Pool_2

Death turned away, unable to look at what it carried off. But I saw the violet perfusion of his ears, the welts that blistered up beneath his unshaven face, the stream of mud dripping from his chin down his neck to his bare chest, the broken left thumbnail, her missing sandals tucked, in keeping for her, in his left pocket.

I can see his face.

God! It haunts me. It haunts me. It haunts me. I look back and that face is the rubble that obstructs my vision, and colors all that I see, and masks all that is lost.'

'THIS ONE IS MINE!'”

Marcus lifted this cry in an explosive roaring wail that brought an entire cafeteria to its feet, as he slumped back into a tired silence, a silence respected. On the far side of the cafeteria some were asking, what one of what was his? Lunch long over, the table gathering solemnly filed out. Frank Sumner stood up, blinked slow and long, sat back down engaging the vacant eyes of his old friend, stood again remaining just long enough to put his hand on Mac's shoulder, then left crying - loudly and openly. Frank had never cried before. Not in public. Larry Osten just melted backward with his arms hanging as if lifeless, unweighted, as a wailing Sumner eclipsed.