Page 58 (1/2)
"No!"
The door sla over the frosty ground, the coachreat coach, out of which, cherry-red, laughing and singing, piled the Pickwickians, banging on the door, shouting Merry Christood and loud, when the door was opened by the fat boy
Mr Poe hurried along the ht shore of the dry sea By fires and s caldrons, the poisons and the chalked pentagrams "Good!" he said, and ran on "Fine!" he shouted, and ran again People joined him and ran with hi with hiry de vipers and tre witches like the barbs and nettles and thorns and all the vile flotsaination, left on the
Mr Machen stopped He sat like a child on the cold sand He began to sob They tried to soothe hiht," he said "What happens to us on the day when thelast copies of our books are destroyed?"
The air whirled
"Don't speak of it!"
"We must," wailed Mr Machen "No, as the rocket comes down, you, Mr Poe; you, Coppard; you, Bierce--all of you grow faint Like wood s away Your faces melt--"
"Death!Real death for all of us"
"We exist only through Earth's sufferance If a final edict tonight destroyed our last feorks we'd be like lights put out"
Coppard brooded gently "I wonder who I aht do I exist? In so my tales? Is he the lonely candle in the wind of ti me here in rebellious exile? Is it hi ht I felt ill, ill, ill to the marrows of me, for there is a body of the soul as well as a body of the body, and this soul body ached in all of its glowing parts, and last night I felt iven new light! As soarret on Earth once iven a short respite!"
A door banged wide in a little hut by the shore A thin shortfro no attention to the others, sat down and stared into his clenched fists
"There's the one I' away He was once more real than ere ht, and clothed him in centuries of pink flesh and snow beard and red velvet suit and black boot; made him reindeers, tinsel, holly And after centuries of ht say"
The men were silent
"What must it be on Earth?" wondered Poe "Without Christmas? No hot chestnuts, no tree, no orna but the snow and wind and the lonely, factual people"
They all looked at the thin little old ly beard and faded red velvet suit