The Twilight Zone: Upgrade Sensuous Cindy by Pat Cadigan

Author:Pat Cadigan [Cadigan, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9781844161317
Google: Y2YfAAAACAAJ
Publisher: Black Flame
Published: 2004-07-14T12:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Okay, don't lose your grip again yet. Obviously they were here. Or someone was, anyway.

On the other hand, Annie thought, looking with apprehension at the plates of half-finished food on the table, how good a sign was it when you had to search for something that would prove that both your family and the dinner you had just been eating with them really existed and were not in fact hallucinations?

She looked down at the chair she was leaning on. This was where she had been sitting. Mom always occupied the chair closest to the kitchen during meal times; that was the rule, or the tradition, or whatever in just about any average, unremarkable, normal suburban middle-class nuclear family home.

Like this one, the Macintosh residence, where the four of them did all those average, unremarkable, normal suburban middle-class nuclear family things. Things like eating dinner and chatting about their respective days. And then leaving the after-dinner clean up to Mom while they plopped themselves down in front of the TV in the living room.

She could not actually hear the TV but maybe that meant they were waiting for her to join them before they put it on. Because it could have been that while her old, original children, the ones she remembered (or thought she remembered) would have stuck her with all the clearing away and washing up, her new ideal children were actually going to do the dishes for her later.

She made herself let go of the chair and moved around the table to the entrance to the living room. Maybe she would find them all sitting on the sofa—correction, sofas; there were two sofas now, as gorgeous and ideal as her children—waiting for her to come in, so they could tell her to sit down and relax, they would handle the cleaning up tonight.

The sight of the empty room was no less startling for the fact that she hadn't really expected to find anyone there. What if they had run away, she thought suddenly. What if her continuing crazy behavior had scared her entire family so badly that they had felt they needed to leave the house altogether, literally escape because they thought she might be dangerous? Even though she wasn't trying to be crazy.

Nobody tries to be crazy. Either you are crazy or you aren't.

She pushed the thought away and massaged her forehead with one hand. The quiet in the house that had been so soothing barely a minute ago now seemed to press in on her from all sides, as if it were part of some force that wanted to isolate her and then swallow her up.

Now that was a pretty crazy idea for someone not trying to be crazy. Even if such a force existed, why would it do that to you, what would be the reason?

The answer was in her mind before she could suppress it: to change me.

Annie put her face in her hands. My name is Annie Macintosh, she said to herself. As long as I still know my own name, it means I'm not a total loss.

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