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@@@@@Then, just before a colder current
reaches
@@@@@Then, just before a colder current
reaches up and coils around her ankles, she sees
the ship change into -
Here's a picture I did paint, not once but again
and again and again:
The whiteness of the hull doesn't exactly
disappear; it is sucked inward like blood fleeing
the cheek of a terrified manThe
brightwork dullsThe glass in the windows of the
aft cabin bursts outwardA junkheap clutter
appears on the decking, rolling into existence
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from fore to aftExcept it was there all along
Tessie just didn't see it
A creature comes from belowdecksIt creeps to the
railing, where it stares down at the girlIt is a
slumped thing in a hooded red robeHair that
might not be hair at all flutters dankly around a
melted faceYellow hands grip splintered, punky
woodThen, one lifts slowly
And waves to the girl who will soon be GONE
It says Come to me, child
And, drowning, Tessie Eastlake thinks It's a WOMAN!
She sinksAnd does she feel still-warm hands,
those of her freshly dead sister, gripping her
calves and pulling her down?
Yes, of course
Believing is also feeling
Any artist will tell you so
13 - The Show
i
Someday, if your life is long and your thinking
machinery stays in gear, you'll live to remember
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the last good thing that ever happened to you
That's not pessimism talking, just logicI hope I
haven't run out of good things yet - there would
be no purpose in living if I believed I had - but
it's been a long time betweenI remember the last
one clearlyIt happened a little over four years
ago, on the evening of April fifteenth, at the
Scoto GalleryIt was between seven forty-five and
eight o'clock, and the shadows on Palm Avenue were
beginning to take on the first faint tinges of
blueI know the time, because I kept checking my
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