“There’s a problem with Mr. Belledyne’s skin. I think Mom and Dad are worried it’s contagious,” He said darkly.
“Like a disease? Like cancer?” I asked hurriedly.
“Cancer isn’t contagious stupid. It’s not a disease either. It’s just the fact that Mr. Belledyne is black,” Jonathan said.
My life there would have remained dull and happy and glow like a post card if Mr. Belledyne had never moved into the house at the end of the lane.
He didn’t want the game to end. Each time he took her to the brink of consciousness, to the point where she hoped that she would slip over into the black and never return, but she survived. Natalie hated games.
I tried to remember him younger but I only saw his face in those final weeks, gaunt, shrunken, and a trail of yellow-green mucus streaming from his nostrils
Within a matter of seconds, a trip, whose base purpose was enjoyment, turned to terror, confusion, and, potentially, my own mortality.
There was a time I watched as this played out in front of me and I questioned the purpose but those times have passed, I have learned it is better to silence the mind and simply follow the cues. Nothing here can harm me, I no longer worry.
”They’re coming”, he said, “Giant rats.” He stared up at me with enormous golden eyes. It was Saxon, the cat I had as a little girl. He looked right at me. Then he licked his lips and walked away.’
The swinging door hit my chair so hard that it shoved me into the table I was already pressed too tightly against and my mostly full beer launched a hoppy spout like the snort of a great whale from its mouth with a trajectory for Alice’s face.
Reagan tried to jump out of the way, but it was too late, his grip was solidly around her, and he wrenched her sideways, away from the edge of the street.
You can’t tell a story that isn’t true, even if it’s all a lie, and believe in it when the voice inside tells you otherwise.
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