Chapter 32 Section 30

The brain works in the dark like a greedy machine - the only sane thing in the universe.I tried to make out the surrounding walls, the dresser in the corner.It is the old feeling of defenselessness, smallness, weakness, loneliness, going to the grave. -God of the forest and the wild, half-goat-looking--to be frightening.I remembered the clock radio and turned my head to the right.I watched the numbers change, the minute numbers went from odd to even.They glow green in the dark. After a while, I woke up Babette.Heat rose from her body as she turned to face me.Hearty gas.A mixture of forgetfulness and sleep.Where am I?who are you?What am I dreaming about?

"We have to talk," I said. She muttered a few words, as if she wanted to push away something jumping in front of her eyes.As I reached to turn on the light, she punched me backhanded on the arm.light is on.She flinched toward the radio, covering her head and humming. "You can't avoid it. There are things we have to talk about. I want to know Mr. Gray. I want to know the real name of the Gray Institute." All she could do at this point was mumble, "No." "I'm being reasonable about this. I have a sense of reason to observe things, without the luxury of hope or expectation. I just want to check it out and try it out. I don't believe in magical things. I'm just saying' Let me try, let me see'. I lie here hour after hour, really limp. I soak in cold sweat. Touch my breasts, Babette."

"Five more minutes. I need a little sleep." "Touch it. Give me your hand. See how wet it is." "We all sweat," she said. "What's sweat?" "It's sweating profusely here." "Be careful. It's not good, Jack." "I just ask for a few minutes alone with Mr. Gray to find out if I am worthy of life." "He'll think you're going to kill him." "But that would be madness. I would. How could I kill him?" "He'll know I told you about the motel." "The motel thing is over, it's over. I can't change the fact of the motel. Am I going to kill the only person who can take away my pain? If you don't believe me, rub my armpit."

"He'll think you're a vindictive husband." "The motel thing, it's just a little bit of a bummer. I kill him, will it feel better? He doesn't have to know who I am. I'm pretending to be someone else, creating a scene. Please help me." "Don't tell me you're sweating. What's sweat? I made a promise to that man." We sat at the kitchen table in the morning.The clothes dryer was spinning in the hallway, and I heard the snap of buttons and zippers against the walls of the tub. "I already know what to say to him. I'll be calm and objective, just descriptive, no philosophy or theology. I'll invoke the nosy spirit in him. He's sure to be tempted by the fact that I'm doomed. Truth be told, That's more than you can ask for. My need is urgent. I'm sure he'll respond to it. Plus, he wants another experiment on living people. That's what these people are."

"How do I know you won't kill him?" "Are you my wife and am I a murderer?" "You're a man, Jack. We all know men and their mad rage. That's what men are good at. Raging jealousy, murderous rage. When people are good at something, it's only natural for them to seek opportunities to try it out. Yes. If I was good at it, I would do it. As it happens, I am not. So, instead of unleashing murderous rage, I read books and newspapers to blind people. In other words, I understand my limitations. I am willing to engage in Insignificant thing." "What did I do to get this far? It's not like you. Sarcasm, sarcasm."

"Never mind it," she said. "'Daile' was my mistake. I won't let you make it." We listened to the click and scrape of buttons and zipper tabs.It's time for me to leave for school.A voice upstairs says, "Some Californian think tank says the next world war might be over salt." All afternoon I stood at my office window, watching the Observatory.As it was getting dark, Winnie Richards appeared at the wicket, looked left and right, then began to trot along the sloped lawn at a wolf's trot.I hurried out of the office and went downstairs.Seconds later, I was on the pebble track outside and was running.Almost at once I experienced a strange excitement, that exhilarating thrill that marks the return of a long-lost pleasure.I saw her mastering her steps, gliding around a corner, and disappearing behind the maintenance building.I ran as fast as I could, straightened my chest, held my head high, swung my arms up and down violently, and ran against the wind without any hesitation.She reappeared by the edge of the library, a watchful and furtive figure moving under the arched windows, barely visible in the twilight.As she approached the steps, she suddenly accelerated, going from an almost upright start to a full-body sprint.Even if such dexterous and cute movements leave me behind, I can appreciate them.I decided to copy from the back of the library and catch up with her on the long straight road to the chemistry lab.For a brief moment I ran side by side with the hockey team as they ran off the field after practice.We counted our steps, and the players swung their clubs in a ritualized fashion, humming something I couldn't understand.When I reached the main road, I was out of breath.Winnie was nowhere to be seen.I ran through the faculty parking lot, past the thoroughly modern chapel, and around the administration building.The wind can be heard now, creaking among the tall bare branches.I ran to the east, changed my mind, and stood looking around, taking off my dark glasses and staring.I want to run, I want to run.I'm going to run as fast as I can, all night long, and forget why I'm running.After a while, I saw a figure running slowly up a small hill on the edge of the campus.That must be her.I knew she wasn't too far away, that she would disappear over the hill and not be seen for weeks, so I started running again.I did my best to make the last sprint up the hill. I ran across concrete, grass, and then gravel. I felt my lungs burning in my chest, and my legs felt as if the whole earth was pulling—this is the last thing on earth. Essence and the strongest verdict: the falling body theorem.

What a surprise I was when I saw she had stopped there when we were almost at the top.She was wearing a jacket made of triangular panels and padded with insulation, and she was gazing westward.I walked slowly towards her.As I walked past a row of private homes, I saw what had stopped her.There is a cloud of haze rolling in the sky.It held the sun above it, sinking like a ship in a sea of ​​fire.Another post-modern sunset, full of romantic imagery.Why bother to describe it?It is enough to say that everything we see in our field of vision seems to exist to gather the light in this event.Not that this is one of the more spectacular sunsets.There have been stronger colors, narrative breadths with deeper meanings.

"Hey, Jack. I didn't know you were up here too." "I usually go to the overpass of the highway." "Isn't that nothing?" "It's pretty." "Makes me think. Really." "What are you thinking about?" "What can you think about in the face of such a beauty? I panic, and I understand it." "It's not the most alarming kind of beauty." "It scares me. Man, look!" "Did you see it last Tuesday? An intense and jaw-dropping sunset. I'm counting this tonight as a normal sunset. Maybe they're fading away."

"I hope not," she said. "I'm going to miss them." "It could be a reduction in toxic residues in the atmosphere." "There is an idea that the sunsets like this are not leftovers from the smoke, but from the remains of microbes that eat the smoke." We stood there watching a surge of brilliant light, like the beating of a heart in a color documentary. "Remember that disc-shaped pill?" "Of course," she said, "a great work of art." "I found out what it was designed to do. It was designed to solve an age-old problem: the fear of death. It triggers the brain to produce inhibin, the fear of death."

"But we still die." "Yes, everyone must die." "Let's just not be scared," she said. "right." "Interesting, I think." "The 'Dale' was designed by a secret research group. I believe there are several psychobiologists among these people. I don't know if you've heard rumors that a group is secretly studying the fear of death." "I will never hear it. Nobody can find me. They only come to tell me important things." "What is more important than this?" "You're talking nonsense, rumours. It's nothing, Jack. Who are these people? Where's their base?"

"That's why I've been chasing you. I think you know a little about them. I don't even know what a psychobiologist does." "It's an all-encompassing thing, interdisciplinary. The real work is taking risks in the abyss." "Is there anything else you can tell me?" Something in my tone made her turn and look at me.Winnie was just over thirty, but she had a wise and worldly eye for the half-hidden mishaps life required.A long, narrow face was partly hidden by long, thin brown curls, and the eyes were bright and excited.She looked like a large wading animal with a beak and a hollow skeleton.The mouth is small and reserved.Smiling is like perpetually wrestling with some inner bondage, resisting the lure of humor.Murray told me that he was once infatuated with her, and that her physical clumsiness was a sign of too rapid intellectual development—and I think I see what he means.She's always probing the world around her, grabbing what's in it, and sometimes going too far. "I don't know what personal involvement you have with this thing," she said, "but I think it's wrong for people to lose awareness of death and even the fear of death. Isn't death the boundary we need? Isn't it the Do you live with a sense of precious substance, of clarity? You have to ask yourself, if you lose the sense of final boundaries, boundaries, or limits, will anything you do in this life still have beauty and meaning?" I saw the light climb into the round cloud peaks high in the sky.Jialuxian chewing gum, Vera mints, Frieden chewing gum. "People think I'm dreamy," she says. "I do have a fantastic theory of human fear. Imagine yourself, Jack, a staunch family-centered guy, a long-time desk guy, finding Walking by yourself in dense woods. You see something out of the corner of your eye. Before you know anything else, you know that this thing is very large and it is not in your ordinary frame of reference. The world picture A blemish. Either it shouldn't be here, or you shouldn't be here. Now it's in full view. It's a grizzly bear, huge, shiny brown, waddling when it walks, revealing Teeth dripping. Jack, you've never seen a truly large animal in the wild. The feeling of seeing this grizzly bear was strange and exciting, and gave you a whole new awareness of yourself, of yourself—in a unique and terrifying situation Your self—a new awareness. You observe yourself in a new and intense way. You rediscover yourself. You are overwhelmed by the prospect of being dismembered. The beast sitting on your hind legs makes you It’s as if for the first time you are able to know who you are, to leave your familiar surroundings and see who you are alone, clearly and fully. The name we give to this complex process is fear.” "Fear is a higher level of self-awareness." "Yes, Jack." "And death?" I said. "Self, self, self. If death could be seen as less foreign and unreferenced, your awareness of the self associated with death would diminish, and so would your fear." "What do I do to make death less strange? How do I go about it?" "I have no idea." "Am I risking my life by driving fast on a corner? Should I go rock climbing for the weekend?" "I don't know," she said, "I wish I knew." "Shall I put on my buckle belt and scrape the exterior of the ninety-story building? What shall I do, Winnie? Shall I sit in a cage full of African vipers like my son's best friend? That’s what people do today.” "I think what you should do, Jack, is forget about the medicine in that tablet. Obviously, there's no medicine in it." She is correct.They are all correct.Get on with my life, raise my kids, and teach my students.Try not to think about that dead-looking figure in the "Greyview Motel" who is pressing his unmanicured hand on my wife. "I'm still sad, Winnie, but you've given my sorrow a richness and depth I never knew existed." She turned away, blushing. I said, "You are more than a friend in need—you are a true enemy." Her face became very red. I said, "Smart people never think about the lives they destroy because they are smart." I watched her blush.With both hands she pulled her knitted hat down over her ears.We took one last look at the sky and started walking down the hill.

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