What Dreams May Come by Matheson Richard

Author:Matheson, Richard [Richard, Matheson,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 0765308703
Published: 2010-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

I looked at him in surprise, then started turning back toward the woman. She did look like Ann, I told myself.

I stared at her. There was little actual resemblance. I blinked and looked more closely. I had never suffered from hallucinations in my life. Was it to start now?

I kept staring at the woman. She was sitting, huddled, on the ground, covered from head to toe by a network of thin, black threads. She didn’t move but stared ahead with lifeless eyes. I take that back. Like the young man, she was staring inwardly, gazing at the darkness of her mind.

“Can’t she break those threads?” I asked.

“With the least of effort,” Albert answered. “The thing is, she doesn’t believe she can and the mind is everything. I’m sure her life on earth must have been one of great, self-pitying frustration. Here, that feeling is exaggerated to the point you see.”

“I thought she looked like Ann,” I said, confused.

“Remember what that man said,” Albert told me. “Be alert at all times.”

I looked at the woman as we walked off. She didn’t look at all like Ann. Still, she made me wonder. Was Ann in a similar plight, imprisoned in some other place like this? The thought was harrowing.

As we continued through the silent, formless village, past its mute and wretched population, I began to feel so tired that it brought back memories of the weariness I’d felt just after death. Lacking the strength to do otherwise, I found myself beginning to hunch over as I walked, taking on the posture of some of the nearby people.

Albert took hold of my arm and straightened me. “Don’t let yourself be drawn in or we’ll never reach Ann,” he said. “We’re just starting out.”

I forced myself to walk erectly concentrating on resistance to the weariness. It helped immediately.

“Be aware,” Albert repeated what the man had told us.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

A wave of depression beset me. Albert was right. We were just starting out. If I was vulnerable already, how could I hope to reach—?

“You’re hunching over again,” Albert warned.

Dear God, I thought. It has happened so quickly, the slightest thought affecting me. I would resist it though, I vowed. I wouldn’t let myself succumb to the dark blandishments of this realm.

“A powerful place,” I murmured.

“If you let it be,” Albert replied.

Speech, I thought. Silence was the enemy; negative reflection. “What are those threads around that woman?” I asked.

“The mind is like a spinning wheel,” Albert told me. “In life, it constantly weaves a web which, on the day of our passing, surrounds us for better or worse. In that woman’s case, the web became a snare of selfish concerns. She can’t—“

I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because my gaze was drawn to a group of people crouching and kneeling around something I couldn’t see, their backs to us, their hands rapidly conveying something to their mouths. All of them looked bloated.

Hearing the sounds they made—grunting, snarling, rending noises—I asked what they were doing.

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