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Show m again. % voice rose from my navel and exploded in a shriek as unkind and unseemly as a gunshot, ripping the air around it and gouging soft, composed flesh. The body was an empty pod, a poorly-sculpted fragment, however carefully the drying folds of skin had been sewn together, however skillfully clay had been molded to fill the holes, however carefully the flesh-colored paint had been applied and the hair combed gently so as not to make it fall out. The hands that had stitched sc many gaping wounds and rested on so many heads in blessing, the hands that had delivered me into the world now were carefully manipulated into position, supposed to look peaceful but their stiffness undisguised. It wasn't him. He had gone and was somewhere beyond us again. I covered my face. Hy sisters had come to me, some horrified by my sounds ing grief, some understand'; though better-controlled. "It isn't him," I tried to explain. "Ch, Jeannie, yes it is.' It's Daddy. look - he's only asleep. His body is asleep." But fear ruled my body, a worm in my s .o^cn 0na,.^u a widening hole. Resurrection remained a ~ untranslated to faith or reality. That night lareamed of my father, -c -h P.T.A -crev felt house in his shiny, seco: Is of nd-hand black su_ i. ---- -^--o me, and. in my sleep, ;ruly. could feel his body, his cells on mine registeri-s ^ ,. ,,. -r, r^r^d-d at me= "Of course, darling." ,,-,,. A A-- ,-pi,»rp alive I ne nc^j.-^- <- „J? \~ A <-. - ^i3ph. "Feelirnr ne I awaxenec. wi en ^-e i"v,iv-a had been in the rcom with me. |