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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 108: Cooper 108
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 291
By the time the rain had subsided it was growing dark--and he wasn’t certain that it wasn’t still sprinkling. He was dry in the cave, and although he would not have said he was warm he wasn’t really cold and wasn’t likely to find a better shelter before darkness fell. Once again he was aware of his lack of any kind of bedding, an oversight he should have addressed back in Berkeley, but at the time it didn’t seem much of a priority as the climate was hot and dry and he had access to a bed with mattress. He would not sleep as comfortably in his clothes on the stone floor of the cave, but he had had a good walk and would be fine.
Tommy came to mind, and he wondered how she was, what happened in Yellowstone after Mordenslice killed him, whether the good guys won and whether they were still there as superheroes fighting evil in America.
It went through his mind that he should eat before sleeping. The problem was he had no food. On the other hand, he wasn’t actually hungry--not really hungry. He could eat, if there were food, but hunger wasn’t gnawing at his stomach to keep him awake. “Give us this day our daily bread,” he said aloud, and then inside the prayer continued, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He had forgiven everyone who had wronged him, had he not?
Maybe not everyone. He was not at all feeling beneficent toward Doctor Mordenslice. Love your enemies, and pray for those who mistreat you, so that you may become sons of your Father in heaven. He was going to have to work on this. Of course, there wasn’t much he could do about it--Mordenslice was either dead or living in Berkeley, and of course given the peculiarities of the temporal relationships between worlds he could be not yet born, or long returned to dust. Either way, they would never meet again.
Of course, that was the past. Indeed, he had been to another world since then, and had tried to save the lives of the crew of a spaceship. He hoped they were all right, and that his time with them had had a favorable impact on them, bringing them closer to the truth.
He drifted to sleep, not comfortable on the cold stone but tired enough to overcome it, and when he awoke a pale pre-dawn light was illuminating the mouth of the cave.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #532: Versers Chilled. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
