The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl Volume 1 Read online

  I had a good grip with my fingers on the edge of the teeth, and in spite of the suction, I was managing to haul myself up slowly towards the daylight when suddenly the upper teeth came down on my knuckles and started chopping away at them so fiercely I had to let go. I went sliding back down the throat, feet first, clutching madly at this and that as I went, but everything was so smooth and slippery I couldn't get a grip. I glimpsed a bright flash of gold on the left as I slid past the last of the molars, and then three inches farther on I saw what must have been the uvula above me, dangling like a thick red stalactite from the roof of the throat. I grabbed at it with both hands but the thing slithered through my fingers and I went on down.

  I remember screaming for help, but I could hardly hear the sound of my own voice above the noise of the wind that was caused by the throat-owner's breathing. There seemed to be a gale blowing all the time, a queer erratic gale that blew alternately very cold (as the air came in) and very hot (as it went out again).

  I managed to get my elbows hooked over a sharp fleshy ridge-I presume the epiglottis-and for a brief moment I hung there, defying the suction and scrabbling with my feet to find a foothold on the wall of the larynx; but the throat gave a huge swallow that jerked me away, and down I went again.

  From then on, there was nothing else for me to catch hold of, and down and down I went until soon my legs were dangling below me in the upper reaches of the stomach, and I could feel the slow powerful pulsing of peristalsis dragging away at my ankles, pulling me down and down and down.

  Far above me, outside in the open air, I could hear the distant babble of women's voices: "It's not true… "But my dear Mildred, how awful "The man must be mad."

  "Your poor mouth, just look at it."

  "A sex maniac…"

  "A sadist…Someone ought to write to the bishop."

  And then Miss Roach's voice, louder than the others, swearing and screeching like a parakeet: "He's damn lucky I didn't kill him, the little bastard!…I said to him, listen, I said, if ever I happen to want any of my teeth extracted, I'll go to the dentist, not to a goddam vicar…It isn't as though I'd given him any encouragement either!.

  "Where is he now, Mildred?"

  "God knows. In the bloody summer-house, I Suppose."

  "Hey girls, let's go and root him out!"

  Oh dear, oh dear. Looking back on it now, some three weeks later, I don't know how I ever came through the nightmare of that awful afternoon without taking leave of my senses.

  A gang of witches like that is a very dangerous thing to fool around with, and had they managed to catch me in the summer-house right then and there when their blood was up, they would as likely as not have torn me limb from limb on the spot.

  Either that, or I should have been frogmarched down to the police station with Lady Birdwell and Miss Roach leading the procession through the main street of the village.

  But of course they didn't catch me.

  They didn't catch me then, and they haven't caught me yet, and if my luck continues to hold, I think I've got a fair chance of evading them altogether or anyway for a few months, until they forget about the whole affair.

  As you might guess, I am having to keep entirely to myself and to take no part in public affairs or social life. I find that writing is a most salutary occupation at a time like this, and I spend many hours each day playing with sentences. I regard each sentence as a little wheel, and my ambition lately has been to gather several hundred of them together at once and to fit them all end to end, with the cogs interlocking, like gears, but each wheel a different size, each turning at a different speed. Now and again I try to put a really big one right next to a very small one in such a way that the big one, turning slowly, will make the small one spin so fast that it hums. Very tricky, that.

  I also sing madrigals in the evenings, but I miss my own harpsichord terribly.

  All the same, this isn't such a bad place, and I have made myself as comfortable as I possibly can. It is a small chamber situated in what is almost certainly the primary section of the duodenal loop, just before it begins to run vertically downward in front of the right kidney. The floor is quite level-indeed it was the first level place I came to during that horrible descent down Miss Roach's throat-and that's the only reason I managed to stop at all. Above me, I can see a pulpy sort of opening that I take to be the pylorus, where the stomach enters the small intestine (I can still remember some of those diagrams my mother used to show me), and below me, there is a funny little hole in the wall where the pancreatic duct enters the lower section of the duodenum.

  It is all a trifle bizarre for a man of conservative tastes like myself. Personally I prefer oak furniture and parquet flooring. But there is anyway one thing here that pleases me greatly, and that is the walls. They are lovely and soft, like a sort of padding, and the advantage of this is that I can bounce up against them as much as I wish without hurting myself.

  There are several other people about, which is rather surprising, but thank God they are every one of them males. For some reason or other, they all wear white coats, and they bustle around pretending to be very busy and important. In actual fact, they are an uncommonly ignorant bunch of fellows. They don't even seem to realize where they are. I try to tell them, but they refuse to listen. Sometimes I get so angry and frustrated with them that I lose my temper and start to shout; and then a sly mistrustful look comes over the faces and they begin backing slowly away, and saying, "Now then. Take it easy. Take it easy, vicar, there's a good boy. Take it easy."

  What sort of talk is that?

  But there is one oldish man-he comes in to see me every morning after breakfast-who appears to live slightly closer to reality than the others. He is civil and dignified, and I imagine he is lonely because he likes nothing better than to sit quietly in my room and listen to me talk. The only trouble is that whenever we get on to the subject of our whereabouts, he starts telling me that he's going to help me to escape. He said it again this morning, and we had quite an argument about it.

  "But can't you see," I said patiently, "I don't want to escape."

  "My dear Vicar, why ever not?"

  "I keep telling you-because they're all searching for me outside."

  "Who?"

  "Miss Elphinstone and Miss Roach and Miss Prattley and all the rest of them."

  "What nonsense."

  "Oh yes they are! And I imagine they're after you as well, but you won't admit it."

  "No, my friend, they are not after me."

  "Then may I ask precisely what you are doing down here?"

  A bit of a stumper for him, that one. I could see he didn't know how to answer it.

  "I'll bet you were fooling around with Miss Roach and got yourself swallowed up just the same as I did. I'll bet that's exactly what happened, only you're ashamed to admit it."

  He looked suddenly so wan and defeated when I said this that I felt sorry for him.

  "Would you like me to sing you a song?" I asked.

  But he got up without answering and went quietly out into the corridor.

  "Cheer up," I called after him. "Don't be depressed. There is always some balm in Gilead."

  Genesis and Catastrophe

  A True Story

  "THIS is normal," the doctor was saying. "Just lie back and relax."

  His voice was miles away in the distance and he seemed to be shouting at her. "You have a son."

  "You have a fine son. You understand that, don't you? A fine son. Did you hear him crying?"

  "Is he all right, Doctor?"

  "Of course he is all right."

  "Please let me see him."

  "You'll see him in a moment."

  "You are certain he is all right?"

  "I am quite certain."

  "Is he still crying?"

  "Try to rest. There is nothing to worry about."

  "Why has he stopped crying, Doctor? What happened?"

  "Don't excite yourself, please. Everything is normal."