A labyrinth of emotions
“My larynx is killing me!” Robin exclaimed. “Someone must have laced my cigars with strychnine.” “You are forever lamenting. Spare us your platitudes,” replied Laura, his long-suffering wife, wearing her grandmother’s favorite lace bonnet, as she always did at Easter. “You do like to launch into some utter nonsense, especially at holiday times. It’s your latent masochism, I suppose.” “Quick!” Robin gasped. “The pain is lasting. Ring the hospital to organize some laser treatment, or do you wish me to continue to languish like this?
I feel as though I am trapped in a labyrinth in this mansion of ours, unable even to get out of this drawing room to the telephone out on the landing.”
Slowly, Robin’s mind began to wander back to the time, well back in the last century, when he had been one of the first astronauts. Although America had lagged behind the Soviet Union in space exploration in the early years, NASA was later able to lash out at its critics and be the first to launch rockets that would send men to the Moon. Taking off from Cape Canaveral, which is located at a highly favorable degree of latitude, the mighty Saturn rocket blasted off, with Robin as one of a crew of five. The rocket then took a lateral course straight for the Moon. Stepping out, Robin and his fellow astronauts marveled at the bleak beauty of the lunar landscape, all the while beholding the outline of the American landmass back on Earth.
“Ah, that was all so long ago,” Robin sighed, unaware of the fact that his mansion----and he and his larynx with it------were about to be buried in a huge landslide, caused by recent torrential rains. |
