"Christ, how many did she kill? "In spite of the cruiser-load of dope shed shot into him, Paul began to be frightened.
"Paul put his own spoon down. Getting into the chair didnt hurt as much as he had feared, and that was good, because previous experience had shown him that he would hurt plenty afterward. Paul suddenly remembered other examples of this odd mania: the way people had mobbed the Baltimore docks each month when the packet bearing the new installment of Mr Dickenss Little Dorrit or Oliver Twist was due (some had drowned, but this did not discourage the others); the old woman of a hundred and five who had declared she would five until Mr Galsworthy finished The Forsyte Saga — and who had died less than an hour after having the final page of the final volume read to her; the young mountain climber hospitalized with a supposedly fatal case of hypothermia whose friends had read The Lord of the Rings to him nonstop, around the clock, until he came out of his coma; hundred s of other such incidents. "The only question is whether youre going down piggyback or bum over teakettle.
It was snowing outside, the first real snow of the year, and they said wed have a foot by the next morning. Itll have a lot more punch.
Until he could do that, she would have him on a chain as well as in a wheelchair — a chain of Novril capsules. He hit the keys harder than necessary, so she would be sure to hear he was typing something, at least.