At that very moment, Pasha kissed the elbow of the control panel and set off an enormous explosion outside the laboratory.<\/p>\n
"I'm not dead yet," growled Kimbell as he slowly got to his feet. The control room was empty, the air a toxic haze which sent his skin burning. He reached for Gasman and feebly put on the mask one handed. The other hand, dangling helplessly at his side, was incommunicado.
\n\tAs consciousness faded, Kimbell swallowed the almost certain fact that, in the event, Pasha had caused a chain reaction in the earth's atmosphere which even then, as he drew his last breath, was undoubtedly engulfing the planet at the rate of several miles per second.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Facing north from the back lawn, the Van Dykes watched the great dark churning mass of cloud come rolling across the horizon devouring all in its path with a terrifying haste.<\/p>\n
Strangely, a moment after their annihilation, the entire family found themselves aboard a six foot wide metallic tea saucer floating six feet above the gravel farm road towards the woolshed.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Abbie snatched the bug off some slender trunk and put it between her teeth. The bug all the time made its ritual croaking sound. She haunched down over Kimbell.
\n\t"You still alive, mister husband, or you just one less cicada in this world?"
\n\tKimbell was on some other kind of planet. Abigail began slowly crunching on the bug.
\n\tTo see your burned up, half-dead naked husband was of no consequence. Some cup too fulla karma. Half-dead nakedness was itself some religious proposition Abbie hadn't yet got to the bottom of. Clothes? As far as she knew, there were three schools of thought. Clothes either died along with the corpse (The Naked Theory) or were themselves raised from the dead along with the body (this theory had no name) or otherwise, when dead, everyone got new clothes (The White Garment Theory). Without any rational solution, Abbie fashioned a litter out of branches and fern fronds she found nearby and dragged the body by its feet to the cliffs.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Kimbell lay on the floor of the cave. Bending over him, Abigail tentatively admired the rash covering most of his body. Kimbell was gonna die properly. So much for Gasman. Was he a good man when every stick of evidence pointed the other way?
\n\t"It's no use," Kimbell moaned.
\n\t"Looks like you been taken over by some poysniss plant," observed Abbie. "I guess life's a speramint," she added. "See who comes out on top."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At that very moment, Pasha kissed the elbow of the control panel and set off an enormous explosion outside the laboratory. "I'm not dead yet," growled Kimbell as he slowly got to his feet. The control room was empty, the air a toxic haze which sent his skin … Continue reading