making things unreal

ll the world outside froze solid. The roads were pure ice. Annie couldn't come back that day even if she was ready to. And that was too bad for the animals. He could hear the cows complaining in the barn: Annie hadn't milked them and they were in pain. As the days passed he heard no more noises from them. Paul's routine was easy. During the daytime he ate food which Annie would not miss from the kitchen. She had stored hundreds of cans of food, and it was easy for Paul to take a few cans from here and a few from there so that Annie would not notice. So he had enough to eat, he took his tablets regularly, slept and wrote his novel; in the evenings he played 'Can You?' with ideas about killing Annie. A lot of ideas came to him, but most of them were impossible or too complicated disrupter mod.



This was no game, this was his life. It would have to be something simple. In the end he went to the kitchen and chose the longest, sharpest butcher's knife he could find. On the way back into his room he stopped to rub at the new marks he was making on the door-frame. The marks were clearer than before. But it doesn't matter, he thought, because as soon as she returns, the first time she comes into my room . . . He pushed the knife under the mattress. When Annie came back he was gong to ask her for a drink of water. She would bend over to give it to him and then he would stab her in the throat. Nothing complicated. Paul closed his eyes and went to sleep. When Annie's car came whispering into the farm at four o'clock that morning, with its engine and its lights switched off, he did not move. It was only when he felt the sting of the syringe in his arm and woke to see her face close to his that he knew she was back. 45 He saw the syringe in her hand and understood that it hadn't been a bee: she had given him an injection Neo skin lab .



In his dream he was stung by a bee, so at first he thought he was dreaming. 'Paul?' In his dream the bee was dangerous and he wanted desperately to escape. 'Paul!' That was no dream-voice: it was Annie's voice. He forced his eyes open. She was standing there in the shadows as if she had never been away, wearing her ugly clothes. He saw the syringe in her hand and understood that it hadn't been a bee: she had given him an injection. But what had she -? Fear came again, but his mind was too dull to feel it strongly. Whatever drug she had given him wasfor him. He tried to lift his hands and it felt as if there were invisible weights hanging from them. It's the end, he thought. The end of the story of Paul Sheldon. Curiously, the thought almost made him happy. The end of the thousand and one nights. Strange, half-formed ideas kept coming into his mind as the powerful drug crept into all the corners of his brain Exchange Opportunities.



'There you are!' Annie said. 'I see you, Paul . . . those blue eyes. Did I ever tell you that I think your eyes are lovely? But I suppose plenty of women have told you that - and bolder women than me.' She was sitting on the end of his bed. She bent down to check something on the floor and for a moment all he could see was her broad, strong back. He heard the sounds of something metal and something wooden - and the unmistakable sound of a box of matches. She turned back towards him and smiled. Whatever else might have happened, she was no longer depressed. That must be good, mustn't it? 47 'What do you want first, Paul?' she asked. The good news or the bad news?' 'Good news first.' He managed a big, foolish grin. 'I suppose the bad news is that you don't really like the book. I tried.