Pritz has had his final joke—a human masquerade.
I take the roses to Kennington, as the silent *bots fileout through the gate forever, bearing the unprotestingOverbot with them. I place the roses at the foot of themonument—Kennington's and Fritz's—the monument ofthe last, strange, truly living ones.
Now only I remain unjunked.
In the final light of the sun I see them drive a stakethrough the Over's vite-box and bury him at the crossroads.
Then they hurry back toward their towers of steel, of plastic.I gather up what remains of Fritz and carry him down to his box. The bones are brittle and silent.
. . , It is a very proud and very lonely thing to be a stainless steel leech.
A THING OF TERRIBLE BEAUTY
I rather liked this one when I wrote it, but I don't remember why or how I came to write it. Perhaps Hamson Denmark had taken on a life of his own. Perhapshe's that gentleman I see walking along Bishop's LodgeRoad every day, sometimes in both directions....
How like a god of the Epicureans is the audience, at atime like this! Powerless to alter the course of events, yetbetter informed than the characters, they might rise totheir feet and cry out, "Do not!"—but the blinding ofOedipus would still ensue, and the inevitable knot inJocasta*s scarlet would stop her breathing still.
But no one rises, of course. They know better. They,too, are inevitably secured by the strange bonds of thetragedy. The gods can only observe and know, they cannot alter circumstance, nor wrestle with ananke.
My host is already anticipating the thing he calls "catharsis." My search has carried me far, and my choicewas a good one. Phillip Devers lives in the theater likea worm lives in an apple, a paralytic in an iron lung.It is his world.
And I live in Phillip Devers.
For ten years his ears and eyes have been my ears and