d3.wps

by phuc

  "You don't know that," Reba said.

  "No, but it's as good a theory as any, and it's my story and I'm sticking to it."

  Grace rose up slowly and laid Steve's head carefully on what served as ground —pulsing meat.

  "I wonder if there's anywhere to go," she said.

  "One thing I've learned from you, Grace," I said. "Don't be a quitter.

  "That's the goddarn truth," she said, taking off her ragged fur bottoms, using them to wipe the blood from her face. She tossed the rag aside, stood there in all her magnificent naked glory. "Look there," she said.

  It was the drive-in world mist. It was flowing down the brain-corridor, white as a geriatric's head.

  "As Steve would say," Grace said, "ain't that the shits?" She turned to us, put out her hand. "As long as it lasts," she said.

  "He could be in a coma for moments, or years," Reba said.

  "Or there may be more to it than we know," Grace said. "As soon as we peel one layer off the onion, we find another. My guess is there are plenty more layers, more truths to discover. Fact is, we don't even know how true our recent truth is."

  "It's really nothing new," I said. "It's just like the way we thought life was, and certainly must be. Unknown. Unfocused. Unpromised."

  "You are one fine-ass philosopher, Jack," Reba said. "How long do I hold my hand out?"

  Grace asked. I smiled, put my hand on top of Grace's. Reba placed hers on mine.

  We said, "Hoooyah!"

  Slowly, we gathered ourselves, then standing shoulder to shoulder, we started down the long, dark, sparking corridor through the mist and all its specters, moving onward to someplace or no place. It was our mystery to discover.

  THE END

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE:

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART 4

  PART 5

  EPILOGUE