The Infinite Matrix | Michael Swanwick & Francisco Goya | The Sleep Of

Reason 16

06.13.02

the sleep of reason

by Michael Swanwick

with illustrations by

Francisco JosÉ de Goya y Lucientes

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Digital image © copyright

Davison Art Center,

Wesleyan University

DAC permission required

for any other use.

16. [Plate 69]

The Forge of Witches

Witches do not rule the world ? men do that ? but in times as disordered

as these they can hardly avoid having great influence. With great

influence comes great dignity. So you can imagine how the witches feel

about the press.

They arrange for a Witches' Sabbath with devil-worship, orgies, and

hideous carnage ? and the next morning the headlines scream LADIES' NIGHT

OUT! They kill and kill and kill and are rewarded with IT COULD ONLY BE

CALLED? (WO)MANSLAUGHTER. They initiate a craze for huffing oven cleaner?

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUMES!

Unforgivable.

Bad artists hide behind their mediocrity. Very few second-rate books are

ever burned. The hack who wrote the aforementioned headlines thought that

since he wasn't much of a journalist, he was safe.

Famous last words.

The witches swooped down upon the reporter as he was leaving a

sheep-shearing contest ? A VISIT TO THE BAA-BAA SHOP ? and carried him

away to their forge.

Stripping the pathetic bastard naked, they handed him over to Lilith,

oldest of their tribe, to use as a bellows.

"Fart, little man, fart!" she cried, pumping methane from his bowels.

"Inquiring minds want to know!" His flames roasted to a white heat a

basket filled with the bones of unbaptised infants ? part of an ongoing

research project the witches were engaged in ? and, not coincidentally,

scorched his rectum as well.

"Stop!" the reporter cried. "Wait!" He didn't know which was worse, the

torment or the humiliation. "I've seen the error of my ways. I was wrong.

I was superficial. Let me go and I swear you'll have good press for the

rest of your lives."

"You're full of it," Lilith said with a hint of a smile. She pumped more

vigorously and the flames leaped higher. "And quite frankly, so far as we

can tell, that's your only virtue."

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This is the 16th of 80 stories by Michael Swanwick written to accompany

Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos. For a listing of the most recently

available stories, go to The Sleep of Reason.

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