The flames behind died and were gone as the night rushed him headlong.
The carnival vision was blistered away by the onrushing headlamps of another car.
THE PSYCHEDELIC CHILDREN
Whether or not one believes the scientific “evidence” that LSD-25 causes damage to the chromosomes, one has to admit that the idea of a child mutated by LSD use is an intriguing one. It must be intriguing, for I received about a dozen letters from readers about this story, and it has been published in French and will be included in a book of stories and author interviews to be published later this year in Spain. What interests readers, I think and hope, is not so much the plot, but the style (ah, now the traditionalists leap down my throat!). I have attempted to write a story whose style (typography and scene-switching, and mood counterpointing) would convey to the reader a sense of the psychedelic, of a mild acid trip. The end of the story fits into this attempt, for it is much like a drug delusion, suddenly turning the tables on you and making you realize how thin is the fabric of what you thought was reality. . . .
He woke even before she and lay listening to the rasping of her breath: seafoam whispering over jagged rocks. It would get worse before she woke. He reached to the night-stand and took a cigarette from the nearly empty pack, lighted it, and sat up. He tried not to think of the energies raging within her mind, of the deadly and painful powers roaring there. In the darkness, he tried to turn his mind to other things.
The view from the window was pleasant, for snow had been falling since suppertime, embracing everything. The clouds parted now and then to let the moon through. It lighted the night, washing onto the white blanket and splashing back. Beyond the hoary willow tree lay the highway, a black slash in the calcimined wonderland. It was obvious that the heater coils in the roadbed had broken down again, for the drifts were edging back onto the hard surface unchecked. Old-fashioned plows were working on things now.
“Ashen dreams fluttering flaked
float peacefully downward
while lightning men with swords
stroke the brain harshly
and draw fingernails
over the ice . . .”
He was not certain whether that was completely senseless or not. It was a mood piece, no doubt. He repeated it softly again. He would have to remember it, polish it—perhaps—for inclusion in his next volume.
Minutes later, he looked back to Laurie. Her face was pale, her eyes closed and edged with wrinkles. He ran his hand through the billows of raven hair that cascaded down her pillow. She moaned in answer, the air rushing in and out of her chest. Harder, harder she breathed. Deciding to get a head start this time, he stood and pulled on his trousers, slipped into a banlon shirt.
“Frank?” she said.
“I know.”
She slipped out of bed, naked, and dressed in a sheath— a red and black one that he liked.
“I’ll pull the car out of the garage,” he said.
“The snow—”
“They seem to have it under control. Don’t worry. I’ll pick you up at the front door in five minutes.”
“I love you,” she said as he went through the doorway into the shadow-filled living room. That always sent shivers through him: that face, that voice, those words.
He took a flashlight and the gun that lay beside it from the kitchen catchall drawer. Stepping into the glittering night, he stuffed the gun in a jacket pocket and sniffed the cold air. It hurt all the way down into his lungs and woke him all the way up. The path between house and garage was unshoveled; the snow lay a good twelve or fourteen inches deep. He plodded through it, listening to the easy sweep of the wind, the distant moan of heavy machinery battling Nature. The garage door hummed open when it recognized his thumbprint on the lock disc. He crawled into the car, started it, backed out, pushing snow with the rear bumper. He flipped on the front and rear heating bars. With Laurie’s problem, he had to be ready to move at any hour, in any weather. The melting bars had been a costly extra, but a necessary one. When he pulled up to the front door, she was waiting. She climbed in, huddled next to him.