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Show house/ 405 Now I looked down at Brian's head propped s t i f f l y against a clenched and folded pillow, as though in stern disapproval of himself. But his breath flowed gently, untainted, his mouth slightly open and his cheeks rosy from sleep, like a c h i l d ' s. We had laughed so hard the night before - reading lines intended for seriousness but finding unsurpassable humor in the modern posturing of one of the beat writers of San Francisco. "I almost swallowed a l l that, you know?" Brian said, giggling. And we had read on, pounding each o t h e r ' s shoulders like children, for the moment forgettingAthat we lived in sin. Despite the soldierly hardness of Brian's body and the intensity of his mind, his s p i r i t was l i k e dandelion daa±. Such an ephemeral foundation for the ponderous l i f e I was turning over to him! I thought of t h i s and considered again my decision to marry Brian. My nightmares had been lighted by great shapes of feeling and effusion^and I f e l t that the battles I watched were the b a t t l e s of a l l time - not Vietnam, but an eternal struggle peopled by eternal beings. The shapes communicated to me with waves of l i g h t that did not become words, but changed tn'iT^iilTWiiriSff' m-~ «•&, feelings, paring the shell of self from the walls of my h e a r t . I had turned on the lamp and sat at my desk and had written, written without knowing why or how I wrote. And then I read back to myself what I must dov. Marry Brian and have his child. In a •-' Brian had agreed instantly. His mother d±3 not. Now Brian's eyes flickered against the spreading sunlight, and I crawled quickly out of bed, away from the sense of falling that lately had become part of waking up. I didn't want him to ee me as I am in the morning, wild-eyed and bewildered at the to*, |
