Bodger had only a short distance to walk to Unit B from his office. His
temper, despite his efforts at self-control, was seething dangerously
when he entered his foyer. He crossed the mammoth parlor toward the
archway at its rear, where a short corridor led to the sleeping
quarters. Bodger arrived at the door of his son's bedroom. Then, with
his hand upon the knob, he froze, and a ghastly pallor spread itself
across his rugged features.
A hand came up swiftly to his stomach, holding it, pressing inward
against the sudden spasm he had felt, and he stepped swiftly across
the few remaining feet of carpeted hallway to the door of his own
room, through it, and swiftly into his personal bathroom, locking the
thick door behind him. The room was swimming like a thing seen through
warm oil as he slid open the mirrored panel of the medicine-chest and
removed a large jar of pale granulated crystals. Violently nauseated,
he managed to unscrew the lid and dump a handful of the crystals into
the water tumbler. He ran the warm water into the tumbler--it would
dissolve the crystals faster--and drank the now-glutinous solution.
Then the tumbler fell from his weak, perspiring fingers and smashed
into spicules in the basin. He took no notice, hands rigid against
the rim of the basin, shoulders shaking uncontrollably, his large,
grey-thatched head sunken wearily upon his chest. He stood like that
for two minutes, until the room began to settle down, and its outlines
took on solidity once more.
"A close one," he muttered, aloud.
When the eyes that met his in the glass were no longer bleared with
sick pain, he combed his hair neatly, and impatiently began to remove
his sweat-soaked shirt and necktie. Before returning to his bedroom to
change into fresh dry garments, he slid the mirrored panel closed. It
clicked sharply and locked. Countersunk into the tiled wall, there was
no indication that such a space existed behind it. Only Bodger, Senior,
knew which tiles to depress in which order to open that panel. In a
disease-free society, a medicine-chest was taboo; it implied that its
user had no faith in the Government-run hospitals. Bodger went into his
bedroom, dropping the damp shirt and tie atop the clothes hamper in the
closet. There was an ancient leather bag, with shoulder-strap, on the
closet floor. Bodger carried this out into the room, opened the flap.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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