Fear Nothing [antikvár]

On the desk in my candlelit study, the telephone rang, and I knew that a terrible change was coming. I am not psychic. I do not see signs and portents in the sky. To my eye, the lines in my palm reveal nothing about my future, and I don't have a Gypsy's ability to discern the patterns of fate in wet tea leaves. My father had been dying for days, however, and after spending the previous night at his bedside, blotting the sweat from his brow and listening to his labored breathing, I knew that he couldn't hold on much longer. I dreaded losing him and being, for the first time in my twenty-eight years, alone. I am an only son, an only child, and my mother passed away two years ago. Her death had been a shock, but at least she had not been forced to endure a lingering illness. Last night just before dawn, exhausted, I had returned home to sleep. But I had not slept much or well. Now I leaned forward in my chair and willed the phone to fall silent, but it would not. The dog also knew what the ringing meant. He padded out of the shadows into the candleglow, and stared sorrowfully at me. Ur\like others of his kind, he will hold any man's