly followed. Then others.
In nightmare procession the staff filed into Bruno’s room. In deadly
silence they walked to the window and jumped out.
The blankets slipped down from Bruno’s body. He saw them sail slowly
toward the window—
The bed was tilting! No—the room itself was turning, revolving, till
Bruno clung frantically to the head-board while gravity dragged him
inexorably toward a window that now gaped directly below him.
The bed fell. It spilled Bruno out. He saw the oblong of the window
opening like a mouth to swallow him. He plunged through into utter
blackness, into an echoing, roaring hell of night and thunder....
“Oh, good heavens!” Bruno moaned. “What a dream! Morrissey, get me a
sedative!”
The psychiatrist laughed. “You’ve had a dream-within-a-dream before,
haven’t you, Doctor? It sounds unnerving, but now you’ve told me all
about it. The catharsis is better than a barbiturate.”
“I suppose so.” Bruno lay back in the bed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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