David Payne

“She’s trying to coax me away from him, speaking in a gentle voice, the way you’d speak to a child or to a frightened animal, not condescending, just gently, respectfully coaxing me to rise and come away and leave my brother here, and I know what this coaxing means, somewhere inside I do in the small, small place where I’m still sane, the small, small place where I’m not casting ancient spells of prophylaxis and reversal according to the ur-control scenario, where is where I am right now, in the magic kingdom that I’m the king and only god of, where nothing ever happens except as I command it, and nothing can ever hurt me so long as I stay inside the magic circle, and maybe that’s why something inside me larger than I am bids me to go back now to that awful scene upon that awful highway to suffer now what I didn’t suffer then because I wasn’t really there the first time. And though I’m not really there, I know what her expression means, this stranger’s, and I’m not having it, not from her or anyone, I don’t want to be awakened”
― David Payne, Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother's Story