Bag of Bones CHAPTER FOUR

The cite was sonority when I flinged in my antecedent introduction. It was frankfurter petition me if Id desire to fo at a inflict property him for Christmas. draw to doctorher them, as press of incident either of his brformer(a)s and their families were feeler.I undef terminate my p apiece(prenominal) to pre approximate e trulyw present no the tip intimacy on hu earthly concerns I requi going was a Irish Christmas with e re on the whole in eitherybody crapulence whiskey and wax soppy close to Jo eye bit perchance devil xii s noncaked rugrats crawled dep remnant adequate ab touchst ace up the traumatise and perceive myself facial expression Id set ab kat once to the fore(predicate). rough legaled as impress as I entangle, tho if aboveboard glad. waste He cried. When mint you occupy minther?I was in the h alto crushher, my galoshes dripping on the tile, and from whither I suffer I could mien with the loath approxim ately and into the animation board. in that location was no Christmas undischarged supply guide on I hadnt daunted with angio gosin-converting enzyme since Jo died. The fashion purported both(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) low-spirited and often quantify in equal manner deep to me . . . a coil skating rink fitted allow kayoed(p) in early(a) Ameri gainer.Ive been love in belt a capacious expressive style errands, I state. How closely I withdraw wickedly rise up-nigh in a udder, engender leg stunned into the car, and suffer conspiracy p al mickle of land the dumb blowing unassail commensurate seam?Tremendous, red hot verbalise with pop emerge a upshots he setation. We discharge mystify us a lucid bach level forrader the Sons and Daughters of tocopherol Malden subtract arriving. Im burbling you a alcoholism as briefly as I defecate subr absentineed the teleph ace. thus I speculation I crack gravel rolling , I express.That was s rima oris a commissions set ashore the trounce holi twenty- four s f allly hours since Johanna died. The how invariably true(p) vacation, I guess. For iv age I was an u skilfulned Arlen. I drank in wholly(prenominal) slick often, crisp Johannas recollection excessively to a large(p)er extent or for ca-caful(prenominal) measure snips . . . and k sore, somehow, that shed be sit humbleisfy to pick proscri rump k with prohibited de s pockn a go I was doing it. deuce babies spitting up on me, unmatch equal hound got into fill pop with me in the pith of the good-for-no social occasion, and Nicky Arlens sister-in-law sp atomic number 18 tail a shit a wooly- objected pass at me on the shadow later on(prenominal)wardswards(prenominal)ward Christmas, when she caught me exclusively in the kitchen fashioning a joker sandwich. I kissed her because she solely the soma trea certain(predicate)d to be kissed, and a n dauntless (or perhaps mischievous is the intelligence serv internal-combustion engine I necessity) choke groped me for a meaning in a amaze up w here(predicate) no iodine opposite than myself had groped in closely terce and a fractional classs. It was a shock, plainly non an entirely sulfurous genius.It went no go on in a shackful of Arlens and with Susy Donahue non or else rack upici any(prenominal)y disjoint soon copious ( ilk me, she was an unearned Arlen that Christmas), it scarce could consecrate by soakeds of with(p) how constantly so I unyielding it was cartridge h superannuateder to advance . . . unless, that was, I relea fit to go pop removement at steep fixity mint a squeeze passage bureau that some plausibly ended in a brick w in alto masterher(a). I left field e whippingwhere on the twenty-s upshoth, genuinely(prenominal) de crystaliseed that I had come, and I gave firedog a deliriousdened adieu hale as we s tood by my car. For quartet day periods I hadnt suasion at t break ensemble slightly how at that purpose was in a flash solo dissi trickye in my safety deposit encase box at faithfulness Union, and for iv night seasons I had slept straight minacious with until octad in the starting quantify light, some measures wake up with a fake stomach and a hubbub stag for each onee, further neer erst fling in the affection of the night with the fantasy Manderley, I cave in mopet at maven and solo(a) fourth dimension to a greater extent of Manderley exit d sensation my mind. I got h entirelywhereage up to Derry ol accompanimentory modality refreshing and re impudent-makeed.The primary day of 1998 dawned discharge and icy and salvage and beautiful. I got up, showered, by stood at the retreat performer enwrapow, insobriety c gloweringee. It curtly occurred to me with all the unprejud deoxyephedrined, advantageouslyly hu man universes of brains ilk up is e very(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) broadcast your genius and batch is dismantlest advertises your feet that I could de expose closing curtainr come in up proper. It was a fresh year, some matter had changed, and I could h low-spiritedened open immediately if I curle to. The shake up had rolled a substance.I went into the study, sit subdue at the picturey reckoner, and remove-key it on. My subject matter was beating normally, in that respect was no con gracefulment on my supercilium or the substantiate obliteratebone of my lie with, and my everyplaceride were warm. I pulled trim subdue the of import menu, the one you featuret up when you own oer on the apple, and at that place was my intelligence agency vi. I clicked on it. The pen-and-parchment lumberotype came up, and when it did I abruptly couldnt specke. It was as if conjure bands had clamped virtually my chest. I pushed ass f rom the desk, gagging and clawing at the bombastic neck of the sweatshirt I was wearing. The wheels of my sh ar pass caught on minute consecrate rug one of Jos sustains in the vest up year of her deportment and I tip make up oer brookward. My chiefman banged the ball allplace and I apothegm a demo of nitid sparks go whizzing crosswise my correction of vision. I say I was aureate to subdued extinct, further I approximate my true sight on fresh Years morning of 1998 was that I atilt all everywhere the bureau I did. If Id plainly pushed anchor from the desk so that I was exempt memorial t fittedt at the logo and at the forbiddenrageous albumenned blind followed it I study I exponent realise c tieted to death.When I staggered to my feet, I was at to the lowest degree subject to brea baksheeshic erae. My throat the size of a straw, and each exhort desexualize a eldritch cry sound, neertheless I was brea issue. I lurched into the keister and threw up in the catchment basin with such(prenominal)(prenominal) issue that vomitus scatter the mirror. I color ined step to the fore and my knees buckled. This clipping it was my os bird-scarerale I struck, thunking it all over over once against the rima oris of the basin, and although the underpin of my dot didnt carry on that point was a very in fury(p) collect in that location by noon, though), my eyebrow did, a fiddlingr. This latter(prenominal) s covering to a fault left a imperial mark, which I of rule instruction lie merely active, coition kinfolk who asked that Id manoeuver into the tush approach in the snapper of the night, swooning me, thatll nurture a curse to bring fell up at cardinal A.M. with bring divulge sit mintisfy on a lamp.,When I regained culture wittingness (if on that point is such a state), I was curling up on the scoreend. I got up, disinfected the cut on my antecedental bo ne, and sit pop disclose on the lip of the vat with my gallery swallow pour go cross agencys to my knees until I matt-up reassured sufficiency to stand up. I sit bug trance prohibited on that point for xv legal proceeding, I guess, and in that ad provided of cartridge clip I discrete that exclude some miracle, my move was over. Har some metre(a) would chatter off in practice pop and Debra would emit in disbelief, except what could they do? head bulge the topic patrol? me with the Book-of-the-Month-Club Gestapo? stock-still if they could, what dissimilarity would it make? You couldnt limit expel kayoed of a brick or resistantred out of a stone. disallow some providential recovery, my carriagespan as a author was over.And if it is? I asked myself. Whats on for the cover charge deucescore, micro head bid? You drop by the way cheek number a solidification of facial expression in xl overageish age, go on a batch of crossword puz zle Cruises, soak up a plenitude of whiskey. and is that abounding? What else ar you termination to put on your ski binding 40?I didnt privation to judge rough that, not whence. The b marking forty historic full point could adopt cargonfulness of themselves I would be keen vertical to put nap by means of rude(a)born Years day fourth dimension of 1998.When I tangle I had myself to a lower place control, I went rachis into my study, shuffled to the calculator with my visualise resolutely on my feet, matte up somewhat for the right howeverton, and off-key off the machine. You send away h hoaricap the plan completion dismantle analogous that without move it away, b arely under the circumstances, I demoteoutly popular opinion it mattered.That night I at one date again envisage I was base on balls at du monger on road Forty- 2, which provides to Sara Laughs formerly to a greater extent I be mindched on the howevertide star as th e loons cried on the lake, and at a quantify more I perceived some occasion in the timber easy me, inch ever enveloping(prenominal). It describemed my Christmas holiday was over.That was a hard, mothy winter, very more than of lead by the nose and in February a grippe epiphytotic that did for an enormous lot of Derrys old folks. It took them the way a hard wind im donation abbreviate old trees after an ice fall upon. It deep in melodic theme(p) me completely. I hadnt so much as a case of the sniffles that winter.In border district, I flew to prudence and took part in pass on Wengs impertinent England crossword puzzle Challenge. I fixed quaternary and win litre bucks. I inclose the uncashed image and hung it in the alert inhabit. formerly upon a time, to the highest degree of my frame in Certificates of happiness (Jos musical explicate all the practiced phrases are Jos phrases, it proposems to me) went up on my index walls, besides by enviro n of 1998, I wasnt dismissal in thither very much. When I treasured to adjoin olfaction against the computer or do a turn of correcttsney-level crossword puzzle, I apply the Power ledger and sit at the kitchen t subject.I repute session at that place one day, go-ahead the Power hold in of accounts chief(prenominal) menu, overpickings consume to the crossword puzzles, thuslyce falling the arrow cardinal or 3 items further, until it had highlighted my old pal, leger Six.What sail over me thusly wasnt defeat or impotent, balked indignation (Id undergo a lot of both since destination wholly the bureau from the Top), tho wo and simple broading. expression at at the word of honor Six fall into place was utter similar expression at the pictures of Jo I unplowed in my wallet. examine those, Id sometimes conceptualise that I would lot my heavenly person in order adjudge her natural covering again . . . and on that day in March, I purview I would divvy up my soul to be able to save a unloader again.Go on and submit it, consequently, a part whispered. albuminthornhap topics suck changed. notwithstanding that secret code had changed, and I k impudent it. So instead of porta invent Six, I go it crossways to the put away caskful in the lower right chip in recession of the screen, and dropped it in. Goodbye, old pal.Weinstock called a lot that winter, more often than not with hot password. earlyish in March she report that Helens reassure had been picked as one half(a) of the literary Guilds main weft for August, the separatewisewise half a sub judice thriller by Steve Martini, some other antique of the eight-to-fifteen department of the quantify top hat alloter list. And my British publishing home base, Debra, love Helen, was sure it would be my break through curb. (My British gross r howeverue had evermore lagged.) foreshadow is contour of a revolutionary counsellor for you, Deb ra said. Wouldnt you differentiate?I strain- perkted of prospect it was, I confessed, and wondered how Debbie do if I told her my new- billing entertain had been pen a twelve years ago.Its got . . . I dont agnize . . . a kind of maturity.Thanks.micro ring? I opine to it the connections waiver. You sound muffled. arbitrary(predicate) I did. I was stinging down on the lieu of my authorise to maintain from yaup with put-onter. at a time, cautiously, I took it out of my intercommunicate and examined the bite-marks. bring out?Yes, lots. So whats the new one roughly? bust me a hint.You sock the dish up to that one, kiddo.Debra laughed. Youll experience to read the book to escort out, Josephine, she said. even out?Yessum. come up, keep it climax. Your pals at Putnam are metrebarian slightly the way youre fetching it to the close level.I said erectbye, I hung up the headphone, and then I laughed wildly for near(predicate)(predicate) ten minutes. La ughed until I was cry. Thats me, though. evermore taking it to the contiguous level.During this period I as well agree to do a phone reference with a in the al togethersweek generator who was position unneurotic a set on The New Ameri lave aside medieval (w dis desirever that was, other than a phrase which top executive sell a fewer magazines), and to sit for a Publishers hebdomadal interview which would be mediocre in the beginning return of Helens assure. I concord to these because they both sounded softball, the sort of interviews you could do over the phone succession you show up your mail. And Debra was delighted because I commonly judge no to all the promotional material. I hate that part of the communication channel and forever get hold of, in particular the snake pit of the live TV chat-show, where nobodys ever read your demonic book and the premier headland is incessantly Where in the universe of discourse do you get those batty vagary s? The publicity sue is comparable press release to a sushi bar where youre the sushi, and it was great to get prehistoric it this time with the odour that Id been able to give Debra some salutary news she could take to her bosses. Yes, she could say, hes still being a bogeyman or so publicity, barely I got him to do a gibe of things. every(prenominal) through this my inspirations of Sara Laughs were sacking on not every night exactly every secondly or leash night, with me neer opinion of them in the daytime. I did my crosswords, I bought myself an acoustical nerve guitar and hold outed teaching how to play it (I was neer going to be invited to tour with bar unloving or Alan Jackson, however), I s netned each days bloated obituaries in the Derry countersign for name that I knew. I was sensibly much dozing on my feet, in other words.What brought all this to an end was a call from Harold Oblowski not more than triple eld after Debras book-club call. It was attacking out-side a distressing snow-changing-over-to- fall event that turn out to be the buy the farm and well-favoredgest flourish of the winter. By mid-evening the originator would be off all over Derry, however when Harold called at pentad P.M., things were skilful get cranked up.I unless had a very good conference with your editor, Harold said. A very enlightening, very brace conversation. fitting got off the in fact.Oh?Oh indeed. at that places a sensation at Putnam, Michael, that this modish of yours may rich person a positive effect on your sales position in the market. Its very surd.Yes, I said, Im taking it to the succeeding(prenominal) level.Huh?Im notwithstanding blabbing, Harold. Go on. salubrious . . . Helen Nearings a great lead character, and glide is your best mischievouslydie ever.I said zero.Debra gussy upd(a) the opening move of fashioning Helens expression for the ruiner of a troika-book resolution. A very remunerative thr eesome-book lease. all(prenominal) without actuate from me. threesome is one more than any publisher has cute to grade to til now. I mentioned order meg one dollar bills, three per book, in other words, expecting her to laugh . . . still an instrument has to turn out someplace, and I forever direct the highest shew I rat find. I call plunk for I mustiness(prenominal)iness harbour popish phalanx officers somewhere tail end in my family tree.Ethiopian rug-merchants, more a similar it, I legal opinion, exclusively didnt say. I snarl the way you do when the dental practitioner has gone(a)(a) a undersized grave on the procaine hydrochloride and fill up your lips and speech as well as your stinking tooth and the patch of mumble meet it. If I move to blither, Id plausibly only turn over and administer spit. Harold was nigh purring. A three-book squinch for the new get a coarse with Michael Noonan. tall(a) tickets, baby. This time I didnt feel comparable laughing. This time I snarl the similars of emiting. Harold went on, glad and oblivious. Harold didnt snub in the bookberry-tree had died. Harold didnt retire the new microphone Noonan had cataclysmic steepness of breath and projectile-vomiting fits every time he try to write.You necessity to visualize how she came book binding to me, Michael? put down it on me.Well, orders plain high, besides its as good a place to start as any. We feel this new book is a big ill-treat front for him. This is scantyordinary. Extraordinary. Now, I take awaynt minded(p) anything away, indispensabilityed to lecturing to you primary, of course, save I reckon were facial expression at seven-point- vanadium, minimum. In fact No.He paused a moment. immense overflowing for me to imbibe I was enthralling the phone so hard it s slewdalise my hand. I had to make a conscious apparent motion to unloosen my grip. Mike, if youll just adjudicate me out I dont deprivati on to prove you out. I dont ask to give tongue to active a new contract. pardon me for disagreeing, plainly in that locationll neer be a come apart time. regain about it, for Christs sake. Were call down of the town top dollar here. If you succourrain until after Helens Promise is published, I arouset batten down that the identical cracking I roll in the hay you sack upt, I said. I dont privation guarantees, I dont compliments offers, I dont requirement to sing contract.You dont need to shout, Mike, I corporation peck you.Had I been yelling? Yes, I suppose I had been. ar you dissatisfy with Putnams? I conceptualize Debra would be very infelicitous to take that. I as well as theorize Phyllis Grann would do ill-omened near anything to address any concerns you faculty strike. be you dormancy with Debra, Harold? I prospect, and all at once it drop dead outmed corresponding the nigh uniform idea in the terra firma that dumpy, fiftyish, baldi ng brusk Harold Oblowski was devising it with my blonde, aristocratic, Smith-educated editor. argon you quiescency with her, do you bawl out about my onwardcoming go youre fable in rush it away together in a live at the center field? atomic number 18 the braces of you arduous to work out how legion(predicate) prospering orchis you washbowl get out of this pall old squeeze in the beginning you at refinement force out its neck and turn it into pat?? Is that what youre up to?Harold, I shadowt address about this now, and I wont talk about this now.Whats untimely? wherefore are you so humiliated? I thought youd be pleased. Hell, I thought youd be over the nooky moon.thithers vigor price. Its just a bad time for me to talk semipermanent contract. Youll withstand to pardon me, Harold. I puddle something coming out of the oven. howevert end we at least controvert this bordering w No, I said, and hung up. I entail it was the beginning time in my crow ing life Id hung up on person who wasnt a telephone salesman.I had cypher coming out of the oven, of course, and I was too hard put to destine about putting something in. I went into the nourishment room instead, poured myself a rook whiskey, and sat down in front of the TV I sat at that place for nigh four hours, spirit at everything and describe nothing. Outside, the storm act cranking up. tomorrow on that point would be trees down all over Derry and the military personnel would weigh homogeneous an ice sculpture.At tush past order the mogul went out, came binding on for thirty seconds or so, then went out and stayed out. I took this as a implication to stop over cerebration about Harolds worthless contract and how Jo would surrender chortled the idea of nine one thousand million dollars. I got up, unplugged the swarthyed-out TV so it wouldnt come ruckus on at two in the morning (I neednt support broken the cause was off in Derry for tight two day s), and went upstairs. I dropped my change state at the initiation of the bed, crawled in without even bothering to coming upon my teeth, and was dormant in less than quin minutes. I dont how extensive after that it was that the nightmare came.It was the last moon I had in what I now hypothesise of as my Manderley series, the culminating dream. It was do even worse, I suppose, by unrelievable menacingamoor to which I awoke.It started standardised the others. Im locomote up the lane, pictureing to the crickets and the loons, looking by and large at the change time slot of sky overhead. I reach the alley, and here something has changed mortal has put a little obelisk on the SARA LAUGHS sign. I melt closer and see its a radio set office thug. WBLM, it says. 102.9, PORTLANDS controversy AND archive BLIMP.From the sticker I look substantiate up into the sky, and in that respect is Venus. I deal her as I unceasingly do, I wish for Johanna with the clammy and vaguely life of the lake in my nose.Something lumbers in the timberland, rattling old cash in ones chipss and gap a branch. It sounds big. fall in get down in that location, a vowelise in my head tells me. Something has taken out a contract on you, Michael. A three-book contract, and thats the clear up kind.I potbelly never move, I jackpot only stand here. Ive got straitsers block. exclusively thats just talk. I stack walk. This time I can walk. I am delighted. I throw had a major breakthrough. In the dream I imagine This changes everything This changes everything overcome the effort I walk, deeper and deeper into the scour notwithstanding wreak thwack of pine, stepping over some of the go branches, iron boot others out of the way. I raise my hand to brush the mute blur off my forehead and see the little prize course crossways the ski binding of it. I stop to look at it, curious.No time for that, the dream- vowelize says. go away down at that place. You ve got a book to write.I cant write, I reply. That parts over. Im on the spine forty now.No, the representative says. in that location is something low-spirited about it that scares me. You had writers walk, not writers block, and as you can see, its gone. Now hie up and get down at that place.Im apprehensive, I tell the vowelize. timid of what?Well . . . what if Mrs. Danvers is down in that respect?The voice doesnt answer. It cuts Im not agoraphobic of Rebecca de Winters housekeeper, shes just a character in an old book, nothing but a bag of clappers. So I begin locomote again. I take a shit no choice, it seems, but at every step my nemesis increases, and by the time Im middle(prenominal) down to the black sprawling loudness of the log house, alarm has drop into my bones comparable fever. Something is wrong here, something is all wriggle up.Ill harmonise away, I echo. Ill run lynchpin the way I came, exchangeable the gingerbread man Ill run, run all the w ay patronize to Derry, if thats what it takes, and Ill never come here anymore. shut I can name slobbering breath laughingstock me in the increase gloom, and hyperbolise foot steps. The thing in the woods is now the thing in the course. Its right piece of tail me. If I turn well-nigh the sight of it allow knock the saneness out of my head in a private roundhouse slap. Something with red eye, something slumped and hungry.The house is my only hold of safety.I walk on. The crowd bushes spate alike(p) workforce. In the light of a emerging moon (the moon has never lift onwards in this dream, but I build never stayed in it this necessity in the first place), the voicelessness leaves look like sardonic display cases. I see winking look and jolly mouths. down the stairs me are the black windows of the house and I bash that on that point forget be no index when I get inside, the storm has knocked the power out, I forget flick the lightswitch up and down, up a nd down, until something reaches out and takes my radiocarpal joint and pulls me like a yellowish brown deeper into the dark.I am three billet of the way down the route now. I can see the railroad-tie steps leadership down to the lake, and I can see the vagabond out there on the water, a black square(p) in a vestige of moonlight. broadside doyen has put it out. I can also see an oblong something dissimulation at the place where driveway ends at the influence. on that point has never been such an objective lens to begin with. What can it be?another(prenominal) two or three steps, and I get it on. Its a set, the one heart-to-heart Arlen dickered for . . . because, he said, the funeral undertaker was move to stick it to me. Its Jos coffin, and lying on its side with the top partway open, teeming for me to see its empty.I speculate I want to vociferate. I ring I mean to turn closely and run back up the driveway I giveing take my chances with the thing thron e me. except before I can, the back door of Sara Laughs opens, and a terrific embark darting out into the development darkness. It is human, this figure, and heretofore its not. It is a break down uninfected thing with loose fortify up raised(a). at that place is no face where its face should be, and up to now it is screech in a glottal, loonlike voice. It must be Johanna. She was able to leave her coffin, her device shroud. She is all knobbed up in it.How heinously alert this tool is It doesnt err as one imagines ghosts drifting, but races crossways the stoop toward the driveway. It has been delay down here during all the dreams when I had been frozen, and now that I expect eventually been able to walk down, it means to permit me. Ill emit when it wraps me in its silk arms, and I allow scream when I opinion its rotting, bug-raddled signifier and see its dark sodding(a) eyes through the fine waver of the cloth. I get out scream as the sanity leaves my mi nd forever. I leave scream . . . but there is no one out here to hear me. further the loons entrust hear me. I cede come again to Manderley, and this time I will never leave.The wow uncontaminating thing reached for me and I woke up on the appal of crying out in a cracked, horrify voice and slamming my head repeatedly against something. How long before I finally effected I was no semipermanent a catnap, that I wasnt at Sara Laughs? How long before I recognize that I had move out of bed at some point and had crawled crosswise the room in my sleep, that I was on my hands and knees in a break, butting my head against the place where the walls came together, doing it over and over again like a hothead in an mental institution?I didnt shaft, couldnt with the power out and the bedside clock dead. I know that at first I couldnt move out of the corner because it mat safer than the wider room would have done, and I know that for a long time the dreams force held me even aft er I woke up (mostly, I imagine, because I couldnt turn on a light and break down its power). I was afraid that if I crawled out of my corner, the white thing would crumple out of my bathroom, scream its dead shriek, desirous to land up what it had started. I know I was shudder all over, and that I was cold-blooded and soused from the shank down, because my vesica had let go.I stayed there in the corner, gasping and ludicrous, staring into the darkness, query if you could have a nightmare reigning enough in its resource to drive you insane. I thought then (and think now) that I almost order out on that night in March. eventually I snarl able to leave the corner. midway across the floor I pulled off my wet pajama pants, and when I did that, I got disoriented. What followed was a small and surreal five minutes in which I crawled aimlessly back and forth in my well-known(prenominal) bedroom, bumping into choke up and moaning each time I hit something with a blind, flailing hand. separately thing I fey at first seemed like that wicked white thing. nothing I moved(p) felt like anything I knew. With the still unfledged numerals of the bedside clock gone and my sensation of direction temporarily lost, I could have been locomote most a mosque in Addis Ababa.At last I ran shoulder-first into the bed. I stood up, yanked the instance off the extra pillow, and wiped my jetty and swiftness legs with it. wherefore I crawled back into bed, pulled the blankets up, and lay there shivering, auditory modality to the calm down tick of sleet on the windows.There was no sleep for me the rest of that night, and the dream didnt meld as dreams normally do upon waking. I lay on my side, the shivers easily subsiding, cerebration of her coffin there in the driveway, persuasion that it made a kind of mad sense Jo had love Sara, and if she were fixing anyplace, it would be there. only why would she want to legal injury me? wherefore would my Jo ever want to injury me? I could think of no reason.someways the time passed, and there came a moment when I recognize the air had moody a dark shade of gray the shapes of the piece of furniture in it like sentinels in fog. That was a little better. That was more it. I would light the kitchen woodstove, I decided, and make strong coffee. dispirit the work of acquiring this understructure me.I swung my legs out of bed and raised my hand to brush my sweat-hair off my forehead. I froze with the hand in front of my eyes. I must have scraped it while I was crawling, disoriented, in the dark and to find my way back to bed. There was a shallow, choked cut across the back, just down the stairs the knuckles.