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.It was more of an expansion than a displacement.My eyes were still shut, but I experienced a weird kind of quasi-visual hallucination.I  saw Anne tiltback her head, opening her mouth as she did so, to take hold of my neck as though to bite it but Iknew she didn't really do any such thing, because I couldn't feel her lips or teeth at all when she liftedherself slightly to make contact.Instead, I felt as if the side of my throat were becoming numb, strange,molten.It felt as if something were being drawn out of me, ever so gently: perhaps blood, perhaps energyGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html.or perhaps something else, something unnameable, unimaginable.I gasped in surprise, because the sudden awareness that the horizons of my experience could still bestretched in that almost magical way seemed to be a very significant discovery.I felt dizzy, and then I felt tired, but the way the dizziness dissolved into tiredness was so very smoothand seemingly natural that I just went with it and didn't try to resist at all.I felt that I was falling, and I justlet myself go, without any thought at all of what might happen when the fall was arrested.I think I wouldhave fallen into a drugged sleep, if it hadn't been for Anne.All of a sudden, Anne screamed.It probably wasn't the virus which made her do it I'm not certain that she'd already been infected atthat point in time.I think it was probably me.She was probably relaxing, falling asleep herself, when I letmy full weight down on her.I had always taken good care to support my weight on my elbows, but in thegrip of that strange drunkenness I must have become a dead weight and she must have suddenlybecome aware of me pressing down, seemingly threatening to crush and suffocate her.Maybe it recalledsome secret fear of hers, or invoked one of those irrational phobias we all have.Anyhow, she overreacted.Her scream pulled me out of it, and I immediately caught myself up, pulled back from her.We cameapart, and I tried to throw myself sideways, to set her free but she caught me and tried to hold me.Shewas presumably ashamed of her overreaction, trying to take back the effect of her scream.'It's all right, she said. I'm sorry it's all right.''Jesus, I said weakly, not yet quite able to get my thoughts together sufficiently to make light of it. Youscared the shit out of me.What the hell was it?'It was a stupid question, but I was still befuddled.'A dream, she said quickly. Only a dream.'When she let me go, I carried on falling, overtaken by an overwhelming lethargy.There was nowhere tofallto , but even when I was flat on my back I seemed to be falling still.I didn't know what washappening, and couldn't seem to pull myself together.'It's okay, she said, while she was putting her clothes on. It's fine.Don't get up.It's not late.I'll be allright. Her voice was forced, but it was more embarrassment than fear.She was ashamed of herself forhaving upset the mood of the moment, and now she wanted to run away.She was often like that, and Ihad never figured out a good way to handle it.She was so nervous, sometimes, that she had to beallowed to run and hide; any attempt to make her stay would simply make her shrivel up with anxiety.Even so, I told her that she could stay, that she didn't have to go.She muttered something about nothaving brought her things, and I knew it was useless to press the point.I was still falling.I felt as weak as a kitten. I don't know what's the matter with me, I said, moretruthfully than I knew.'Too much excitement, she said. Go to sleep get some rest. It was an embarrassment to her that Iwas still awake; she just wanted to get out.It was a pity, after we'd achieved so much earlier in theGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlevening.I had to hope that we'd be able to pick up the pieces another time.I let myself down on the pillow.I must have fallen asleep before she left the flat.I woke up next morning knowing that I'd had a bad night, beset by delirious nightmares I couldn't quiteremember.There must have been a few minutes in between sleep and wakefulness when the substance ofthose nightmares was still present to my awakening mind, but I lost my grip on them before I couldcollect myself and force myself to review them carefully and lucidly.By the time I was fully conscious I could only remember that there had been predatory vampires in thedream, and that I had become obsessed as I so often used to do in disturbed dreams with theabsolute necessity of carrying out some inherently absurd and appalling action.The details were soonlost, overwhelmed by the knowledge that I had a headache and a sore throat.The mere fact of becomingaware of these things seemed to make them instantly worse, and I knew that I had a cold coming on.At first, when the thought that I might have picked up a virus at the lab came into my mind, I was inclinedto dismiss it as the kind of anxious speculation which had to be scrupulously avoided by a person in myline of work but then I began to remember what had happened before I went to sleep, and I began towonder.'No, I said, in the end, speaking aloud for emphasis. Don't be paranoid.This is the first test, and youhave to stick to your guns.It's just some lousy British virus discovering American flesh for the first time.'I tried to take things slowly.I got up, made myself a cup of coffee, and took two aspirins for theheadache.I got dressed and forced myself to eat some cereal and toast for breakfast, thinking that I'd beable to get a proper grip on myself once I was in a fit state to face the day.It didn't work.I felt awful.Ikept telling myself, over and over, that I only felt awful because I had a cold, and that it was only theslight fever associated with the cold that was filling my head with other fears.I wasn't convinced, but Itried to putthat down to the cold, too.I was in such a state of confusion that I didn't dare go out of theflat, let alone go into the lab.Eventually, I went back to bed.I switched the radio on and played with the dial until I found a stationwhich hadn't been entirely taken over by moronic disc jockeys with verbal diarrhoea.I lay there, silentlyinstructing myself to stop being silly, and to remember all my own good advice about it not matteringovermuch even if some chance-in-a-million slip in sterile technique did lead to my infecting myself,because the infection would only last a few days, and would be no more troublesome than any everydaycold virus.This advice sound or not would probably have been sufficient to calm my anxieties for a while, hadthey not been complicated by thoughts of Teresa.Because I was alone, with time weighing heavily on myhands, I couldn't help my fears extending themselves.I couldn't avoid saying to myself:  Suppose it wasn'ta chance-in-a-million failure of my sterile technique; suppose the failure had already happened; supposeyou caught it from Teresa. Nor could I help saying to myself:  That's only guilt talking; only your owninability to take what was offered as casually as it was offered; only.'Ironically enough, I had also to wonder whether my very confusion, my inability to think straight, mightbe symptoms of a hypothetical psychotropic virus [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]