PARTICLE THEORY by Edward Bryant * * * * I see my shadow flung like black iron against the wall. My sundeck blazes with untimely summer. Eliot was wrong; Frost, right. Nanoseconds… Death is as relativistic as any other apparent constant I wonder: am I dying? * * * * I thought it was a cliché with no underlying truth. “Lives do flash in a compressed instant before dying eyes,” said Amanda. She poured me another glass of burgundy the color of her hair. The fire highlighted both. “A psychologist named Noyes—” She broke off and smiled at me. “You real-ly want to hear this?” “Sure.” The fireplace light softened the taut planes of her face. I saw a flicker of the gentler beauty she had possessed thirty years before. “Noyes catalogued testimonial evidence for death’s-door phenomena