Page 168 of The Initial Insult

money

listen

But no one is listening, and I can’t, either, because everything is fading and the door is opening and someone has grabbed me and I smell grass and earth and green things growing and Annabelle UsherMontor and different now I’m falling and the smell is wet and fish and river and dead leaves and—

I’m falling.

I’m falling.

I’m gone.

Chapter 72

Cat

I am very quiet

and very still.

Stone and silence.

The door was closed

once

But has not always been.

It was open when—

the swinging boy hoped someone would stop him.

(no one did.)

the sobbing woman hoped someone would hear her

and come.

(he did / he did not.)

The screaming baby had no thoughts

only need

and Mother did come.

(not everything ends badly.)

It was open then—

so I go there,

through time and space

and doorways.

Loose now.

In the place where humans