Short Stories
"Floatin' island," she announced triumphantly.
"Oh," he said.
"Floating island!" the children chorussed loudly.
"Oh," he said. And after two or three mouthfuls, he added,
"guess I ain't hungry to-night."
He dropped the spoon, shoved back his chair, and arose wea-
rily from the table.
"An' I guess I'll go to bed."
His feet dragged more heavily than usual as he crossed the
kitchen floor. Undressing was a Titan's task, a monstrous futility,
and he wept weakly as he crawled into bed, one shoe still on. He
was aware of a rising, swelling something inside his head that
made his brain thick and fuzzy. His lean fingers felt as big as his
wrist, while in the ends of them was a remoteness of sensation
vague and fuzzy like his brain. The small of his back ached intol-
erably. All his bones ached. He ached everywhere. And in his
head began the shrieking, pounding, crashing, roaring of a mil-
lion looms. All space was filled with flying shuttles. They darted
in and out, intricately, amongst the stars. He worked a thousand
looms himself, and ever they speeded up, faster and faster, and
his brain unwound, faster and faster, and became the thread that
fed the thousand flying shuttles.
He did not go to work next morning. He was too busy weav-
ing colossally on the thousand looms that ran inside his head.
His mother went to work, but first she sent for the doctor. It was
a severe attack of la grippe, he said. Jennie served as nurse and
carried out his instructions.
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