«Have _I_ got a stomach?»
«You certainly have!» cried Grandma from the parlor entry. «'Cause I feed it! And you've lungs, you scream loud enough to wake the crumblees. And you've dirty hands, go wash them! Dinner's ready. Grandpa, come on. Douglas, git!»
In the rush of boarders streaming downstairs, Grandpa, if he intended questioning Douglas further about the weird conversation, lost his opportunity. If dinner delayed an instant more, Grandma and the potatoes would develop simultaneous lumps.
The boarders, laughing and talking at the table-Mr. Koberman silent and sullen among them-were silenced when Grandfather cleared his throat. He talked politics a few minutes and then shifted over into the intriguing topic of the recent peculiar deaths in the town.
«It's enough to make an old newspaper editor prick up his ears,» he said, eying them all. «That young Miss Larson, lived across the ravine, now. Found her dead three days ago for no reason, just funny kinds of tattoos all over her, and a facial expression that would make Dante cringe. And that other young lady, what was her name? Whitely? She disappeared and _never did_ come back.»
«Them things happen alla time,» said Mr. Britz, the garage mechanic, chewing. «Ever peek inna Missing Peoples Bureau file? It's _that_ long.» He illustrated. «Can't tell _what_ happens to most of 'em.»
«Anyone want more dressing?» Grandma ladled liberal portions from the chicken's interior. Douglas watched, thinking about how that chicken had had two kinds of guts-God-made and Manmade.
Well, how about _three_ kinds of guts?
Eh?
Why not?
Conversation continued about the mysterious death of so-andso, and, oh, yes, remember a week ago, Marion Barsumian died of heart failure, but maybe that didn't connect up? or did it? you're crazy! forget it, why talk about it at the dinner table? So.
«Never can tell,» said Mr. Britz. «Maybe we got a vampire in town.»
Mr. Koberman stopped eating.
«In the year 1927?» said Grandma. «A vampire? Oh go on, now.»
«Sure,» said Mr. Britz. «Kill 'em with silver bullets. Anything silver for that matter. Vampires _hate_ silver. I read it in a book somewhere, once. Sure, I did.»
Douglas looked at Mr. Koberman who ate with wooden knives and forks and carried only new copper pennies in his pocket.
«It's poor judgment,» said Grandpa, «to call anything by a name. We don't know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be lots of things. You can't heave them into categories with labels and say they'll act one way or another. That'd be silly. They're people. People who do things. Yes, that's the way to put it: people who _do_ things.»
«Excuse me,» said Mr. Koberman, who got up and went out for his evening walk to work.
The stars, the moon, the wind, the clock ticking, and the chiming of the hours into dawn, the sun rising, and here it was another morning, another day, and Mr. Koberman coming along the sidewalk from his night's work. Douglas stood off like a small mechanism whirring and watching with carefully microscopic eyes.
At noon, Grandma went to the store to buy groceries.
As was his custom every day when Grandma was gone, Douglas yelled outside Mr. Koberman's door for a full three minutes. As usual, there was no response. The silence was horrible.
He ran downstairs, got the pass-key, a silver fork, and the three pieces of colored glass he had saved from the shattered window. He fitted the key to the lock and swung the door slowly open.
The room was in half light, the shades drawn. Mr. Koberman lay atop his bedcovers, in slumber clothes, breathing gently, up and down. He didn't move. His face was motionless.
«Hello, Mr. Koberman!»
The colorless walls echoed the man's regular breathing.
«Mr. Koberman, hello!»
Bouncing a golf ball, Douglas advanced. He yelled. Still no answer. «Mr. Koberman!»
Bending over Mr. Koberman, Douglas picked the tines of the silver fork in the sleeping man's face.
Mr. Koberman winced. He twisted. He groaned bitterly.
Response. Good. Swell.
Douglas drew a piece of blue glass from his pocket. Looking through the blue glass fragment he found himself in a blue room, in a blue world different from the world he knew. As different as was the red world. Blue furniture, blue bed, blue ceiling and walls, blue wooden eating utensils atop the blue bureau, and the sullen dark blue of Mr. Koberman's face and arms and his blue chest rising, falling. Also…
Mr. Koherman's eyes were wide, staring at him with a hungry darkness.
Douglas felt back, pulled the blue glass from his eyes.
Mr. Koberman's eyes were shut.
Blue glass again-open. Blue glass away-shut. Blue glass again-open. Away-shut. Funny. Douglas experimented, trembling. Through the glass the eyes seemed to peer hungrily, avidly through Mr. Koberman's closed lids. Without the blue glass they seemed tightly shut.
But it was the rest of Mr. Koberman's body.
Mr. Koberman's bedclothes dissolved off him. The blue glass had something to do with it. Or perhaps it was the clothes themselves, just being on Mr. Koberman. Douglas cried out.
He was looking through the wall of Mr. Koberman's stomach, right _inside_ him!
Mr. Koberman was solid.
Or, nearly so, anyway.
There were strange shapes and sizes within him.
Douglas must have stood amazed for five minutes, thinking about the blue worlds, the red worlds, the yellow worlds side by side, living together like glass panes around the big white stair window. Side by side, the colored panes, the different worlds; Mr. Koberman had said so himself.
So this was why the colored window had been broken.
«Mr. Koberman, wake up!»
No answer.
«Mr. Koberman, where do you work at night? Mr. Koberman, where do you work?»
A little breeze stirred the blue window shade.
«In a red world or a green world or a yellow one, Mr. Koberman?»
Over everything was a blue glass silence.