Peter shook his head, vainly trying to shake loose the ringing in his ears and b

linking back the flash blindness. Unsuccessfully, so he did it again with a litt
le more luck.
All of the windows had been blown out of the house and somewhere a car alarm sou
nded. The office chair that Milton had been occupying was mostly missing, now on
ly a wheeled base with a lonely metal pole rising out of it before terminating a
bruptly and sharply, seeming to have melted at the end.
Milton was gone. Milton with his plaid shirts and heavy-framed spectacles. Milto
n his neighbour was gone.
Milton was gone in a brilliant flash of light. Milton was gone with a terrible s
creeching crash, like a train derailing.
Milton had called him, breathless and frantic. Had demanded... Demand? Not Milto
n, but this time he had. "Get here now. Get here now I've fucking got it."
Now Milton was gone and a scrap of paper had taken his place. It didn't seem a f
air trade but Peter finally brought himself to pick it up, uncertain through his
shock what good it might do, but hoping for a clue as to what Milton was workin
g on.
What was scrawled on the paper made Peter more conscious of how disconnected he
felt from everything because he couldn't possibly be reading it right. He tried
again, with the same result.
"Superglue raisins together."
Those words had taken Milton from him and understanding them or not, Peter commi
tted himself then to using them to chase after him.