The Glass Mountain Read Online Free

—’
    Suddenly everything stops, is clicked off. The ramjets, control columns, astronauts, silver scalpels, the bloody gauze, ticking machmeters, gismos, the body pale as paper … fade, metamorphose into clouds of cotton wool flecked with pink. And now, through the clouds, someone is singing down rays, fine as spiders’ threads and bright as the glow of a million candles. And the young bikie, floating high up on the ceiling, hears that the singing has now become a voice. No, two voices. And the voices speak:
    1st voice: He’s nearly lost to them.
    2nd voice: He’s no loss to anyone.
    1st voice: At heart he is good.
    2nd voice: At heart he is evil.
    1st voice: Never judge by appearances.
    2nd voice: You and your homilies. But I’ve got one too — He who lies down with dogs will rise with fleas.
    1st voice: Poverty is no sin.
    â€˜Come on Nom. Don’t leave us … Don’t leave us.’
    2nd voice: He’s not poor. He gets by by knocking over little old ladies.’
    1st voice: That doesn’t make him evil.
    2nd voice: Tell that to her.
    â€˜Come on, Kid, keep fighting —’
    1st voice: To err is human, to forgive, divine.
    2nd voice: He’s run out of time.
    The voices fade. The rays begin to swing and sway, to spiral together, and in one great sweep of sound they form a tunnel, a gold and silver tunnel that rotates like a wheel, that turns on and on, that reaches beyond the cotton wool clouds, that reaches beyond everything … To the blueness that is forever …
    The boy goes to lift up his arms in an embrace, but something holds him back. Pulls him …
    â€˜That’s it, Nom. Good boy, good boy …’
    The image is fading. The dark is closing up …
    â€˜Closing up …’
    â€˜B.p. rising.’
    â€˜B.p. rising.’
    â€˜What are his chances?’
    â€˜If there are no further setbacks …’
    â€˜B.p. stable.’
    â€˜Okay, he’s all yours.’ The surgeon slips off his mask and gloves and stares for a moment from the window. He sees before him the patchwork pattern of farmyard and field, of chimneys, grey slate and TV aerials, children skipping off to school, women pinning washing on the line. The secure, accountable round of the start of day …
    â€˜Thanks everyone,’ he says.

8
    The manager is an inquisitive man. This is the fourth time in the past, what? five, six weeks that they’ve ridden by his roadhouse. First, there were two, then four, then two again. Now there’s six! ‘Where are they off to?’ he asks the pear-shaped urn. ‘It’s the same gang. Could anyone forget those snakes? And here they come.’ The man stops, cloth in hand. A flock of crows rises up screeching as they thunder past.
    â€˜There’s definitely something going on,’ mumbles the manager and goes on polishing.
    Outside, the crows return to their watch on the fence.
    In the hospital a steady throb of footsteps has announced the visiting hour. Already Ward 7 is thick with the scent of flowers, low-slung voices and side-shifting eyes. A small child, bored with her whereabouts, wanders about, peers under beds, lifts the curtain around number 4 and scurries back to her mum.
    The young bikie is wincing. His leg hurts and he bites his lip. He doesn’t press the buzzer. He’s had pain-killers a minute ago or was it an hour or yesterday? He doesn’t know, he can’t remember. He can’t remember being put in this bed or how long he’s been here. It could’ve been forever. He could be here forever. His life washed away like a stick in a stream …
    God, who’s hanging about on the wall over bed 2, is a bit of a joker an’ a real original one if ya come to think about it. And the boy does. He thinks about God an’ the Big Man up there on a little curly cloud an’ the Big Man sharing a few homilies. Still going on, people are, ’bout what he