No, not quite the image. The bird whose image he had varnished onto his ceiling was an eagle, but the bird which had troubled his sleep was . . . He did not know, but not an eagle. It had been outside the window, battering at the frame with its wings. It had been trying to come in, ordering him to let it enter, and the terror of what was about to happen had jerked him from sleep. The savage bird outside had been making a noise-speaking to him, commanding him — which he now recognized came from his father's awful snoring. Calming, letting that other bird diminish in his mind, he took in the comforting matter surrounding the eagle. Rifle barrels, many blood-streaked corpses, a baby hoisted aloft on a spear. These gradually faded into an area dominated by automobiles and household appliances and women's photographs from which he had removed the faces. In their place he had glued animals' masks, foxes' and apes'. Different areas of his walls were different 'things,' now gradually melting into one comprehensive 'thing.' He had known it would turn that way — long ago, years ago, when he had given up all his other hobbies and begun putting pictures on his walls, Skeleton had foreseen a day when, guided by a powerful impulse, all the pictures would form a single epic statement. He had begun by selecting pictures of the objects he hated, things that represented the Carson way of life: new cars and grotesquely large refrigerators piled with food; manor houses, well-dressed suburban women, football players.
