r
eyes darted around the shrunken metal-walled shell, even the ceiling
curved overhead, and she saw two grotesque daubs taped to the walls that
parodied the paintings of her dead brother Alex. The coloring was ugly
and the proportions out of line. And it was not canvas but curling
sheets of paper taped and painted to resemble frames!

A big man, sandy-haired and with vertical wrinkles deep between piercing
blue eyes, came into the room. She shrank into the bed, seeing that the
sheet she tugged taut across her breast was ragged and blue.

"Ruth," he said, a slow smile making his face almost handsome, "you're
better. You haven't spoken in weeks."

Ruth wanted to giggle. As though they could keep her quiet. Daddy was
always shushing her.... But who was this big man in his dusty drab
coveralls and dropped dust mask dangling upon his chest?

"Don't you know me, Dear? It's Buhl, your husband."

Buhl was fifteen and only a couple of inches taller than Ruth. Of course
he had sandy hair like this man. But this man was old enough to be
Buhl's father. This was crazy--like one of the dreams that always made
her unhappy.

So? So it was a dream. She felt warmth and release. Why not see what
this dream had to offer that might be amusing to remember and tell Buhl
sometime soon. Wouldn't he laugh when he heard she had dreamed about
him? And been married to him.

She saw the strip of shiny metal that masqueraded as her mirror, and
where her four long windows, with their thick, loose-woven drapes, had
been there were only four taped strips of paper with crude pictures of
draped windows daubed on them. There were even green dabs of paint and
black splashes to stimulate her beloved maple tree.

"Ruth! Do you feel better now? Please don't smile at me like that. I
know you loved the baby, but this Martian atmosphere is tough even for
men. It wasn't your fault."

"Go ahead and talk," Ruth laughed gaily. "This is just another bad dream
and I know it. I'll wake up in a little while and be back in my cool old
room."

"Blast your room and your dreams!"

The man went across the room in a swift rush and tore down one of the
false windows, the painted strip of paper. And beyond, through a dusty
oval glass window, Ruth could see a reddish brown wasteland, where dust
clouds spun and shifted slowly, and a dusty huddle of what looked like
quonset huts or storage sheds of metal.

"That is reality, Ruth. You must face it. This pretense, this