Anthology Complex Read Online Free PDF

different seasons. This human understood the seasonal
changes and the changes from day to night and night to day, and he or she
documented and explained them.
     
    Eventually this human told the other humans, who at the time could only
live for a few months, that he or she could tell them what to prepare for next.
So this human tells the other humans that snow and great cold is coming, and
the ones who were lucky enough to last to see this change thought that this
human was some sort of higher being.
     
    Eventually this human died after living for so many years. After a very,
very long time, along came a human who could live forever. After reading the
documents and recordings of previous humans, he or she realized that every
thing just repeats itself, even on the grandest scale. He or she saw the end,
and then watched as the beginning started again. In this beginning, the human
watched as these people who could only live for six hours were born, and then
died.
     
    Chapter 9:
    THERAPEUTIC SILENCE
     
    It's been a little over a week since Joe has been in a coma. By now I
thought that he would have been out of it, but he's not. The people that work
at the hospital tell me that he only has a few relatives, and that they can't
reach most of them. The ones that they actually do get a hold of don't want to
visit, either because they live too far away or they aren't that close to Joe.
In the end I guess he is stuck with me.
     
    I'm on my way out to go visit him, this will probably be my last visit.
I hope it's my last visit. I hope he wakes up soon and returns to business as
usual. I walk through the front door of my apartment building and I see the
woman who just moved in kneeling on the ground. She's gardening.
     
    She looks up at me and smiles, and that's when I immediately remember a
dream I had of her a couple of nights ago. In the dream she is helping me with
something, but I can't remember what. It's unfortunate that I can't remember
some dreams that I have as well as others. Sometimes I wake up knowing I just
had a dream, but I can't remember the dream for the life of me.
     
    I'm standing there, looking at her with a weird expression on my face
and trying to remember this dream, then her smile begins to slowly fade. She
asks me if I'm okay, and I tell her I was fine. I tell her it was weird to see
her gardening because I had never seen anyone ever garden around an apartment
building. I always thought that was done usually around houses or nice places.
She gets up and she says to me, "Your home is your home." And slowly
the smile grows back onto her face, and once again I can't do anything but
smile back at her.
     
    She's wearing a pair of jeans so I can't see her fake leg, but for a
small amount of time I can't stop thinking about it. I didn't dare ask about
it. She then starts to talk about how she didn't really introduce herself when
I helped her move the television, and she tells me her name is Lynne. She tells
me her kids' names are Sarah and David. A lovely family.
     
    I asked her what kind of flowers she was planting, and she told me they
were going to be zinnias. She told me it was going to be a shade garden. I
didn't really know what she was talking about but I would find out when she was
finished. A little while after talking, I see a woman walking her dog. She's
walks in our direction as if she is going to enter our apartment building.
     
    Lynne sees the lady a little after I do and she tells me it's her
sister, Claire. Claire was coming over for dinner. Lynne introduces me to
Claire, and then invites me over for dinner as well, but I tell her I have to
meet a friend. Now across the street there is a man walking his dog. This man's
dog and Claire's dog start barking at each other. Bark, bark, bark, it gets so
annoying.
     
    It starts to remind me of that terrible ringing sound. The phone
ringing, ringing, ringing. Sometimes the ringing drives you so nuts you want to
just break the phone and live the rest of