"Merely the touch of the artist," Toffee said archly. "Just fitting myself into a part." "Have I ever thought to tell you," Marc said, "that you are the most unprincipled, low-minded...?" Then suddenly his voice dried in his throat. His gaze darted away from Toffee's face and swept frightenedly across the horizon. "Oh, my gosh!" he cried. Suddenly, like a slow dissolve in a movie, the little valley was simply melting away into black nothingness. Already the distant trees had disappeared. Marc jumped to his feet. "Look!" he yelled. "Look!" Toffee was instantly beside him. For a moment she gazed on the horrifying spectacle, then tugged imperatively at his sleeve. "Come on!" she cried. "Let's run!" But as they turned in the other direction the blackness only rushed at them anew; it was coming all around them. They stopped short. "Will we drop away into nothing?" Toffee wailed, "or just melt away with everything else?" "We'll find out soon enough," Marc moaned. And perhaps a bit sooner, it seemed, for even as Marc spoke, the darkness swooped to within yards of them. Toffee drew close to Marc, trembling a bit, and he placed his arm about her shoulders. They stood in expectant silence for a moment, watching the greenness disappear around them. Then, all at once, it was gone beneath them. It was just as they plunged downward into the darkness that Toffee threw her arms about Marc's neck and held tight.... * * * * * The world reeled drunkenly through space ... whirled away with egg-shaped lopsidedness ... and then there was nothing left anywhere but the original dough from which everything had been made in the first place ... messy, clammy stuff ... and you sank deeper and deeper into it no matter how hard you struggled. Marc tried to cry out.... And then there was an answer, a scraping of metal on metal. A light showed ahead, dulled and heavily diffused, but it came suddenly. A voice spoke encouragement.... "Just a minute, and I'll dig you out. How you ever managed to get snarled up like that flat on your back...." The voice continued scolding him with affection, and a minute later the doughy mass was pulled aside, and he could see that it was only the perspiration-covered sheets. He looked at them, then beyond them to Julie's gently smiling face. Morning was crowding into the room through the windows behind her. "'Morning," he said sheepishly. "Thanks." In silence Julie handed him a glass of orange juice, and he boosted himself forward to drink it. "How's your ... your back?" she asked tentatively. "Is it better?" Marc returned the glass to her, tried a few movements involving his mummified spine. There was no definite pain, only a suggestion of stiffness. "Brand new," he said, and smiled. "Oh, I'm so relieved!" Julie breathed. She sat down close beside him on the bed. "I'm sorry, Marc."