experience. Nature had certainly gone on a bender tonight and no mistake. If these things could happen what else might not be possible? Marc dreaded to think.

If Marc had been able to look into the unknown regions beyond the universe he might have had a quick answer to his question. But not a reassuring one....

In a timeless, unboundaried place, an entity sat cross-legged on a drifting piece of atmosphere and gazed with jaundiced and disconsolate eye toward the regions of Eternity. He looked unhappily on the undiscovered planets whirling and drifting in the distance and said an extremely vulgar and basic word. He plucked a handful of atmosphere from the piece on which he sat, untangled his long legs from beneath his misted robes, and, in a modified way, drop-kicked it into the hereafter. He repeated the word.

George Pillsworth, the spirit of Marc Pillsworth, was bored to the socks with the world beyond. He frowned, and the face of Marc Pillsworth expressed disfavor. He leaned forward and dangled his hands between his knees, and it was the lean body of Marc Pillsworth that leaned and the thin hands of Marc Pillsworth that dangled. There, however, the resemblance rocked to a jarring stop.

The message vibrations came trembling across space again, but George didn't bother to listen to them. It was probably just the message center at its eternal business; probably another relay broadcast forwarding the same old answers to the same old mediums down on earth. The question came constantly for the upper level spirits: Are you happy, Uncle Howard? Are you happy, Sister Martha? Always the same silly question. The devil of it was that no one was ever allowed to give them a truthful answer; the News Control Board took care of that. The answer was always the same ... probably recorded, George suspected ... transmitted from the message center: I am in a beautiful place. I am very happy.

Very happy, indeed. In this place? George didn't know about the Kingdoms; maybe they were all right, but this place was.... Well, no, it couldn't be that. But why didn't they tell the truth for once: I'm in the dullest place in time, and if I had any blood I'd open my veins.

The thought of transmitting such a message to those bothersome earthly mediums pleased George immensely. That would rock them back on their heels and stop their silly questions. He leaned back on his atmosphere ledge and smiled for the first time in several days. Then suddenly he sat up as the transmitted vibrations grew more intense, and his own name sounded across time.

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