A Darkness in My Soul

Titel: A Darkness in My Soul
Autoren: Dean Koontz

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as if someone were possessing me, directing my tongue against the will of the screaming particle of me that demanded I hang up, run away, hide.
        "I've followed your exploits," she said. "In the papers."
        "I've read your books."
        She waited.
        "I think it's time I had my biography done," I said.
        "I've been approached before, but I've always been against it. Maybe like the primitive tribesmen who feel a photograph locks their soul away inside it. But with you, maybe it would be different. I like your work."
        There was a bit more said, and it ended with me and with this: "Fine. Then I'll expect you here for dinner tomorrow night at seven."
        I had suggested escorting her to dinner somewhere, but she had said that was not necessary. I insisted. She had said that restaurants were too noisy to discuss business. In the course of the floundering planning, I had mentioned my cook. And now she was coming here.
        I went out and swallowed half a glass of Scotch on the rocks (as a change from the Scotch and water), which solved the problems I had just acquired upon hanging the phone on its hook: a dry mouth and a bad case of the chills.
        It was stupid. Why be so afraid of meeting a woman? I had met quite famous and sophisticated ladies, wives of men of state and some of them statesmen themselves.
        Yes, I told myself. But they were different. They were not young and beautiful. That was where the core of my terror lay, though that seemed just as unfathomable as anything else.
        At two in the morning, unable to sleep, I got heavily out of bed and walked through the many rooms of my dark house. It is a fine place, with its own theater and gaming rooms, a shooting range, and other luxuries. But there was no solace in seeing all I possessed.
        I went into the den and closed the door, looked around without turning on the lights. The machine stood in the corner, silent, monstrous. It was what I had gotten up for in the first place, though I had needed a few minutes to admit it.
        The headrest was ominous, a bulky electrode-strung pad that curved to encompass the skull.
        But my nerves demanded soothing.
        The chair that folded into the machine was like the tongue of some mythical beast, some man-eater and stealer of souls.
        I could see the hollow compartment which would swallow me with a single lick, and it terrified me. But I needed soothing. My hands twitched, and a tic had begun in the corner of my mouth. I reminded myself that other generations never had the advantage of a Porter-Rainey SolidState Psychiatrist and that many people, even these days, could not afford one even when modern technology made it possible. I forced myself to forget the emptiness that would take me later. For the moment comfort was enough. And a few explanations
        I sat down in the chair.
        My head touched the pad.
        The world swiveled up and away, while darkness descended, while fingers probed where they should not be, while my soul was split open like a nut and the meat of my fractured personality was drawn forth for a close examination (in search of worms?).
        Proteus Mother taking a thousand shapes, but never to be caught and held to tell the future
        The life spark flickering, then holding steady as a frozen flame. And a very vague awareness even in the womb, where plastic walls were soft and sophisticated thermostatic computers maintained a succor-filled environment. Where plastic walls were giving-but somehow unresponsive
        He looked up into the lights overhead and sensed a man named Edison. He sensed filaments even as his own filament was disconnected from the womb
        And there were metal hands to comfort him
        And and there and
        SAY IT WITHOUT HESITATION! The voice was everywhere about me, was booming, was reassuring in its depth of passion.
        And there were simu-flesh breasts to feed him
        And and
        OUT WITH IT! The computerized psyche-prober imitated thunderstorms and symphonies filled with cymbals.
        And there were wire-cored arms to rock him; and he looked out of his swaddling clothes and and.., GO ON!
         looked up into a face without a nose and with blank crystal eyes that reflected his reddened face. Unmoving black lips crooned, "Rock-a-biiiii-bay-beeeee in theee treeeee (thriddle-thriddle) tops" The

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