Free Fire Will Fall by Carol Plum-Ucci Page B

see if people were telling me about
their
dreams."
    "
Baa-AA-Baa.
"
    "They think that me and my dreams are inconvenient. But that is untrue, my man. I guess most people have this secret wish to die in a nice, safe, and comfortable bed. I don't get it. Whether I get blown up, beheaded on the Internet, or die in a bed, I don't really care. I'll do you one better: Since we're all going where we're going, I would rather die in a great story than a mediocre one. Apocalyptic dreams are
not
inconvenient. They're just a reminder that this disgusting and violent world will end, and something you could actually deal with is coming—"
    "Dude, that is morbid. You want to be beheaded on the Internet? I'm calling Dr. Hollis."
    I don't have to see Rain. I can smell her. She smells like strawberry shampoo, and she's got so much hair that you can't miss it. She was standing maybe two feet behind me in her bare, silent feet.
    "That's not what I said, and I was not talking to you," I snapped over my shoulder.
    "I know. You're talking to a goat." Her tone seemed more annoyed than appalled.
    But to make sure no lecture was coming, I said, "I don't want to talk about it."
    "Can I just sit with you?"
    It's a free country
She sat down beside me on the step, scratched the goat behind the ears, and finally announced, "Marg said not to let the Professor in the house. He tries to come in, she says."
    The Professor? I buried a grin. "What's the other one's name?"
    "Sheep."
    "Are you serious?"
    She didn't laugh with me. She was fighting off my death-and-destruction monologue, which would be a kick in the stomach if you're so grounded in this world that you can't visualize the next. I knew Rain like I knew my face in the mirror. Here's her gig: She wants to fall in love, get married, have three kids, and be a gym teacher. Fine. But the truth is, if her kids were grown and her husband was bald and paunchy and she'd taught gym for twenty years and it looked like there was very little left except to get decrepit and croak, my dreams would be interesting to her. I'd be one of the few things left that wasn't boring. It's a convenience thing. She'll drive an SUV for twenty years and
then
think about what could be ultimately true.
    And yet I couldn't resist picking up a piece of her hair and running it between my nose and mouth. That strong smell of shampoo ... everything about Rain was strong and real. She could bring me down to earth.
You're a kick in the stomach, that's what you are, Owen. Just ... be nice.
    I let go of her hair and flopped my hand onto her back. She quit petting the Professor, who strutted off—muffin gone, conversation over. I rubbed up and down her spine, which inspired her to lean forward, rest her head on my knee, and wrap her arms under her legs.
    "Sorry," I said. "My weird dreams, they bend my head around..."
    She didn't answer right away, which meant either that she was devising a way to play shrink and talk me out of wanting to see the end of this world, or I had freaked her out beyond words. When she finally spoke up, she didn't seem all that freaked out. "Unfortunately, I dreamed about elephants all bloody night."
    "Elephants..." I remembered her saying in the limo that Miss Haley's comments about forced abstinence were like telling us, "Don't think of an elephant." It makes you think of elephants.
    I said, "Dude, don't let Miss Haley open Pandora's box on you. You were, like, a completely hormonally repressed athlete before she said it. Remain that way."
    "Do not say 'hormones' to me right now."
    "A perfectly nonsexual creature."
    "Do
not
say 'sex.' I don't think you get it. I think I discovered the most frustrating thing in the world this morning. It's called 'the half hour between the time that you wake up and the time that you get up.' In half an hour, I made out with Danny Hall twenty times."
    I sighed. Back to earth. "Guys call it the Dreaded Fifteen—it's fifteen minutes if you're a guy. You're supposed to put your feet on