©Copyright 1994
J. Rodolphus
N
Rodolphus Dark Fiction
Perhaps the World
©Copyright 1994
J. Rodolphus
©Copyright 1994
J. Rodolphus
©Copyright 1994
J. Rodolphus
T
Perhaps the World
short fiction by Rodolphus
HE motorcycle spat over the six-foot embankment to sail an arcing twenty feet and land in a
fountain of sand nearly a quarter of the distance toward the opposite bank of the riverbed. The rider hiked xx
hiked and jived to the left and right, and then shot downstream in a burst of speed. Volcanoes of sand erupted about the speeding bike as the surprised raiders fired machine pistols and even a few hand-held missile launchers. The motorcycle went into a sweeping slide and then claw- gripped up the shorter opposing embankment, nearly falling to the side and sliding back into the dry riverbed; however, the rider seemed to know the drill and the bike topped the bank, shot away toward the stockade walls nearly two hundred yards away — the rider played the bike and jigged to the left when it was required, slowed when a pit opened in the fore, and was able to cross into a small gully that afforded some protection from the frantic fusillade of punching bullets, shrieking missiles and lob-spatting grenades.
The watchers in the stockade fired at the raiders across the riverbed, but the projectiles from their small arms fell far short, many of the bullets landing about the rider.The motorcycle exploded from the cover of the protecting gully and rocketed in a flashing straight arrow toward the fort. A missile screamed through the air traveling nearly three times the speed of the bike, passed overhead clearing the rider by approximately fifteen feet and careened into the stockade wall — the stockade shuddered beneath the savage impact, and a three-foot by three-foot gash puckered in the rough-wood surface, and cushioning sand spattered from the wound like blood — the wall accepted the contusion and held.Another missile followed the first. It sparked and fizzled, falling short, and landed directly in the path of the speeding motorcycle. The ground rose and the bike sailed with it, the rider sailing to the side hitting the dirt and tumbling, and the bike pinwheeled forward alone.All firing stopped. The raiders cheered. The watchers in the stockade waited.The motorcycle lay upside down, front wheel spinning. The rider lay prone. Then, slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and limped the fifty or so feet to the bike. For a few moments there was no firing until the raiders grouped their sharpshooters with long-range rifles and took leisurely pot-shots at the rider. Those with weapons in the stockade did not bother in returning the fire — now it was up to the rider.The rider, rubbing his head, stood over the bike.“Well, Buffalo Bill, I don’t know if we can breathe life into you this time.” He sighed and surveyed the damage: shrapnel wound in the gas tank, missing spokes in the rear wheel, handlebars twisted. We’ll see, buddy, you’ve come through worse. At least the Winchester rifle in the saddle holster was intact, if not scuffed and scratched. He flexed his muscles at righting the bike. A bullet punched into the seat and knocked the bike out of his hands.He squatted by the bike, shaking his head and sweating from every pore in his body. It seemed some young hero from the stockade might come running and lend him a hand — it had happened before at other such forts — but then again, the job got done best when he was the one doing the labor. He gritted his teeth and lifted the motorcycle.Bullets struck about him as he began the fifty-yard trudge.The best he could tell, his new collection of bumps and bruises were only that — he considered himself very lucky that his head was not cracked open. His helmet was destroyed about fifty miles back, but at least it had deflected a bullet in its last stand.At ten yards to the gate a bullet smacked into the meaty part of his left thigh. He slammed into the bike and came down on top of it, lying in the sand with a whispery warm wind burning his back.I could just lie here, he thought. Perhaps one of those sharpshooters will aim straight for once and my traveling days will be over. But then he thought of Kory — he could see every etch of his ten-year-old face as if there was a movie screen suddenly before him, he could almost reach out and gather the boy into his arms, and thinking these images, Christian knew he could not lie here upon the bike and await a bullet, because he had to know, because two years did not matter in a world increasingly difficult to survive — Christian had to know if his child had survived the continuing maelstrom, and this was perhaps the only thing to get him back on his feet pulling and yanking upon the crippled motorcycle and resume the final trudge to the gate.The gate cranked open with much rumbling of engines and grating of heavy metal junk rolled aside.And, as always, there was no swelled cheering as he limped through the gate spilling his blood and willing forward the wounded bike. The dozen or so folks directly within the gate were more interested in securing the gate than in the bedraggled, exhausted being entering their haven. There were about twenty curious children peeking from behind the hulks of grounded automobiles, children in the hard-to-come-by gas masks and more children in the more common surgical mask.If one of those children was to be twelve years old with the sharpest brown eyes and the most curious mind, a shock of sandy brown hair and an impish grin that could quickly flash to anger — if that child was tall for his age and had a memory in his head that had not yet denigrated and happened to bear the name of “Kory” would he recognize the wounded thing pushing the wounded motorcycle?“Kory!” Christian shouted, tearing the rags from his face, only the shout was barely a croak. The children scattered.Maybe he would have time later to ask a few questions and scout a few young faces, because now there was no time. If he was not patched up and stanched quickly, perhaps even pumped with a quart of fresh blood or at least doused with fairly fresh antibodies, his traveling days would be over, and besides, coming toward him now was a figure with the bearing of youth and possibly the carriage of military indoctrination.“You have the serum, intact?” the figure demanded through its rubber mask. When Christian nodded the figure beckoned him forward and spun about to march away.“Hold on there!” Christian snapped. When the military figure returned Christian propped the bike on its kickstand and withdrew the Winchester. “Get a mechanic on this bike, see if there’s still a little life left in Buffalo Bill.”“Yes sir,” the figure returned, comfortable with taking orders.Christian blinked at the figure. Was it possible, or was the figure splitting and stretching and bending — doing impossible dances without ever moving? “Might need a little help, myself.” Christian blinked his eyes and saw the ground rising up to strike him and had the time to think: “Well, he might have tried to catch me.”“Could be my funeral,” were his first words as consciousness seeped into his ears and he heard gypsy music playing. Sounded like two mandolins, a classical guitar, a lute thrown in for good measure, and two violins and a cello. His groggy brain could not decide if it was Dark Eyes or some other passionate Hungarian or Russian ditty.“You are very much alive, Mr. Christian, though I can’t say why or how,” said a pleasant and softly accented voice, either that of a woman or an effeminate man on Christian’s left.Christian squinted his eyes. He was lying upon a table under bright lights, surrounded by at least five medical staff. The gypsy music was canned, Christian realized with some relief, and not played by angels.“At least we were able to save on anesthetic. Very considerate of you, Mr. Christian,” said a man’s deep voice from the other side, probably standing at about Christian’s right knee.“Never use the stuff,” Christian replied. Other than the throbbing in his left leg, he felt like he might live. “Did you get the bullet?”“Yes, both of them. The one in your leg didn’t do much damage, it was mostly spent by the time it hit you,” said the first voice, definitely a woman, “but the second bullet, which was lodged between your second and third ribs on your left side, damaged a lot of bone. Small caliber fire, a .22 we think. The bad news is that an old infection is creating havoc in your foot — we are afraid it might have to come off.”Christian closed his eyes and sighed. He had not known he was shot, although he clearly remembered the incident — he had chanced upon a ronin band of four-wheelers. The first bandit had fired point-blank with a .22 pistol even as Christian had drawn the .357 Magnum from beneath his flak vest. He emptied the full load and decommissioned at least two of the bandits, including the .22-wielder, and escaped as the other bandits dove behind their Jeeps.Which meant he had carried the slug for over seven hours, the time necessary to cover the last hundred miles.“You are a lucky man, Mr. Christian,” the woman said, and Christian felt her tentatively pat his shoulder. The woman had guts, to touch him, even if she did wear surgical gloves.“We wish to thank you, Mr. Christian. Corresponding the serum you have saved many lives, as many as two hundred or more. You are a brave man, and we thank you,” said the deep-voiced man.“My job. Just doing it. Buffalo Bill, any chance of a resurrection?”“Excuse me?” came a new voice, young, feminine and incredulous.Christian chuckled, but the expression caused deep pain in his chest. “My motorcycle. Any chance it’ll run again?”“We’ll check on that,” deep voice said, “but try and get some rest. Gather your strength. You’re going to need all you can gather.”He was referring to the Fire Eyes, Christian knew, his main problem wherever he rode. The Fire Eyes — more than the bullets or the flu or the deadly rains — would be his death, he was positive.“Oh. My foot, I think I’ll keep it. And strength, I have plenty of that stuff,” Christian murmured as he drifted and sleep overwhelmed him.When he woke he noticed very soon he was in a locked cell. He could hear the chanted murmurs, reverent and quiet and hymnlike, through the walls: “He is different. He is soiled. He knows not the Lord. He is different. He is soiled. Cast him out.”He lifted his left arm to rub his fingers into his eyes, but because of the pain in his chest he could not lift his arm higher than an inch or two from his hips. He rolled onto his side. A man in a gas mask with surgical gloves and booties sat in a chair across the cell.“They going to hang me, or what?” Christian said, grinning.“They did hang them, for a while,” said the man in the gas mask, and Christian recognized the deep voice from the operating room, “but they grew civilized. Firing squad for a while, but they found it wasted precious ammunition. Now they execute as prescribed by their God, with cleansing fire.”“That’s novel,” Christian breathed, easing his head on the stiff pillow. “I’m not contagious, if that’s what you people are afraid of.”“That is what frightens them the most,” deep-voice said. “Do you know why you are immune to the horrors which run rampant out there?”“In the old days I used to take my vitamins faithfully.”“Good. You will need your sense of humor in the coming days.”“I take it wherever I go. And I’ll be long gone from here before a couple of days. I have missions to run. You probably already have my next orders in your ham room.”“Unfortunately, that is not in my hands. I am afraid the United Christians of the Great Number control this outpost.”“Well, maybe it is in your hands to find out if Kory Medvee was ever in this wonderful outpost. He will be about twelve years old. They used to say he looked like me, of course that was before I got these markings.”“That is something I can look into, yes. In fact, I would consider it my honor to inquire as to the whereabouts of your son. How did you come to be separated?”“The usual things. Divorce. Custody battles. Biological warfare down Central America way. Nuclear accidents in New Jersey followed by first nuclear terrorist bombings in Vancouver. Outbreak of the Stephen King flu. You know, just the usual things.”“Yet man survives. We are surprising creatures, are we not?”Christian lifted his eyebrows. He slowly allowed his eyes to close.“Can you stop them from chanting? I need some rest if I’m leaving here.”“I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Christian.”When he woke the next time Deep-Voice was gone and a small woman was seated in the chair. She wore the usual surgical mask and cap and watched him with almond-shaped hazel eyes from behind thick glasses.“To be or not to be,” Christian croaked.“Reggie told me you were very funny. May I ask you a few questions?”“Out of curiosity, or are we working up my confession?”“Curiosity.”“You know what that did to the cat.”“Ah. But then there is the satisfaction to consider.” She waited, but when he did not respond, she said, “Satisfaction brought him back.”“Yeah. I think I might have heard that one before.”He peered at her nondescript shape in a wrinkled baggy smock. He balanced on the deadly edge of déjà vu — did he know this lady, or had his head been rattled too much too recently? What would be the chances of bumping into your One True Love when you had not seen her in fifteen years, two years after the beginning of the fall of civilization as you knew it? He smiled and shook his head. The world was a crazy place daily proving its limitless capacity for lunacy, but not yet Dickensian enough to cross into the Coincidence Zone.“The world has been hard on you, hasn’t it, Christian?”He looked away from her. That accounted for the feeling of déjà vu. This was the feminine voice from the operating room. One of the sawbones.It disturbed him, momentarily, that old feeling of close pain, just to the right of where his heart murmured, when he thought of her, his childhood love, his own dear Paula. How close it ever was, even when the world was a loony place of religious fanatics and bandits armed to the teeth.Would he never stop thinking about her? But then again the memory was a messy, tricky thing.“If you’re going to tell me that no one ever said it would be easy, I think I’ll have to pop you in the mouth,” he said, but he smiled too, and the trueness of the expression surprised him.“We have heard of you, even here. There is a legend. The legend of the wolf rider — a man on a machine when in the presence of people, but a wolf in the actual sense when he is alone.”“Please don’t ask for my autograph. I hate that celebrity stuff.”“They say you seek death, but cannot find it.”He sighed.“Did you have other children, other than Kory?”He lifted his eyebrows. “Any word?”“Not yet.”“No. My one and only baby bunny boy. Nasty thing is, I hadn’t seen him in nearly a year when the country went bankrupt. My ex was playing the age-old shell game, now you see your kid, now you don’t.”“Admirable. You have not lost hope of finding him.”“Yeah. I’m an admirable kind of guy. What is this, anyway? You people trying to convert me, or what?”“Are you born again?”“The slogan for the Year 2000 was: If You Haven’t Been Born Again Then You Never Should Have Been Born. Me, I’ve always been the kind of guy that would rather do it his way, even if he does it wrong. If there had been more wolves and less sheep, the world wouldn’t have gotten to be such a dump.”“So, you have read Dostoyevsky. Are you a communist, then?”“Sister, Dostoyevsky was not a commie. And Jesus wasn’t American.”“Very good. Very smart of you. If the Fire Eyes hear you say something as inciting as that you will know what it feels like to shower in fire.”“Joke. Maybe he was American. He probably listened to Barry Manilow, drove a Beemer, dined at the Golden Arches at least twice a week and watched MTV on a thirty-six-inch high-density color TV.”“The Fire Eyes do not believe in humor. They claim Jesus Christ never laughed, not once in his entire life.”“Well, at least they’ve stopped that chanting. Sounded like rap music. When people talk about how terrible things have gone for the world, they always forget that at least there’s no more rap music. God works in mysterious ways. Amen.”“You are a real smart ass, Chris.”“And you,” he said, rolling delicately onto his side, grinning at her, “are reminding me of someone, more and more. Hey, don’t let this face frighten you — beneath the scars there’s a real cute guy.”“Did you love her very much?”He noticed the inflection of her voice never changed. Perhaps there was an android under that smock.“Very much. Other than my son — and my mother — I don’t think I ever really loved anyone else.”“Yet you married.”“There’s that death wish of mine again.”“Where will you go from here?”“Anywhere my orders send me, so long as it’s within a two-hundred mile radius of Old Sacramento. Whatever you people are pushing, I guess I’m the only guy to carry it.”“You know, the Fire Eyes claim that to open one’s eyes to God, one may open one’s mind.”He thought a moment, then eased onto his back and closed his eyes.“A lot of minds should be closed for repairs.”When he opened his eyes a few minutes later he was alone.He heard the chanting resume outside the cell.“He is different. He is soiled. He knows not the Lord. He is different. He is soiled. Cast him out.”“The WolfCycler. I am the WolfCycler. Watch out when the moon is full. Aaahhhhh-oooooooooohh!”Silence. Christian smiled and drifted asleep.Hunger and the tumor of pain that was his body woke him in not such a while later. He was alone. Slowly he pushed himself up and willed himself to keep moving. He perceived his clothes folded and clean upon the floor at the foot of the cot. Mercifully, the dead thing at the end of his ankle registered no pain. As long as he was able to envision himself fully clothed, and keep his body moving, it would not be completely impossible that as wounded as he was he might soon be dressed. And then, light-headed and slumped at the foot of the bed, he was dressed.Christian choked for a moment, spat up into his palm and examined what turned out to be a tooth.“You do realize that they are wrong, don’t you?” said the person in the chair near the bed.Christian looked up. It was Deep-Voice, large, leaning forward, big bearlike paws clasped together in shiny surgical gloves.“They are wrong,” Christian breathed. He stared at the floor. Would he be able to rise, to walk, to mount whatever remained of his cycle and depart this place of defeat and fear?“The signs are there. You are dying. Radiation sickness. They are wrong that you are impenetrable. When they informed us that the WolfCycler carried the necessary serum, I did believe. If anyone may arrive here with the needed serum, it is he they call the WolfCycler. He survived Stephen King’s flu — he walks where even angels and fools choose not to go. Yet I was amazed, terrified that you arrived. It must be true, I thought. He must be an angel.”“My kid?”“I am not the one to ask.”Christian roused himself from his slump.“My weapons?”“Do you know why they call the coughing death Stephen King’s flu?”“Writer. Story. Flu wiped out. The world.”“Hmmn. A novel. I did not know that.”“My weapons?”“There, beneath you. Under the bed.”Christian moved from the cot. He knelt, so kindly, and withdrew his Winchester rifle, his .357 Magnum, the .32 derringer and the flak vest and the armored gloves.Why is he watching me, Christian wondered. Is he laughing? Is he testing me? Will he attempt to stop me?When he glanced up the chair was empty. He slumped back against the cot and held the rifle across his lap. He stared at the backs of his hands for a few minutes. They were his hands, and they looked the same, only there were some nasty sores gathered about his wrists and knuckles, like freckles, and these abrasions, seeping, had nothing to do with his most recent ride, at least not directly.He remembered his hands when they were young, when the veins stood out healthy and thick like worms. He remembered her hands. He remembered her hands slim and smooth and sweet. He remembered her hands smoothing against his, her hands soft and moist and warm traveling upon his wrists, his forearms and biceps, massaging his shoulders, stroking his hair, pulling him close.He coughed and his mouth filled with blood. He swallowed.I was only eighteen, he remembered. And she was, how old was she? Sixteen, perhaps? And what had she said, whispered — no, she did not whisper, for she did not know how to whisper, but her voice was sultry and soft.“Christian, oh Christian,” she breathes upon his lips and kisses him, and he fights to resist her because her parents are upstairs, just one thin floor removed, and she moves his hand to her breast and kisses his mouth. She pulls back and pouts. You do not love me. If you did you would not pull away from me. You would love me with your mouth. With your hands. With everything. You would love me. But your parents. My parents — oh, you are silly — then you must watch me dance. And she stands and moves upon the floor, her slim feet young and white, and though there is no music they are surrounded and cushioned, and his mouth is dry, and she moves, and he desires to reach and touch her, the silent and painstaking undulations of her tight belly and taut hips, her fine breasts, eyes alight with impish yearning, and she moves, but her parents are there, so close above, and she moves, his hands tremble as he finally reaches and her eyes shine as she moves away and he stands but she moves away again and he follows and she moves into his arms and her hands are much more knowledgeable than his brain and she moves him to the floor and with her parents one floor removed she moves above him and he sighs and tears fill his eyes to overflow. “We will marry, someday,” he whispers. Of course, you silly, we will always be together. I will always love you. And I, thee, my beloved.Why are there tears moving from my eyes to my cheeks to my neck? I am the WolfCycler. I do not cry. The WolfCycler. Strength. I do not weep. WolfCycler. I am strong. Watch out when the moon is full.“What in the world is a WolfCycler?” Christian whispered and giggled and coughed and fell silent gasping.“You are dying of the radiation sickness. You have an amazing constitution, a formidable metabolism, Chris. Remarkable. Internally, you are scarred. It is nearly over, beloved. Even you cannot persevere, Christian.”He looked into her eyes. Only her eyes he could see, her eyes obscured by the thick lenses.“It is you, isn’t it?”“Stay here. The world has changed. They will not let you go. They think you are the Angel of Death.”“Paula?”She did not answer. Her eyes watched him, unblinking. He sighed. He must leave. Soon. He must move and keep moving or he might possibly never move again.“Stay here with me. Stay. For a while, beloved. A short time.”He climbed his rifle and then the cot and then the wall. He swayed and breathed and looked into her eyes. Was it the fire of spirit he perceived, or only the reflections of distant light upon the glass of her lenses?“I do what I must do,” he said. If you did love me you would not pull away. He rubbed at his left eye, blinking and squinting — the vision in that eye had been bad for the last week. Now it was gone. Blind — but why do you think you got two eyes, bucko?He was alone. He wore his clothes and his weapons were readied. The door swung silently inward. Christian leaned against the wall and took as much breath into his lungs as his brain would allow. Moving and motion and constant pushing forward. He stepped toward the door. The next step was easier. Hobbling, gravity did not defy him — it pulled him and encouraged him and if he did not lean too far forward he might not fall down, down, down to where he might never return. Christian made it to the door and exited the cell.They were waiting for him outside the building beneath a gray canopy of roiling sky and funnel cloud. They wore their white robes and they knelt two hundred mighty stretching from where he stood to the very gate he had entered. When he stood outside they began to chant, watching him keenly with their eyes of fire.Half murmured: “Pass us by. Pass us by. Pass us by.”Half prayed: “He is different. He is Satan.”“Boo,” Christian replied with little gusto. He moved forward.“My kid,” he croaked many times, looking right and left, but he could not compete with the rustling roar of the chanting multitude. He staggered amidst them and they withdrew before him, a path forming which ever way his drunken gait indicated. He looked, his eyes rolling, but they were indistinguishable in their bleached white garb.Someone took him by the arm and led him. Deep-Voice.“Paula,” Christian said.“She does not know you. The world has changed. So must you, Christian.”“My son.”“If you refuse change, then leave, Christian. Your vehicle is repaired. There are scrolls packed in the sidesaddles for the Napa monks. Sixty miles to the northwest. There will be a ten-mile row of crucifixions which will lead you to the monastery fort. Perhaps your child is there, Christian.”Christian grunted and pulled his arm from Deep-Voice. His eyes were crusted and he could barely distinguish the bobbing white shapes before him with his half-seeing right eye, but he kept moving, kept the action in place, and soon he was with the patched-up Buffalo Bill. His ribs ached and he knew he might faint when he lifted his throbbing leg to mount the cycle.“Why do you keep trying, Papa?” Kory said, standing before Buffalo Bill, wearing the same impish smile, with the same sparkling eyes and unruly hair.“I have to find you.”“No. If you knew I was dead, you would not stop.”“I can’t believe you’re dead, my wonderful son.”“But you are not looking for me.”“Then tell me, Kory, what am I looking for?” Christian said, wavering before the cycle.“Tell me, Papa, who are you looking for?”Christian stood alone before the motorcycle, blinking, tears streaming down his scarred face. Am I losing what little mind I have left? Or is that the true question — who am I really looking for?Three figures in white stood abreast near Christian.“Probation has closed, Christian. Stay with us, here, Christian, and be one with us,” intoned the first figure.“You know where you can go,” Christian muttered. He slammed the Winchester into the saddle holster.“You are different, you have chosen, thus you are evil,” intoned the second figure.“I’m following my way, in my fashion. I have to do it my way. You go to the same place as the first guy.”“Good-bye, beloved,” said the third figure.Christian stood blinking. Reality was a revolving door, first you are here and next you are there. Perhaps Kory was dead. Perhaps Paula was and had been and would be a dream. Perhaps there had never been than fateful marriage. Perhaps that last bullet between his ribs was his death and this now was hard time in Hell.“I’m moving because that is my nature,” said Christian aloud to himself. He gritted his teeth, bent his wounded leg, and swung into Buffalo Bill’s saddle. The revolving door pushed him around and around and around and he watched as his friends and lovers and blood watched him through the smeared glass. He saw himself as an arrogant teenager, the world his oyster, the elusive pearl always just out of reach. He saw himself as a young father, worrying and loving and frightened, moving the world with the lever of his will. He saw himself as an innocent boy, with bright happy eyes and an impish grin and a small chest aching for a hug.“Perhaps I am still out there, somewhere,” Christian whispered, smiling, and kicked the motorcycle into life without falling over.Revolve, revolve, revolve.The revolving door ceased revolving and the gate stood open like a mouth hungry for swallowing. He gunned the motorcycle.“Sixty miles to the northwest,” Christian said, easing out the clutch and throttling outside the stockade. “Not impossible, sixty miles. Done it before.”Northwest, the compass on the handlebars indicated, was directly through the renegades camping along the riverbed. He gunned the bike up to speed as bullets splashed in the dirt about him. As he approached the bandit lines and the bullets buzzed about him like angry wasps, he drew the pistol from his flak vest with his left hand.It seemed he traveled within a container, that he looked at the twisted world through jagged holes punched in a box. There was the sound of Buffalo Bill’s engine, whining, weeping, there was the insectile buzzing all about him, and there was such a dreamlike feeling of cushion about him he had to wonder if the door was revolving again.Revolve. Revolve. Reclining upon a world of down cushions, her mouth upon yours, sons unborn, seeds uplanted, a mundane world of softness and security, and your choices, your choices defining you, describing and delineating you.Revolve, revolve. Is that Kory, bleating an infant’s wet cry of helplessness? Is that Kory, his bubbling laughter bright and sweet, held high in the air? You can fly, my bouncing baby bunny boy! Wee-wee-wee! Flying, you’re flying! We’re flying!Buffalo Bill hit the bank at ninety miles per hour and soared in a beautiful high arc.“Fly Kory, fly!” Christian cries, far beyond registering the insane pain of the countless tearing wasp stings upon his breast and arms. The pistol in his hand is no longer important and falls away into the darkness below.For the first time in two years he sees the sky, a bright blue sky, and the sun a warm lemon in the blue sky — he sees the moon, he sees the diamond-at-night stars — he sees and touches each of his own private constellations.Perhaps the world has not altered so vehemently, so irreparably. Perhaps there are eternal things of beauty — perhaps love is one, not a light and whimsical thing to fade like flowers.Perhaps Christian has never been lost.N
