Time Thieves

apparently taken his time with it.
        
        “I don't remember doing it.”
        
        He tried, to be analytical and speak clamly, but the panic rose in him again. He felt trapped, abruptly reduced to primitive fears and animal intuitions that threatened to guide his reason. He knew, without any facts, that it was dangerous to be here. He had to fight down the urge to bolt for the car and get off the mountain.
        
        “You'll remember soon enough,” she said. She knew that it was necessary to make him think she believed that, to offer her own certainty as an anchor.
        
        They prowled the cabin, but they found no other sign of what might have transpired to spark his amnesia. The paintbrushes were washed clean and racked with his typical care. The cans of beige paint were firmly tamped shut to keep the contents from drying out.
        
        Why couldn't he remember any of it?
        
        She forced a smile as she saw that his fear was as strong as ever, and she said: “Well, let's do some work! Maybe some exercise will help settle your nerves. I'll lay some tile in the bathroom-and maybe you can clear some of the brush away, downslope, toward the road.”
        
        “I guess we've nothing better to do,” He saw the dismay she tried to conceal between flickerings of a tentative, strained smile, and he knew that it wasn't any good, this transmitting his uncertainty to her. He kissed her then and made enthusiastic noises about getting the cabin closer to completion.
        
        He fetched a sickle from the tool rack and tramped through the ragged clearing he had already cut, to the shaggy perimeter of the lawn. There, he set to work hacking down the shoulder-high brush between the trees.
        
        The work did have a therapeutic effect He soon removed his shirt and settled to the enjoyment of his muscles working in rhythm. Every time he stopped to survey what he had accomplished, he felt better. It was as if each chopped weed, each torn and dismembered bush, made him less hollow and more sure of himself, made those two lost weeks far less important than they had seemed at first.
        
        Peter Mullion was a man less bound by tradition and a need for security than most. He had never buckled down to a nine-to-five job in his life, and he never intended to, even if the now prosperous ad agency should suddenly fold. In the early years when the agency wasn't making much money, he had simply adjusted his living standard and didn't worry much. Money had been put away for a nicer house, travel next year, for books, records and art. They had modest investments. But as for a retirement fund-well, he felt that the sooner a man started saving for old age, the sooner his apathy toward the present set in.
        
        Yet, there were limits to his casualness. Missing two weeks of his life was beyond those limits. If he did not discover what had happened to himself, he would never be at peace.
        
        Thinking slowly brought the panic back.
        
        The faster he swung the sickle, the greater the panic became. It was a vicious circle: he could only escape fear through the monotony of manual labor, but manual labor gave him time to think-and thinking brought him directly back to the fear.
        
        He chopped harder, trying to lose himself in the exertion.
        
        But the fear swept his mind, the bristles of that dark broom digging deeper every time it arced.
        
        The sickle, blurred by the furious rate of its arc, struck the trunk of a locust tree. The impact made his arm so numb that his fingers opened and dropped the blade into the high grass where he lost sight of it.
        
        Pete sat down, exhausted, breathing hard. He felt centuries old. Chin on his chest, he made soft whooping noises as he drew breath and tried to settle himself.
        
         I am not going mad, he thought . I will not. I cannot! I won't!
        
        But he was not so sure.
        
        He had read, somewhere, that the mad never suspect they are mad and that only the rational man wonders about his sanity. Wasn't that evidence of his sanity?
        
        As he recovered his breath, he began to feel that he was being watched. It was such a strong sensation that it either proved an incurable paranoia or was based on fact. His first reaction was to turn and see if Della had come