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Show 18 he was getting somewhere. The holes in the earth seemed to do it. He fancied he was sinking slowly past his heart and lungs, deep into unknown corridors where the light was a dusky rose and the air was warm and damp. Pictures of ancestors hung on the walls above and beside him, pulsing with blood. The one of his grandfather Solomon showed the old gentleman in a green velvet jacket with three buttons down the front, one of which glinted gold and proved on closer inspection to have a tiny eagle biting the head of a tiny snake engraved on its surface. He examined this button for a time and was prepared to go deeper when something unpleasant happened. At first it felt like ice crystals forming at the back of his brain. His head went numb and at the same time a bruise of lights coalesced in either eye, wild splotches of color through which tiny people ran, waving their arms. His elbows, already pressed against his body to the limits of his strength, were yanked closer until he thought his ribs would pop. He unclasped his hands and tried to touch his face but they were shaking so violently he couldn't get them close. Air was forced from his lungs, and he realized he was crushing his chest with his knees. His head was pulled down between his shoulders. He couldn't draw a breath but a sharp fetid odor rose from his body and penetrated his nostrils, making his sinuses ache. Sharp stones cut his back. That was what made him realize he was no longer on his knees, but he could not remember rolling over. He felt the sockets at his shoulders and hips grind horribly. Behind the aura in each eye the daylight was turning brown. A rush of childhood memories coursed through his brain, and he knew this must be the end--a week spent sick in bed drinking large mugs of fenugreek tea, an unkind word to his mother when he was eight, a prank for which his father had stropped him when he was eleven, stealing from a neighbor's pea patch when he was five. A |