Page 482 - Some Dance to Remember

452 Jack Fritscher

“Solly said that.”
“Be assured,” I said. “I am someone else.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Me,” I said, soothing his forehead, staring deep into his eyes, pulling
him back from the edge. “Like you, I’m just me, Charles Bishop, out of
San Francisco, California, North America, the Earth, the Solar System,
the Cosmos. Just me. Just another human.”
“Just like Kick.” Ryan stared straight into my eyes in the mirror.
“Human. Just like them all.”
“Just like me,” he said. His face flushed. “What is, is what I am.”
“You finally understand,” I said.
“I always understood. I...just...wanted...to feel...everything.”
Fully human was all he had ever wanted to be.
“We are what we are.”
“I have no more tears,” he said. “I have a sadness.”
“Nothing stays forever.”
“Sadness stays forever.”
Fear, something like Adam must have felt at the first dawn of his first
knowledge that he was different from the other animals, caused his high
forehead to tighten, relax, tighten, relax, under my hand.
“What can I say?” I said.
“Time wounds all heels?” He managed a sad mood-swinging smile.
“How will I feel when today is tomorrow?”
“Old truths,” I said. “Better to have loved and lost...”
“No, it’s not,” Ryan said. “No. It’s not.”

Freeze Frame

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK