things which women really need but which they may not know they
subconsciously desire, those things which children want but of which
they dare not speak. He understands that his wife and children will
welcome and thrive upon utter domination, harsh discipline, physical
abuse, sexual subjugation, even humiliation. At first opportunity, he
intends to fulfill their deepest and most primitive longings, as the
lenient false father apparently will never be able to do, and together
they will be a family, living in harmony and love, sharing a destiny,
held together forever by his singular wisdom, strength, and demanding
heart.
He drifts toward healing sleep, confident of waking with full health and
vigor in several hours.
A few feet from him, in the trunk of the car, lies the dead man who once
owned the Buick–cold, stiff, and without any appealing prospects of his
own.
How good it is to be special, to be needed, to have a destiny.
Still we’re at the point where hope and reason part, lies the spot where
madness gets a start.
Hope to make the world kinder and free but flowers of hope root in
reality.
No peaceful bed exists for lamb and lion, unless on some world out
beyond Orion.
Do not instruct the owls to spare the mice.
Owls acting as owls must is not a vice.
Storms do not respond to heartfelt pleas.
All the words of men can’t calm the seas.
Nature–always beneficent o.nd cruel wont change for a wise man or a
fool.
Mankind shares all Nature’s imperfections, clearly visible to casual
inspections.
Resisting betterment is the human trait.
The ideal of utopia is our tragic fate.
–The Book of Counted Sorrows
We sense that life is a dark comedy and
maybe we can live with that.
However, because the whole thing is written for the entertainment of the
gods, too many of the jokes go right over our heads.
Two Vanished Victims, Martn Stillwater Immediately after leaving the
roadside rest area where the dead retirees relaxed forever in the cozy
dining nook of their motorhome, heading back along I-40 toward Oklahoma
City with the inscrutable Karl Clocker behind the wheel, Drew Oslett
used his state-of-the-art cellular phone to call the home office in New
York City. He reported developments and requested instructions.
The telephone he used wasn’t yet for sale to the general public.
To the average citizen, it would never be available with all of the
features that Oslett’s model offered.
It plugged into the cigarette lighter like other cellulars, however,
unlike others, it was operable virtually anywhere in the world, not
solely within the state or service area in which it was issued.
Like the SATU electronic map, the phone incorporated a direct satellite
up link. It could directly access at least ninety percent of the
communications satellites currently in orbit, bypassing their land-based
control stations, override security-exclusion programs, and connect with
any telephone the user wished, leaving absolutely no record that the
call had been made. The violated phone company would never issue a bill
for Oslett’s call to New York because they would never know that it had
been placed using their system.
He spoke freely to his New York contact about what he had found at the
rest stop, with no fear that he would be overheard by anyone, because
his phone also included a scrambling device that he activated with a
simple switch. A matching scrambler on the home office phone rendered
his report intelligible again upon receipt, but to anyone who might
intercept the signal between Oklahoma and the Big Apple, Oslett’s words
would sound like gibberish.
New York was concerned about the murdered retirees only to the extent
that there might be a way for the Oklahoma authorities to link their
killing to Alfie or to the Network, which was the name they used among
themselves to describe their organization. “You didn’t leave the shoes
there?” New York asked.
“Of course not,” Oslett said, offended at the suggestion of
incompetence.
“All of the electronics in the heel–”
“I have the shoes here.”
“That’s right-out-of-the-lab stuff. Any knowledgeable person who sees
it, he’s going to go ape-shit and maybe”
“I have the shoes,” Oslett said tightly.