Ellen pouted: "Don't be so funereal! It makes me feel strangely inside. Of course nothing can separate us. It's a beautiful nite and we're wasting it on—oh, dear!" Her eyes had glanced at the small clock on the paneling. "It's late, Robert. You must hurry me home now or mother will be furious!"
Sighing, Robert started the car. As they roared toward town over the twisting roadway, suddenly the car swerved.
"Lookout, Bob! A man!" It was Ellen's high voice screaming.
The car skidded sickeningly on loose gravel, crashed thunderously through the railing bordering the highway, and richocheted, turning over and over, halting as wreckage. Robert was crushed under the metal bulk, losing consciousness.
Thrown clear, Ellen scrambled to the man, bent over him. Something more than pain filmed his eyes; he heard himself muttering: "I'll come back?—you wait—" in a failing whisper as illimitable darkness swept over him, accompanied by dreadful nausea. A point of light appeared in the void, expanding into a dazzling rectangle which split into thousands of lesser planes; these shaped a geometric pattern which whirled dizzily, humming, the drone rising in pitch with every sickening revolution, becoming incessant mechanical scream——
"And this is death. This is past human endurance." With sudden omniscience he knew that he WAS dead and the meaning of the spinning pattern. The knowledge ebbed and carried with it all of his memories except for Ellen's face and her name.
The wheeling design parted like a curtain, and Robert observed beyond it a branching path spreading before him like a flattened tree. At the end of every fork was Ellen's face, wavering and blurred. He fixed his attention upon the nearest furcation, aspiring toward it desperately, and sensed himself hovering in space.
Shock, as of lightning coursing his veins, knotted him with agony. Involuntarily his eyes squeezed shut. Icy air tortured his lungs. As he raised his voice in weak protest, the pain ceased and he relaxed, spent. His eyes continued shut, as though the lids were gummed down. Failing in many attempts to open them, he quested food, found it, and consoled himself with it.
Occasionally plaintive voices babbled unintelligibly, arousing him. Always, if he listened, he heard a gentle murmur reply to the voices. And then everything was quiet. He felt very sleepy. Finally he dropped off into slumber, deep and restful.
Between periods of sleep, Robert struggled with his heavy eyelids. Memories might have associated his sightlessness with blindness—but he had none. There were only Ellen's face and her name which, when expecially desperate, he called again and again.