On waking, Archy was a little concerned how Helen would take it when she realized that 'The Dream' had survived another prodigious reality test, regurgitating numbers that pinpointed the appearance of another cosmic projectile.
Of course, she could choose to disbelieve him at the coming session; and place him with Ruby, The Radiator ('Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!') as in denial both of brute reality and of a psychopathology zapping from some childhood complex.
He would understand this, entirely, he fantasized, as he was only beginning to realize the ramifications himself.
Granted that everything could be explained as perfectly natural, though, oh, so highly unlikely, on the material plane, in the realm of information, it looked at the very least pretty darned paraspychological. Wahdja-McCall-it?
Premonition? His big, empty, drowsing morning head flashed the answer.
But since he couldn't discount the dream vehicle it came in - a juggernaut of a lorry begob - he was stuck with worse prognoses - or 'I'm bonkers'.
Later, as he dipped a brown-bread soldier into the deep yellow of a Big-endian-sliced-top boiled egg, he stopped and gawped at the sound of his own name emanating from the radio.
It was, of course, Dr. McMillan being interviewed by a ravenous posse of world-class Journalists and cracking a little under the pressure:-
"It was an amateur UK astronomer, one of these little telescope and PC software guys, I would imagine: Archibald Kerr, in Nantwich, Cheshire, directed my attention to that part of the sky. He had the hopeful idea that this thing might be on a collision course with the first object. The angle would be right to knock it off course if it did actually collide, but that is such a slim chance. I think we have to discard that wishful thinking and regard this object as another threat until we get enough information on the trajectory to see if it will hit or miss the earth. Too close to call at the moment. Should be another few days, boys and girls!"
Oh, shit! He was the only Kerr in Nanwich. They would have him in no time. He unplugged his landline. The mobile was with him. He put it on Flight Mode.
Where could he run? Maybe he could crash at Rocky Rick's. Buy some booze to share and leave out the skunk on offer. That would not help his state of mind, or would it? But what would he say? Running from a woman? From the Law? Tell Rocky Rick everything? Blow the guy's skunked-out mind?
Suddenly he remembered the last time he had lost it, big time. Just after his Dad had died.
He had walked for a day and a half, stopping at times only to march off again. He had broken his anxiety by sitting by the river Weaver and falling asleep for some hours. He woke from a nightmare, however, and staggered off.
His next stop was to watch a Sci-Fi old film at a cinema he passed randomly. 'Zardoz', it was, with Sean Connery. Then he had walked for a long while more until he rested his tired head in a country graveyard on a grave.
Shaking the earth off his jacket, and realizing it was Sunday, after a few more hours of compulsive rambling, he had gone to a Quaker church (Very unlike most of the US variety of Quaker altogether, you know. Liberal. Pacifist. Everyone a priest. You don't even have to believe in God.) and just sat there in the circle in the silence, while people now and again got up and talked of the burden they bore, looking after old relatives, or coping with their troubles.
So. Here was his circle. Wherever he laid his head it seemed to claim him. There would be no running save for the river of time. It was in yellow paint, after all. His favorite color. The arrow pointed to the future and there was no stopping it. There never was.
