The Lost Room—Temptation
Long after Anna's breathing had fallen slow and even, Joe remained sitting on the couch.
The colorful shapes of the cartoon movie continued to move on the screen, but they hold no power over his attention. His mind concentrated instead on the texture of her hair as he stroked it between his fingers, the warm weight of her small form where she had fallen asleep against him shifting subtly with each breath. As close as these sensations were, his focus upon them was a struggle. But it was a struggle to which he had to commit himself, every hour of his life a fight against an expanded awareness. Only by keeping his mind cluttered with the sensory information of here and now could he hope to drown out the awareness of the Objects pulling on his mind.
Now as much a part of the Room as they were he could feel them, always. At all times he was aware of the push and pull of them against his own being. They were power, and they would not be ignored. He knew he could find them. He knew he could track them down, and those who held them would not see him coming. And he knew for certain could take them, if he wanted, and those who held them could do little to stop him. Nothing was capable of destroying an Object.
Not even time.
His daughter hanging limply in his arms, Joe carried her to her bed. As they climbed the stairs, his mind hung with excruciating awareness upon the light weight of her in his arms. Her thin arms and small, warm hands had clutched unknowingly around his neck, head pillowed upon his shoulder. Excruciating because his concerns over the two worlds in which he existed—the world of the Objects, and the world of his daughter—usually parallel, began to overlap. In the fullness of time, the small girl sleeping silently in his arms would grow into a young woman, the young woman into an old woman, while he would remain the same.
One day, he would be forced to watch her die.
Nothing in this world caused him more pain than the thought of that inevitable future coming to pass. Nothing caused him more fear than what might become of him after it did. Right now, the world he clung to was the child he gently lay in the bed to sleep. With a reverently careful touch he covered her with the blanket as though it might protect her from the march of time, tucked her bright toy fish in her arms as though she might always remain a child.
When that world faded and died, would he be able to resist the temptation that that other world provided. Would he able to pass up the power of the Objects whispering their promises in the back of his mind? Would he do as Kreutzfeld had, and seek a way to take back that which nature and time had stolen?
And if the strength existed within him to resist it, would it stay so forever?