It's a fear more paralyzing than falling. More terrifying than absolute darkness. More horrifying than anything you can imagine. It's the one fear you cannot escape, no matter where you run… no matter where you hide. It's the fear of yourself. It's real. It can happen to you. And facing it can be deadly. Fear for your mind.
This book is dedicated to Tim Hely Hutchinson.
Your faith in my work, a long time ago — and now for many years
— gave me heart when I most needed it.
And to Jane Morpeth.
Ours is the longest editorial relationship of my career,
which is a testament to your exceptional patience, kindness, and tolerance for fools!
This phantasm of falling petals vanishes into moon and flowers.
Whiskers of the cat,
webbed toes on my swimming dog:
God is in details.
In the real world as in dreams, nothing is quite what it seems.
Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein lies the tragedy of it.
AUTOPHOBIA is a real personality disorder. The term is used to describe three different conditions: (1) fear of being alone; (2) fear of being egotistical; (3) fear of oneself. The third is the rarest of these conditions.
On that Tuesday in January, when her life changed forever, Martine Rhodes woke with a headache, developed a sour stomach after washing down two aspirin with grapefruit juice, guaranteed herself an epic bad-hair day by mistakenly using Dustin’s shampoo instead of her own, broke a fingernail, burnt her toast, discovered ants swarming through the cabinet under the kitchen sink, eradicated the pests by firing a spray can of insecticide as ferociously as Sigourney Weaver wielded a flamethrower in one of those old extraterrestrial-bug movies, cleaned up the resultant carnage with paper towels, hummed Bach’s
After convincing her ever hopeful mother that the Rhodes marriage remained happy, Martie slipped into a leather jacket and took her golden retriever, Valet, on his morning walk. Step by step, her headache faded.
Along the whetstone of clear eastern sky, the sun sharpened scalpels of light. Out of the west, however, a cool onshore breeze pushed malignant masses of dark clouds.
The dog regarded the heavens with concern, sniffed the air warily, and pricked his pendant ears at the hiss-clatter of palm fronds stirred by the wind. Clearly, Valet knew a storm was coming.
He was a gentle, playful dog. Loud noises frightened him, however, as though he had been a soldier in a former life and was haunted by memories of battlefields blasted by cannon fire.
Fortunately for him, rotten weather in southern California was seldom accompanied by thunder. Usually, rain fell unannounced, hissing on the streets, whispering through the foliage, and these were sounds that even Valet found soothing.
Most mornings, Martie walked the dog for an hour, along the narrow tree-lined streets of Corona Del Mar, but she had a special obligation every Tuesday and Thursday that limited their excursion to fifteen minutes on those days. Valet seemed to have a calendar in his furry head, because on their Tuesday and Thursday expeditions, he never dawdled, finishing his toilet close to home.
This morning, only one block from their house, on the grassy sward between the sidewalk and the curb, the pooch looked around shyly, discreetly lifted his right leg, and as usual made water as though embarrassed by the lack of privacy.
Less than a block farther, he was preparing to conclude the second half of his morning business when a passing garbage truck backfired, startling him. He huddled behind a queen palm, peering cautiously around one side of the tree bole and then around the other, convinced that the terrifying vehicle would reappear.
“No problem,” Martie assured him. “The big bad truck is gone. Everything’s fine. This is now a safe-to-poop zone.”
Valet was unconvinced. He remained wary.
