Dreambox Junkies
Page 22
Aghast, Ex-Ratface said to Ruth, “I can't believe I hit you."
“And sorry about the door,” added the second reformed goon, whose nose, though still tattooed, now adorned a nicer face.
“Would you like me to come back and fix it for you?” offered the third, no less diminutive but, like his friends, a good deal kinder now around the eyes.
Paulie shook his head.
“You sure now?"
Paulie nodded.
“'Bye, then ... and take care."
The trio of penitents gingerly reopened the broken cottage door, taking great trouble not to damage it further.
This is insanity, Paulie Rayle thought. But a whole new sort of insanity, one far preferable to the old. He needed a cigarette.
But wait—no, he didn't need one.
Funny.
Ruth got up, kissed him, took Kali from him and cuddled her. “I remember it occurring to me that maybe the only thing that would do it was a direct threat, a physical threat, to Kali, to you.” She eyed him solemnly. “I want you to forgive me. I should never have put you both through all that. Not that I was doing it at a conscious level. That's if it really was my doing."
Paulie could do little but wait for his emotions to catch up; they seemed to have been mislaid in transit between worlds.
“You often hear of amazing physical feats performed on behalf of a loved one. So why not psychic feats, too?” Ruth wrinkled her nose. “This whole place stinks of piss. I think we've ruined that mattress."
Paulie asked her, “What was it you dreamt?"
“I don't know, I don't remember. Whatever it took to save you and Kali."
“ONTOTECH or SAGRADA?"
Ruth shrugged.
Paulie pushed open the window. He was greeted by the scent of honeysuckle. Ruth brought Kali over to see this miracle of a fresh summer's day in the middle of a February night.
Rain began to fall. Big droplets, slow and lazy. A summer shower. Rain and sunshine both together. They went outside. The warm rain washed them, and there was a rainbow, and it was all just a little too rosy and cosy. To Paulie Rayle's mind, at any rate. Yet Ruth appeared at home here. And so did Kali, gurgling contentedly.
They went back in. Handing him the baby, Ruth grasped his discarded shirt between her toes, flipped it up off the floor and caught it. Dropping it down over her head, she wriggled sinuously into the garment and grinned at him. How he loved her, this Goddess to whom he owed everything.
She said to him, “Believe."
He would try. It wouldn't be easy. But he would try his very best. For he had never seen Ruth so happy. And it gave him such pleasure, her happiness. And this world did indeed feel different. And something told Paulie Rayle that it would prove radically unlike any other world he had ever known, or even imagined.
He thought, Deus ex machina.
And watched Ruth rummage in the drawer and step into a clean pair of knickers.
—THE END—
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