Free The Methuselarity Transformation by Rick Moskovitz Page B

drinking, but there were no empty bottles and nothing missing from their modest liquor supply. Ray wasn’t much of a drinker and alcohol didn’t seem to have contributed to his current state of mind.
    “Ray!” she shouted in his face, shaking him by the shoulders. “It’s me, Lena. Talk to me.” His regular breathing was punctuated by a deep sigh, but there was no other response. She shook him again.
    “I’m calling a doctor,” she said. But as she turned away a hand shot out and grasped her forearm in an iron grip.
    “No doctors,” he hissed between his teeth, “and no hospitals.”
    She turned back to face him. In place of the blank expression was a penetrating intensity in his sunken eyes. His hand still gripped her forearm, which was beginning to ache.
    “You’re scaring me Ray,” she pleaded. “We’ve got to get you help.” She looked down at her arm. He released his grip, sighed again, and his face relaxed.
    “I’ll be alright, Lena. Really,” he said in his usual voice, “now that you’re home. No doctors,” he repeated, “Please!”
    Things were worse than she thought. She wondered as she looked at the red indentations on her forearm what else might have tipped the balance. How much did he know? Had he figured out the subject of her assignment? Or worse, had he discovered where she sometimes wound up when she ventured alone from their home?
    “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said as she helped him to his feet and led him to the bathroom. She stripped offhis clothes, bagged them, and turned on the shower, grateful for the water that again flowed freely thanks to Marcus Takana. She spent the next several hours cleaning the apartment, disposing of most of the soiled clothing and some of the encrusted dishes that littered the floors.
    The air circulator had been off for days. When she turned it up to its maximum settings, the rancid odor soon dissipated along with her nausea. There remained a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, accompanied by the realization that something was horribly wrong beyond her ability to fix.
    The warm water flowing over Ray’s body washed away more than the filth on its surface. The darkness that had engulfed him ebbed away. Lena was home at last. The apartment no longer felt so empty. Color was finding its way back into his black and white world. Not quite Technicolor, but at least faded pastels. He was no longer ready to die. Still, if Lena’s presence was so crucial to his peace of mind, what was going to happen to him after the leap when he left her behind? Would he find a way to reconnect with her in his new identity? Would he even want to find her or would his new life on the other side come already furnished with people to take her place?
    By the time he’d dried himself off and wrapped himself in a soft, clean robe, Lena had made up his bed with fresh, crisp linens. The soothing tones of Native American flutes permeated the bedroom. Ray left all the questions behind as he crossed the threshold, slid between the sheets, and let sleep enshroud him like the dead.

10
    IT WAS AN intimate wedding. The date and location were a well-kept secret. Otherwise, they would have been overrun by both the curious and well-wishers in the face of Marcus’s newfound celebrity. Even Lena Holbrook, who had managed to infiltrate Corinne and Marcus’s privacy for the first journalistic portrait of the world’s savior, was given no inkling of when and where the nuptials were to take place.
    Twenty-three people stood in a natural clearing within the remote bamboo grove on Maui where the inspiration for Takana Grass had dawned. The guests included a trusted cadre of friends who shared their passions for the environment and for the rights of all beings to share equally in the bounty of the planet.
    In an honored place by Corinne’s side was a fresh faced young woman with pale skin, a freckled nose, and a sprout of black hair that erupted from the top of her head and