Oliver Benjamin
deepening shade of blue. Both looked tranquil and exhausted after a
week of raging and roaring. Leona looked out over the waves and
tried to locate the sailing vessel of her dream, her intrepid sea-
captain.
“I guess it’s over,” Sprout said, coming up behind her. Leona
didn’t say anything. “Are you going to come back to us?” she asked,
but Leona still didn’t answer.
“I don’t blame you,” Leona said at last.
“Blame me? For what?” Sprout said.
“For everything. I realize now what this is all about.”
Sprout looked at Leona’s face, turning brighter in the advancing
daylight. She thought Leona might still be dreaming. She was.
“Have I made you uncomfortable?” Sprout said.
“No,” replied Leona, “Just the opposite. You’ve made me
unburdened. You’ve made me unnatural.” She regarded the beauty of
the smaller woman then drew her close and held her tightly. They
were as different as a goldfish and a dugong.
She collected Sprout’s clothes and directed her gently to the
door. Sprout barely had time to say anything before she found herself
unclothed in the hallway of the expensive apartment building.
Mirrors on the walls and ceilings multiplied her image into an
infinite arc. A modern Michelangelo might have painted this celestial
sight: a population of angels inhabiting the infinite hallways of
Heaven. Hard, unfiltered light poured through the windows and
illuminated the dust particles floating around her like tiny stars.
3. Demonlaced
Roy looked out his bedroom window at the clear sky. He was
overjoyed, relieved that the weather had finally come to its senses.
But something else seemed different too. Out of the new dry silence
came the ambience of something extraordinary. There was a tension
in the air, a sort of anomalous background hum. He opened his
window. It was the electric hubbub of humans hobnobbing.
Something was afoot. He threw on some clothes and skipped out to
the Promenade.
Sprout went home to sleep for a few hours and then headed in to
work at eleven a.m. She could scarcely believe her eyes when she
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