Spring flowers, he thought as he reached the elevator. Little ones; they probably grow close to the ground and a lot of people step on them. Do they grow wild? Or in special commercial vats on in huge enclosed farms? I wonder what the country is like. The fields and like that, the strange smells. And, he wondered, where do you find that? Where do you go and how do you get there and stay there? What kind of trip is that, and what kind of ticket does it take? And who do you buy the ticket from?
And, he thought, I would like to take someone with me when I go there, maybe Donna. (查看原文)
"Right on," he said mechanically. And then it flashed on him what Donna had said -- asking him to take her out. "Alll riiiight!" he said, pleased; life flowed back into him. Once again, the little dark-haired chick whom he loved so much had restored him to caring. (查看原文)
"What is it?" one staff member said.
Donna said, "A person."
"Substance D?"
She nodded.
"It ate his head. Another loser."
She said to the two of them, "It's easy to win, Anybody can win." Bending down over Robert Arctor she said, silently.
Good-by. (查看原文)
Stared at them, at the straights in their fat suits, their fat ties, their fat shoes, and he thought, Substance D can’t destroy their brains; they have none. (查看原文)
"A dream woke me, " Arctor said. A religious dream. In it there was this huge clap of thunder, and all of a sudden the heavens rolled aside and God appeared and His voice rumbled at me—what the hell did He say?—oh yeah. ‘I am vexed with you, my son, ‘ He said. He was scowling. I was shaking, in the dream, and looking up, and I said, ‘What’d I do now , Lord ?’ And He said, ‘ You left the cap off the toothpaste tube again. ‘ And then I realized it was my ex-wife. “ (查看原文)
But the actual touch of her lingered, inside his heart. That remained. In all the years of his life ahead, the long years without her, with never seeing her or hearing from her or knowing any thing about her, if she was alive or happy or dead or what, that touch stayed locked within him, sealed in himself, and never went away. That one touch of her hand. (查看原文)
