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    as if he were a cartoon character. "I don't know," he mumbled.
    "Get rid of her," I ordered. "And take off that stupid suit. You look like a senile
    penguin."
    He turned to Marsha. "Could you come back later?"
    "Later?" I yelled. "You cheating bastard! Here, I'll tell her myself. Miss, get your
    tight ass out of this room and never come back."
    She took the hint. She gathered up her clothes they were all over the floor; he
    had probably torn them off her and hurried from the room. Daniel sat down
    on the edge of the bed and began to pull off his flippers.
    "Gee, Shari," he said. "I didn't know you were coming over."
    "Who's Marsha?" I demanded, sitting beside him. He had really fixed the place
    up since he had been awake.
    Besides the velvet carpet and the mirrors, there was a plush lavender Ioveseat
    near the closet and a swirling blue Jacuzzi in the corner. There was, in fact,
    color everywhere, like in an ordinary dream.
    "She's a cousin of mine visiting from Florida," he said.
    "Did you have sex with her?"
    He looked guilty. "We took a shower together once."
    "You took a shower with your cousin! Were you going with me at the time?"
    He hesitated. "No."
    "Liar!"
    "I wasn't."
    "Then what are you doing with her now?"
    He appeared confused. He couldn't get his stupid flipper off. It looked like it
    had melted on his toes. He finally gave up on it and put his foot back down.
    "Shari, you're supposed to be dead."
    Here was my big chance. "How did I die?" I asked.
    He scratched his head like a cartoon character, his nails on his scalp sounding
    like files rubbing against wood. It was
    getting to be too much. "I don't remember," he said.
    Just my luck, his subconscious was as dumb as his conscious state. Yet he
    had told me something. If he'd murdered me, he wouldn't have forgotten.
    "Somebody killed me," I said.
    He suddenly snapped his fingers. I couldn't believe it when I actually saw an
    exclamation point zoom off the top of his hand. "I know what happened!" he
    said. "You jumped off the balcony!"
    "No, I didn't!"
    "Yes, you did!"
    "I did not!"
    "I saw you!"
    I froze. "You saw me jump?" I asked softly.
    His face fell. "You were lying in a puddle of blood."
    "But before that, what did you see?"
    He lowered his head between his knees. He was having trouble breathing. He
    began to cry. "Oh, Shari. Your head. Oh, God."
    "Dan! Tell me, what happened?"
    "Crushed. Splattered. Oh, Jesus."
    "What did I do!?" I screamed, reaching out and grabbing his hands. And as I
    did so, his eyes swung toward me, and a look of pure horror filled his face. For
    an instant I saw everything from his perspective. I saw the girl I had found
    lying on the table in the morgue, minus the green towel that had hidden the
    worst of the damage. Had I a meal in my stomach and a stomach in my body, I
    would have vomited.
    Then I was back in his bedroom, his real bedroom, sitting by his side in the
    dark as he stirred restlessly in a nightmare I knew intimately. I had
    accidentally removed my hands from his head. Perhaps it was just as well. I
    touched my own head gingerly, drawing small comfort from the fact that it
    appeared to be all in one piece. Shaken, I stood and ran to the window. I had to
    get out of that room.
    Jo's was my next stop. I walked the whole way there, hoping the exercise would
    calm me down, quiet my fears. It didn't help a bit.
    Jo's mom, Mrs. Foulton, was sitting on the front porch in the dark smoking a
    cigarette. She had probably just gotten off work; she had on her uniform. I
    estimated the time at about four-thirty. The sun would be coming up soon.
    A newspaper lay across Mrs. Foulton's lap. I could read it without a light, even
    though she couldn't. The paper was a couple of days old. She had it open to
    page three. There was a picture of me in the upper right-hand corner beneath
    the headline, "HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR JUMPS TO HER DEATH."
    They'd plucked the photo right out of my junior year annual.
    I looked all right.
    I sat in a chair beside Mrs. Foulton and noticed she was using her cigarette for
    more than just smoking. Between puffs, she would hold it close to the picture.
    Either she wanted to bum out my eyes, or else she was trying to get a better
    look at me. Remembering back to the indifferent tone she had taken with Mrs.
    Parish before my funeral, I wondered why she would bother one way or the
    other.
    Her hands were trembling slightly, yet her face betrayed no emotion. After a
    while she ground out her cigarette and went inside, leaving the paper on the
    porch chair. Naturally, I followed her. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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