Inside a Silver Box by Walter Mosley Page B

had much of a childhood and he imagined himself with her life, wearing those red cowboy boots and running around all kinds of flowers.
    At some point she stopped talking, either that or Ronnie just fell asleep.
    *   *   *
    I N THE MORNING Ronnie raised his hand to the scab on his brow without thinking. Next he grabbed the edges of the pod and hefted himself up into a seated position. It was then that he remembered being paralyzed for an entire day.
    Experimenting with his restored mobility, he climbed out of the pod.
    He was standing there on the side of the yellow dirt road, and Lorraine was walking toward him, her hands cupped again.
    She dropped the water and shouted. “Ronnie!”
    “Hey.”
    She ran to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “You grew,” she said.
    Looking down on her, he saw what she meant: He was taller and there was more girth to his form. He wasn’t heavy, as before Lorraine’s rebirth, but much stronger looking.
    “How did you do that?” she asked.
    “I ain’t done nuthin’ in the last twenty-four,” he replied. “It’s just this crazy place. I mean, how could you run so fast and carry me like that? You was goin’ fast as a car on the highway.”
    “I had to,” she said. “It felt like I had to keep on moving faster and faster until all the thoughts were completely gone from my head.”
    “Well, how’m I gonna keep up wit’ you now? I bet I won’t be able to move like that.”
    “It’s okay,” she said, exhibiting a brilliant smile. “I got it all out carrying you along. I could run if I have to, but it’s not eating at me anymore.”
    *   *   *
    T HEY ATE RAW fish from a large lake and more of the dark red ground berries. After that they walked in the bright sun of the deep forest.
    “Where do you think we are?” Lorraine asked at one point.
    “Like a hospital,” Ronnie replied.
    “A hospital?”
    “Yeah. First you got your medicine and went blind and then got fast. I was all locked up like in the prison ward but they didn’t need bars and restraints. I think Used-to-be-Claude is gettin’ us ready to go up against Ma Lin.”
    “Wow!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that be great? If a clinic would be a forest full of bugs and animals and medicine waters? Wow.”
    Her last word seemed to grow and grow until it was a roar.
    Standing in the road before them was a large creature; imposing like a bear but also lithe and long like an alley cat. It was covered with midnight dark bristling fur and had bright, hateful eyes. Ronnie figured that the beast was at least one and a half times his size and weight before the Silver Box and Lorraine changed him. Its brilliant orange eyes were filled with bad intentions.
    Lorraine screamed and turned to run. Her quick movement caught the attention of the bearcat. It took off after her. The animal was so fast that it might have caught her but Ronnie jumped and wrapped his arms around its middle. He threw the creature down on the dirt road and then grabbed it by its pelt along the spine and hefted the thing high above his head. It writhed in this impossible hold, but before it could get free, Ronnie threw it with all his might. The black bearcat bounced on the road fifteen feet away and then landed another five feet along. Instantly it was on its feet staring at the young black man.
    “Come on, mothahfuckah, try it,” Ronnie said between clenched teeth.
    Whether the predator understood the words or just the tone, it hesitated and then ran off into the woods.
    “That was amazing,” Lorraine said. She was standing behind him with a clublike tree branch in her hands. “That thing must’ve weighed at least four hundred pounds.”
    “It smelled bad too.”
    Lorraine giggled, dropped her club, and kissed her companion on the cheek.
    Ronnie had seen friends kiss like this before in churches and on street corners when there was a chance meeting. It wasn’t usually sexual but just a kind of hello. With the solitary