Carmen Dog by Carol Emshwiller Read Free Book Online Page B

at hand: (The doctor will explain to the grant committee that the questions are purposefully oblique and that this accounts for their rather cryptic and inadvertently poetic qualities, and that this can't be helped.)
    â€”
    Would you rather be a falling leaf or the branch from which it comes?
    If the scenery were drab, would you dress to match it?
    If you like men (or even if you don't), do you want to be like them or do you want to be different from them? If different, just how different?
    If you saw a sparkling lake and, behind it, a snowcapped mountain, what would you do to try to become one with that view? Would it involve a hat?
    If the lake, though very beautiful, were polluted, would you be inclined to change the lake or yourself to fit the lake?
    If you laughed at a hat in a store window, would you then go in and buy it? If so, at what point would a hat become too laughable to buy?
    What does the word mother mean to you? Is it funny?
    Are you laughable? If so, explain.
    The importance of these questions will be clear to anyone at all familiar with the situation.
    â€”
    The doctor resolves that, while remaining scientific in the strictest sense, he will strike out boldly with bold theories and with bold experiments, though he will be careful not to let his imagination take over in any way. We know now, he is thinking, the perils of that direction.
    â€”
    May 20: Computer, electrical equipment, and testing cage arrived and were set up by experts. Tested the levels of shock and the general efficiency of the set-up with subject number 106. Loaded the dispenser with cupcakes and fruit juices. Wanted something cheaper, but wife is insisting on good nutrition and I believe she should be catered to as much as possible, at least for the present. [The doctor blanks out this last when he remembers that his wife will be typing these notes.] All seems to be in order. Was quite an ordeal. Certainly a full day's work. Was at it with 106 for almost seven hours, not counting the hour or two I spent before bringing her in. She kept inordinately quiet through it all. Am wondering why! But have resolved, anyway, to concentrate on subject number 107 instead, the one called Isabel.
    She knows something, I'm sure of it. Her behavior so belies her reputation.
    â€”
    Now the doctor stops writing and leans back to look out the window. He is thinking of number 108—that beauty 108. A strange kind of beauty she is, too. He has discovered that she was not even on the list of those to come here and he wonders why Rosemary didn't mention this. Thinks maybe he should reprimand her, just to let her know he noticed. Though, on the other hand, it is rather nice to have 108 and her sinuous, suggestive behavior, even though her reasons for it are clear and she'll not be getting any special favors out of him.
    * * * *
    It is the doctor himself who returns Basenji (106) to the dayroom and dumps her on the old couch (which is now covered with the same sterilized blue nylon as their smocks). He would have hired an assistant for such menial jobs as this, but he doesn't want any of his findings to leak out to anybody even remotely connected to the opposite sex, so he's doing all the work alone except for the help of his wife, whom he's sure will remain loyal if only out of her dependency on him. She seldom goes out except for groceries and has few friends, her best one now, luckily, dead. Also probably a good thing, in some ways, that her hips hurt her when she walks and that her hands are quite out of shape with arthritis. More so than ever, and recently he's noticed she's been looking quite thick in the neck. He'll get her some calcium and some cod liver oil capsules for the osteoporosis. Perhaps he should see to it that she drinks more milk. No doubt she will appreciate that small attention. Help to keep her loyal. But if she wanted to get even for some inadvertent slights on his part, she certainly could do great damage.
    * * * *
    They all crowd