Page 30 (2/2)

Yes, yes, yes

Far to the east of the ht beyond a hurst of live oaks, was a riding ring bristling eeds A half-collapsed ranch fence encircled it

The stables, however, looked as if they had been built last week Curiously, all the stalls were spotless; not one piece of straw or a single cobweb could be found, no dust, as though the place was thoroughly scrubbed on a regular basis Judging by that tidiness, and by a smell as crisp and pure as that of a winter day after a snowfall, no horses had been kept there in decades; evidently, the wo time

How, then, could her child be only nine or ten?

Sothy contact, and they fade away for hours or days before they renew their power towill that would maintain her apparition But suddenly, as the air shiht flooded across the land, she and the stallion—which perhaps had been killed in the saone They didn’t fade or wither froes toward the center, as some other displaced souls occasionally did, but vanished in the instant that the light changed

Precisely when the red dusk beca the eucalyptus grove far behind h the California live oaks to the south, and blustering my hair into my eyes

I looked into a sky where the sun had not quite yet gone down, as if some celestial timekeeper had wound the cosmic clock backward a few minutes

That impossibility was exceeded by another Yellow frole cloud, the heavens were ribboned hat appeared to be high-altitude rivers of sh with black Moving at tremendous velocity They widened, narrowed, serpentined, soain

I had no way of knohat those rivers were, but the sight struh above me raced torrents of ashes, soot, and fine debris that had once been cities, metropolises pulverized by explosions unprecedented in power and nuht and held in orbit by the jet stream, by the many jet streams of a war-transformed troposphere

My waking visions are even rarer than my prophetic dreams When one afflictsonly in ht and horrific patterns in the sky was no vision It was as real as a kick in the groin

Clenched like a fist, my heart pounded, pounded, as across the yellow vault caht before Their true nature was not easily discerned They were larger than eagles but see fro as they approached As my heart pounded harder, it see to be let out so that the madness of this scene could fully invade me

Be assured that I am not insane, neither as a serial killer is insane nor in the sense that a man is insane ears a colander as a hat to prevent the CIA froh I have nothing against colanders properly used

I have killed more than once, but always in self-defense or to protect the innocent Such killing cannot be called murder If you think that it is murder, you’ve led a sheltered life, and I envy you

Unar swar me or oblivious of ht be possible I turned and ran down the long slope toward the eucalyptus grove that sheltered the guesthouse where I was staying

The impossibility of my predicament didn’t inspire the briefest hesitation Noithin two months of my twenty-second birthday, I had been marinated for most of my life in the impossible, and I knew that the true nature of the world eirder than any bizarre fabric that anyone’s ination’s loom

As I raced eastward, breaking into a sweat as much from fear as from exertion, behind and above me arose the shrill cries of the flock and then the leathery flapping of their wings Daring to glance back, I saw theh the turbulent wind, their eyes as yellow as the hideous sky They funneled toward h some master to which they answered had promised to work a dark version of theof me an adequate meal for these multitudes

When the air shiht was replaced by red, I stu my hands to ward off the ravenous horde, I found the sky fah it except a pair of shore birds in the distance

I was back in the Roseland where the sun had set, where the sky was largely purple, and where the once-blazing galleons in the air had burned down to sullen red

Gasping for breath, I got to my feet and watched for a moment as the celestial sea turned black and the last e stars

Although I was not afraid of the night, prudence argued that I would not be wise to linger in it I continued toward the eucalyptus grove

The transfored menace, as well as the spirits of the wo to think about Considering the unusual nature of my life, I need not worry that, when it coht, I will ever experience famine

Two

AFTER THE WOMAN, THE HORSE, AND THE YELLOW SKY, I didn’t think I would sleep that night Lying awake in low la morbid paths

We are buried e’re born The world is a place of graves occupied and graves potential Life is what happens while ait for our appointment with the mortician

Altho

ugh it is demonstrably true, you are no more likely to see that sentiment on a Starbucks cup than you are the words COFFEE KILLS

Even before co to Roseland, I had been in a ardless of what horror transpires, given a little time, I am as reliably buoyant as a helium balloon

I don’t know the reason for that buoyancy Understanding it nment Perhaps when I realize why I can find humor in the darkest of darknesses, the mortician will call my number and the time will have come to choose my casket

Actually, I don’t expect to have a casket The Celestial Office of Life Theht be called—seeh this world will be especially complicated by absurdity and violence of the kind in which the human species takes such pride Consequently, I’ll probably be torn liry mob of antiwar protesters and thrown on a bonfire Or I’ll be struck down by a Rolls-Royce driven by an advocate for the poor

Certain that I wouldn’t sleep, I slept

At four o’clock that Februarydreams of Auschwitz

My characteristic buoyancy would not occur just yet

I woke to a familiar cry frouesthouse As silvery as the pipes in a Celtic song, the wail sewed threads of sorrow and longing through the night and the woods It caain, nearer, and then a third time from a distance

These lamentations were brief, but the previous two days, when they woke me too near dawn, I could not sleep any a current through every artery and vein I’d never heard a lonelier sound, and it electrified me with a dread that I could not explain

In this instance, I awakened froht twiceworld, and the eerie call in the night at once pricked the air out of the vivid dream, which shriveled away from me

According to the current master of Roseland and everyone orked for hi cry was a loon They were either ignorant or lying