The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon [68]
And then Father came into my room. But I was holding my Swiss Army knife with the saw blade out in case he grabbed me. And Mother came into the room as well, and she said, “It's OK, Christopher. I won't let him do anything. You're all right.”
And Father bent down on his knees near the bed and he said, “Christopher?”
But I didn't say anything.
And he said, “Christopher, I'm really, really sorry. About everything. About Wellington. About the letters. About making you run away. I never meant . . . I promise I will never do anything like that again. Hey. Come on, kiddo.”
And then he held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan so that I could touch his fingers, but I didn't because I was frightened.
And Father said, “Shit. Christopher, please.”
And there were tears dripping off his face.
And no one said anything for a while.
And then Mother said, “I think you should go now,” but she was talking to Father, not me.
And then the policeman came back because Mr. Shears had rung the police station and he told Father to calm down and he took him out of the flat.
And Mother said, “You go back to sleep now. Everything is going to be all right. I promise.”
And then I went back to sleep.
229. And when I was asleep I had one of my favorite dreams. Sometimes I have it during the day, but then it's a daydream. But I often have it at night as well.
And in the dream nearly everyone on the earth is dead, because they have caught a virus. But it's not like a normal virus. It's like a computer virus. And people catch it because of the meaning of something an infected person says and the meaning of what they do with their faces when they say it, which means that people can also get it from watching an infected person on television, which means that it spreads around the world really quickly.
And when people get the virus they just sit on the sofa and do nothing and they don't eat or drink and so they die. But sometimes I have different versions of the dream, like when you can see two versions of a film, the ordinary one and the director's cut, like Blade Runner. And in some versions of the dream the virus makes them crash their cars or walk into the sea and drown, or jump into rivers, and I think that this version is better because then there aren't bodies of dead people everywhere.
And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean
and these people are all special people like me. And they like being on their own and I hardly ever see them because they are like okapi in the jungle in the Congo, which are a kind of antelope and very shy and rare.
And I can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub a £1 coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn't have to go to France.
And I go out of Father's house and I walk down the street, and it is very quiet even though it is the middle of the day and I can't hear any noise except birds singing and wind and sometimes buildings falling down in the distance, and if I stand very close to traffic lights I can hear a little click as the colors change.
And I go into other people's houses and play at being a detective and I can break the windows to get in because the people are dead and it doesn't matter. And I go into shops and take things I want, like pink biscuits or PJ's Raspberry and Mango Smoothie or computer games or books or videos.
And I take a ladder from Father's van and I climb up onto the roof, and when I get to the edge of the roof I put the ladder across the gap and I climb to the next roof, because in a dream you are allowed to do anything.
And then I find someone's car keys and I get into their car and I drive, and it