Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Illusions 1)

"It is a perfect sky?"

"Well, it's always a perfect sky, Don."

"Are you telling me that even though it's changing every second, the sky is always a perfect sky?"

"Gee, I'm smart. Yes ?"

"And the sea is always a perfect sea, and it's always changing, too," he said "If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain't hardly no swamp-cookie."

"Isn't hardly no swamp-cookie," I corrected, absently. "Perfect, and all the time changing. Yeah. I'll buy that."

"You bought it a long time ago, if you insist on time. "

I turned to him as we walked. "Doesn't it get boring for you, Don, staying on just this one dimension ?"

"Oh. Am I staying on just this one dimension ?" he said. "Are you ?"

"Why is it that everything I say is wrong?"

"Is everything you say wrong ?" he said.

"I think I'm in the wrong business."

"You think maybe real estate?" he said.

"Real estate or insurance. "

"There's a future in real estate, if you want one. "

"OK, I'm sorry " I said "I don't want a future. Or a past. I'd just as soon become a nice old Master of the World of Illusion. Looks like maybe in another week ?"

"Well, Richard, I hope not that long!" I looked at him carefully, but he wasn't smiling.

9

The Days blurred one into another. We flew as always, but I had stopped counting summer by the names of towns or the money we earned from passengers. I began counting the summer by the things I learned, the talks we had when flying was done, and by the miracles that happened now and then along the way to the time I knew at last that they aren't miracles at all.

Imagine

the universe beautiful

and just and

perfect,

the handbook said to me once.

Then be sure of one thing:

the

Is has imagined it

quite a bit better

than you

have.