The Light at the End of the Tunnel Read Online Free PDF Page B

any news of
unusual babies, surprisingly found plenty of questionable
information. But of course that’s what the cyber world lived for:
questionable events of all kinds. Later she got cleaned up and
dressed, and reported for work, and was met at the hospital door by
a reporter from The National Infamies who immediately asked,
“Ms. Waters?”
    “Yes?”
    “I’d like to hear of your experience. Could
you give me a few minutes?”
    “Yes, I certainly will.”
    A half hour later, Nurse Waters ended with,
“What got me the most, the worst, was the baby’s expression. I’ve
seen and held a few babies…but I’ve never seen….”
    “Yes, what?”
    “Just before he tried to grab my boob, and
both times just before he urinated in my face, all three
times…!”
    “Yes…?”
    “He smirked !”

     
    Chapter 9 Alone

    Cassandra, also just two months old, lay in a
bassinet at a foster care facility. The search, failed, had been
made for relatives to take her. There were only very, very,
distant, relatives, most of them young, and none were interested in
the responsibility of an infant. Sometimes a volunteer would come
to the center strictly to hold young children, to love them, and
talk to them. And the volunteers did a good job, but it seemed the
same one never held Cassandra more than once. Every time she felt
warm arms around her and opened her eyes she did not recognize the
person. But then she was considered too young to know the
difference, and no real attempt was made to see that the same
volunteer ever held and loved the same child. And what difference
could it make? The volunteers were volunteers, not possible
adoptive parents, and management didn’t want even very young
children to get…attached, even for a moment.
    Already it was noted that the little baby
girl did not cry. It was noted, but no deductions were made.
Evidently she was just a good baby, who didn’t cry and cause
problems.
    Cassandra soon went to her first foster home.
Even though she didn’t cry she was a fussy child, and underweight,
and sometimes would turn blue for no known reason, so began a
series of return trips. First back to the hospital, then back to
family services—where volunteers again held her—then again to a new
foster home—where her physical ailments continued to plague
her—then back to the hospital to continue the cycle.
    The little girl needed someone to hold her
close to a warm and loving body, continuously and regularly, for at
least a little while, so she could begin to absorb at least a
beginning of warmth from a familiar body, because without that
warmth, that love—even though temporary—she would not grow strong
emotionally. But that continuous warm and loving body never
happened, so little Cassandra developed a shield, a protective
coating that would prevent any one person from ever coming in and
loving her. She would never feel love, so would become quite
incapable of giving it

     
    Chapter 10 Lay-down Comedy

    After the execution of Les Paul, and loss of
the book, which maybe had never even existed, the chaplain
continued his work with the inmates on death row but no longer was
his heart in it. Even so he stayed for another eleven months, read
to the men, made sure their televisions worked, that they ate
right, and spoke the verses at four more executions. Normal
executions, murderers, yes, but none with the viciousness and
remorselessness of Les Paul.
    Then one day the chaplain simply reached a
point, so took leave of his duties at the prison. Sometimes he
wondered if he even belonged in the clergy. If that ancient book of
Christianity didn’t even exist— Christ! Even the locker doesn’t
exist!— and was the book even Christian?—then maybe God had not spoken to him, and for the first time in his life he
felt unsure of even the existence of God, at least in the sense
that he had grown up with, that Jesus had come to earth
specifically to die for the sins of all humanity.
    He still believed in