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2412 lines
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--
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** *******
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* * * *
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* *
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* ** * ******* ***** **** * ***** ** ** *******
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* ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * *** **** * *** * *
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* * ** * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * **** * * * **** * * *
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==========================================
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InterText Vol. 1, No. 1 / March-April 1991
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==========================================
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Contents
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FirstText ........................................Jason Snell
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Short Fiction
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A War In the Sand_..........................Daniel Appelquist_
|
||
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Anticipation of the Night_..................Daniel Appelquist_
|
||
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Direct Connection_.................................Phil Nolte_
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||
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The Sculptor_....................................Andrea Payne_
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Mister Wilt_......................................Jason Snell_
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Do You Have Some Time?_.....................Mary Anne Walters_
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||
|
||
The Talisman_.....................................Greg Knauss_
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||
|
||
Schrodinger's Monkey_.............................Greg Knauss_
|
||
|
||
....................................................................
|
||
Editor Assistant Editor
|
||
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
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jsnell@etext.org gaduncan@halcyon.com
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||
....................................................................
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Assistant Editor Send subscription requests, story
|
||
Phil Nolte submissions, and correspondence
|
||
to intertext@etext.org
|
||
....................................................................
|
||
InterText Vol. 1, No. 1. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
|
||
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
|
||
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
|
||
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
|
||
text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1991, 1994 Jason
|
||
Snell. Individual stories Copyright 1991 by their original
|
||
authors.
|
||
....................................................................
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|
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|
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FirstText by Jason Snell
|
||
===========================
|
||
|
||
Welcome to InterText, the new net magazine devoted (well, I'd
|
||
like to think it will be devoted) to the publication of fiction.
|
||
|
||
First off, I'd like to thank Jim McCabe, the man who produced
|
||
Athene, for all the work he did on that magazine.
|
||
|
||
This magazine takes its place, and I hope that you will all find
|
||
the stories we publish to be entertaining and thought-provoking.
|
||
Publishing a commercial magazine is a risky business --
|
||
electronically publishing a non-commercial magazine is risky and
|
||
essentially untried. The only similar magazine that publishes in
|
||
both ASCII and PostScript(TM) format in the United States that I
|
||
know of is Daniel Appelquist's QUANTA, which has been published
|
||
since Fall, 1989. (The other netmagazines are DARGONZINE, which
|
||
is distributed in ASCII format only, and the GUILDSMAN, a
|
||
roleplaying journal.)
|
||
|
||
First, a little bit about myself: I'm a Junior at Revelle
|
||
College at the University of California, San Diego, majoring in
|
||
Communication with a minor in Literature/Writing. I've been
|
||
writing fiction since I was in elementary school, though none of
|
||
it has been professionally published yet. Of course, I haven't
|
||
submitted any of it, so there's nobody to blame but myself.
|
||
|
||
In addition to my schoolwork, I put in a ridiculous amount of
|
||
time at UCSD's school newspaper, the Guardian. I'm in my second
|
||
year at the paper, and I'm the News Editor.
|
||
|
||
What do I expect from this magazine? All I really want to do is
|
||
bring good stories to the people who subscribe. I'll be hunting
|
||
down stories on any subject from all over the network, and
|
||
hopefully we can put out an issue every two months. I'm hoping
|
||
to alternate with the publication schedule of QUANTA, so the two
|
||
magazines will dovetail into a semi-monthly production schedule.
|
||
|
||
QUANTA, if you didn't know, is a bi-monthly net magazine -- and
|
||
its specialty is Science Fiction. InterText, on the other hand,
|
||
is for all kinds of fiction. I don't mind publishing SF here,
|
||
but since Quanta is an established magazine with a specific
|
||
format, I'd expect most of the SF to go there.
|
||
|
||
Then again, since people who use the net seem to be forward-
|
||
thinking in nature, I wouldn't be surprised to find that there's
|
||
so much SF out there that I end up running quite a bit of it. It
|
||
doesn't matter what kind of fiction appears in InterText... it's
|
||
up to you.
|
||
|
||
Within this issue you'll find an interesting collection of
|
||
stories, to say the least. A few stories (but not as many as I
|
||
had hoped) fell into my lap for this issue, including two from
|
||
Quanta's Dan Appelquist, one by myself, and one by my Assistant
|
||
Editor Phil Nolte. Still, I'd hope that InterText won't be
|
||
dominated by "editor- writers", and so I encourage everyone to
|
||
submit their fiction. There are some stories (especially non-SF
|
||
stories) that have no other net outlet, and so you might still
|
||
see stories by editors here, but we'll try to keep it to a
|
||
minimum.
|
||
|
||
(For example, next issue I'll probably end up running another
|
||
story written by me, just because it's not SF and so I can't
|
||
really get it into Quanta.)
|
||
|
||
Dan Appelquist's "Anticipation of the Night" is a fascinating
|
||
piece of work... quite strange, yes, but very interesting. His
|
||
other story, "A War in the Sand," was sort of written because of
|
||
the cover of the PostScript version of this issue. (The cover is
|
||
a drawing of a dove of peace sitting atop a tank in the middle
|
||
of the desert.) I sent Dan a template of InterText that jokingly
|
||
listed a story called "War in the Sand." I guess Dan took me up
|
||
on it. Anyway, those stories and the closing pieces by Greg
|
||
Knauss ("The Talisman," a loopy Stephen King parody, and
|
||
"Schrodinger's Monkey," a deep contemplation of quantum
|
||
mechanics and bananas) form what I'd like to think of as a pair
|
||
of strange bookends: two to welcome you to this first issue and
|
||
two to wrap it up.
|
||
|
||
In between are Nolte's "Direct Connections," (which we're
|
||
printing under sad circumstances -- Phil gave it to me only
|
||
after _Amazing Stories_ rejected it), a story by me, and stories
|
||
by Andrea Payne and Mary Anne Walters. I thank everyone for
|
||
submitting and helping me out with this issue.
|
||
|
||
Some people have asked about an FTP site for back issues of this
|
||
magazine, and for those who'd rather not have the issue pop up
|
||
in their mailer. Well, with great thanks to Brian Kantor of UCSD
|
||
Network Operations, InterText will have an FTP site on
|
||
network.ucsd.edu. Look in the "intertext" directory (of course).
|
||
|
||
Before I go, I'd like to thank everyone who helped out with the
|
||
creation of this magazine. It has been three months since I
|
||
began working on this magazine, and many people have
|
||
contributed.
|
||
|
||
I'd like to thank Dan Appelquist for giving me help on how to
|
||
distribute the magazine and for testing the validity of my
|
||
PostScript code, zoetrop@ucscb.ucsc.edu for giving me a program
|
||
that corrected a major PostScript problem, Jim McCabe for his
|
||
help in easing the transition and allowing me to use the Athene
|
||
mailing list, _Guardian_ Design Editor James Collier both for
|
||
saying he liked the InterText PostScript edition design and for
|
||
taking the picture of me that appears on page three of the
|
||
PostScript version, and, of course, my assistant editors Geoff
|
||
Duncan and Phil Nolte.
|
||
|
||
And thanks to all of you for subscribing to the magazine. Feel
|
||
free to send us letters with your comments about things we
|
||
should change, things we shouldn't, and anything else you'd like
|
||
to know. Geoff, Phil, and I will be sure to listen.
|
||
|
||
Oh, three final notes. First: there will be an FTP site for
|
||
recent issues of InterText. The host will be network.ucsd.edu,
|
||
and both postscript and ASCII editions will be located in the
|
||
"intertext" directory on that system.
|
||
|
||
Second: If you do have the ability to print this magazine to a
|
||
laserprinter, I urge you to try FTPing a PotScript edition of
|
||
this magazine and printing it. In ASCII you get the bare bones,
|
||
but the PostScript version is easier to read and (for this
|
||
issue) runs 29 pages in length. It also has a neat cover
|
||
graphic, as mentioned above.
|
||
|
||
Third: I'd like to know who I have reading this magazine, and
|
||
how many of you there are. If you receive this magazine by some
|
||
other route than via direct mail (i.e., through a server or via
|
||
ftp), please drop me a message saying that you do. I'll put you
|
||
on a "notification list", letting you know that the new issue is
|
||
out and you can expect it coming through the mail and showing up
|
||
on the ftp site. This way, I can keep in contact with you and
|
||
know how many of you there are. Thanks. And enjoy the magazine.
|
||
|
||
|
||
A War In the Sand by Daniel K. Appelquist
|
||
============================================
|
||
|
||
Last night I heard rockets. The sound was a familiar one, but it
|
||
still somehow manages to grab hold of my spine. I lay there, on
|
||
my concrete bed, shaking, trying not to think of tomorrow. I
|
||
can't say where the rockets were coming from, or where they were
|
||
going to. I heard no explosions last night, but perhaps it would
|
||
have been better if I had. The explosions of the past few nights
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||
somehow had the intensity to jar me out of the realm of
|
||
conscious thought, turning me into a creature of mere instinct,
|
||
my will to survive primary. The sounds of rockets only made me
|
||
think harder about who I was, where I was and when the madness
|
||
would end.
|
||
|
||
Last week, my cousin and aunt left, setting out on the long trek
|
||
across the plain, the no man's land. I don't think I will ever
|
||
see them again. I don't know why I didn't go with them. It had
|
||
nothing to do with pride, nothing to do with a love of country.
|
||
Perhaps it was the nagging thought that an escape from the place
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||
I have called home would constitute its ultimate destruction. I
|
||
have no wish to become a refugee, to abandon all I have known,
|
||
to become a nameless no-one, fleeing like a cockroach from a
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||
burning building.
|
||
|
||
I have heard a rumor that the tanks of the enemy are on their
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||
way, rolling in a ceaseless procession through the vast desert
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||
sands. If they arrive, they will find no resistance here, in
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||
this pile of broken concrete, once a town. I welcome them now --
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||
not because they are right, but because they represent an end, a
|
||
bringing to a close of this ungodly catastrophe. I will greet
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||
them with open arms.
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||
|
||
This morning, there was smoke on the horizon, a column of dark
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||
grey painted on a backdrop of lighter grey. Grey is a color I
|
||
have become well acquainted with of late. The very air here is
|
||
thick with a grey soot, a residue from past bombings. A rain
|
||
will sometimes wash the air, leaving it clear for an hour or
|
||
two, until the bombs return and the cycle begins again. Lately,
|
||
there have been no bombings, but neither has there been any
|
||
rain, so the dust remains, settling only slowly onto the already
|
||
debris-laden ground.
|
||
|
||
I went in search of food today, thinking that I might find some
|
||
bottled water, some canned fish. All I found was a ripped
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||
child's cover-all, stained with blood. I stood there for a long
|
||
while, trying to remember who had lived there, who the small
|
||
owner of this garment might have been. Discouraged, I returned
|
||
to my shelter, the basement of some now unrecognizable building.
|
||
|
||
When I reached the entrance to my shelter, I found a small boy
|
||
on his way out, shirtless, obviously under-nourished, clutching
|
||
as many of my supplies as he could carry in the tattered remains
|
||
of a turban. I was enraged, beyond all reason. I struck him, I
|
||
don't know how many times, I think I saw in him all that was
|
||
wrong with us, all the weaknesses that had brought this calamity
|
||
upon us. After the child ran away, screaming, I sat down in the
|
||
middle of the scattered cans the child had dropped and cried. I
|
||
had been reduced to my own object of hatred in that moment. What
|
||
monsters are we men. Our civilization is pretense. Our science,
|
||
a sham. Our kindness, a convenience. We would build sprawling
|
||
empires out of dust.
|
||
|
||
But when the bombs begin to drop, all our false faces drop with
|
||
them. Carefully constructed worlds crumble noiselessly at our
|
||
feet. I stood there in the street for a long time, looking up at
|
||
the sky, silently cursing God for bringing us to this, then
|
||
cursing myself.
|
||
|
||
The engine-roar of a formation of war planes shrieking overhead
|
||
brought me out of my reverie. How like birds they were, I
|
||
thought. How graceful in their movements. How awesome in flight.
|
||
No. Not birds. Birds do not rain destruction upon cities and
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||
towns. As if to answer my thoughts, a group of vultures ascended
|
||
in rapid, flapping chaos from behind a mound of earth. I did not
|
||
look to see what their quarry had been. Perhaps a friend.
|
||
Perhaps a relative. I bid them a silent farewell, picked up my
|
||
cans and descended into my shelter.
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||
|
||
Now, I wait for the tanks, for the soldiers. There is no
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||
feeling, only a vast, empty nothingness in my head. Now I hear
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||
the rockets again, and now the explosions. Why have I bothered?
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||
I should have let the child get away with my cans. The
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||
nourishment that now keeps my brain alive would have gone to
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||
much better use in his mouth. Perhaps his thoughts would weigh
|
||
not so heavily upon his brow. I wonder when they will come for
|
||
me, when the fire from the skies will finally seek out my safe
|
||
haven and make a mockery of my fight for survival. Now? Now?
|
||
|
||
Now.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Anticipation of the Night by Dan Appelquist
|
||
==============================================
|
||
|
||
Satan, the wiles of the immaculate beast return yet to further
|
||
trouble my already derided spirit. And what should I have
|
||
expected, I in my innermost protected sanctum, the fire light of
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||
those withered memories casting a pale black shadow upon my
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||
craggy pock-marked face.
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||
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||
It was only here, in the tower I created with my own pride, my
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||
foolish arrogance, that I felt truly safe, and it was here that
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||
the battle over my soul, having been planned and replanned for
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||
centuries, was finally fought, and lost. I say this in no
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||
uncertain terms, mind you. I have succumbed to that hate, that
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||
uncontrollable desire to which all pretend innocence. I have
|
||
made my peace with it and in doing so I have surrendered, the
|
||
half-truths of my life becoming full lies, at least now honest
|
||
in their untruthfulness. I look upon others, those who pretend
|
||
an existence apart from evil, apart from that which controls,
|
||
that which contorts, and I laugh. In a corner of my heart I long
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||
for that time, the time of ignorance, of blindness punctuated by
|
||
a joy so foreign to me now that I think I would not recognize
|
||
it, or would mistake it for pain or anguish.
|
||
|
||
Call me, then, Jeremiah. I am a man, and yet my heart is the
|
||
heart of the beast, the heart of the man before Man. My only
|
||
hunger now is the burning Lack, that which drives me on to
|
||
commit atrocity after atrocity in hope of fulfillment. The time
|
||
of my mortal hunger has long passed. My corporeal nourishment
|
||
provided to me by mechanisms and bodily subterfuge, I cheat
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||
Death of her prize quite glibly. Mine is the best life money can
|
||
buy.
|
||
|
||
Ah Death, how fair you are, and yet how you must despise me for
|
||
putting off our wedding date so rudely and so often. We will be
|
||
joined, Death, you and I -- but not yet. I have a little
|
||
business to attend to first.
|
||
|
||
And so in the first year of this, a new eon on Earth, I sit,
|
||
awake, for, in this state, even sleep is robbed from my hardly
|
||
human body. They come to me, my minions, my demons, and show me
|
||
things, proofs of their atrocious acts, their foulness reeking
|
||
through my mind as their memories become absorbed into my own.
|
||
For them, I have become a bank, a God, and father confessor,
|
||
rolled into an incongruous one. How they must revere me, my
|
||
minions. They come to me to deposit their memories, and by doing
|
||
so to share their experiences, thus to make each act they commit
|
||
sacred in some small way. A link -- to transcend prayer, talk,
|
||
all earthly modes of expression and cut to the quick. In the
|
||
instant I sense their waking thoughts (unable to truly break
|
||
through, to take ACTION!) I become more than myself, and I sense
|
||
them becoming part of me, their life stories only sub-plots of
|
||
my own. Perhaps some of them think they control me, perhaps they
|
||
think they use me for their own purposes, but in their hearts,
|
||
they fear.
|
||
|
||
'Jerem', they call me: 'The Reawakened'. My throne, a bed where
|
||
my wasting body, beyond atrophy, sits vestigially, omnipotent.
|
||
From there, I sit and relate to them visions of times long past,
|
||
of things long forgotten; of days when men of power, ruling with
|
||
steel fists, would stare eye to eye, knowing that even a flinch
|
||
would silence a million voices, even the memories of whom would
|
||
be reduced to a puff of smoke. There were such men, and I was
|
||
among them. My memory of those days is crystal clear. I can lose
|
||
myself in those memories and I often do, letting the players of
|
||
my mind act out scenes from my past. It is only the most recent
|
||
of memories that I now find strangely obscured, no doubt the
|
||
product of my decrepit brain -- ah what a fair instrument you
|
||
have been.
|
||
|
||
Some have said that the Brain is not the true center of one's
|
||
soul; that in this explanation there is no beauty, no harmony to
|
||
show God's divine influence. They know nothing. Within the
|
||
beautiful symmetry of the Brain is the ability to have such
|
||
thoughts, such awful, grinding examples of mortality, that even
|
||
I have been loath to look upon them. I have known Brains, oh
|
||
yes. So many that they defy counting. The myth of the mind, that
|
||
attempt by man to raise his faculties above the level of a
|
||
simple chemical reaction, beyond nerve and synapse, is his last,
|
||
greatest lie to himself. There is no mind, only the Brain, that
|
||
juicy repository of all that makes us truly and grittily human,
|
||
even to the last.
|
||
|
||
It is not man we are truly searching for but the image of man,
|
||
which is embellished within our consciousness through re-telling
|
||
and re-telling. It is that archetypal hero for which we forever
|
||
search, unable to come to terms, finally and satisfactorily with
|
||
the idea that he does not exist, or has died away. In the time
|
||
of death, perhaps, we come to this realization and grasp for
|
||
life to be reborn into this new knowledge, but by then it is too
|
||
late, the dying embers of our past cannot kindle anew the fire
|
||
of our forbidden future. We are consigned to once more trace the
|
||
same circle, forever going back and forth without ever truly
|
||
knowing ourselves or those around us. For all real purposes,
|
||
blind, deaf and dumb.
|
||
|
||
In my false death, my trickery, I have surpassed that terrible
|
||
knowledge. I no longer search for man or for any sort of earthly
|
||
fulfillment, save the one single sinking Purpose. See them
|
||
gather around me in futile hope that they might absorb a measure
|
||
of greatness, of ultimate power: my acolytes, my priests.
|
||
|
||
Once, I was possessed of earthly flesh, but that flesh has
|
||
melted away. It exists, and yet it does so only as a
|
||
convenience. Once my emotions were such that oftentimes I would
|
||
close my eyes and weep inwardly, or smile the smile of true
|
||
happiness. There is nothing that delights me now. I remember
|
||
when I awoke, after they had taken my body from its cryogenic
|
||
crypt. "Lead us," they had pleaded, those elite, those men of
|
||
power. "Bring us power, for in the ways of distrust, we are mere
|
||
pupils. You are the professor-professor."
|
||
|
||
I resented them at first. I thought them mad to bring me back. I
|
||
did not want this Godhood that was being foisted upon me, so
|
||
fresh out of the grave. But it was too late. I had been deified
|
||
long before my awakening. I remember my morbid fascination with
|
||
the texts that described my deeds of life. How inaccurate they
|
||
often were, and sometimes how stunningly correct. They knew
|
||
truths that had been kept, I thought, only between myself and my
|
||
own inner confessor, but of my own inner thoughts they knew
|
||
nothing. Thus my re-awakening, my bane. That I should have been
|
||
brought back into this world, this never-ending pain.
|
||
|
||
How I resisted, then, and how they fought me. They did not ever
|
||
openly oppose me, but their expectations were a ladder, each
|
||
rung bringing more protestations, yet still leading downwards
|
||
into unknown abysses. I know now that I was true evil from the
|
||
moment lucky sperm met unexpectant egg.
|
||
|
||
And then, resigned to a life such as they had planned, I
|
||
resolved myself to change this world, this ruined landscape of
|
||
man's blind stupidity. "Has man not reached the stars?" I asked
|
||
them in my foolishness. "A foolish dream." they replied. "The
|
||
planets, then, what of the colonies, teeming with fresh insight,
|
||
noble spirit and purpose," to which they replied "there never
|
||
were such places. There never was such a spirit." And in that
|
||
moment, I despaired. I thought then, in my ambition, that I
|
||
would bring about a change, a tornado of progress that would
|
||
shake the foundations of the earth. I was, instead, drawn into
|
||
the whirlpool of an ever decaying, dead planet.
|
||
|
||
Now, my minions leave my fatherly care, to destroy, to rape
|
||
whatever still exists in this filthy, dying world, to release
|
||
the dragons. Ah, my sweet Delores, if only you could see me now.
|
||
When I killed you I kept you with me throughout all time,
|
||
forever reinventing your immaculate psyche. Now they release the
|
||
Gorgon. Split the fragile egg of your own birthplace. Return its
|
||
dust to that which, in a child's breath, created all that now
|
||
is. I know you truly, now, Death. I am your angel. Encircle me
|
||
with your eager arms and let us embrace.
|
||
|
||
Daniel Appelquist (da1n@andrew.cmu.edu)
|
||
-----------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Daniel Appelquist is a senior studying Cognitive Science at
|
||
Carnegie Mellon University. In his spare time, in addition to
|
||
sometimes writing obscure fiction, he published Quanta, the
|
||
electronic magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. He resides
|
||
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his girlfriend Roberta, and
|
||
his cat, Emma (more commonly known as the Psycho-Kitten). He
|
||
plans on spending the remainder of this year in a desperate
|
||
search for employment.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Direct Connection by Phil Nolte
|
||
==================================
|
||
|
||
A Whitman's sampler lay with its lid open on the coffee table.
|
||
Inside, a jumble of dark brown waxed paper cups lay empty and in
|
||
disarray. In fact, only four of the little cups still contained
|
||
their chocolate coated treasures. Janis mentally scolded herself
|
||
for having eaten most of the bottom layer in one sitting.
|
||
|
||
"You're gonna miss your target weight for this week, Janis," she
|
||
sighed, thinking aloud. Still, chocolate was her only
|
||
indulgence, one she occasionally resorted to for solace,
|
||
especially after a particularly trying day. Like this one had
|
||
been. Her hand hovered over the box for a moment as she decided
|
||
which of the remaining morsels looked the most appealing.
|
||
Finally she selected one and bit into it, savoring the rich,
|
||
dark chocolate. Ah, a coconut center, one of her favorites!
|
||
|
||
Janis Tolbert was alone in her efficiency apartment, sprawled
|
||
out on the old beat-up sofa, still dressed in her work outfit, a
|
||
smart, no-nonsense navy blue skirt and white blouse that still
|
||
looked reasonably fresh in spite of having been worn all day.
|
||
She had her shoes off and her panty hose-clad legs propped up on
|
||
the table. The boxed remains of a take-out Chinese dinner added
|
||
to the clutter on the small table. She knew from experience that
|
||
nothing worked better to soothe her shattered nerves than a
|
||
little out of control, self- destructive eating binge.
|
||
|
||
"I could kill that damned Maynard Hughes!" she thought. "I swear
|
||
to god if he ever lays a finger on me again I'm going straight
|
||
to Dr. Parsons!" Hughes was the reason for her present agitated
|
||
state of mind. He was the office "lech" -- a self-appointed
|
||
God's gift to women--and he was nothing if not persistent. Janis
|
||
was the present target of his unwelcome sexual advances,
|
||
probably because she was a new employee, still under six-month
|
||
probation, and Hughes was confident that she would be reluctant
|
||
to raise a fuss. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was married
|
||
to the former Estelle Parsons -- daughter of J. Harold Parsons
|
||
-- the founder of the Parsons Sensory Research Institute where
|
||
both Janis and Hughes worked.
|
||
|
||
Actually, Hughes wasn't all that bad looking; she had even
|
||
accepted a ride home once, on a rainy day, before she knew what
|
||
he was like. In his car outside her apartment Hughes had proved
|
||
himself to be all hands and terribly hard of hearing. That had
|
||
happened over three months ago but it was as though the incident
|
||
had given him some kind of go-ahead signal or presented some
|
||
sort of irresistible challenge to his male ego because, since
|
||
that time, he had taken to grabbing the soft and sensitive parts
|
||
of her body whenever he could contrive to get her alone at work.
|
||
That was the other problem, Hughes was experienced and clever
|
||
enough to make his moves only when he could be certain that
|
||
there weren't any witnesses. Janis found it hard to believe that
|
||
a man could be so brash and bold and so insensitive to another
|
||
person's feelings. What an ass!
|
||
|
||
Just thinking about it made her want another chocolate. She
|
||
looked the remains of the sampler over carefully before
|
||
selecting another of the little tidbits.
|
||
|
||
Janis suppressed a shudder as the day's incident ran through her
|
||
mind for the hundredth time. She had innocently boarded the
|
||
elevator to head downstairs for afternoon coffee. Hughes had
|
||
cleverly dashed into the elevator just before the door closed.
|
||
As the elevator began moving he hit the emergency stop, which
|
||
stranded them -- alone -- and pushed her back into the corner.
|
||
She could still feel the weight of his body pressing her into
|
||
the corner and his rough, inept hands painfully mauling her
|
||
breasts. Janis pushed him away and covered her bosom with her
|
||
arms. That target no longer accessible, he redirected his
|
||
efforts to her shapely and unprotected backside, reaching behind
|
||
her to gather a generous pinch of the soft, yielding flesh. She
|
||
brought her knee up and slapped him as hard as she could. While
|
||
he was momentarily stunned, she cancelled the emergency stop and
|
||
pushed the button for the next floor. Janis stomped out of the
|
||
elevator, straightening her clothing, her face red with anger,
|
||
embarrassment and frustration. Her knee had missed its target --
|
||
at least there had been some satisfaction in the slap, but it
|
||
wouldn't deter him, it would happen again, she knew that from
|
||
experience. "Well," she thought, "Just a few more weeks and I'm
|
||
off probation. Let's just see how that lecherous swine reacts to
|
||
the threat of a sexual harassment suit!"
|
||
|
||
Gobbling down most of the little box of chocolates had had the
|
||
desired effect and she felt somewhat better about the incident.
|
||
At least she could think about it without shuddering. Janis
|
||
yawned and stretched, her arms extended outward and above her
|
||
head, and glanced at the clock. Time to turn in! Tomorrow was
|
||
Saturday and though it was normally a day off, she was going
|
||
back to the Institute to earn some extra money. The secretarial
|
||
job she had didn't pay well and, her paychecks, like almost
|
||
everyone else's, were never big enough. The only instructions
|
||
they had given her was to get a good night's sleep because they
|
||
wanted her rested and alert for the morning session.
|
||
|
||
|
||
To her dismay, she had to share the elevator in the nearly empty
|
||
building that morning with none other than her nemesis, Maynard
|
||
Hughes. She wrapped her arms tightly around her bosom and backed
|
||
into the corner, ready to defend herself. Strangely, he didn't
|
||
made any kind of move at all. In fact, he barely seemed to
|
||
notice her. It was like he was preoccupied with something. But
|
||
the conspiratorial look on his face was most disturbing. She
|
||
breathed a sigh of relief when he got off on the second floor.
|
||
|
||
She stopped outside the door of the appointed meeting place at
|
||
8:55 AM, five minutes early. The frosted glass window read:
|
||
|
||
|
||
Room 351 A
|
||
|
||
Gustatory Studies
|
||
|
||
|
||
She was still a little flustered by her close brush with Hughes
|
||
on the elevator but at least, to her relief, he hadn't attacked
|
||
her again. Perhaps her penetrating glare had been sufficient to
|
||
keep him at bay. She shook it off, took a deep breath, opened
|
||
the door and went in.
|
||
|
||
Hardly anyone in the busy room even looked up as she came in,
|
||
except for one person at the far end of the room. She recognized
|
||
the man immediately as he tucked his clipboard under his arm and
|
||
came over to greet her. His was the face in the painting in the
|
||
main lobby that gazed down at her sternly every time she entered
|
||
or left the building. It was the old man, none other than J.
|
||
Harold Parsons, M.D., Ph.D. himself, who was heading the team
|
||
that she had volunteered to be guinea pig for.
|
||
|
||
"Good morning. You must be Ms. Tolbert," the distinguished,
|
||
silver-haired old researcher said jovially. "May I call you
|
||
Janis?" She nodded nervously, her hands clasped awkwardly
|
||
together. Sensing her nervousness, Parsons continued. "Did you
|
||
get a good night's rest?"
|
||
|
||
Janis found her voice. "Yes, thank you Dr. Parsons," she managed
|
||
to stammer out.
|
||
|
||
"Good, good!" he replied. "Well, we'd best get started. But
|
||
first, let me show you our equipment. Please come this way."
|
||
|
||
He led her over to a large, complicated chair that was the
|
||
centerpiece of the room. She followed cautiously and looked it
|
||
over dubiously. What she saw did not inspire her confidence. It
|
||
looked like a kind of hyper-modern barber's (dentist's?) chair
|
||
-- one whose specifications had come straight out of a demented
|
||
electrician's nightmare. There were wires and cables running
|
||
helter-skelter from the base and down the back of the chair,
|
||
across the room and into a large glass-fronted booth which
|
||
covered the entire west wall of the room. Through the wide,
|
||
waist-to-ceiling window of the booth she could see a battery of
|
||
control consoles and computer monitors. There was definitely
|
||
some high-powered research going on, because each work station
|
||
was manned by a white-coated staff member and there were more
|
||
than twenty of them in the booth.
|
||
|
||
At the top of the chair on a moveable arm was a small stainless
|
||
steel dome, about the size of a large mixing bowl. Its surface
|
||
was crawling with an even more complex snake's nest of wires
|
||
that were gathered into a fat, lumpy cable that ran down the
|
||
back of the chair and across the floor before it too disappeared
|
||
into the glass booth.
|
||
|
||
"We're doing gustatory studies here in our laboratory, Janis --
|
||
research into the human sense of taste. I think it's safe to say
|
||
that we have made some real breakthroughs in last few months.
|
||
Make no mistake, what we're doing here will surely revolutionize
|
||
the science of how and what people eat!" An assistant helped
|
||
Janis into a white plasticized coverall, gently sat her down in
|
||
the chair and buckled her in with a sort of webbed seat belt.
|
||
The chair felt fine, it was softly padded, and supported her in
|
||
just the right places. Janis was almost comfortable, except for
|
||
the hard little knot of fear simmering in the pit of her
|
||
stomach.
|
||
|
||
"Please relax, Janis," soothed the old doctor. "This will be
|
||
totally painless. In fact, I think you'll find it to be quite
|
||
pleasurable." He carefully placed the metal mixing bowl device
|
||
over her brown shoulder-length hair -- it fit snugly -- and
|
||
after a few minor adjustments to position the fit, he secured it
|
||
with a velcro chin-strap. He then swivelled a small tray over in
|
||
front of her. The tray had a stack of wooden spatulas on it and
|
||
five small containers that looked just like her mother's
|
||
Tupperware. After looking the whole set-up over one more time,
|
||
he smiled, patted her on the shoulder, and went across the room
|
||
to enter the booth. Janis was alone with her thoughts for about
|
||
half a minute.
|
||
|
||
"As I said earlier, we are going to do some tests on your sense
|
||
of taste, Janis." The voice, sudden and unexpected, startled
|
||
her. In a moment she realized that Parsons was speaking softly
|
||
into a microphone that was wired directly into a speaker in the
|
||
mixing bowl headset. "But first we need to calibrate our
|
||
equipment. Would you please take a small taste of the first
|
||
sample?" One of the containers on the tray had a large number
|
||
"1" scrawled in magic marker on its top. She removed the lid,
|
||
took one of the disposable wooden spatulas from the pile on the
|
||
left and, expecting the worst, carefully took a small taste.
|
||
|
||
There was no electric shock, no thunder. It was salt, good old-
|
||
fashioned table salt. She felt the salty bite of it on the sides
|
||
and tip of her tongue.
|
||
|
||
"Excellent, my dear!" came the soft voice from the helmet.
|
||
"You're coming through loud and clear." She couldn't move her
|
||
head but from what she could see, it looked as though Parsons
|
||
and the others were busy making adjustments to their equipment.
|
||
"Now rinse your mouth with some water from the squeeze bottle
|
||
and try sample number two.
|
||
|
||
Number two was pure white sugar that dissolved immediately and
|
||
tickled at the tip of her tongue. She repeated the procedure for
|
||
samples three and four. Three was a dilute aqueous solution of
|
||
quinine, bitter on the back of her tongue and the roof of her
|
||
mouth. Janis had never developed a taste for gin and tonic and
|
||
the water rinse was most welcome. Number four was vinegar, wet
|
||
and sour, which nibbled sharply at the sides of her tongue.
|
||
Parsons and the others continued to make adjustments to their
|
||
consoles after each sample she tasted.
|
||
|
||
His voice sounded soft and clear inside the headset.
|
||
|
||
"Very good, Janis! You've just finished tasting samples of the
|
||
four major families of compounds, salty, sweet, bitter and sour,
|
||
that together make up the human sense of taste. At this stage,
|
||
our equipment can be considered to be roughly calibrated.
|
||
However, you probably know that the senses of smell and taste
|
||
are closely linked. Next we'll try some familiar foods to
|
||
determine how your individual patterns differ from our previous
|
||
subjects and to tune in that all- important olfactory
|
||
component."
|
||
|
||
The pretty, young assistant brought in a different tray and took
|
||
the old one away. On it were a number of fruits and vegetables
|
||
and other everyday foods like bread and cheese. She tasted each
|
||
one in turn, all the while receiving encouragement from the
|
||
disembodied voice in the headset. Dr. Parsons made an
|
||
announcement after the second tray was removed.
|
||
|
||
"Save this setup on drive B, Hamilton," she heard faintly. Then
|
||
more loudly: "We're ready to move on to phase two now, Janis."
|
||
The lights in the room dimmed. "Until now we have been measuring
|
||
the electrical signals from the receptor cells in your taste
|
||
buds to the corresponding areas of your brain's taste center.
|
||
Now were going to use our calibrations to electrically stimulate
|
||
your taste center. This will allow you to experience selected
|
||
tastes directly, without chewing or eating anything. Have
|
||
another water rinse, please." She nervously complied. The voice
|
||
came again, "Are you ready?"
|
||
|
||
Janis gulped and said tersely, "Okay."
|
||
|
||
There was a change in tone of the persistent electrical hum that
|
||
had pervaded the room all morning. Funny, she hadn't even
|
||
noticed it until it changed pitch. Very gently she felt a
|
||
sensation brush at the tip of her tongue. It started out faintly
|
||
and ended up sugary sweet. Next was sour, followed by bitter and
|
||
salty. Each was pure and perfect, only the gritty texture of the
|
||
powders was missing; the equipment could even mimic the
|
||
sensation of cool wetness that the liquid formulations
|
||
possessed. Janis smiled -- the sensation was definitely weird,
|
||
but really rather pleasurable, just like J. Harold Parsons had
|
||
told her at the beginning.
|
||
|
||
"Excellent, Janis. Okay, now we're ready for phase three."
|
||
|
||
There was another change in the intensity of the electrical hum
|
||
and Janis tasted the pure tart-sweet flavor of the orange she
|
||
had just enjoyed about a half hour before. It was the same...
|
||
only different. It was somehow amplified, better, this despite
|
||
the lack of any familiar texture on her tongue or in her mouth.
|
||
The apple was better, too, and she had never tasted such
|
||
flavorful bread. Janis was favorably impressed with the new
|
||
technique, to say the least!
|
||
|
||
But they had saved the biggest surprise for last. Using
|
||
recordings from their previous subjects that had been subtly
|
||
modified by the computer programs to match Janis' electrical
|
||
patterns, she was able to experience foods that she hadn't
|
||
tasted earlier that day. And they had somehow chosen her
|
||
favorite.
|
||
|
||
Chocolate!
|
||
|
||
Chocolate -- smooth, almost intoxicating milk chocolate that
|
||
bathed her tongue and the roof of her mouth in creamy ecstasy.
|
||
This was the way chocolate was supposed to taste! Too soon, it
|
||
seemed, it was time for something else. She was terribly
|
||
disappointed when the wondrous sensation ended.
|
||
|
||
But only for a moment.
|
||
|
||
They followed it up with the rich, almost bitter taste of dark
|
||
semi-sweet chocolate. Perfect! Never had she tasted its like. It
|
||
was incredibly pleasurable, nearly orgasmic in its chocolate
|
||
intensity!
|
||
|
||
But they still weren't done yet!
|
||
|
||
While Janis was still in sensory shock from the tremendous
|
||
chocolateness of it all, they skillfully layered on a subtle mix
|
||
of flavors that had her absolutely reveling in a sort of
|
||
tenth-power chocolate-covered cherry!
|
||
|
||
She almost cried when they shut off the power and the lights
|
||
came back on. The assistant came over and helped Dr. Parsons
|
||
disconnect her from the chair. She swiveled her head to and fro
|
||
and up and down to get the kinks out of her neck. To her acute
|
||
embarrassment, the upper front portion of her coverall was
|
||
soaking wet. Deep in the throes of her chocolate orgy, she had
|
||
apparently salivated all over it. Obviously they had been
|
||
thinking ahead by having her put on the coverall.
|
||
|
||
Parsons held out a hand to help Janis up. She felt fine, outside
|
||
of being a little dizzy. The assistant helped her out of the
|
||
coverall and took it away. Red-faced, she wiped off her chin
|
||
with the towel that Parsons handed her.
|
||
|
||
"That's one side effect that needs a little work," said the old
|
||
doctor lightly. "How do you feel, Janis?" She glanced at the
|
||
clock and was amazed to find that it was nearly noon. The
|
||
morning was over.
|
||
|
||
"Uh...Okay, I guess," she said. "Wow, that last part of the
|
||
experiment, the bit with the chocolate, was incredible!"
|
||
|
||
"Oh yes," he chuckled. "We like to add a bit of stimulation to
|
||
other selected areas of the brain during that phase. You might
|
||
call it 'a blast of chocolate straight to the pleasure center!'
|
||
You really liked it?"
|
||
|
||
"Any time you need a subject, just give me a call," she replied.
|
||
They both laughed.
|
||
|
||
Parsons' tone became a little more serious, "There are many
|
||
possible applications for this research. Of course, none of this
|
||
would be possible if we hadn't created machinery that can
|
||
directly stimulate the brain using a non-invasive technique.
|
||
With this technology many things become possible. A weight-loss
|
||
program would be a snap, because you could experience the
|
||
pleasure of any food you wanted while never eating a thing! Or
|
||
you could eat something mundane and have it taste like something
|
||
sublime. Imagine, for the cost of the electricity, you could eat
|
||
a cheap, tasteless, nutritious pap, while enjoying the
|
||
sensations of a gourmet meal! Or keep a library of the world's
|
||
greatest cuisine in the memory banks, to be experienced whenever
|
||
you have the desire or ..." He stopped, a little embarrassed.
|
||
"I'm sorry, Janis. I get kind of carried away when I start
|
||
talking about it.
|
||
|
||
They made small talk for a few more minutes and shook hands
|
||
before they parted. She left the building with a spring in her
|
||
step, elated with the grand experience she'd just had, glad to
|
||
have most of a Saturday ahead of her and secure in the knowledge
|
||
that her next paycheck would be fifty dollars fatter. She went
|
||
out and did a little shopping and then spent the evening at the
|
||
movies with her best friend Gwen.
|
||
|
||
|
||
After her Sunday morning workout, she decided to have the
|
||
remaining chocolates in her Whitman's sampler with a cup of
|
||
coffee. She carefully selected one of the remaining miniatures
|
||
in the yellow box and delicately took a small bite of it. Funny,
|
||
it had the right texture and feel but it didn't taste right at
|
||
all. The flavor was off, the tidbit tasted more like wax than it
|
||
did like chocolate. She washed it down with a gulp of coffee and
|
||
threw the rest of the piece away. "Stuff goes bad so quickly,"
|
||
she thought, and reached for the one remaining piece, a
|
||
chocolate covered almond. The almond flavor came through just
|
||
fine, but again the chocolate tasted funny, like paraffin. She
|
||
sighed and finished her coffee and then got busy doing her
|
||
laundry and writing out checks to pay her monthly bills. She
|
||
thought no more about it for the rest of the day.
|
||
|
||
In the evening she noticed that the chocolate mint she had after
|
||
dinner had the same sort of weird taste but it really was kind
|
||
of old. Wasn't it?
|
||
|
||
She began to get worried when the Mr. Goodbar she bought out of
|
||
the vending machine on Monday morning to have with her coffee
|
||
break tasted the same. Alarmed, Janis offered half of it to one
|
||
of the other secretaries to see if she thought it tasted funny.
|
||
|
||
"Mr. Goodbar," said the older woman. "One of my favorites."
|
||
|
||
"Does it taste alright to you, Phyllis?"
|
||
|
||
"You bet, nice and fresh. It's perfect. Thanks, Janis!"
|
||
|
||
A few minutes later Janis was outside of room 351, trying to
|
||
calm herself down enough to knock, enter and explain her
|
||
problem. She screwed up her courage and rapped softly on the
|
||
door.
|
||
|
||
Dr. Parsons answered the door and though she might have imagined
|
||
it, she thought he looked a little nervous himself when he saw
|
||
it was her.
|
||
|
||
"What is it, my dear?" he asked. "You seem rather upset."
|
||
|
||
"I'm sorry to bother you Dr. Parsons, but I'm afraid there's
|
||
something wrong," she said.
|
||
|
||
"Wrong? What do you mean?"
|
||
|
||
"It's chocolate," she said. "It doesn't taste right anymore.
|
||
I've tried several different kinds in the last two days, since
|
||
the experiments, and they all taste the same to me -- just like
|
||
wax."
|
||
|
||
The old doctor nervously ran his fingers through his hair.
|
||
"Please sit down," he said solemnly. He took a deep breath and
|
||
let it out with a sigh. "I'm very sorry, Janis. I was afraid
|
||
that something like this might have happened. "You eat a lot of
|
||
chocolate, don't you?" Janis nodded. He continued. "Did you eat
|
||
a lot it just recently?" She nodded again. Parsons shook his
|
||
head. "That's what I thought. After you left I noticed that the
|
||
gain on the transmission unit was two clicks higher than it
|
||
should have been during the chocolate input test. The result is
|
||
a sort of fatigue of the nerves as a consequence of sensory
|
||
overload. We were lucky that it wasn't more intense. Hopefully
|
||
your condition will get better soon."
|
||
|
||
"What do you mean by soon?" she asked, just managing to keep her
|
||
voice controlled.
|
||
|
||
"Well," he replied. "Certainly less than a year, possibly only a
|
||
few months."
|
||
|
||
"A year!" she cried. "This is terrible, chocolate is my favorite
|
||
food, my only vice, it helps me get by! What'll I do without
|
||
it?"
|
||
|
||
"Now, now," he said, lamely. "It could be worse."
|
||
|
||
"What if I decide to sue you?" she said as her resolve began to
|
||
crumble, knowing that the threat was hollow even as she made it.
|
||
|
||
"You did sign a waiver, if you remember," he replied.
|
||
|
||
It was obvious that Parsons had no idea how miserable life would
|
||
be for a lonely, single woman who couldn't enjoy a bit of
|
||
chocolate once in a while! Janis fell back on her last line of
|
||
defense. She began to cry softly.
|
||
|
||
Parsons looked at her for a few moments, and his face softened.
|
||
Even after thirty years as a Psychologist, the old doctor was
|
||
still a sucker for the young woman's tears. He endured her
|
||
onslaught for only a few moments before getting up and putting
|
||
his arm around her shoulder. "There, there," he soothed, "let's
|
||
not argue. I think I have a solution that we can both live
|
||
with." She looked up at him hopefully. "You were such an
|
||
excellent test subject that I'd really like to continue working
|
||
with you -- to find out more about what went wrong, if nothing
|
||
else. If you really miss chocolate so terribly we can just hook
|
||
you up to the machine and take you for a ride. What do you say,
|
||
Janis? I'd like you to become an integral part of our research
|
||
team. The pay will, of course, be a lot better than your
|
||
secretarial job."
|
||
|
||
Janis knew when she was being offered a good deal.
|
||
|
||
"I accept," she said, wiping her eyes and sitting up straight.
|
||
"But make sure that those dials are on the right settings from
|
||
now on, okay?"
|
||
|
||
"Just be thankful that you're not Maynard Hughes," said Parsons.
|
||
|
||
Her ears perked up at the sound of the name. It occurred to her
|
||
that now was the perfect time to bring up that subject.
|
||
|
||
"Hughes," she said. "I've been meaning to talk to you about him,
|
||
Dr Parsons. He's absolutely terrible, a real sex fiend, always
|
||
grabbing at me and the other girls in the hallways and in the
|
||
elevator. Something should be done about him."
|
||
|
||
"I had been looking the other way because of my poor long-
|
||
suffering daughter," Parsons confessed. "That and I'm afraid
|
||
that his condition is partially my fault. Hughes volunteered to
|
||
be a subject on the McAllister sexual stimulator a couple of
|
||
months ago. Unfortunately, the results were not quite what we
|
||
expected.
|
||
|
||
"Oh really," asked Janis, intrigued, "what happened?"
|
||
|
||
"Because of his highly oversexed nature -- which I didn't know
|
||
about, by the way -- we had the power set five notches too high
|
||
when we hooked him up to the simulator. He suffered a numbing of
|
||
the senses just as you did. That old McAllister unit had one
|
||
more side effect that we've corrected on the new simulators: the
|
||
subject was afflicted with an overpowering and irrational urge
|
||
to satisfy his desires. That explains his awful manners. Maynard
|
||
would do or say almost anything get relief. Eventually he found
|
||
that he could only get satisfaction by hooking himself up to the
|
||
simulator. The poor fool began coming in after hours, boosting
|
||
the power ever higher with each visit. Hamilton finally caught
|
||
him one evening. We took away his key and gave him a stern
|
||
talking to. Unfortunately he must have had a duplicate because
|
||
he came in and hooked himself up again this weekend.
|
||
|
||
"Hm, that must be where he was going when I saw him last
|
||
Saturday," said Janis, remembering her brief panic on the
|
||
elevator.
|
||
|
||
"Probably. He set the machine on full power and I'm afraid that
|
||
he irreversibly overstimulated some of the nerve channels to his
|
||
brain. This time his condition is not reversible -- the power
|
||
was set too high. It's tragic. If only he'd had a little
|
||
self-control!"
|
||
|
||
"Poor Maynard!" said Janis.
|
||
|
||
"Yes," said Parsons. "Thank goodness we've licked the irrational
|
||
addiction problem on the new machines."
|
||
|
||
"I'm glad to hear that, Dr. Parsons," said Janis, getting up. "I
|
||
really should get back to work now." She glanced at her watch.
|
||
"Actually, I have about ten minutes left." She thought for a
|
||
moment. "You don't suppose you could hook me up to that machine
|
||
right now, do you? I mean, just to see if it works. It would
|
||
only take a few minutes, wouldn't it? Please? You realize that I
|
||
haven't tasted any chocolate for two whole days now! Please, Dr,
|
||
Parsons, please?"
|
||
|
||
|
||
Phil Nolte (NU020061@vm1.NoDak.edu)
|
||
-------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Phil Nolte is 42 years old, and works on potato diseases as a
|
||
full-time research specialist at North Dakota State University
|
||
in Fargo, North Dakota. He is also a part-time graduate student
|
||
who must graduate with a Ph.D. this spring. He writes science
|
||
fiction as a hobby, and because he thinks there is a shortage of
|
||
the good stuff. He says he will keep writing until he finds that
|
||
he hates doing it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Sculptor by Andrea Payne
|
||
===============================
|
||
|
||
The marble was flawed. Anyone could see that. Though the
|
||
translucent block of pearl-white stone appeared whole and
|
||
lovely, moving into a different angle of light clearly revealed
|
||
the tiny webs and fractures that made it all but useless for
|
||
sculpture. The Sculptor eyed the marble with a critical and
|
||
irritable eye.
|
||
|
||
"Perhaps Michelangelo could create from this damaged stone," he
|
||
thought, "as he created the timeless 'David', but I am not
|
||
Michelangelo!"
|
||
|
||
He turned and walked around the block where it stood on his
|
||
artists' pedestal, again and again, taking in the sight of both
|
||
the glory and failing of the stone.
|
||
|
||
"I cannot work with this," he sighed. He laid his hand upon it,
|
||
and felt the tingle of mystic power within the vibrant pillar --
|
||
deep in his mind he felt fashioned the image of what lay hidden
|
||
within.
|
||
|
||
The Sculptor stepped back to his worktable and took up the
|
||
narrow-bladed chisel and the small wooden mallet, the tools of
|
||
his artistry. Then returning to the marble he carefully placed
|
||
edge against the stone, lightly tapped it with the hammer, and
|
||
the first shaving of his creation slipped away like gossamer on
|
||
the wind...
|
||
|
||
|
||
Caleb MacDhougal was impossible. He was intractable. He was
|
||
rude, and curt, and foul-mouthed. He was unapproachable,
|
||
solitary and unkind. Very few persons in the graduate program
|
||
for Art Therapy at Brakespear College held much hope for his
|
||
success in that field. Very few persons wanted anything to do
|
||
with him, because he was so all- around unpleasant. But in spite
|
||
of all the negative things he was, he had a way with whatever
|
||
medium he chose to work in, and the spark of genius could be
|
||
said to burn in him somewhere.
|
||
|
||
"If only he weren't so damned secretive and arrogant and
|
||
unsociable!" said Lindy Walker as she walked with friends toward
|
||
Hillyer Hall, the site of the first of many practicum classes
|
||
for art therapy grad students. She spoke to her circle of
|
||
friends, gathered in the previous year of the program.
|
||
|
||
"And strange," added Alex Burton. "Always wearing that hood and
|
||
cape and those tan leather gloves!" He pursed his lips. "I've
|
||
even seen him in the studios painting or drawing or whatever,
|
||
still wearing the hood and gloves. I think he's obsessed."
|
||
|
||
"With what?" asked another of the group. She was a newcomer to
|
||
Brakespear, having transferred to the school to finish her
|
||
degree. Alex looked her up and down, as if to say "I don't know
|
||
you, so why should I answer your questions?"
|
||
|
||
"Jyl-Ann Korotev," she ventured by way of introduction, and at a
|
||
slight nod by Lindy, Alex continued.
|
||
|
||
"I think he views himself as some kind of eccentric artiste,
|
||
with his put-on airs. He won't make much of a therapist, though,
|
||
with whatever emotional baggage he carries along with him all
|
||
the time. That's why he's so rude, you know?"
|
||
|
||
Conversation ceased as the group entered their classroom. It
|
||
ceased not because of their entering, but because the subject of
|
||
their discussion was already there, seated defensively with his
|
||
back to the far wall, facing the door. Jyl-Ann got her first
|
||
look at the much- discussed genius cum s.o.b.
|
||
|
||
There wasn't a lot to see. Caleb MacDhougal wore a long,
|
||
midnight blue cape which sported a deep hood. This effectively
|
||
hid his face in deep shadows, even in the bright fluorescent
|
||
light of the classroom. All that could be seen was the slight
|
||
movement and angry sparkle of his eyes. His jeans poked out from
|
||
beneath the cloak, and the hint of a dark shirt could be seen in
|
||
the sleeves that were firmly overlapped by the ends of long, tan
|
||
leather gloves covering his hands.
|
||
|
||
He studiously ignored the others after their entrance, and they
|
||
all took seats on the opposite side of the room from him.
|
||
|
||
Jyl-Ann was intrigued. Caleb radiated quite clearly that he
|
||
wished to be left alone in whatever private hell he was in.
|
||
Jyl-Ann couldn't imagine what could tear a person up so... or
|
||
she could, but having dealt with her own darkness with the help
|
||
of a loving husband and a committed priest-counselor, she
|
||
sometimes lost sight of the pain and anger that could twist and
|
||
gnaw and destroy a person's self- respect and self-love.
|
||
|
||
Rather than join the others in their rejection of Caleb, Jyl-Ann
|
||
walked over to the seat next to his and asked, "Is this seat
|
||
taken?"
|
||
|
||
The hooded head jerked up and bright blue eyes turned to glare
|
||
up at her... she sensed the utter rage trembling beneath the
|
||
eccentric clothing. Nothing was said for a moment, then he
|
||
croaked hoarsely, "No, sit wherever the hell you like," and
|
||
returned to contemplation of the sketchbook he was holding.
|
||
|
||
Jyl-Ann cautiously stole a glance at the image of charcoal tiger
|
||
lillies and cornflowers on the paper. It was elegant, and she
|
||
said so. Caleb snorted in disgust, whisking the sketchbook
|
||
closed and slamming his books upon it with a finality that
|
||
reverberated across the room. Gingerly she took the seat next to
|
||
him, surreptitiously finding Lindy's gaze, hoping for support,
|
||
but finding nothing but tense astonishment there and in the eyes
|
||
of the rest of the class. It was with relief that she realized
|
||
Mark Kaiser had entered the room and begun taking role call.
|
||
|
||
When finished, Mr. Kaiser turned to Jyl-Ann with a reassuring
|
||
smile. "Ah, yes. A fine new face in our midst. Would you like to
|
||
take the floor and tell the class something about yourself?"
|
||
|
||
"Sure. I've been interested in art therapy since I was a senior
|
||
in high school. I took one of those general interest computer
|
||
tests and realized art therapy was the perfect combination of my
|
||
love for the visual arts and what I believe to be a gift for
|
||
helping people. I don't want that to sound conceited, but I have
|
||
been told over my lifetime that I'm sensitive -- sometimes
|
||
overly so -- to the hurt felt by others, and have wanted to
|
||
alleviate that hurt as best I could whenever possible. I've been
|
||
working toward this degree on and off now for over seven years,
|
||
and am very glad to settle down and finish it here at
|
||
Brakespear."
|
||
|
||
"Well, good. We're glad to have you here. Now for an icebreaker
|
||
to get everyone loosened up for the year ahead. Think of an
|
||
object or group of objects that symbolizes what you would like
|
||
to accomplish this year. Using any media you have available,
|
||
depict that object or objects, and then partner up with one or
|
||
two people and tell them about your goals."
|
||
|
||
Jyl-Ann watched Caleb while arranging her materials. He sat
|
||
still, but for twirling a silver pen, staring into space. She
|
||
settled to work, mentally sighing and asking for prayerful
|
||
guidance. Her gentle scrolls were abruptly interrupted by a
|
||
series of low growls from Caleb and the scrape of rough strokes
|
||
of charcoal meeting paper. Then silence.
|
||
|
||
She shifted her weight to lean closer to the dark form next to
|
||
her and cleared her throat expectantly. "Caleb." A nudging.
|
||
Soft. He began twirling the pen again. Before him on the page
|
||
lay a stark, reflective hunting knife glistening with fresh
|
||
blood. He said no word.
|
||
|
||
"Caleb." She brushed his shoulder with her hand. He started
|
||
violently and leaned back away from her to stare viciously. "My
|
||
friends call me Jyl. Um, my goals are depicted here" she moved
|
||
the pastel scrollwork of vines and leaves around a glowing cross
|
||
closer to Caleb's workspace "by the obnoxious growth of these
|
||
flowers... I hope not only to be taught how to be an art
|
||
therapist, but also to be my own client, working with others and
|
||
God to better understand me and my inner soul."
|
||
|
||
Caleb stared at her with clenched jaw until she squirmed
|
||
uneasily, then slowly turned to his own drawing, tapping a slow
|
||
beat on the blade of the knife with the pen at each uttered
|
||
word. "Revulsion. Fear. Mutilation. Death."
|
||
|
||
After class Lindy caught stride with Jyl, popping with
|
||
questions. "What do you think of Caleb, Jyl? How could you stand
|
||
to sit next to him? Did he say anything to you? Haven't you
|
||
heard the stories about him? Did you get a look at his face?" At
|
||
this last Lindy put on a contorted expression.
|
||
|
||
Raising an eyebrow in question Jyl replied cautiously, "Alex was
|
||
right about Caleb having a lot of baggage."
|
||
|
||
"His face and hands are withered and welted with ghastly scars!
|
||
Jason told me during class that he caught a glimpse of them when
|
||
Caleb was rinsing his face in the men's room during that heat
|
||
wave last summer. Caleb tried to get him to keep quiet about it,
|
||
but Jason's a born blabbermouth."
|
||
|
||
And you're certainly not helping matters, thought Jyl, looking
|
||
around guiltily at the throng of people they'd entered near the
|
||
Towers snack grill.
|
||
|
||
"And Alex says he heard that Caleb got those scars from
|
||
attacking a woman with a knife and trying to rape her--but she
|
||
got a hold of the knife herself and cut him up!"
|
||
|
||
"Knife?" Jyl gulped as she remembered Caleb's chilling drawing
|
||
in class.
|
||
|
||
"But Sherry says he was caught in a horrible house fire while
|
||
babysitting two boys."
|
||
|
||
"Did they survive?" Her voice held a note of sarcasm as she
|
||
recovered from her personal panic at the rape story. All of this
|
||
was probably an active textbook case of rampant rumor.
|
||
|
||
"No. Personally, I think he murdered them and hid them in the
|
||
basement."
|
||
|
||
"Lindy, that's ridiculous."
|
||
|
||
She quickly put a finger to her lips as a threateningly cloaked
|
||
figure stepped in line two or three people behind them.
|
||
|
||
"Do you think he heard us?" rasped Lindy in an ill-disguised
|
||
stage whisper.
|
||
|
||
Eyes flashing warning, Jyl shook her head curtly and said, "Even
|
||
if he didn't, which isn't likely, most of the students in our
|
||
class are probably wondering about him, and I'll bet your talk
|
||
has piqued interest in our present company, too. Has anyone
|
||
actually asked Caleb why he wears his cloak?"
|
||
|
||
"Are you out of your fucking mind?! I won't go anywhere near
|
||
him!"
|
||
|
||
"Uh-huh. Which means you've compounded his isolation. Now
|
||
instead of simply an obsessive oddity you've created grotesque
|
||
reasons to be both ridiculing and curious of him.
|
||
|
||
"I want to be your friend, Lindy. And Alex's, and Jason's, and
|
||
Caleb's, and everyone else's friend. If not close, then politely
|
||
amiable. I doubt Caleb trusts anyone. But believe me, I want to
|
||
change that. After all of this spewage gets around, whether or
|
||
not it is true, Caleb will be doubly hellish, I'm sure. If you
|
||
have curiosity to cure, confront him yourself. I want no part in
|
||
your cruelty."
|
||
|
||
Jyl turned away from Lindy's shocked open-mouthed "O" with sick
|
||
grumblings in her stomach...but not before they both sensed and
|
||
saw Caleb gazing steadily at them.
|
||
|
||
It was with a great shuffling that the girls gathered their food
|
||
and moved into the room. Jyl stopped and looked apologetically
|
||
at Lindy. "I'm sorry. He scares me, too. But I'm determined not
|
||
to let my fear keep me from trying to get to know him better.
|
||
I'll see you later. I'd like to be by myself for awhile." Jyl
|
||
moved away slowly and took a seat in an almost-deserted alcove
|
||
and picked dejectedly at her salad, her appetite long gone.
|
||
Brooding, she glanced up to see stark blue eyes gazing at her
|
||
from the depths of a hood not more than two table lengths away.
|
||
|
||
|
||
The form was there. A basic, rough-hewn shape almost clawed from
|
||
the stone by the chisel laying inert now in The Sculptor's
|
||
slick- sweated hand. A precarious balance was held in this
|
||
block. He traced the dark flaws with his fingertips, straining
|
||
in his mind to see how he might integrate this ugliness into the
|
||
frozen beauty he wished to create. A misplaced tap, a too-eager
|
||
breaking out of the form toward the details he saw deep within
|
||
the rock could end in absolute, shattered chaos. It was a
|
||
precarious balance indeed.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Jyl stared at her salad for a long moment, stabbing at it with a
|
||
trapped vengeance while under Caleb's scrutiny. Why does he
|
||
watch me so? "...trying to rape her..." It's only a vicious
|
||
rumor... right? She pushed her bowl away in contempt. How could
|
||
she allow herself to fall into that talk trap...even
|
||
momentarily? She set her chin in the cup of her hands, fading
|
||
into thought.
|
||
|
||
So what's wrong with admitting I'm afraid? He does cut a
|
||
menacing figure, even if I don't know the true reason why. How
|
||
would he react to such honesty? Is he afraid of nothing? The
|
||
memory of his staccato croaks, "Repulsion. Fear. Mutilation.
|
||
Death." echoed in her mind, causing her to narrow her eyes and
|
||
lean into her hands to attempt to read the suddenly guarded
|
||
sparkle staring back. Or does he soak up all fear and hatred and
|
||
shock encountered from others to reflect it out again in a front
|
||
of omnipotence? If it's only a front...
|
||
|
||
But even if it is a front, I still can't bring myself to ply
|
||
excuses for Lindy's "revelation" about him. Surely he heard. And
|
||
I doubt he's a fool.
|
||
|
||
The best I can do is try to find the good in him and focus on
|
||
it.
|
||
|
||
What if, inside, hidden beneath the shield of dark shadows and
|
||
wicked silence there is a man repulsed, afraid, and lividly
|
||
hateful of himself?
|
||
|
||
Then I can only accept him as he is, reach for the good, and
|
||
continue to be honest. Perhaps he may come to trust me.
|
||
|
||
At this she walked over to him and waved meekly. "You've
|
||
frightened me, watching me this afternoon. What do you find so
|
||
fascinating about me?"
|
||
|
||
Caleb snorted, retorting, "You're afraid. Good."
|
||
|
||
Jyl felt a shiver of dread pale her face ashen. "They're only
|
||
rumors!" she screamed to herself.
|
||
|
||
"As to fascination, I could ask the same of you." He rose then,
|
||
towering above her in a swirl of cloth and scent of soap, and
|
||
stalked from the hall, whipping his dishes on the conveyer belt
|
||
with a clatter.
|
||
|
||
Over the next few weeks, Jyl gently and persistently greeted
|
||
Caleb every day in their classes with a soft "Good morning" or
|
||
"Hello". Tense and silent, he turned his back on everyone while
|
||
working, jealous in his protection of his project plans before
|
||
completion. Jyl never intruded, but she let her presence be felt
|
||
by tentative verbal nudgings when the frustration of artistic
|
||
failure loomed too closely.
|
||
|
||
One morning, Jyl came to class early to gain some quiet time for
|
||
finishing a project, and Caleb's entrance was felt more than
|
||
actually seen. Her greeting to him was subdued and preoccupied.
|
||
He settled with a huff, then grumped a low "Hi" in her
|
||
direction. Jyl froze for a fraction of a second, her eyes grown
|
||
wide at the gutteral sound. Her smile of pleasure was evident
|
||
despite her attempt to control it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Another sliver fell away. With an exasperated expulsion of air,
|
||
The Sculptor pushed away from the table and stood to stretch.
|
||
The faint hint of a leaf. But that damn flaw held him in check.
|
||
He was tempted to crack it with one deft blow...but that would
|
||
shatter the grace he'd been coaxing from the stone. Little
|
||
pieces of marble, some no longer than his thumbnail, littered
|
||
the floor. This was the only way.
|
||
|
||
|
||
To Jyl's dismay, her classmates did not share her desire to
|
||
befriend Caleb. Most simply ignored him. One or two bordered on
|
||
the obnoxious with references to the "Phantom of the Opera" and
|
||
"the Shadow knows". And of course there were the rumors. The
|
||
frequency of halted conversations at her entry and Caleb's
|
||
increased gruffness caused her to be afraid.
|
||
|
||
Did Caleb even notice the energy she used to protect him from
|
||
Jason and Alex's incessant teasing and spying? She tried to
|
||
pierce his menace by being present for him, tried to remain
|
||
vulnerable and accepting to ease him into a friendship with her.
|
||
She shuddered with the realization that he could heartlessly
|
||
rend what threads of watchfulness and privacy she'd already
|
||
drawn with only a few curt words or actions. He was cold,
|
||
arrogant, and sealed in a shroud of crushing bitterness. Was she
|
||
really up against the monster Lindy hinted lurked in that hood?
|
||
One who did not want her protection nor her attentiveness no
|
||
matter how subtle she was? This possibility had not occurred to
|
||
her before. And it hurt like hell.
|
||
|
||
Maybe she could work out some of her anxiety in the ceramics
|
||
studio. Clay didn't move as freely as a pencil and paper, but
|
||
she did find it was safer to punch around than most other solid
|
||
objects, like apartment walls.
|
||
|
||
Anxious and pensive on entering the room, she found a little
|
||
relief in that there were only a few people present, but not so
|
||
much that Caleb was one of them. Her greeting to him was barely
|
||
a whisper. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, gave her a
|
||
shallow wave, then returned his attention to the potter's wheel
|
||
he contemplated. She quietly stepped up beside him and studied
|
||
the cylinder of clay with him. "What will it be, Caleb?"
|
||
|
||
"A study in clay netting. Coiled lace on the outer walls."
|
||
|
||
"You must have very deft fingers for detail work like that,
|
||
Caleb. I'm sure it'll be gorgeous." Jyl turned to slice off a
|
||
chunk of clay from the storage supply, and began kneading it and
|
||
mashing it just for its energy absorbing properties. Caleb fired
|
||
up the wheel and began weaving the shining coils around his
|
||
vessel. As the pattern grew, Caleb half stood in his
|
||
concentration. Out of the corner of her eye Jyl saw Christy
|
||
lugging a five-gallon bucket of glaze behind Caleb, trying to
|
||
get through a space too narrow. With a clunk and a splash the
|
||
bucket hit Caleb in the back of the knees, throwing him forward.
|
||
|
||
The sound of Caleb's work collapsing beneath his body seemed
|
||
loud in the sudden silence of the room. For a moment, everything
|
||
seemed frozen in a tableau. Then Caleb was straightening up,
|
||
whirling on Christy who backed down the aisle between two
|
||
worktables, terrified at the angry fire in his eyes. Caleb's arm
|
||
was an accusing lance pointing at her as he hissed, "You
|
||
clumsy... stupid... fucking FOOL ! DAMN you!"
|
||
|
||
Jyl covered the distance in two strides, yanking on Caleb's
|
||
shoulder in urgent determination. "Caleb! Caleb, stop it! Look
|
||
at me!" Jyl stepped between Caleb and his quarry,
|
||
near-desperation in her eyes. She took his hands in hers,
|
||
encased though they were in clay-mucked plastic and leather
|
||
gloves, and peered into the deep hood.
|
||
|
||
She would have recoiled at the danger she saw there, but
|
||
suddenly the pressure of control between them was not hers.
|
||
"Caleb?" she whispered, fighting down the apprehension as she
|
||
stared at the shadowy fissures and weathered parchment that were
|
||
the left side of his face.
|
||
|
||
"I have been working for two months on this piece, and she
|
||
doesn't even have the grace to say 'excuse me'? I could have
|
||
moved aside, you know." Christy's inane babbling apologies
|
||
caused Caleb to turn on her, still gripping Jyl's hands. "You're
|
||
careless. You're an idiot. Why didn't you just ask me to move? I
|
||
don't know how you ever got into this program. You've destroyed
|
||
two months of my work!"
|
||
|
||
Jyl tugged on his hands, drawing his attention back to her.
|
||
"Caleb, was this a project for one of your classes?" she asked.
|
||
|
||
"Hell, no," he said bitterly. "I was just doing this for...
|
||
for... me. Just because I like ceramics... and sculpture... just
|
||
because..." His anger was lessening. His grip on her hands
|
||
weakened. And finally, his lips pursed tightly in a thin pale
|
||
line, he brusquely pulled his hands from Jyl's. He turned to the
|
||
wheel, swept the crushed fragments of his creation to the floor,
|
||
and strode coldly from the room without a backward glance.
|
||
|
||
Jyl didn't know if she should give chase or remain still. But
|
||
she probably should breathe again. With a whoosh she let the
|
||
tension of the last few minutes go, and sucked air into her
|
||
lungs once more. Christy was crying. "He's not a monster, you
|
||
know." Jyl looked at her defiantly, threw her poundings and
|
||
Caleb's fragments into the scrap barrel, and left.
|
||
|
||
A quick stop at the front desk confirmed Caleb's apartment being
|
||
a floor up from Jyl's. She climbed the stairs, and soon found
|
||
herself poised to knock on his door. But the muffled sounds of
|
||
metal against stone stopped her. Working again. Didn't his ideas
|
||
ever stop? Didn't he ever get blocked? Didn't he ever get tired?
|
||
Jyl smiled, shook her head. He's okay. And she snuck back to her
|
||
rooms as quietly as she'd come.
|
||
|
||
Jyl remembered she still had to mount three drawings for the
|
||
critique tomorrow. It was actually a finalist judging done by
|
||
the art professors for the Brakespear Student Art Show. They
|
||
would choose no more than five entries from each class. Hope and
|
||
competition was high in the studios this time of year.
|
||
|
||
Jyl hoped Jason wouldn't throw a fit about Christy. They'd been
|
||
going together for two years, and he was almost fanatic about
|
||
his protection of her from Caleb. Nothing had happened. Jyl had
|
||
seen to that. But events like that always managed to blow out of
|
||
proportion. She sighed and settled to work. Only morning would
|
||
give the answers.
|
||
|
||
When Jyl entered the gallery the next day where the judging was
|
||
to take place, Jason and Caleb were already having an argument.
|
||
Or rather, Christy was standing off to the side with a smug look
|
||
on her face talking to Lindy while Jason yelled at Caleb. Said
|
||
midnight tower stood his ground in silent contempt.
|
||
|
||
"One of these days, Mr. MacDhougal, you'll go too far. Then
|
||
you'll be sorry you ever haunted the Brakespear campus." Jason
|
||
never addressed Caleb by his first name. The formality lent more
|
||
non- humanity to his attacks.
|
||
|
||
"Don't threaten him, Jason." Jyl walked over.
|
||
|
||
"Oh, so now you've got a guardian angel, Mr. MacDhougal. Is she
|
||
acting as your tongue today?"
|
||
|
||
"No." One word.
|
||
|
||
"Let it be, Jason. Caleb didn't hurt Christy physically, and he
|
||
was rightfully angry. Caleb lost a piece of artwork. Christy
|
||
lost a little courage. It's over."
|
||
|
||
"That's what you think." Jason crossed the hall grumbling.
|
||
|
||
Jyl didn't like the look of things. She shot a side-long glance
|
||
at Caleb. He met her gaze. "While the profs are puttering
|
||
around, how would you like to do a tandem critique of our own
|
||
work?" she asked.
|
||
|
||
"You want to know what I think of your work?"
|
||
|
||
"And I'd like to see what other ingenious ideas you've tried and
|
||
been successful with. That vase was fantastic."
|
||
|
||
"Yeah." Gruff. "Well, come here then."
|
||
|
||
Their voices were low as the judges started their rounds. Jyl
|
||
was careful to praise and encourage, and to ask Caleb before
|
||
handling any of his pieces. They were all sculptured in some
|
||
form.
|
||
|
||
"How do you do that, Caleb?" Jyl remarked on a three-foot-high
|
||
marble carving of a gnome. "It's stone, for God's sake. How do
|
||
you get a creature like that out of stone?"
|
||
|
||
"You've seen my woodcarving, right? It's like that only the
|
||
surface is much harder." Caleb moved in front of Jyl's
|
||
softsculpture train. "I think your embroidery balances the cab
|
||
and cars well. You're talented in sculpture and details too,
|
||
Jyl." Jyl blushed under the fond warmth in his eyes.
|
||
|
||
They sat on a bench to critique other students' work for the
|
||
rest of the afternoon. And immersed as they were in their world
|
||
of color and symbolism, they both started when Jason exploded in
|
||
fury at the judges' announcements of the show entries.
|
||
|
||
"I should have been in this show. Not YOU!" He pointed a vicious
|
||
finger at Caleb. "What did you do to weasel your way into this
|
||
thing, you son-of-a-bitch?"
|
||
|
||
"He didn't do anything other than produce work better than
|
||
yours, Jason." Jyl looked from Caleb's gold -starred gnome to
|
||
Caleb with a smile.
|
||
|
||
Jason turned on Jyl with disgust. "And you!" Jyl's head snapped
|
||
up in surprise. "What the hell do you get out of being near him?
|
||
A good fuck? Is he "loveable and capable"? Do you "ease his
|
||
pain" with sexual favors? You're a goddamn fucking SLUT!"
|
||
|
||
Jyl sputtered and shook at the absurd cruelty of Jason's words.
|
||
She suddenly felt very small. Choking back a sob, she ran from
|
||
the room to escape the eyes that stared at her.
|
||
|
||
Caleb rose slowly from his seat, and glared at Jason squarely in
|
||
the eye, measuring him. "I usually let shit run off me like
|
||
water off the back of a duck. But not when it involves my
|
||
friends." He hauled back and hit Jason in the stomach, doubling
|
||
him over. Caleb looked at him dispassionately and then stalked
|
||
from the hall.
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Sculptor had been working for hours. Paper was strewn over
|
||
the table and floor in utter disarray, sketches of the form
|
||
before him. Maybe it would work. Why hadn't he thought of it
|
||
before? Could he actually make the flaw a fair part of the
|
||
statue?
|
||
|
||
Two.
|
||
------
|
||
|
||
The next day, Caleb's chair in class was empty. Jyl tapped her
|
||
pencil on the table. He'd never missed a class. She looked
|
||
furtively at Jason and Christy. The former was stonefaced. She
|
||
traced circles over her paper with her fingertips, made some
|
||
weak scribbles. She frowned. Was he sick? Had something happened
|
||
to him? She made a face at her work and threw it away.
|
||
|
||
Afterwards, Lindy came up to her with awe in her eyes. "You
|
||
should have seen what Caleb did to Jason after you left!"
|
||
|
||
Jyl's stomach took a flip. "What did Caleb do after I left?"
|
||
|
||
Lindy put her arm on Jyl's shoulder confidentially and said, "He
|
||
rumbled something about crap not affecting him unless it had to
|
||
do with his friends, and then he slugged Jason in the gut!"
|
||
|
||
Jyl's eyes were wide with concern."What did Jason do then?"
|
||
|
||
"He just doubled over moaning, and Caleb walked out of the
|
||
room."
|
||
|
||
Jyl looked around, hoping to see the familiar dark shadow, but
|
||
he wasn't there. So why hadn't Caleb been in class?
|
||
|
||
She practically ran to Caleb's apartment, surprised to find no
|
||
answer to her knock, and the door unlocked.
|
||
|
||
But more astonishing was the fragile marble cluster of flowers
|
||
on the table. Polished and glowing, it sat in elegant splendor
|
||
among a sheaf of scattered sketches, which showed various views
|
||
of a deep flaw in the stone. Jyl traced the delicate form with
|
||
her fingertips, then remembered why she'd come.
|
||
|
||
"Caleb?" She walked to the living room. No one. She walked down
|
||
the back hall, and knocked softly at his bedroom. No answer. She
|
||
peeked in. He lay sprawled on his bed in peaceful slumber, bare
|
||
to the waist. His scars extended down his arms and chest,
|
||
slightly warping the muscles in streaks of white and faded
|
||
brown. Embarrassed to find him so vulnerable, she approached
|
||
slowly, and drew the cover over him to his neck. Her touch
|
||
awakened him.
|
||
|
||
He pulled back somewhat, his eyes shifting between question and
|
||
guarded uncertainty. "What are you doing here?"
|
||
|
||
Jyl's embarrassment increased. "You...you weren't in class this
|
||
morning. I...I was worried about you. So I came up here to check
|
||
on you."
|
||
|
||
"Oh." He burrowed deeper in the blanket, gazing at her
|
||
uncomfortably. "Why were you worried about me? Why bother?"
|
||
|
||
Jyl smiled and gently touched his scarred cheek. He started to
|
||
pull away, grimaced, then allowed himself to come back against
|
||
her hand. "Caleb, you're my friend." She squeezed his shoulder,
|
||
then rocked back up on her feet. "C'mon. Get up. I'll go in the
|
||
other room so you can get dressed."
|
||
|
||
"Jyl."
|
||
|
||
"Hmm?"
|
||
|
||
"Thanks."
|
||
|
||
She walked out in the hall, then called back, "Those flowers on
|
||
the table are gorgeous."
|
||
|
||
"Oh that. I've been working on that for a long time. The biggest
|
||
bitch was trying to work around the flaw."
|
||
|
||
"How did you do it?"
|
||
|
||
"I realized I had to work with the flaw, and not against it. I
|
||
think the whole thing is stronger now."
|
||
|
||
"Like Michelangelo's 'David'?"
|
||
|
||
"Yeah, right."
|
||
|
||
They were silent for a few moments, then Jyl scuffed her toe on
|
||
the carpet and asked, "Why didn't you go to class today?"
|
||
|
||
A long pause, then a sigh. "I had some thinking to do."
|
||
|
||
"About?"
|
||
|
||
"My scars."
|
||
|
||
Jyl nodded to herself, stroking the scars on her arm,
|
||
remembering the hopelessness and pain in a young girl's mind so
|
||
many years ago. "Do you want to talk about it?" She moved to the
|
||
living room as Caleb emerged in jeans and a green short-sleeved
|
||
shirt.
|
||
|
||
He stood running his fingers through his hair, watching her.
|
||
Abruptly, he turned to trail his hand along the edge of the
|
||
table. "I've been working on this all semester, you know." He
|
||
grazed the petal edges of the statue with his fingertips. "Do
|
||
you recognize it?"
|
||
|
||
Jyl moved to stand opposite him. "No...you've never done... wait
|
||
a minute! Cornflowers and tiger lillies!" She locked her gaze
|
||
with his in confirmation. "It's from that drawing I saw the
|
||
first day of class, right?"
|
||
|
||
She crouched down at eye level with the piece to scrutinize it
|
||
more closely. Then she turned and said softly, "Does this tie in
|
||
somehow with what's bothering you?"
|
||
|
||
"Yeah." He ran his fingers through his hair again, not looking
|
||
at her.
|
||
|
||
"Caleb." She rose, taking one of his hands in hers, gazing at
|
||
him plainly. "I'm your friend. Talk to me."
|
||
|
||
He pulled away and strode to the window. For some time he simply
|
||
stood gazing out at the lawn. "When I was in third grade my art
|
||
class took a field trip to a glassblower's shop," he spat
|
||
through his teeth.
|
||
|
||
"A field trip."
|
||
|
||
"Yeah." His face took on a pained expression, his knuckles white
|
||
on the sash of the window."Some of the finished pieces sat on a
|
||
shelf, cooling. They glowed. I thought there was some kind of
|
||
magic inside." Then he turned and slowly sat down on the couch.
|
||
"Why the hell am I telling you this? You don't need to know
|
||
this! I feel like it's being pulled from me one fucking word at
|
||
a time."
|
||
|
||
Jyl wondered if he'd ever fully trust her. Her voice was very
|
||
quiet as she spoke. "What do you think I'm going to do to you if
|
||
you keep talking, Caleb?"
|
||
|
||
"I don't know. Go away."
|
||
|
||
"That's right. You don't know. And I'm not going away, either.
|
||
That's what everyone else has done, isn't it? Talk to me."
|
||
|
||
Caleb turned to stare at her. The light in his eyes was hard.
|
||
"What do you know about what others have done? Except run away
|
||
from me as fast as they could because they were terrified at
|
||
what they saw?"
|
||
|
||
"Caleb, I didn't run away from you. And I don't blame you for
|
||
your being scarred. Did you ever think that the others ran away
|
||
from you not because of what they saw, because you've always
|
||
worn your cape, but because of what they've felt from you? When
|
||
I approached you that first day of classes, I could almost
|
||
tangibly grasp your anger."
|
||
|
||
"Of course I know that!" he exploded. "I drove them away! That
|
||
fucking cape is my protection against this whole shit-filled
|
||
world!" His voice caught and he covered it over with a cough.
|
||
"But hiding doesn't work anymore." he added softly.
|
||
|
||
He sat there for a minute or two, clenching and unclenching his
|
||
fists. Then he laughed without mirth, saying, "When no one was
|
||
looking, I put my hands around one of those fucking vases." He
|
||
mocked childlike wonder and the fateful action. "The shock sent
|
||
me into convulsions, and the glass spread and splattered over my
|
||
body like the Blob." He rubbed at his arms and hands as though
|
||
to scrub the scars off, then wiped his hands on his thighs. He
|
||
looked reluctantly at Jyl. "The damage was already done by the
|
||
time the teachers could get there to help me."
|
||
|
||
Jyl sat still for a long time, letting his words sink in, trying
|
||
to send acceptance to him. She slowly held out her hand. "Magic
|
||
is a great thing, you know. And I think there's still a spark of
|
||
it inside you, because you've managed to become a successful
|
||
artist despite the pain you experienced."
|
||
|
||
He glanced at her then, and back to his open, welted palms.
|
||
"Yeah. Pain. It's interesting, isn't it, that I'm a sculptor
|
||
now, and that I work with cold things... clay and marble and the
|
||
like." Uncertainty still lingered in his voice.
|
||
|
||
"Jyl." He gingerly placed his hand in hers. "I realized
|
||
yesterday that I've never let the bitterness go." His grip
|
||
tightened. "For all these years I've clung to the rumors, to the
|
||
teasing and the cruelty and the ugliness, and let them devour me
|
||
into a shadow." He took a shaky breath, looked at her squarely.
|
||
"I've never stood up for me as a man. I...I've always lived as
|
||
the monster everyone's said I am. I've had to come to terms with
|
||
that."
|
||
|
||
Jyl smiled at him, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.
|
||
"You've taken some large steps toward that goal right here,
|
||
Caleb."
|
||
|
||
"I know. But I think I've still got a long way to go. I've only
|
||
begun to break my own shell." He paused, thoughtful. "I realized
|
||
something else, too."
|
||
|
||
"What's that?"
|
||
|
||
"Being present and listening to a person is 95 percent of being
|
||
a therapist. Not jabbering advice." He looked at her with a
|
||
spark of hope in his eyes. "Thanks for being here, Jyl."
|
||
|
||
"That's what friends are for."
|
||
|
||
They sat that way, in comfortable rapport, for the better part
|
||
of half an hour. Then they stood, and Jyl moved to give Caleb
|
||
the hooded cloak hanging by the door. But he stopped her with a
|
||
wave of a disfigured hand.
|
||
|
||
"No, I don't need that anymore."
|
||
|
||
Andrea Payne (picasso@buhub.bradley.edu)
|
||
------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Is a junior at Bradley University, majoring in art. She has been
|
||
an artist of sorts since age 11, and has dabbled in media such
|
||
as drawing, painting, ceramics, embroidery, and crocheting. She
|
||
has interests in Scottish medieval history, classical music,
|
||
archery, and in helping others. The last has led her to become a
|
||
private duty nursing assistant, and she hopes to continue her
|
||
education along those lines by working toward a Master's Degree
|
||
in Art Therapy.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Mister Wilt by Jason Snell
|
||
=============================
|
||
|
||
I was so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open. It was eight
|
||
in the morning and I was sitting, hair still wet from my early
|
||
morning shower, on a cold wooden pew in church. It had taken me
|
||
until 2 a.m. to get the skinny, squinty-eyed girl I had invited
|
||
over "to watch television" into bed with me, and it took me over
|
||
two hours to get her out of the house once we were finished. I
|
||
had managed to get three hours of sleep that night, and I didn't
|
||
feel very cheery.
|
||
|
||
I was tired, I didn't like the feeling of my wet hair, and
|
||
church is not my favorite place in the whole world. My mother
|
||
and father were sitting on my right, and my little sister was in
|
||
my mom's lap. Andi was asleep -- mom is a more comfortable
|
||
backrest than these horrible Methodist pews.
|
||
|
||
When we moved to Clarkesburg, I figured that my life would be
|
||
pretty much like it had always been. But instead, my parents had
|
||
decided to transform their lives into something straight out of
|
||
the fifties. That was appropriate for my new hometown of
|
||
Clarkesburg, Pennsylvania, which was also straight out of the
|
||
fifties. Maybe even the eighteen-fifties. The whole town was
|
||
either Baptist or Methodist. Half the town was sitting on the
|
||
same hard pews that I sat on.
|
||
|
||
A little man with a wrinkled face sat on my left, evidently
|
||
unconcerned about the time of day and the pain caused by those
|
||
awful pews. Old Wrinkly was wearing a plaid shirt and a bow tie,
|
||
and sat with his hands folded together in what I assumed was a
|
||
praying position. A good supposition, I think, considering that
|
||
we were in church.
|
||
|
||
I assume he saw me staring at him, because his tiny eyes popped
|
||
open and he turned to look at me.
|
||
|
||
"What's your name, boy?" he whispered to me.
|
||
|
||
I straightened up and looked straight ahead at the minister.
|
||
|
||
"Jim," I said out of the corner of my mouth.
|
||
|
||
"Talk to you after the sermon," the man said.
|
||
|
||
A wrinkly old Methodist wanted to talk to me after the boring
|
||
service. It was just what I wanted to hear. At that moment,
|
||
there was no place that I would have rather been than back home
|
||
in bed -- except maybe back in California. No such luck.
|
||
|
||
After the service, my parents and I stood outside of the church.
|
||
Before we could move toward our car, the wrinkly old man
|
||
sauntered up and began talking to us.
|
||
|
||
"Hello there," he said to my father, and held out his hand.
|
||
"Name's Mr. Wilt. Pleased to meet you."
|
||
|
||
My father shook Wilt's hand and smiled. Yeah, my dad had fallen
|
||
for this down-home Pennsylvania bullshit. He loved the hard
|
||
pews, the boring church services (we're from California, for
|
||
pete's sake -- we're not supposed to go to church!), and
|
||
especially the crazy people who lived in this town. Wilt was
|
||
just another nutty old Methodist. I was sure of it.
|
||
|
||
"I was talking to your boy in church earlier," Wilt said, and
|
||
pointed at me. "I don't recognize you folks. Guess you're new to
|
||
Clarkesburg, aren't you?"
|
||
|
||
"Yes, we are," my father said.
|
||
|
||
"Wonder if you might like to come over to my place for Sunday
|
||
brunch? My wife, she's a Baptist, but she's still one hell of a
|
||
cook." He chuckled at his joke. I didn't. "Seeing as though
|
||
you're new here, I thought it would be hospitable of me to
|
||
invite you all over."
|
||
|
||
My father's face lit up. Of course, nobody was this nice in
|
||
California, but dad didn't have to actually accept the guy's
|
||
offer. "Thanks for asking, have a nice day" would be acceptable
|
||
enough, right?
|
||
|
||
Wrong. Like I said, my dad is completely enchanted with the
|
||
"quaint old-fashioned charm" of the people of Clarkesburg. He
|
||
accepted Wilt's offer.
|
||
|
||
Any hope of my getting back to sleep was gone. I could only pray
|
||
(it was Sunday, so why not pray?) that Mrs. Wilt's food was
|
||
edible.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Wilt's joke was right -- even though she was a Baptist, Erma
|
||
Wilt made a wonderful breakfast. The tiny gray-haired woman
|
||
cooked and served us bacon, eggs, pancakes, and orange juice all
|
||
by herself, and managed to keep a smile the entire time. It
|
||
didn't taste that bad, and just the fact that we were being
|
||
served authentic Pennsylvanian hospitality cuisine made my
|
||
father very happy.
|
||
|
||
I really wanted to be home in bed, asleep, or at least propped
|
||
up and watching a football game or something. Then I remembered:
|
||
football doesn't start until one in the afternoon out here. What
|
||
kind of place was this?
|
||
|
||
"So," Mr. Wilt asked as we finished our brunch, "how did you
|
||
folks end up here in Clarkesburg?"
|
||
|
||
"Well, I got tired of the hectic lifestyle in Los Angeles, and
|
||
decided that my family and I needed a change. My parents grew up
|
||
just few miles down the road, in Bucks County, and so I figured
|
||
we'd come back here."
|
||
|
||
My father is a writer. He bought a computer and a modem, and
|
||
suddenly living in a big city near his agent became pointless.
|
||
Using new technology is all well and good, but dad didn't have
|
||
to move us all to an area with nothing but bearded men driving
|
||
wagons, old Civil War battle sites, and wrinkly Methodists.
|
||
|
||
"It's so nice here," my mother said, and smiled. She had bought
|
||
into dad's fantasy. She was entranced by the Wilts'
|
||
old-fashioned charm.
|
||
|
||
I, however, felt extremely ill.
|
||
|
||
"Can I go outside, mom? I need some air." I didn't need to hear
|
||
my parents rave about the virtues of eastern Pennsylvanian life
|
||
again.
|
||
|
||
"Jamie, that's very--"
|
||
|
||
Mr. Wilt cut her off in mid-sentence.
|
||
|
||
"Sounds like a good idea," he said. "Let's go get some air,
|
||
boy."
|
||
|
||
Wilt led me outside into his backyard, and showed me an old
|
||
wooden shed, overrun by moss.
|
||
|
||
"This shed was my workshop years ago," he said. "Back then, I
|
||
wasn't a God-fearing man. I just did my work and figured that
|
||
everything else would take care of itself."
|
||
|
||
Then Wilt's eyes opened wide, he turned around to see if anyone
|
||
was nearby, and began to speak in a whisper.
|
||
|
||
"Turns out, I have to be a God-fearing man. If there aren't
|
||
enough God-fearing men, then Satan wins."
|
||
|
||
Maybe Pennsylvanians weren't as dull as I had thought.
|
||
|
||
"Satan's out there, boy, and he's working against all of us.
|
||
Doesn't matter if you're a Methodist or a Baptist or a hedonist
|
||
or anything. He's still out to get us. You've got to fear God if
|
||
you're going to survive. Understand, Jim?"
|
||
|
||
I nodded. I figured that if I said the wrong thing, he might try
|
||
to exorcise me.
|
||
|
||
"Fearing God's not enough, though. You've got to know the
|
||
secret. My wife, she's a Baptist. She can't know the secret.
|
||
Your parents, they're from California. They can't know the
|
||
secret. Your sister, she's too young. She can't understand the
|
||
secret. But you, Jim-boy, you can understand. It's not too late
|
||
for you."
|
||
|
||
He was speaking quickly, but his voice was so soft that I could
|
||
barely hear what he was saying. Still, it was hard to miss his
|
||
general point.
|
||
|
||
"This is the secret, Jim. Don't tell anyone unless they can be
|
||
trusted. They've got to pass the test! You understand?"
|
||
|
||
I nodded again. Sure, Wilt, sure. Whatever you say.
|
||
|
||
"When people are eating their food, that's when you've got them.
|
||
Check to see how many times they bite into the food, boy. Five,
|
||
ten, those are fine numbers. Twenty's even fine. Up to
|
||
twenty-two, you've got no problems. But if that person sinks
|
||
their teeth into the food one more time, twenty-three, and then
|
||
swallows, they're in on it. They chew their food twenty-three
|
||
times, then down it goes. Those are the people who work for
|
||
Satan. Got it, Jim?"
|
||
|
||
"Twenty-three times," I said, and nodded yet again.
|
||
|
||
"Good, good boy. Now, you've got to be careful -- all sorts of
|
||
people are in on it. I remember seeing one of those state
|
||
dinners on TV, and Gerald Ford was eating sirloin steak. Sure
|
||
enough, twenty- three bites. Not even Clarkesburg's safe. My
|
||
wife made chicken for the mayor one night last year, and like
|
||
clockwork, he chewed on each piece of that bird twenty-three
|
||
times."
|
||
|
||
There was a knock from the house at this point. Mrs. Wilt had
|
||
opened a window from the kitchen and was looking out at us.
|
||
|
||
"Don't scare the boy, dear," she said. "Come on back inside."
|
||
|
||
He waved, nodded, and started back in. Why did I have the
|
||
feeling that Mrs. Wilt had seen her husband behave like this
|
||
before?
|
||
|
||
"Not a word, Jim," he said. "Not a word."
|
||
|
||
It turns out that I chew my food about eight times before I
|
||
swallow it. I counted. Wilt probably counted my chewing too --
|
||
before he took me out to the old shed, he made sure I didn't
|
||
swallow after my 23rd bite of Erma's bacon, eggs, and pancakes
|
||
and swallow.
|
||
|
||
After 23 bites, all food is reduced to nothing but a disgusting
|
||
wet paste, made more of spit than of food.
|
||
|
||
I guess that's how Satan likes it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Jason Snell (jsnell@ucsd.edu)
|
||
-------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Jason Snell is the editor of InterText.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Do You Have Some Time? by Mary Anne Walters
|
||
==============================================
|
||
|
||
He looked down at the gold Rolex on his wrist. The time was
|
||
1:00, Eastern Standard Time. He thought, once again, that there
|
||
is never enough time.
|
||
|
||
"Excuse me, do you have some time?" A simple question.
|
||
|
||
She was tiny and pert looking, and very well-dressed. She was
|
||
also in a hurry. There was no time to stop and chat. With an
|
||
irritated glance at her watch she said, "Yes, it's 1:00," and
|
||
went to move on.
|
||
|
||
"No, no, no. I didn't say 'Do you have the time.' I said 'Do you
|
||
have some time." You see, I've run out and need some more."
|
||
|
||
Her eyes glazed over, and the look on her face was one that most
|
||
people save for use only when they are required to deal with a
|
||
child, a fool, or a lunatic. "I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry. I have
|
||
no time for this."
|
||
|
||
With that, she scurried off, like a tiny, pert looking rat in a
|
||
maze, rushing nowhere, but determined to get there on time
|
||
nonetheless.
|
||
|
||
He sighed. He walked a block more. Turning, his eyes scanned the
|
||
crowd. They were all rushing. But, there, in the shadow of a
|
||
building, was a young man in jeans and a tee shirt. The T-shirt
|
||
said IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY, I HAVE THE TIME. Quickly, he walked
|
||
over to the young man and said, "I have the money. Do you have
|
||
some time for me?"
|
||
|
||
"Sure, dude. I got all the time in the world." The boys vapid
|
||
face was surrounded by stringy blond hair. There was a bit of
|
||
fuzz on his upper lip. The boy grinned, but it looked more like
|
||
a leer to the man, who cringed.
|
||
|
||
"While I doubt you do, in fact, have all the time in the world,
|
||
I would like to avail myself of some of the time you do have.
|
||
You see, I seem to have run out of time myself, and I could use
|
||
a little more. So, if you will tell me how much you charge for
|
||
your time, it will be easy for me to compute what amount of
|
||
money I will need to acquire the amount of time I desire. I have
|
||
found that 24 hours in a day is just not enough--I, myself,
|
||
would prefer about 32 hours..." As he spoke, he say the boy's
|
||
leering smile turn to a scowl.
|
||
|
||
"Buzz off, buddy. One thing for damn sure is that I got no time
|
||
for weirdos like you!" The boy sauntered away and resumed his
|
||
languid pose in another shadowy corner, where he was soon
|
||
approached by a timid little man with a bald head, glasses
|
||
sliding off the end of his nose, and the look of a rabbit
|
||
gathering the courage to sneak under the fence into the cabbage
|
||
patch.
|
||
|
||
He sighed again, heavier. Once more, he scanned the crowd. He
|
||
needed someone with time to spare, but who understood the
|
||
importance and the value of time. People in a hurry had no time
|
||
to spare. People who seemed to have an abundance of time, like
|
||
the boy, were somewhat unbalanced. He searched for the perfect
|
||
mix.
|
||
|
||
There, on a park bench, was an older man, reading. He wasn't
|
||
reading a book (took too much time) or a magazine, but was
|
||
reading the newspaper--and not just the headlines, either. Aha!
|
||
Could this be the one? He approached slowly.
|
||
|
||
"Excuse me, sir. Do you have some time?"
|
||
|
||
The man on the bench was wearing a rather wide, garishly
|
||
patterned, luridly colored tie. His suit was on the dusty side
|
||
of grey, made of some thick material that gave off a damp-closet
|
||
smell. He looked up, and answered in a booming voice, "Sure, the
|
||
time is 1:24."
|
||
|
||
NO, No, No, NO! Not THE time, SOME time! I wanted SOME time!"
|
||
|
||
"Well, there's no time like the present. What time did you want?
|
||
|
||
"Did you want some of my time? I'm usually a little short of it
|
||
myself. Hey, maybe I should take some of your time! Heh, heh,
|
||
heh. Actually, you're in luck. I have some spare time right now.
|
||
We could spend some time together. And, speaking of time, let me
|
||
show you some of my samples." The loud man spoke fast, in a
|
||
machine-gun-like stream of patter. He looked down, reeling from
|
||
the assault on his senses. The loud man was opening up his
|
||
briefcase and there within it was a display of watches, all
|
||
cheap, and all ticking. The hours were wasting away before his
|
||
very eyes. With a look of horror, he flung a hand up over his
|
||
face, as if to ward off a blow, and blocked the sight from his
|
||
eyes. He recoiled, and looked for a way to escape this wretched
|
||
man.
|
||
|
||
"Wait! Don't go! My bus is late. Stick around for a while--we
|
||
can kill some time together."
|
||
|
||
That was it. The final straw. He spun on his heels and fled.
|
||
|
||
|
||
The bus driver was only trying to make up for lost time. That
|
||
broken traffic light put him way off schedule. Now, time was of
|
||
the essence. He had to be on time--not early, not late. His
|
||
record was one of the best, and he was proud of it. And, he was
|
||
mad at the delay that had robbed him of the precious minutes and
|
||
had made him late. With all these thoughts on his mind, it was
|
||
no wonder he never saw the well-dressed, wild-eyed, and
|
||
generally harried looking man that dashed out in front of the
|
||
bus. By the time he realized, it was too late.
|
||
|
||
"Shit! Now I'll never get back on schedule!" This thought was
|
||
echoed by the majority of the people on the bus, to include the
|
||
tiny, pert, well-dressed woman who got on at the last stop, as
|
||
well as by the timid, balding man in the car behind the bus
|
||
(whose passenger was a dirty, languid blond boy, his lip curled
|
||
into a leer).
|
||
|
||
A loud and damp smelling man stepped off the curb and walked
|
||
over to where the previously well-dressed (but now considerably
|
||
rumpled) man lay, sprawled in the street, still as a stone. He
|
||
reached down and took the gold Rolex of the now-broken wrist.
|
||
The bus driver walked over, unsure whether he should attempt to
|
||
stop this ghoulish act.
|
||
|
||
"Don't worry," the loud man assured the bus driver, "I saw the
|
||
whole thing--this guy stole one of my samples, then ran out into
|
||
the street, right in front of you. That's what happened, all
|
||
right." The loud man replaced the gold watch with a cheap
|
||
imitation, and let the wrist drop back to the pavement. "That's
|
||
what I'll tell the police." He winked a particularly nasty wink
|
||
at the bus driver, who breathed a sigh of relief nonetheless.
|
||
The loud man laughed.
|
||
|
||
"I guess his time ran out, hey buddy?"
|
||
|
||
|
||
Mary Anne Walters (m13079@mwvm.mitre.org)
|
||
--------------------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Mary Anne Walters is a librarian specializing in Department of
|
||
Defense research topics at a federally funded research and
|
||
development center. She has an undergraduate degree in English
|
||
and American Studies and a Masters in Library and Information
|
||
Science. She reads voraciously, and kills time by watching
|
||
movies, mostly film noir and horror, and anything she can get to
|
||
by Peter Greenaway.
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Talisman by Greg Knauss
|
||
==============================
|
||
|
||
Duncan watched as the fat little disk that had so shaped his
|
||
life bounded up and down in front of him. He stared at it
|
||
intently, almost hypnotized by its motion -- so regular, he
|
||
thought, so precise, so easily controlled. He flicked his wrist
|
||
in a thoughtless motion and the flattened sphere obeyed his
|
||
command, knowing what he wanted without him speaking.
|
||
|
||
God, I love that, Duncan thought.
|
||
|
||
It hadn't always been as easy as it was now, sitting here. They
|
||
had taunted him back when he had cared, called him meaningless
|
||
things that had seemed tremendously cruel at the time. Worst of
|
||
all, they made fun of IT. The disk, the one thing he loved.
|
||
|
||
DUN-CAN, DUN-CAN, THE YO-YO MAN! DUN-CAN, DUN-CAN, THE YO-YO
|
||
MAN!
|
||
|
||
The yo-yo sped up and down a little faster as he remembered, his
|
||
motions became a little more intense. He never had to look at
|
||
the yo- yo while he used it, but now he stared intently into the
|
||
distance, his jaw-line hardening, his eyes no longer those of a
|
||
nine-year-old.
|
||
|
||
He didn't blame his parents. He loved them more than he would
|
||
have normally -- they gave him this friend on a string when he
|
||
was only two years old. He had taken to it immediately, quickly
|
||
becoming an expert in the yo-yo parlor tricks of the early
|
||
eighties.
|
||
|
||
He had taken it to his first day of school, clutching the
|
||
smallish plastic disk instead of his mothers skirt and soon the
|
||
older kids began to lay into him.
|
||
|
||
HEY, DUN-CAN THE YO-YO MAN! PEOPLE WHO CARRY YO-YOS WET THE BED!
|
||
|
||
YEAH, DUN-CAN! WASSA MATTER? YOU WET THE BED?
|
||
|
||
HA HA HA HA!
|
||
|
||
He tried to ignore them. He tried to find friends with common
|
||
interests, friends he could relate to, but nobody at school
|
||
seemed to be interested in yo-yos. He told his parents about the
|
||
big kids making fun of him, but they didn't understand. They
|
||
wanted to take his yo-yo away! They said that if that was the
|
||
only thing causing the trouble he should stop taking it to
|
||
school.
|
||
|
||
They didn't understand. His yo-yo was the only thing that kept
|
||
him happy, kept him safe. He loved his yo-yo, and his yo-yo
|
||
loved him, he was sure of it.
|
||
|
||
He was getting better, too. He had moved past everyone he had
|
||
seen on TV and was now inventing tricks of his own. His beloved
|
||
yo-yo would whiz around, up and down, back and forth at speeds
|
||
where he could no longer follow it with his eye. But he knew
|
||
where it was at all times -- he and the yo-yo were one,
|
||
connected by twine.
|
||
|
||
One day, during recess, he was in a corner of the playground,
|
||
casually using his yo-yo, when he was approached by the group of
|
||
bigger kids who found endless fun in mocking his love.
|
||
|
||
HEY, HEY, DUN-CAN. HOW'S THE OLD YO-YO? LOOKS PRETTY GOOD TO ME.
|
||
|
||
CAN I HAVE IT?
|
||
|
||
Duncan froze, the yo-yo spun up its string and he closed his
|
||
fist quickly around it. No, he thought. No, no, no . . .
|
||
|
||
YEAH, IT LOOKS MIGHTY GOOD.
|
||
|
||
MAYBE I'LL JUST TAKE IT.
|
||
|
||
No! Duncan's wrist flipped up and the yo-yo shot out from his
|
||
open palm. It hit the big kid in the stomach and he looked as if
|
||
he'd been hit with a fist. The kid doubled over as the yo-yo
|
||
swung back towards Duncan. He whipped it behind him, over him
|
||
and down, in a high, graceful arc, into the back of the kid's
|
||
head. There was a soft crack.
|
||
|
||
UUNGH.
|
||
|
||
The kid was on the ground. He could have been sleeping, but
|
||
there was a yo-yo embedded in the base of his skull.
|
||
|
||
The other kids scattered away from Duncan as he flicked his
|
||
wrist and forced the yo-yo up its string into his palm. He
|
||
smiled.
|
||
|
||
The yo-yo rolled steadily up and down its string as he wandered
|
||
away.
|
||
|
||
He was sitting on the curb now, slowly rubbing the blood off his
|
||
yo-yo. He could hear sirens in the distance and he supposed soon
|
||
they would find him and want to take him away. He knew what he
|
||
had done was a bad thing, but just letting that kid take his
|
||
yo-yo would have been worse.
|
||
|
||
He supposed they might try to hurt him, but Duncan wasn't really
|
||
worried.
|
||
|
||
His yo-yo would protect him.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Schrodinger's Monkey by Greg Knauss
|
||
======================================
|
||
|
||
If nothing else, it explains a lot.
|
||
|
||
For those with a technical education in physics, it seems the
|
||
Everett-Wheeler-Graham interpretation of quantum indeterminacy,
|
||
with a few addendums, turns out to be correct. For those
|
||
without, a little explanation is needed.
|
||
|
||
Physics, for years now, has had a central question: What is
|
||
wrong with quantum mechanics? Quantum mechanics is a method of
|
||
calculating values on the atomic and sub-atomic level, a little
|
||
like Newtonian mechanics can be used to calculate values on a
|
||
larger scale. Newtonian formulas can predict where a rock will
|
||
fall if someone throws it in the air, quantum formulas try to do
|
||
the same thing for atoms.
|
||
|
||
But it never worked quite right. Newtonian physics, real-world
|
||
physics, always comes up with one specific answer -- it many not
|
||
be the right answer, say, if some factor was forgotten, or some
|
||
measurement misread, but it is always a single answer. Quantum
|
||
physics, though, always produces more than one answer, ALL of
|
||
which are technically, mathematically correct. It's called
|
||
"indeterminacy." Newton says the rock will land HERE; quantum
|
||
mechanics says that the rock will land HERE and HERE and HERE.
|
||
|
||
This is, of course, impossible.
|
||
|
||
In the real world you can't have more than one answer. It's not
|
||
a question of actually throwing the rock and seeing where it
|
||
lands. The formulas should provide one answer, and one answer
|
||
only. Period.
|
||
|
||
Schrodinger came up with his famous cat to try to illustrate the
|
||
problem. Imagine: there's a box, with no holes or windows, that
|
||
contains a cat. The cat has some sort of lethal device hooked up
|
||
to it -- I always liked to think of it as a guillotine, but
|
||
Schrodinger used poisonous gas -- that can be triggered by some
|
||
nameless quantum event.
|
||
|
||
Now, after a specific period of time, is the cat dead? Quantum
|
||
mechanics will return a number of answers, one of which might
|
||
say that the cat has been killed, another of which might not. So
|
||
without opening the box, is the cat dead or alive? Schrodinger
|
||
said it was both -- an obviously false statement --<2D>just to
|
||
point out that quantum mechanics has a gaping hole in it.
|
||
|
||
There were a number of explanations for what was going on.
|
||
Einstein had the Hidden Variable, Von Neumann and Finkelstein
|
||
had Quantum Logic, Bohr had the Copenhagen Interpretation,
|
||
Walker and Herbert had "Consciousness" Nonlocality, Sarfatti had
|
||
"Information" Nonlocality. They were all attempts to rectify
|
||
what quantum mechanics predicted with what actually happened,
|
||
ways of looking at the universe to make it fit quantum answers.
|
||
|
||
As it turns out, events have proven Drs. Everett, Wheeler and
|
||
Graham correct. Their model suggested, perhaps fancifully, that
|
||
for every indeterminacy -- every Schrodinger's Cat -- an
|
||
entirely new universe is created, exactly the same as the first,
|
||
but for that single quantum event. In one universe, the cat
|
||
would be dead; in the other it would be alive.
|
||
|
||
Of course, quantum events are happening by the trillions every
|
||
second, by the trillions of trillions. Universes would be
|
||
splitting and re-splitting and splitting again, taking every
|
||
possible course imaginable. Judging by the rough estimate that
|
||
the universe is 10 billion years old, the number of entirely
|
||
separate universes is beyond human imagining. The amount is
|
||
inconceivable.
|
||
|
||
I suppose it should be obvious that eventually they'd run out of
|
||
room.
|
||
|
||
|
||
The way I see it -- and this is just my particular model,
|
||
obviously derived in a hurry, last night -- each universe acts
|
||
something like an atom of hydrogen might, enclosed in a glass
|
||
jar. When there are only a few hydrogen atoms, they float about
|
||
freely, gaseous, and rarely collide. This is the Gas State.
|
||
|
||
If these atoms, however, were able to duplicate themselves,
|
||
along the lines of Everett-Wheeler-Graham, the jar would slowly
|
||
begin to get crowded. Collisions with divergent universes
|
||
explain a lot of what we're seeing.
|
||
|
||
Of course these collisions would become more frequent, and
|
||
pressure would eventually begin to build. As more atoms were
|
||
created, eventually liquid hydrogen -- the Liquid State -- would
|
||
condense out of the ever more crowded gas. Collisions would be
|
||
innumerable nearly constant, even.
|
||
|
||
And that's what's happening to us. I don't claim to know what
|
||
the "jar" is -- Thornton Wilder would probably call it "the Mind
|
||
of God" -- but I think that collisions don't take place
|
||
physically, at least not in the lower three dimensions. There's
|
||
no thud of our universe running into another one.
|
||
|
||
Universes seem to "tap" each other lightly -- perhaps there's
|
||
some sort of natural repulsion or elasticity -- and only a small
|
||
exchange takes place. Parts of the other universe slosh over
|
||
into ours and parts of ours spill over into it, following some
|
||
upper-dimensional conservation of momentum, like giant bowls of
|
||
milk.
|
||
|
||
|
||
What does this mean in practical terms? If nothing else, it
|
||
explains a lot.
|
||
|
||
It explains Jesus rising from the grave, for instance. Say three
|
||
days after his crucifixion, there was a rare Gas State collision
|
||
with a universe where he wasn't killed, and their Christ was
|
||
bumped to our world.
|
||
|
||
It explains what happened to a Spanish book that disappeared
|
||
from my locker in high school.
|
||
|
||
It explains what happens to everyone's car keys, and the one
|
||
sock that's always missing from the dryer.
|
||
|
||
lt explains Atlantis and Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster and
|
||
unicorns and every other myth or legend in the world.
|
||
|
||
It explains why there's another me, very close to an exact
|
||
duplicate as far as I can tell, sitting in the kitchen gorging
|
||
himself on bananas. We talked for a long time last night, after
|
||
he appeared in my bathroom, and the only glaring difference we
|
||
found between our universes was that in his, bananas never
|
||
evolved. Some quantum event far back in the past prevented
|
||
whatever it was that eventually became bananas from mutating in
|
||
a certain way. He -- the other me -- loves them, and has eaten
|
||
over three dozen by my count.
|
||
|
||
Now that the universes are condensing into the Liquid State
|
||
we'll be seeing a lot more of that sort of thing. I wonder how
|
||
much longer some sort of societal order will hold out. Somehow I
|
||
doubt people will be too concerned with the law if they know
|
||
that everything they know as fact might cease to exist at any
|
||
particular moment.
|
||
|
||
And I wonder how long we have before the Solid State.
|
||
|
||
Greg Knauss (gknauss@ucsd.edu)
|
||
--------------------------------
|
||
|
||
Greg Knauss is a senior at the University of California, San
|
||
Diego, majoring in Political Theory. Greg wants to be Bonnie
|
||
Raitt when he grows up. He's also loopy as a loon.
|
||
|
||
|
||
FYI
|
||
=====
|
||
|
||
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|
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||
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....................................................................
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|
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