The boy wandered off to the side of the road and Phil listened to the rustle of bushes, wondering at his own irritation. He felt ill at ease, anxious to be away. He started as Timmy came up beside him on the left of the car.
"That was quick."
"Yeah." The boy was holding a spray of flowering shrub and his hand passed casually over the flowers in a light caress. "Say, hasn't this flower got a sweet smell, Uncle Phil? Here, smell it."
"It's a pretty flower, Timmy, but that stuff has no perfume." He accepted the branch automatically, lifted it to his nostrils.
Time stopped.
He thought he felt a thump against the side of the car, but the impression faded before it was fully born. In a remote corner of his mind the ticking of his watch sounded as a cold, measured rhythm, a metronome with delusions of syncopation. He sat motionless, his forearm resting on the steering wheel, the spray of blossoms caressing his cheek, his mind stunned by the anaesthetic he drew in with each breath. He was as one lost in thought, his eyes open but unseeing, observing but not interpreting.
There was no sense of duration, of the passage of seconds or minutes. There was only a dream in which, suddenly, a gentle mind made its presence known. Concepts tapped lightly at his own mind and an automatic process of interpretation winnowed and equated until a gentle voice seemed to speak. The words were few, merely computed associations keyed to understanding, and with them were perfectly and intimately synchronized fragments of emotion and vision, softly washing over the surface of his mind.
(Urgency) Attend—attend! Challonari! Attend!