She did not even know how her
father had protected her from the fallout, or indeed, if he had been
able. Horrible thought! Would she one day die of cancer, too?
The only comfort, and it wasn't much, was that it had all happened so
long ago: that the hurts had long since been healed. But what was Time,
really? Had the Island forgotten? The grim hunks of marble, were they
not tombstones, the remains of a pillaged graveyard? Were the gnarled
trees not alive with the ghosts of the past? She could not elude the
pain, or the bludgeoning sense of complicit guilt.
Had he wanted to, Kalus could have torn her apart in those moments
merely by pointing, as if to say. 'Is this the humanity you mock me
with? Is this the world and way of life I should mourn?' But he said
nothing because he, too, seeing her spirit crushed so completely, felt
through her the reality and pain of the score of books she had read to
him, and realized that every book ever written was but a grain of sand
in the vast desert of human struggles and emotions. Six billion
intelligent beings at once sharing the globe. . .and then this. He
wanted to wrap her in his arms, and shield her forever from the horror.
But he could not. 'I wish this day would end,' was the best he
could manage.
But the day would not end.
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