Phase Shift Read Online Free PDF Page A

for
him?"
    I think about this for a moment, actually
completing the research I promised the guy, but then I think better
of it. "Who has time for research? I'll probably just call him
later in the week and drop them off at his house when he's at
work."
    He nods and then returns to his scraping.
"That's what I'd do too, I guess."
    I watch him in silence for a moment. "Well,
that's it for me," I tell him, "I'm going to bed."
    He looks at me over his shoulder and I am
overwhelmed by the urge to grab him from behind and nibble on his
ear. He puts down what he's doing long enough to weave his fingers
through my hair. It feels good. I try hard not to think about the
fact the fingers entwined in my hair are the exact same fingers
that were picking monkey cartilage off the bone only seconds
before. "You'll clean my pot tonight?" I whisper into his ear. The
whole eccentric professor thing is charming on him and I want to be
understanding, but try as I might, I can't be nonchalant about the
pot.
    "Goodnight, Moll," he says, good-humoured
but dismissive. I release him from my grasp. His arms resume their
delicate scraping motion. "Be in soon," he says.

    It is 2:26 by my bedside clock before I feel
Palmer climb into the bed beside me and I can't help but think
about the pot once more. I say a silent prayer I don't wake up to
day old monkey scum floating in a pot on the stovetop tomorrow
morning.
     

Boy
Sees God
    Dr. Trisha Purchase finished coloring in the
circle before exchanging the fat yellow crayon for a fat red one.
She gazed at the boy sitting across the table from her. Five year
old Cody Gruber sensed her looking and snuck a sideways glance
before he returned to his drawing. Trisha began outlining thick red
petals around the yellow circle. She had completed three petals,
nearly half her flower, before examining Cody's drawing in
detail.
    Usually the boy busied himself drawing
pictures of him and his family in front of their new house, or of
elaborate cityscapes with roads under repair, drawbridges and the
CN Tower. But this drawing was different. Along one side of the
heavy, cream-colored paper was a stick figure of a boy with blond
hair and blue eyes, assumedly Cody himself. The stick boy was boxed
in with a brown rectangle. Beside the boy-in-a-box was a second
stick figure, tall and thin and wearing a long, flowing robe.
    "Cody," Trisha began, "that's a great
picture you're drawing."
    The boy smiled without diverting his
attention from the paper.
    "What is it?"
    "Well," the boy said, "this is me." He
pointed to the small stick figure in the box. "I'm in bed and I'm
sleeping."
    Trisha smiled at him, trying to make the boy
feel at ease. "And the other figure?"
    "That's God," Cody replied,
matter-of-factly.
    So that was it, Trisha thought. At
long last we see the manifestation of the troublesome behaviour his
parents were talking about . Twice a week for three long weeks,
Trisha and Cody had sat there, on opposite sides of the low coffee
table, drawing pictures. While Cody drew his cityscapes, Trisha
busied herself drawing brightly coloured flowers with thick, green
stems, stars, smiling suns and happy spiders with Kodiak work
boots. At last, a breakthrough. Let's see if we can get to the
root of the problem, shall we?
    "Cody? Sweetheart?" she asked. "Why do you
think that's God?"
    "Well, because it is. He came to visit
me."
    "And did he tell you he was God when he
came?"
    "Nope."
    "Then how do you know it was him?"
    "I just know." Cody put down the black
crayon with which he had been drawing the darkness in the room and
picked up a white one. He began scribbling a long, white beard on
the face of the God stick figure.
    Contemplating her next move, Trisha finished
drawing her daisy and traded the red crayon for green. She began to
draw a thick, green stem with the usual three fat leaves.
    "Cody," she said, "I'm a bit confused. When
you say you saw God, you mean you saw a man who looked like God,
like how you imagine God to look,