@@@@@ I'd lie there until my back and neck felt
@@@@@
I'd lie there until my back and neck felt better,
then dig a paperback out of my suitcase and read
Just lie here for awhile, that was
I got that far, and then I was gone againThere
were no dreams
viii
95
I slipped back to some sort of consciousness in
the middle of the night with my right arm itching
and my right hand tingling and no idea of where I
was, only that from below me something vast was
grinding and grinding and grindingAt first I
thought it was machinery, but it was too uneven to
be machineryAnd too organic, somehowThen I
thought of teeth, but nothing had teeth that vast
Nothing in the known world, at least
Breathing, I thought, and that seemed right, but
what kind of animal made such a vast grinding
sound when it drew in breath? And God, that itch
was driving me crazy, all the way up my forearm to
the crease of the elbowI went to scratch it,
reaching across my chest with my left hand, and of
course there was no elbow, no forearm, and I
scratched nothing but the bedsheet
That brought me fully awake and I sat upAlthough
the room was still very dark, enough starlight
came in through the westward-facing window for me
to see the foot of the bed, where one of my
suitcases rested on a benchThat locked me in
placeI was on Duma Key, just off the west coast
of Florida - home of the newly wed and the nearly
96
deadI was in the house I was already thinking of
as Big Pink, and that grinding sound -
"It's shells," I murmured, lying back down
"Shells under the house
I loved that sound from the first, when I woke up
and heard it in the dark of night, when I didn't
know where I was, who I was, or what parts were
still attached
It had me from hello
3 - Drawing on New Resources
i
What came next was a period of recovery and
transition from my other life to the one I lived
on Duma KeyKamen probably knew that during
times like that, most of the big changes are going
on inside: civil unrest, revolt, revolution, and
finally, mass executions as the heads of the old
regime tumble into the basket at the foot of the
guillotineI'm sure the big man had seen such
revolutions succeed and seen them failBecause
not everyone makes it into the next life, you know
97
And those who do don't always discover heaven's
golden shore
My new hobby helped in my transition, and Ilse
helped, t