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"Now that’s what you call a good ol’ fashioned wallop," Rufus said and chuckled.

Then the old man kissed his wife on the cheek and leaned down toward Vi, all gums tonight.

"Her lips are still moving," he said. "Go ahead and clonk her again, Beautiful."

ALTERNATE ENDING

Elizabeth Lancing has lived in pure darkness for forty-one days.

Around Thanksgiving, she stops taking her meals. For forty-eight hours she refuses to eat or drink.

Then, on the verge of death, god saves her.

"Elizabeth."

The voice booms from the darkness above, masculine, calm, almost robotic.

"Elizabeth, I know that you can hear me."

She tries to sit up on the cold hard floor but has no strength.

"Elizabeth? Respond to me…are you wondering if you’re really hearing this voice?"

"Yes."

"You aren’t hallucinating."

"Where am I?" she croaks.

"Where is not important. You want to die don’t you?"

"Who are you?"

"You know, my child."

"I have children. Their names are—"

"I know their names. I created them. I’m going to free you. But first, can you do something for me, Elizabeth?"

"What?"

"Eat. You’ll die otherwise, and I won’t be able to help you. Next time I come, I’ll tell you many things. Prepare yourself. Oh, Elizabeth?"

"Yes?"

"Jenna and John David are safe. I can see them now."

# # #

god returns the next day. He’s spoken to many people in this small stone cell. Some believed. Some laughed. One told god to go fuck himself in the ear. Most had already gone mad and half-brained themselves on the rock by the time he came.

god finds Elizabeth Lancing asleep on the floor. The voice wakes her and speaks to her, though not of the fuzzy, comforting things she expects. It speaks of illusions she has accepted her whole life. god says he speaks truth—truth with teeth and big sweaty balls.

He doesn’t ask her to believe. Only to muse. Particularly on evil. He says that evil is a misnomer for the diamond core of man’s soul.

In parting, god says, "Consider how you might rid yourself of that definition, Elizabeth. Next time I come, I’ll tell you how you might do it, and if you’re interested, I’ll free you. If not, you may continue with your plans to die in the darkness you now inhabit and never see Jenna or John David again."

# # #

Pain divided by cushions of beautiful numbness…

# # #

I can see the sound from my bed. Blue sky. Navy water. A thread of green running between. Sometimes the leg throbs. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes I don’t feel a thing, not even my eyes.

Those are the blissful times, and I stare out the window and watch clouds gather over the sound and do not wonder or care where I am.

# # #

Orson keeps vigil at my bedside. He says I’m going to die. I tell him I don’t care one way or the other.

# # #

I lie in a windowless stone-walled room, a bare light bulb shining above my head.

An old man I’ve never seen before is stitching up my leg below the knee.

He glances at me and stops, his arms red up to the elbows.

The old man wipes his brow, says, "Give him some more gas, Beautiful."

# # #

Sometimes I see a strange sky. Cloudless. Sunless. Bright blue but without depth, almost as though I were staring into a blue television screen. While I stare at this sky, a voice speaks into my ear. Then I see things. I see the things it tells me to see.

# # #

Violet King has begun to splinter. Solitude can do that to you. Silence and unending darkness will most certainly do that to you. Her eyes have not seen light in fifteen days, her world now six by six by eight, enclosed by cold stone walls.

Her last memory is of a lavish yacht. She doesn’t recall how she earned the fracture along the top of her skull. Though it is healing, stitches would’ve helped, and the headaches have not let up.

She is still being fed and watered. One square meal a day. And though she thinks she wants to die, she continues to eat the slop that is put before her, ravenously. She believes if she doesn’t eat, she will die. The possibility grows more enticing each day, and though the idea of starving herself to death is occurring with