Vurt (32 page)

I don't know. I just don't know.

I go through door three sometimes, to the Pink world. Just to get rid of some feelings. So does the Game Cat. He visits the ones involving boys and sailors. Maybe I should've realised years ago. He doesn't bother me. Treats me like a brother.

Maybe he knows by now; I'll always be waiting.

I wonder sometimes why he keeps me here. Sure, I help out with the mag, writing reviews sometimes, copying his style. I suppose he's teaching me something.

What else?

No clues about Karli Dog. I like to think that she roamed the streets for years, running with the pack, and then died in action. That's a good story.

And sometimes, just sometimes. . .

I find myself riding some blue or black door, and this woman comes up to me, riding the same feather. She has the most beautiful eyes, and a dragon tattoo on her left, upper arm. We play for a while, working the game together like experts, always winning, never losing. She's thirty-nine years old. I'm twenty-five. It doesn't happen that often. I suppose it must get to her, the widening gap of age.

Cat tells me that she's got a new man now, down on the real world. That's okay. I can handle that.

Her wounds have healed; so have mine.

I guess I always loved Desdemona more than she loved me. That's why her staying here would have been a betrayal, a betrayal of life.

What else?

The Crash Riders feather got made eventually. It was a hard Yellow, and the money comes in useful, kind of, just to bribe the General now and again, into letting me pass through doorways I shouldn't.

It was the Cat who persuaded me to write down these memories. I don't know what to call it yet. Certainly not Crash Drivers. I might just call it after my name, or after what I am. What I have become.

Maybe you're reading it now.

Or maybe you're playing the feather.

Or maybe you're in the feather, thinking that you're reading the novel, with no way of knowing. . .

No matter.

The game is over soon. Just one more moment. . . And then it's gone.

.. a young boy takes a feather out of his mouth.