Dhalgren, English edition

Prism, Mirror, Lens

I

to wound the autumnal city.

So howled out for the world to give him a name.

The in-dark answered with wind.

All you know I know: careening astronauts and bank clerks glancing at the clock before lunch; actresses cowling at light-ringed mirrors and freight elevator operators grinding a thumbful of grease on a steel handle; student riots; know that dark women in bodegas shook their heads last week because in six months prices have risen outlandishly; how coffee tastes after you've held it in your mouth, cold, a whole minute.

A whole minute he squatted, pebbles clutched with his left foot (the bare one), listening to his breath sound tumble down the ledges.

Beyond a leafy arras, reflected moonlight flittered.

He rubbed his palms against denim. Where he was, was still. Somewhere else, wind whined.

The leaves winked.

What had been wind was a motion in brush below. His hand went to the rock behind.

She stood up, two dozen feet down and away, wearing only shadows the moon dropped from the viney maple; moved, and the shadows moved on her.

Fear prickled one side where his shirt (two middle buttons gone) bellied with a breeze. Muscle made a band down the back of his jaw. Black hair tried to paw off what fear scored on his forehead.

She whispered something that was all breath, and the wind came for the words and dusted away the meaning:

"Ahhhhh . . ." from her.

He forced out air: it was nearly a cough.

". . . Hhhhhh . . ." from her again. And laughter; which had a dozen edges in it, a bright snarl under the moon. ". . . hhhHHhhhh . . ." which had more sound in it than that, perhaps was his name, even. But the wind, wind . . .

She stepped.

Motion rearranged the shadows, baring one breast. There was a lozenge of light over one eye. Calf and ankle were luminous before leaves.

Down her lower leg was a scratch.

His hair tugged back from his forehead. He watched hers flung forward. She moved with her

After his seventh novel, Empire Star (1966), Samuel R. Delany began publishing short fiction professionally with The Star Pit. It appeared in Worlds of Tomorrow and was turned into a popular two-hour radio play, broadcast annually over WBAI-FM for more than a decade. Two tales, Aye, and Gomorrah and Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones, won Nebula Awards as the best science fiction short stories, respectively, of 1967 and 1969. Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories contains all the significant short science fiction and fantasy works that Delany published between 1965 and 1988, excepting only those tales in his Return to Nevèrÿon series. A native New Yorker, Delany teaches English and creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia. In July of 2002, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.