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Show S&0 and white. In the l a s t rays of the sun I could see through the clear blue of his eyes. A powerful sense of eternalness returned, making my skin l i f t in goosebumps.and I saw h i s blue eyes again and again, on one plane of time and space a f t e r another. I looked into his eyes and saw a l l the male-beings I had ever known. His face became the face of Jehovah, the face of Jesus Christ, the face of my father demanding, expecting a loyzal member, a ~T~. well spring of f i d e l i t y . My h e a r t swelled and overflowed. I touched his shoulder. " I t ' s lonely h e r e , " Sd said from the other side of the f i r e. His face was carved in shadows and touched with flames so that it appeared coarse and animal. I f e l t g u i l t ; somehow I had misled him. I looked back at Brian. Again, the sense of eternalness, but his face was red with f i r e l i g h t , his ears seeming to flare in points of f i r e , the sharpness and slant of flames intruding on h i s eyes, his f e a t u r e s . He was burning, angry. "Wood." He said. " I t ' s stubborn stuff. People don't resist like t h i s . They crumble. You know that?" He looked d i r e c t l y at me. I nodded, frightened. His face seemed to be the face of Satan - heavy and hot and morbid, the face °f loss and destruction. "You know t h a t ? " he asked, looking at the dark hulk that was M, "Know what." "People burn f a s t . It doesn't take much to set them on fire - j u s t a l i t t l e cannister ofwhite phosphorus or some well-directed napalm and in ten or twenty minutes they're ashes and l i g h t . Ashes and l i g h t . You see that where you were?" |