Radiance

Oh little calf, little bull, come to our breast. We did not see you there. It isn’t your fault, poor lamb. We have only ourselves to blame. Hold still. Don’t squirm. We will make it better. We will kiss it and kiss it and kiss it and kiss it until it doesn’t hurt anymore. Until nothing can hurt anymore.

Little Doctor Callow did not fall asleep for a hundred years. He fell asleep for ten. But he did not sleep a person’s sleep. A person did not tuck him in and tell him: Close your eyes, my darling—don’t open them; don’t even peek. Say your prayers. Count sheep-which-are-not-really-sheep. Hush now. Soft now. He slept the sleep of a callowhale. And, in sleep, a callowhale may move, may quiver. The sleep of a callowhale is not like our languorous, thick, sprawling, deathlike primate slumber. It is not really sleep at all. It is a spiky, spinning sword tip pricking the surface of the world a hundred times in a hundred places (though it is really an infinite, intangible intaglio of prickings) but never cutting.

It is not really sleep. It is not really milk. It is not really a whale.

Place a strip of film in a projector. Run it forward. Stop. Run it backward. Stop. Run it forward again. Now take it out and put it back in horizontally. Diagonally. Folded in half. Folded three times. Four. Twelve. One thousand and four. Put it in front of the light. Run it forward. Stop. Run it backward.

That is how a callowhale sleeps. It is like sleeping. It is also like jumping. It is a sleep like a panther.

But always, always, a callowhale dreams.

This is what Doctor Callow dreamed at his spinning wheel, in his glass coffin, in the roots of his tree:

Whales travel in pods. So did Doctor Callow. The sea he travelled in was every colour. He felt no arms or legs, though he knew he had them. He felt no effort in swimming. He felt large. Doctor Callow dove and spun through the waves, and each wave was a country like his own beloved Land of Milk and Desire, but he did not stop, could not stop, to look at them.

Beside him swam a whale, which was not really a whale but a dark, sullen child with raggedy hair and a sour expression. She wore a dress of poppies on her body that was a whale’s body but also a child’s body, like his own. She turned to him in the Sea of Every Colour and said:

Better run, Your Majesty, or I’ll eat you all up.

He swam harder after her. Harder and harder. She was so fast.

Come find me in two years, she called back over her flippers that were not really flippers.

But I’ve found you now, he answered her.

And then she was sitting at the bottom of the Sea of Every Colour, her lacy dress spread out all around her, the orange flowers opening and closing like bloody kisses. The water carried her hair up, fanning it around her head like a black serpent-crown. She drew in the sand of the ocean floor with a stick. This is what she drew:

She looked up at him.

Are we going to live here forever? she asked.

I think so.

The little girl sighed. Bubbles flowed out of her mouth. I miss someone.

I miss lots of someones, Doctor Callow said, into the sea.

The girl nodded. Do you know what this place is?

It’s where the callowhales live.

Yes, the girl said, though he could not tell if she was happy about it.

Chamomile?

That’s not my name.

What is your name?

Severin.

Severin?

Yes?

I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

Severin started. She gave him a strange, searching expression. Her voice sharpened, grew older. Why did you say that?

I don’t know. It seemed like a good thing to say.

You said it like you were quoting something. What’s Kansas? Is it a planet?

Doctor Callow suddenly felt confused. He forgot how to swim in the Sea of Every Colour and dropped abruptly to the sand beside Severin. I think so? Maybe? It sounds nice.

Maybe it’s one of the other places.

What other places?

Mr Bergamot lives everywhere.

What are you talking about?