The roach was not squirming, obviously dead, but it was the or at least
part of it was, some bits of it apparently having been left behind.
“But we’ve got to keep moving,” Frank said, oblivious to the roach.
“He’s trying to follow us. We have to lose him by Darkness.
Fireflies.
Velocity.
They were on a high place, a rocky trail, with an incredible panorama
below them.
“Mount Fuji,” Frank said, not as if he had known where they were going
but as if pleasantly surprised to be there,
“About halfway up.” Bobby was not interested in the exotic view or
concerned about the chill in the air. He was entirely preoccupied by
the discovery that the roach was no longer a part of the toe of his
shoe.
“The Japanese once thought Fuji was sacred. I guess they still do, or
some of them do. And you can see why. It’s magnificent.”
“Frank, what happened to the roach?”
“What roach?”
“There was a roach welded into the leather of this shoe. I saw it back
there in the garden. You evidently brought it along from that
disgusting alleyway. Where is it now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you just drop its atoms along the way?” ‘I don’t know.” ‘Or are
its atoms still with me but somewhere else?”
“Bobby, I just don’t know.”
In Bobby’s mind was an image of his own heart, hidden within the dark
cavity of his chest, beating with the mystery of all hearts but with a
new secret all its own-the bristling legs and shiny carapace of a roach
embedded in the muscle tissue that formed the walls of the atrium or a
ventricle.
An insect might be inside of him, and even if the thing was dead, its
presence within was intolerable. An attack of entomophobia hit him with
the equivalent force of a hammer blow to the gut, knocking the wind out
of him, sending undulate waves of nausea through him. He struggled to
breathe, at the same time striving not to vomit on the sacred ground of
Mount Fuji.
Darkness.
Fireflies.
Velocity.
They hit more violently this time, as if they had materialized in midair
and had fallen a few feet onto the ground. They didn’t manage to hold
on to each other, and they didn’t land on their feet, either. Separated
from Frank, Bobby rolled dow a gentle incline, over small objects that
clattered and clicked under him and poked painfully into his flesh. When
he tumble to a halt, gasping and frightened, he was face down on gray
soil almost as powdery as ashes. Scattered around him, sparkling
brightly against that ashen backdrop, were hundreds if not thousands of
red diamonds in the rough.
Raising his head, he saw that the diamond miners were the in unnerving
numbers: a score of huge insects just like the ones they had taken to
Dyson Manfred. Caught, as he was, in whirlpool of panic, Bobby believed
that every one of those bugs was fixated on him, all those multifaceted
eyes turned toward him, all those tarantula legs churning through the
powder gray soil in his direction.
He felt something crawling on his back, knew what it must be, and rolled
over, pinning the thing between him and the ground. He felt it
squirming frantically beneath him. Propel by repulsion, he was suddenly
on his feet, without quite remembering how he had gotten up. The bug
was still clinging to the back of his shirt; he could feel its weight,
its quick-foot advance from the small of his back to his neck. He
reached behind, tore it off himself, cried out in disgust as it kicked
against his hand, and pitched it was far away as he could.
He heard himself breathing hard and making queer little sounds of fear
and desperation. He didn’t like what he heard but he was unable to
silence himself.
A foul taste filled his mouth. He figured he had ingested some of the
powdery soil. He spat, but his spittle looked clear and he realized
that the air itself was what he tasted. The warm air was thick, not
humid exactly but thick, like nothing he had experienced before. And in