The Face That Must Die Read Online Free PDF

like she wants to shake herself to pieces and never be put together again. Oh I’m sorry, love. I didn’t want you to go. It was the shit talking. I never wanted you to go.
    - Why do they call it shit?
    - Who’s there? Oh Jesus, it’s not Sylvia who came apart, it’s me. My mind’s splitting down the middle like a cleaver’s gone through it.
    - Of course. There’s a calm side and a paranoid side. You’re on the paranoid side now, man.
    - I’ve had this before. Like my mind’s a battleground between the strong and the weak. Vietnam in the head. Like that book by someone, Aldiss, Barry was reading us last week. All right, I can play it. What did you say back there?
    - What? What did I say? Oh, I was wondering why they call dope shit.
    - Weird question. The colour, maybe, I don’t know. Listen, however many of me there are, we’re famished. Let’s make it to the kitchen. You take this leg and I’ll get the other.
    - Go on! You can do it! Listen, you aren’t turned on to this scene at all. You’ve got to become me, man, you’ve got to become the strong calm side of this mind we’ve got, then there’ll be no more paranoia, no more weakness. Merge, man, merge.
    - Maybe, but how long have we been walking towards that door? The purple’s pulling us back. We aren’t going to make it. Anyway, listen, we don’t even know what’s on the other side of the door. Let’s just lie down and maybe hear some sounds.
    - You crawling cowardly bastard. I could show you things that’d make your experiences look like shit, if you had the courage.
    - All right. All right! We’re out. Don’t ask me how I got through that shadow. Felt like cobwebs. My God, is that the bedroom over there? All that way? Oh wow, that orange door is my scene, though. This whole hall, it’s like those comics Barry had last night, what were they, Marvel Comics.
    - We aren’t going over there. Just in the kitchen. There, you made it. Fantastic.
    - Look at those pans hanging up. What are they, mouths? Mouths on sticks! Sylvia used to feed those mouths. She loved having her own kitchen.
    - Forget that. Forage, man. What’s this? Duck paté. A duck made into paste. Don’t know how you could think of eating that, even if you weren’t stoned. Sylvia bought it, don’t forget. She bought it and you were supposed to eat it.
    - Don’t you say that. I used to walk around the block sometimes when I was stoned and think of coming home to Sylvia when we were old and we could just sit together.
    - She stuffed a crushed duck down your throat. She didn’t care.
    - Don’t you put her down, you fucker! I want to see her! I want to tell her I’m sorry!
    - All right. There’s nothing good here, anyway. Let’s take a walk.
    - See Sylvia?
    - If you want.
    - Just so you know who’s running things here. Clump. That door sounded satisfied. It wanted me to come out for a walk. There you are, Croxteth Grove. That means all these trees and look, on that wall, that cat sitting like a gargoyle. All its fur with the sun running off like water. Summer is to sit with Sylvia, like that kids’ book I was reading.
    - Maybe so, but look: Lodge Lane. Main roads aren’t good for the summer.
    - For once I think you’re right. There’s something bad about those cars. It’s like the cars are using people for parts, you know, cogs or valves. My God, look at all those cars sitting at the side of the road waiting to catch someone! That’s right, they draw off energy somehow and drive about on it.
    - But what about all these people walking around?
    - Well, what about them? Look, look at them jerking about! There’s that guy tapping his umbrella, there’s a woman brushing her hair back from her face, look, she’s doing it again, there’s some kids kicking a can. “Yes, that’s right, they’ve been thrown out by the cars because they’ve got too much excess energy. But the cars will get them again. Am I walking along Lodge Lane talking to myself?”
    - “Yes, I think