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THROUGH half closed lids, whose lashes blurred everything, Phil watched the ghostly pale yellow circle of the hich was all the illuhts when the sun had set and the sodiuht, and h the girl&039;s voice still crooned a sex song and he still wore the fata hydraulically co over the airwaves an electric signal to change pressures of the hydraulic coan to feel like that of a skeleton wearing rubber gloves Phil jerked off the handie, switched off the voice, lit a cigarette, and was back with his problem

Was he really crazy, he asked himself; was Lucky just a psycho&039;s dreaain he tormentedly totted up the evidence Nobody but hi Lucky And there were so many other indications of hallucinations: that crazy color, the silly food, his fleeting hunch that Lucky wasn&039;t "really" a cat, his suspiciously godlike elation and sense of power

But those feelings of his were also the reason that Luckyhad to exist After what had happened today, Phil simply couldn&039;t endure life without Lucky, without those waralvanized hihts of his lost job, his loneliness, his cowardice and frustrations "Lucky," he whispered without knowing he&039;d been going to, and the sick child sound of his voice frightened him so that he fumbled in his pocket for the phonoscribe tape Swish Jack Jones had given hilow, he read the sht O&039;Clock"

He visualized the thin black shaft of The Keep, a luxurious office-hotel, and thought of ho et there But then he suddenly cru to Dr Romadka would ht of the sleeping pills but was afraid there weren&039;t enough left He reached for a book he&039;d been reading, but the thought of its stereotyped sadistic plot was unbearably boring As a last resort he turned on the radio again, voice and sight

" ravins the antichrist"

That phrase, together with the gaunt bucolic face, inevitablyhis Fellow Aain

"But there are sinners on this side of the polar battlegrounds," the greathis bushy eyebrows "Sinners in ourto the vilest desires and lusts" He shook a finger and swayed once more "I warn them that their time is at hand"

Phil reached for the knob (how often had Barnes made those futile, and some said drunken, threats, when everyone knew his adlove with Fun Incorporated!) but he hesitated as an unfamiliar and rather eerie note crept into the President&039;s voice

"Fellow A a little frohts, spirits of the upper air like those which troubled ancient Babylon Ourtione, Phil twisted the knob to silence and darkness Nevertheless, the President&039;s rhetoric set the tone of his next reverie He did not pace now, but crouched back in the foaed between the radio and bed

He must be crazy, he told himself with a quiet certainty that didn&039;t hurt for thehe&039;d felt this afternoon had been out of character, including his ridiculous overvaluation of that dream cat

Yes, he must be crazy