“Well?” Well.
“Could I talk about it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember that dream I had, about being in the cellar of my grandmother’s farmhouse in Vermont and the smell of winter apples and the stranger coming?”
“Yes.”
“Could we work on that?”
“Sure.”
“I had it again. Last night and the night before.”
“I see.” Well well.
“Did I say or did you say that perhaps the stranger might be someone trying to tell me something?”
“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter what I said. What do you think now?”
“You know what I think?”
“No.”
“I think the stranger is trying to tell me something.”
“Yes?”
“I also think the stranger has something to do with the terror.”
“I see. How?”
“He is not someone to be terrified of, yet I am terrified.”
“I see.”
“Do you know who the stranger is?”
“Who do you think he is?”
“I think the stranger is part of myself.”
“I see.”
“I am trying to tell myself something. I mean a part of me I don’t really know, yet the deepest part of me, is trying to—”
“Yes?”
“Could I talk about it?”
“Yes.”
She falls silent, but her eyes are softer, livelier, are searching mine as if I were the mirror of her very self. She lets go of her hand. She almost smiles. She ducks her head and touches the nape of her neck as she used to.
“Well?” I say.
She opens her mouth to speak.
Well well well.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1987 by Walker Percy
cover design by Jason Gabbert
cover image courtesy of Erin Power
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1631-6
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
Walker Percy, The Thanatos Syndrome
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