Wild Geese Overhead by Neil M. Gunn Read Free Book Online Page A

him. Was this the final problem of “identification with the object” that so troubled his professor when expounding Hindu thought? Will did not “think” the question. The question and its answer were the one flash of light.
    How long the experience lasted he could not tell, though he would be prepared to say not more than a few moments. For here time obviously did not matter, except perhaps in its implication that the nature of his experience was timeless. He let it pass without any desire to hang on to it. In fact when he felt it sinking down with him into sleep, he thought to himself, How delicious this is! drawing out the thought through a lingering lovely triumph that left him breathing lightly in a sleep that might have made curious eyes imagine he was listening somewhere.

Chapter Two
1
    H e slept until his landlady knocked him and then awoke quickly with the feeling that this was a holiday or some “free” occasion of the kind that he could not recollect. As he remembered, a slow humour spread over his face. He looked up at the ceiling. It was just the ceiling. But as he kept looking the ghost of his experience rose in a faraway brightness beyond the house-top. Very visionary indeed! Very flimsy!
    It was a good joke! He could not “rise” now if he wanted to. Did he want to? Not he!
    He threw the clothes off with a swoop and leapt to his feet. A good sleep was a blessed thing. He hummed a snatch of jazz and chuckled at the dancing movement of his feet. Carry on! he said. But it was fine to have the feeling of life, of being alive in a living world. Yes, a fine day. He stooped and sniffed the air through the bottom half of the window (the top half was permanently fixed). Spring was coming in and no doubt about it.
    â€œYou look nice and cheerful this morning!” said Mrs. Armstrong, as she tugged the cosy with the green leaves and pink buds down over the tea-pot. It was a close fit, with a hole for the spout, like an old maid’s mitten. Last night he had very nearly told her not to do it, on the principle that stewed tea was an abomination. He must have been pretty low!
    How many persons living in town knew what a fresh egg was? White curd and vivid yolk. “I had a grand sleep,” he said. “It’s a nice morning, too.”
    â€œYes. You can smell the spring in the air to-day. Jenny will be getting quite excited.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œSo many of her things coming up. There are two of her special daffodils out to-day. Whenever she arrives she makes a dive for the garden. And then it’s look at this and look at that! You would think Santa Claus had brought them.”
    He laughed so spontaneously that Mrs. Armstrong’s smile broke into a husky note or two on its own.
    Santa Claus! he thought, going up the avenue. The birds were extremely busy. Not one of them rested a moment. A flash—and gone. His sight was so keen that more than once it caught dark-beaded eyes. And one blackbird, wings lowered and tail flicking, suddenly kicked up an extraordinary row. A blacker blackbird swooped swiftly down and up and into the hedge in front without a wing-beat in the loveliest curve he had ever seen. Spring magic! Or just plain love? It sure quickened their pulses! Green shoots from Santa Claus : O.K., boys, let it ride—right through to the end.
    Here now was the public road. Country faces might poke up and behold his mirth. Or lean over a gate and wonder.
    Lean over a gate and wonder!
    Words were haunted. Lightning-sketch artists of the haunted chamber. All alive like birds—or dead as a pile of counters.
    We’re all dead! said Will. And I’ll probably be dead again to-night, but what the hell does that matter? To-night will then be now, and unborn to-morrow will be now, and—you can smell the spring in the air. Oh, dear God, you could, but don’t smell it too strongly, not too strongly, not this scent of paradisial promise, not