shades and lowering their voices and turning off the lights. Imagine sneaking through life like that-every minute night and day! People don't realize how perverted perverts are until they watch them. Me, I'd just go crazy having to be so secret about everything I did. What a hell of a life to choose when they could be normal with no trouble at all!

Then all of a sudden the whole thing blew sky high. In just five minutes everything changed from being dull and ordinary, and got so damned different I thought I'd gone crazy. Maybe I did. It sure doesn't sound sane what happened from there on.

I said they didn't have much furniture. The living room was bare except for a second hand divan and a borrowed floor lamp. And up on the ledge over the fireplace with a couple books was this little vase. It was about as tall as a milk carton and some dark color, and it didn't look like much to me. It was old and there was a chip out of the top. Not the sort of thing you pay any attention to. I never noticed it until the night it got broke. They were twittering around about putting up a long curtain rod. The little one didn't look where he was swinging it and the end of the rod gave the vase a crack. It didn't fall offjust busted in two neat pieces like it was cut down the middle from top to bottom and laid there rocking on the ledge. The big guy began yawping at the little one about being a victim of general atrophy or something like that. He walked over and locked at the two pieces.

"Darn you anyway. I've been very fond of this little thing. Why don't you ever watch what you're doing! You know, I got this almost ten years ago at a Salvation Army store for a quarter."

"Stop moaning. It's in two neat pieces. I'll glue them together and it won't look a bit worse than it did before. Maybe better."

"Thanks so much. Anything else around the house you'd like to improve?"

"Give it here. I've got some glue in the closet."

"Funny how it broke exactly in two, isn't it?” "Hey." "What?"

"Now how could that be?" "How could what be?"

"Look. Am I losing my mind or is there writing on the inside of these two pieces?" "Come on, let's get this curtain up before-" "You come here and look at this! It's in a spiral starting at the top and going clear down to the bottom."

"Dolling, that's physically impossible. Who could get whose hand inside that half-inch neck? Let's see what you're calling writing." "People put ships in bottles, buddy, and somebody has written inside this vase. "Those are just scratches."

"Well, the scratches are in English."

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"I'll be darned. I don't see how anyone could write inside a vase this small! Makes you think of literate monkeys-or gnomes and things."

"Bring your half over here under the lamp. We'll read it. It's in a spiral so if we take turns each reading a line, we'll have what it says."

"Your half must start it off. Mine begins with it's too bad because this vase is actually." "Sit down. Closer. Now, here goes.'

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That was the closest I'd ever seen them together in the light. I hurried around the back door with my camera, slipped in and tiptoed through the dark kitchen. They were both

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