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

Reason 17

06.20.02

the sleep of reason

by Michael Swanwick

with illustrations by

Francisco JosÉ de Goya y Lucientes

Click image to enlarge

Digital image © copyright

Davison Art Center,

Wesleyan University

DAC permission required

for any other use.

17. [Plate 11]

Dirt

Say you're out in the field. Hurry up and wait. That's the eternal motto

of the Army. You hurried up. Now you wait.

Somebody reaches down and scoops up a pinch of loam. He does it slow and

easy. Without haste. The dirt is dark and rich.

Everybody notices, looks, waits.

The soldier places the dirt atop his thumbnail. He brings it to his nose.

He snorts.

His eyelids flutter. He sighs.

"Yo, dick-wad!" one of the dog-brothers laughs. "Smell like you mamma, do

it?"

Surprised, the soldier says, "Eh? Oh! No, I was just getting off on the

natural endorphins."

"Natural endor-what?"

"Drug precursors, my man. The soil is just swarming with them!

Psychotropic drugs are the most natural thing in the world! Why do you

think all them drug companies send reasearchers into the Amazon? They

gonna cure your Aunt Sophie's bunion? Fuck no. They in it for the high."

He takes another sniff of earth. "Try it yourself."

At which you and all the other grunts begin scraping up dirt and shoving

it up your honkers. And even though it does nothing for you at all, you

don't want to feel left out, so you join in when the other guys begin

laughing and saying things like "Oh, yeah!" and "Great stuff!" and "Oh

wow, man, you right!"

The soldier watches you all out of the corner of his eye, with a kind of

amused expression. Then he gets out his combat knife and scrapes

something up from the ground.

"Try this," he says.

"What is it?" you ask.

"It's shit," he answers. "Really great shit."

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This is the 17th 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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