O.K. I've had time to think about us. You shouldn't have broken up
with me, but you're still cool, O.K.? I mean, even if you dont let me
go all the way with you, your cool. So, like what I'm asking is should
we get back together?
I know you don't think your parents will like me. But I'll grow on
them. I'll write them a song that they'll like. Like 'Love Turds' but
with different lyrics.
Any way, that's not what I wrote about. I mean, youre cool and all and
I want to get back together with you but there's something else going
on.
I'm probably going to loose my dayjob at Osco. Doesn't matter.
Screwm all. But I think I know what's been in those weird boxes Osco
orders that end up in Denny's car! Something big is going to happen
and I think that all of those freeks who picked up the white lab coats
are in on it. You remember them? Anyway--
Denny let it slip that some of that stuff was going to Seltzer or
Sesame, or whatever. This all adds up! I'll let you know as soon as I
can find out what's in them! Then I'll see if Tom if can get off his
butt long enough to come with me to search for Seltsame -- Call me
tonight after eight.
(I mean if you want to call me after eight. You don't have to but I
shure would like to talk to you again about us and all of this and
stuff, you know?)
Love, Kurt.
PS. If you arnt getting back with me, can you give me back my Ugly Kid
Joe CD?
8. The most effective form of rhetorical persuasion ever devised
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again. Then give up.
There's no use being a damned fool about it."
-- W.C. Fields
"Hello!" cried Prof. Sigger, his voice drained of masculine resonance
with panic. No one seemed to be around, except the long haired kid
sharing his cell. The boy was hunched in the corner, arms folded
around his stomach.
"Hello!" bellowed Prof. Sigger. "I'd like to visit the American
Embassy! Unless of course this is the American Embassy, in which case
I'd like to visit to the Russian Embassy! Ya neeminoga gavaru
parusskie!"
From beyond a shadowed corner, a small man emerged wearing a white lab
coat.
"About time! About fifteen minutes ago I was--" began Sigger.
"Contemplating making romantic overtures to a female student less than
half your age," said the Lab Coat Man, reading from a yellow page
stacked (neatly) in a clipboard.
"Well, yes," muttered Prof. Sigger. "Is that the reason I'm here?"
"We'd like to schedule your interview. Are you free in an hour?" he
replied.
"You don't seem to be comprehending me! A minute ago I was in my
office with a student! The next I'm here! You have a lot--"
"Entertainment is at seven, attendance mandatory, unless you have
failed to complete part one of the interview."
"I'm not completing any damn interview until--"
"What the hell's for dinner?" the boy demanded.
"Let me see, let me see," said the Lab Coat Man, flipping through the
pages on his clipboard.
"Excuse me. Point of order here..." began Prof. Sigger.
"That pizza today sucked."
"I certainly can't disagree with you there."
"I am negotiating for my release, so if we could stick to the topic -"
"Couldn't you have at least baked it instead of microwaving it?"
"Out of my control, I'm afraid."
"Am I invisible? Am I not part of this conversation?"
"Patience, Mr. Sigger," replied the Lab Coat Man, flipping back to his
top sheet.
"Professor Sigger!"
"Frigging crybaby," muttered the boy.
"I'll have you know--!" bellowed Sigger, his voice cracking in a most
un-John Wayne like fashion.
"Now, now," began the Lab Coat Man.
"So what's it going to be? More bad pizza?"
"La dee da, la dee da! Never mind that I'm here! I think I'll just
find a corner and sit here while you two carry on this most important
of conversations."
"Oh, no, Prof. Sigger, we have our interview. Not a thing we can skip."
"There's nothing you can say to make me!" Sigger cried, sulking in the
corner farthest from Kurt.
"In answer to your question, Taco Bell," he replied, looking up from a
red 2B.
"I think I'm going to puke," Kurt moaned, looking even rattier than
before and visibly greener as the pronouncement set in.
"I'm ready for that interview now," muttered Prof. Sigger, trotting to
the steel bars and waiting like an obedient schoolboy. The Lab Coat
Man nodded and marked an 'X' on a white page.
9. A weird day's night
"There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds.
She is too wise or too cruel for that."
-- Oscar Wilde
Julia dashed into the Osco employees' entrance and punched in one
second before four o'clock. Accomplishing her day's goal of being on
somebody's payroll, she decided to catch her breath by sneaking a smoke
in the restroom. She caught Rhonda's eye at the check-out counter, who
gave her a smile and a nod that meant: "Join you in a second."
Kurt, aka. Butthead, hadn't replaced the dead bulbs yet, so Julia sat
on a toilet lid inside a claustrophobic's nightmare of a stall with
only pale, yellow light keeping her from absolute darkness. And the
brief flame of the lighter, which she snapped closed as she took a
strong, slow drag. Another night-shift to deal with old grannies
looking for denture cream, kids trying to lift cigarettes, drunks
picking up plastic violets for the wife. If only she didn't need to
eat, Julia concluded, maybe she wouldn't have to work in a world that
seemed more than a little unreal.
But then, that was the family legacy, wasn't it? Seeing something that
wasn't there, or worse: trying to see something that wasn't there and
almost succeeding. Find a farm out in Arizona and retire once you've
had enough of being called crazy. But then, Julia knew that there were
two kinds of people: those who couldn't live without air conditioning
and her uncle. Another run-down, fix-it-up farm in this family was out
of the question. She took another deep drag and wondered why she kept
smoking these things. They were like beer, Uncle Justin had told her:
after the War, they never went back to making them right. If only
someone would just make some real changes in the world -- how long
could it be before it was a better place to live? A better place than
this? Wasn't that what everyone wanted? If so, why did everyone
settle for what they had?
That's what her mother had done. Settled for Dad dying. Settled for
the life of a reclusive widow, until she died too. Not much Julia
could do but not make a conscious mess of her own life. Not that
everything had gone perfectly. She had a job, she was going to school
-- although Uncle Justin kept reminding her it was "only" for
accounting. No science, no liberal arts. But she read a lot on her
own. Mysteries, new fiction, the classics that were recommended by
that stud of a librarian. Not that she understood all of it, but there
was usually something to enjoy, to learn from. Especially questions
about the Big Picture -- that always sparked her interest.
But Uncle Justin would just shake his head. It was a tech school, not
a college or a university. Lord knows there are plenty of cheap
schools in Wisconsin that offer some liberal arts courses, he would
say. To say nothing of real science. He accused her of falling for
the same trap his sister, Julia's mother, had fallen for: living in a
Wisconso-centric universe. Once he brought this up, the conversation
usually degenerated into combative silence. They never settled that
argument -- it just kept going on its own, to the detriment of
everyone's sanity.
Whether she was getting a real education or not, Julia found herself
constantly searching for meaning. About what governed reality
(whatever that was), about what was human will (assuming it existed),
about the elusive qualities of soul (love, happiness, etc.), and about
the urge to bury one's face in Godiva chocolate every twenty-eight
days. The last question was more easily answered than the others. She
took a long drag, determined to make this one last. One a day was bad
enough, but she'd probably need another one after work if Denny was in
one of his moods.
She leaned back on the toilet and stared at the pale, sodium light
spread out across the ceiling. Deja vu. Something from a dream about
lying back and watching the sky. How the sky and the ceiling in an
Osco restroom were connected was beyond her, but what the hell -- there
would be an entire evening for worrying about mundane problems. Like
most of her dreams, she remembered it as another memory, one as real as
a memory of a waking moment. And as usual, the memory of the dream
seemed more vivid than her memory of what she had done this morning.
It came back to her -- the light in the sky had been yellow, almost
gold, with a brown tint. That was what made it look so unusual, this
dream-light. It wasn't the sunlight of the world when everyone is
awake and concentrating on whatever was going on beneath them. A light
reserved for people who didn't deserve it, or know what it was, or what
it meant. At least, that's what it seemed like in the dream. Or maybe
she had made all that up after she woke up. But she did remember it
had altered into a haze, growing more uniform, covering the world in a
grey aura. The white of the clouds gave way, under pressure of a great
and unstoppable force, to something else, which she couldn't describe.
This, whatever it was, blanketed the sky, offering neither snow nor
rain, instead smothering the world below from whatever was above.
Except now, the clouds began to descend.
In parallel streams, this gray sky, this aura seemed to move toward
her. Julia felt herself begin to giggle, that nervous giggle when she
knew something was wrong but didn't know what. And then she realized
that she wasn't just remembering the dream -- the haze was overheard
was coming through the ceiling, causing the restroom lights to bend and
shimmer. Julia stopped giggling and stared upward, her eyes fixed on
whatever it was that she knew she had to be imagining. But just as
suddenly the gray haze retreated until it had returned to whatever
unknown sky it had descended from.
Julia felt her body constrict itself to form another giggle, but none
came. She stood up, tossed the butt into the toilet, and quickly lit
another cigarette. Nicotine euphoria swept through her body, but it
would not take her to wherever it was she desperately needed to go.
She dropped the cigarette to the floor and crushed it under her foot.
"Now that was disappointing," she muttered. She felt her throat knot
up with sadness until she heard someone move outside the door. She
looked at her watch -- she had wasted fifteen minutes, and now the
restroom smelled terribly guilty.
The bathroom door creaked open. The fan located above Julia's well
chosen stall expelled the smoke and Julia began flapping her hand as
quietly as she could to speed the smoke on its way.
"Julia?" asked a voice.
"Rhonda?" Julia whispered conspicuously. The restroom door quickly
closed and Rhonda scuttled into the stall next to Julia.
"Quick! Give me a drag!"
Julia, heretofore holding her breath, exhaled in relief and passed
another cigarette and the lighter into Rhonda's hand hovering under the
partition.
"I thought you were Butthead looking into the restroom again," Julia
said.
Julia heard Rhonda inhale and exhale in rhythmic, sage-like fashion.
"No," Rhonda finally answered, "somebody said he called in sick."
Rhonda's hand appeared under the stall again holding the lighter.
Julia took it from her as they both heard a man's voice from outside
the door.
"Rhonda? Julia?"
"That ain't Butthead!" whispered Rhonda. Both toilets flushed, as if
their actions in unison would provide an air-tight alibi which,
notwithstanding the stern tone in the voice outside, caused them both
to giggle. They emerged sheepishly from the restroom as Supervising
Manager Denny frowned and shook his head disapprovingly.
"Rhonda, where's Kurt?"
"Sick, I think. Someone said he called in with a stomach ache."
"Then he's fired too."
"Too?!" exclaimed Julia.
"Well, let's see, Julia. You missed your shift yesterday without
calling in..."
"I did?"
"You did. And that's the third time this month."
"I can't believe I did it again!"
"You did. And you don't have to tell me which novel you were reading.
I don't need to know." He turned to Rhonda. "And I figure if you
leave now, we won't need to talk about the beauty supplies that go
missing just before your days off."
Rhonda's eyes widened uncontrollably as she gave a guilty grin to the
floor tiles.
"So, adios!" With that, he returned to the Osco floor.
Julia's jaw slackened but Rhonda pealed into outright laughter.
"It's not funny!" shouted Julia.
"Oh, forget this Popsicle-stand! You punched in, right?"
A smile formed reluctantly on Julia's face. "Well," continued Rhonda,
"let''s take off and punch ourselves out in eight hours!"
The smiles and laughter became contagious as they grabbed their jackets
and ran out the back door. The spent the rest of the afternoon taking
in all of the shops that lined both sides of the street. Eventually,
they found themselves at Popeye's pub, where they had a sandwich and a
few beers, and decided to kill the rest of the evening with a movie.
After a short walk, they saw the marquee, which read: "BRIDE, GHOULS, &
PLAN 9!" Rhonda seemed to have noticed it first, taking Julia's hand
and leading her toward the theater.
10. The Second Phase
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the
chronicler's mind."
-- Douglas Adams, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"
"Well done!" the Lab Coat Man exclaimed, rubbing his eyes and replacing
the pen in his coat pocket, "Very well done! Not many subjects have
been able to answer our comprehensive questionnaire in under three
hours."
Prof. Sigger forced a smile to his drawn face. "I take it most people
are reluctant to answer your questions without knowing how and why they
arrived in a place like this." The room, like the holding area, was
also concrete, although this section looked more like an office than a
jail.
"That long haired fellow," the Lab Coat Man confided, "we pulled him
out of a urinal. Dirty trick, really. Maybe he thinks we're all
drug-induced hallucinations. As far as he's concerned, he was leaning
against the bathroom wall in order not to stain his shoes and the next
moment he's peeing in our corner."
Sigger tried to nod sympathetically.
"Hasn't completed the interview yet," he continued. "Oh that doesn't
mean I haven't been able to take a few notes, but I guarantee he'll be
missing out on the entertainment for some time to come!"
"Now that I've answered your questions, let me ask you --" Prof. Sigger
began.
"No time. I have a number of errands to run. You'll find we're quite
organized, once you've been here a while."
"A while?"
"Yes, this may take some time. All good projects do, as I'm sure you
understand." Sigger nodded dumbly.
"Now I'm going to turn you over to my assistant, Neoldner."
The door opened, and twenty year-old resembling a ferret and wearing an
identical lab coat entered, a clipboard in his hand.
"He's going to help with the second phase," the Lab Coat Man said.
"Hey," Neoldner said.
"Um... yes," Sigger replied.
Neoldner took the seat across from Sigger as the Lab Coat Man moved to
the doorway. Forrester, with his strange brown mustache, popped his
head into the room.
"I'm going home to finish to schedule for tomorrow this evening. Do
you have everything?" Forrester asked.
"How could I? You haven't told me what I need yet," the Lab Coat Man
replied.
"I haven't?"
"No, I've been with Prof. Sigger since..." He looked at his watch.
"It has been a while, hasn't it?"
Prof. Sigger shrugged, although no one noticed that he had answered.
"I thought Frank would have told you," Forrester said.
"Who's Frank?" asked the Lab Coat Man.
"Oh, I forgot! Frank resigned. That's when we brought you in."
"Right. Just after what's-his-name resigned."
"Frank."
"Exactly."
"That's what I said."
"I know, I just repeated it."
Silence.
"So do you need a list?" Forrester asked.
"If you wouldn't mind. And whatever forms you'll think I'll need."
"Ah, forms. Yes. Definitely. Meet me at my office before you go."
And out popped Forrester's head from the room. The Lab Coat Man sighed
and turned to Prof. Sigger.
"Once we're ready, we should be able to conclude everything quickly.
Neoldner will help you out with the details. I think you'll enjoy the
perks. The travel. The entertainment, if you like that sort of thing."
"What about the entertainment?" Sigger asked.
"Soon!" replied the Lab Coat Man, misunderstanding, his eyes twinkling
with an annoying but enigmatic flare.
"So," Neoldner began after the Lab Coat Man had left, "what size jacket
do you wear?"
11. An Unintended Mishap
"It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking
ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them."
-- Agatha Christie
Tom walked into his parents' trailer home to find Alona crying on the
couch. He barely knew her, saw her only twice before, and with Kurt,
so he figured she had to be a loser.
"Why are you here?" he grumbled.
"Kurt's missing!" she shouted, and let loose with a protracted wail.
Tom's mother came in and hugged Tom tightly, then slapped him across
the cheek. "Your cousin's gone missing, and you don't care!"
Tom rubbed his cheek and said, "He's probably just sleeping off a date
with Rhonda in her backseat!"
Alona wailed again. Tom couldn't help thinking that if that wail had
been sung, it would have raised the hackles of even the greatest opera
devotee, a majestic solo of anguish and a thousand angry paper-cuts.
"Sorry," muttered Tom.
"The police won't do anything until he's been gone twenty-four hours!"
Betty exclaimed. "Twenty-four hours! And he disappeared while he was
playing in that band of his!" She went on to explain how Alona had
called after she received a letter from Kurt -- how he hadn't been at
home or with the band -- how, according to the other members of the
band and a half-dozen other witnesses, he had disappeared the night
before from a bathroom with no windows. Tom listened to most of this
and nodded. He kept nodding even after he stopped listening. Once his
mother was done talking, he stopped nodding. She didn't seem to notice
the difference.
The TV across the room was on a little too loud, so he decided to shut
it off, grab a sandwich, and sneak out of the house again. Maybe he
should go into work, even though he had the night off. Maybe get a
second job. He had to earn enough to move out of here. Enough to move
out yesterday.
"And this just in at WXOR," said the newscaster. "An English professor
-- "
"Turn up the TV, Tommy, will you?!" Betty shouted. Tom sighed, annoyed
at being called Tommy in front of a female, and reached for the switch.
" -- and disappeared earlier today without explanation. He was
discovered missing after an unknown female student was seen running
from his office. Police are still searching for both Prof. Turgy K.
Sigger and the student. If you have any information, please call the
WXOR Viewer Hot Line(R) at 387-4278 -- "
A scream interrupted the newscaster, which acoustically channeled the
shattered death of a priceless chandelier. To Tom's surprise, Alona
had leaped from the couch and had grabbed his arms, forcing him to look
directly into her eyes. "That's him! He just disappeared when I
looked the other way!" She began to sway, and Tom instinctively
reached for her. "He's missing too!" she cried.
Then she swooned and fell forward perfectly into Tom's waiting arms.
He helped her to the couch as his mother dashed to the kitchen to fill
a glass of water.
Tom looked around, as if to see if anyone had been watching him. If
anyone had seen what he had seen. If there was any way out. But there
wasn't.
Tom was utterly, and helplessly, in love.
12. Cecil Gets Away
"Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on
which he turns."
--T.S. Eliot
Cecil stretched and sniffed the air. Movement, but just the curtains.
He remembered that Julia had left. Probably back by dark. Or not.
She had been sitting on the couch, and he had come from the bedroom and
hopped onto her lap again. After stroking his fur for a while, she
held up the shiny thing with the snake on the end. Cecil had batted it
a few times, then ambled off to eat. Smelled like fish.
Later, Julia had thrown the fuzzy ball around the apartment, so he ran
after it until he was ready for another nap. Then the phone rang.
Julia left the house without petting him, although he stood near her
legs and arched his back. He slowly padded his way to his pillow,
which smelled like Julia, especially in the morning.
Cecil turned three times before settling down, but a sound stopped him.
A footstep in the hallway. Then, nothing. Cecil waited for a moment,
watching the doorway, his tail whipping softly on the bed. After
another moment, he yawned.
But then another sound, a squeak. Cecil hopped down from the bed and
peered from around the frame.
A man stood in the hallway. He moved something in his hand, like a
twig, but Cecil didn't want to play with it. The man smelled strange.
New. Odd. If he could have recognized human clothing, he would have
recognized a lab coat, a clipboard, a pen. The balding man, glasses, a
slightly weary look, who, after scanning the room, made a note on a
yellow 12A.
The man turned and spied Cecil in the doorway, and Cecil darted into
the closet.
The Lab Coat Man cursed quietly after he realized that the cat had
darted into what appeared to be the world's most cluttered closet. And
the cat was the last (damn) item on Forrester's list! He wondered if
the Director knew of Forrester's cat phobia, how it was adding to an
already full schedule. He'd have to wait for the next general meeting
to bring up the matter, assuming the Director would even attend. And
even by then, Forrester could have required them to round up as many
house-cats in Tranquil as he could list on a 12F!
He began pawing through twenty-six years' worth of mementos, which were
crammed into a space that could barely hold enough office supplies from
one small conspiracy. But enough holes for an orange tabby to hide.
He waited for any kind of movement, and something eventually flickered
in the corner of his eye. He turned to see Cecil pull his head back
into the bathroom.
The man's sublingual cursing increased audibly as he tromped into the
bathroom and found find no trace of the cat in the bathtub, behind the
toilet, in the sink, or under the sink. Nowhere. He cursed audibly
and stormed out to see Cecil scamper off the couch and into the
kitchen. He flew toward him, but he'd already gone again. The man let
loose an expletive at the top of his lungs that woke the downstairs
neighbor who was napping in front of a hockey game. And with manic
grin born of angst and momentary abandon, he struck out the last line
and its corresponding box on the 12F. His pen capped with a momentary
sense of triumph, the man disappeared.
Cecil poked his head out of the bedroom closet and into the empty
apartment. The man was gone. He snorted with satisfaction and hopped
onto the bed to continue his nap. Before laying down, he turned three
times.
Coincidentally, the phone began to ring.
13. Perfection
"Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim."
-- Graham Greene
After waiting for nearly a minute, Justin slammed the phone onto the
receiver, muttering something about nine hundred damn miles and not
having the decency to be home when someone was calling. He had to
call. Something was wrong. He didn't go in for that malarkey about
being in touch with the universe or having sympathetic vibrations reach
him from a different plane, but, damn it, if there was something wrong,
you did something about it. And he knew something was wrong. But
would have been sent to the loony bin by one of those interns before he
could explain it all to another human being properly.
He didn't give a damn (as those who ventured near him would often
discover) about what everyone else perceived as reality. He saw what
he saw. If no one else saw it, that was up to them. Sure, he couldn't
verify it, but did that mean he was crazy? Not if he was right (which
Justin had already concluded), which meant that he was seeing
relationships and consequences that everyone else had just learned to
ignore or couldn't see in the first place or would never see.
Sometimes he saw it, sometime he just felt it. It was there, like an
invisible web, telling Justin enough to either stay away or to get
involved. And when he got involved, sometimes the people in the thick
of it just couldn't understand what Justin was getting at! Of course,
after the dam had broke, after the cows got loose, after the snake bit
the dog, then everyone forgot all about old Justin and concentrated on
what was practically too late to fix, unless he had been lucky enough
to a have solution ready beforehand. All too often, he wasn't that
lucky. But now, he felt that too. Luck. Invisible, intangible, and
someone somewhere was going to feel the heat of it if he ever found out
who was planning to harm his only (semi-sane) relative. But Julia
wasn't home, so he couldn't warn her that he had had (as she would
describe it) a vague impression of imminent danger that only sad,
smelly, old Uncle Justin could perceive.
Put that way, perhaps it was best that no one had answered. Justin
scratched his scalp and decided to have a beer. He harrumphed quietly,
then turned around.
To his shock (but only mild surprise), there was a balding man with a
clipboard standing in his corner taking notes. J.J felt paralyzed for
a moment, until his anger regained the upper hand, and he reached down,
opened the third drawer under the phone, and pulled out a loaded
revolver.
The Lab Coat Man, weary, almost to the last of his forms (a pink 2D
with carbons) wished he had could have arranged to appear in a sauna
somewhere in darkest Finland, but resolutely kept noting all he was
able until he realized somewhere between checkmarks that Justin Nelson
was pointing a gun right between his eyes. At first, he wanted to flip
to a red 1A. Somewhere on a 1A there was a box relevant to imminent
personal danger. But then, he understood in the microseconds he had
left that Justin's finger was pulling the trigger, which was pulling
back the hammer, which would imminently fire the bullet in a more or
less straight line directly into his tired, balding skull.
He had expected his life to flash before his eyes, but all he could
remember (and in fact see, superimposed over the image of Justin's gun)
was a Dali that he could not be sure he had ever seen or had even been
painted. Perhaps, in those last days of his own early life, studying
art history and believing he too was capable of producing something
famous, immortal, perfect, he had envisioned such a painting, an
abstract only now completed, detailing a life of frustration and
mediocrity that wound its way, eventually, down to this last moment of
nothing.
It was so beautiful, so tragic, that he held the clipboard over his
face as Justin fired once, piercing the thin wood with a single,
perfect hole.
14. Criswell Speaks
"One is always considered mad when one discovers something that others
cannot grasp."
-- Bela Lugosi, "Bride of the Monster"
Julia and Rhonda ran inside the theater at exactly 7:10 pm. Still
giggling, they bought two tickets from a weary looking man wearing a
jacket and a "Manager" tag. When they hit the concession stand to
relieve their munchies, they found a sign that said: "Closed".
"Aww!" Rhonda whined. "I was getting really hungry too!"
"It's too bad I can't hop back there and get us some popcorn. I worked
at a theater for two summers when I was in high school."
"I beg your pardon?" the Manager inquired, somehow looking five years
younger. "Do you mean that?"
"Oh yes!" exclaimed Julia. "I was Assistant Manager for a month as
well!"
"Would you like a job? Part-time?" he asked, regaining another three.
Both woman screamed and hugged each other. Wiping a tear from her eye,
Julia said: "Sure!"
A smile suddenly broadened upon the Manager's now young and chipper
face. Tom had been showing signs of being less than happy with this
job. Perhaps he was ready to move on. Maybe he needed a push.
Anyway, he had called in sick for the evening, and despite the run of
good luck with the second-run bad movies, the Manager did want
something left over for a vacation this year.
Julia was about to ask a few questions from her new employer, but a
voice like a drunken oracle began to blare from inside the theater.
Julia found herself entranced by the grammatically awkward oratory:
"Greetings my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that
is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And
remember my friends, future events such as these, will effect you in
the future."
Julia winced, (and the Manager silently cursed Neoldner for threading
"Plan 9" instead of the intended Bride of the Monster.)
"You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable;
that is why you are here."
"You got the job!" Rhonda suddenly whooped in her friend's ear. But it
seemed more like a distraction than an exclamation of happiness. Julia
looked at Rhonda and the Manager. Her imagination? or was there
something in the space between them, around the building, wrapping
tight around the theater doors, something that was just plain... wrong?
For the first time in years, she desperately felt the need to talk to
her Uncle Justin.
Julia took a step back from Rhonda. Her friend's face suddenly fell,
and she reached out to her as if to let her know everything was all
right. She had the job. The Manager's eyebrow arched, perhaps a
second thought as to his quick hire. She had to sit down.
"I need to sit down," her voice echoed her thought.
"We've got the tickets, don't we?" Rhonda replied, taking Julia by the
arm and leading her into the theater.
15. Chance Happens
"Good luck needs no explanation."
-- Shirley Temple Black
"So I says to this guy I says -- "
The TV in the bar was on, and the man at Tom's side was letting his
mouth run loose as he sucked back on his third beer in Popeye's
none-too-copyrighted Pub. Jeez, he thought, I finally meet the one,
the one, and she's going out with Kurt. With Kurt! How does he do it?
I couldn't get a date to save my life (except with Rhonda), and Kurt
can't seem to shake them off! Alona's, what, his third this year?
The rest of the bar was watching a rerun of "The Simpsons" and trying
to imitate Barney the drunk. One fell off his chair in a drunken
stupor, which gained the applause of his comrades. After he lay on the
floor for a minute, they realized it hadn't been an imitation, and they
picked him up. They ordered him a coffee and Kaluhua in the most
obnoxious trio of 'Moe the Bartender' voices ever heard east of the
Mississippi. Some of the bar laughed at this but most just groaned.
Tom still wasn't listening.
If only... Tom thought. If only she had come in to see "Bride of the
Monster" and gotten bored, and come out to the concession stand to get
a drink, and began to talk about something -- it wouldn't have mattered
what -- and stayed all the way through that entire string of rotten
films!
The guy at Tom's side suddenly realized no one was listening to him and
stumbled off to the bathroom. He nearly bumped into a man with a
strange brown mustache who took the seat to Tom's right. He plopped
his clipboard onto the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender gave him
a frosted mug of flat Treaty Beer and went back to the television.
Tom, again, didn't notice.
That is, until the sight of the man's reflection in the mirror behind
the bar caught his attention. He seemed familiar, but he couldn't be
sure. He was sure he would have remembered that mustache. The man was
looking around for someone, peering into the far corners of the ill-lit
room. As he did so, Tom noticed the clipboard. The cover sheet, a
form labeled 3G, read: Complaints, Problems, Irregularities:
1) Find out who's been using Green paper. No green paper allowed. If
it's Neoldner, give him restroom duty. If it's You Know Who, make him
fill out all the forms in the proper color.
2) Leave message that Kurt is in Chicago for the weekend; also find and
destroy his letter to Alona.
Tom read the note three times before believing it. Without realizing
what he was doing, he raised his mug, causing what was left to dribble
on his head. Then he brought it down, and the mug broke from the
handle and bounced on the floor after smashing into the exact center of
the man's bald spot, who crumpled soundlessly to the floor. As the bar
hooted and laughed at the cartoon antics on the tube, Tom grabbed the
clipboard, tucked it inside the man's trousers, and dragged him by his
feet out of the bar.
16. The Decision
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist
in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
-- Carl Sagan
Justin watched the clipboard plummet to the floor, followed by a
multi-colored stream of papers, detached from the clip, fluttering like
autumn leaves. The wall was marked by a bullet hole, the floor
littered with paper, but the man had disappeared. Justin stood over
what would have been the corpse. He looked at the floor from one
angle, then another, and finally shrugged and scratched his scalp
again. This was strange...
A lot of strange things had happened to him, even since he could
remember. That dog he had. It was odd moments like this that he
remembered how much he missed him.
Had him for thirty years. Never seemed to grow old. He never told
anyone about it -- made the excuse that he just preferred the same type
of black lab when the old one got taken to live at his parents' farm.
It was something of a relief when Roosevelt (the dog, named after
Theodore rather than Franklin Delano) got killed. It was getting hard
to keep up the pretense, especially after the local vets started to
compare notes. But just when it seemed like half the town was talking
about the Dog That Wouldn't Die, Justin woke up and found Roosevelt
laying by his feet, even though he had left him out in the back yard
and shut the bedroom door. Roosevelt was lying as content as he'd ever
been, but dead. A coincidence, to say the least.
But if that had been the end, Justin wouldn't have thought of him so
much. It was years after his dog's death that he saw him again,
standing in the front yard, ready to chase a ball if it ever got thrown
again. Justin had gone to the window, certain that his eyes were
playing tricks on him, then more certain that they weren't. Roosevelt
just stood there, waiting.
After Justin had summoned the courage to go outside, Roosevelt had led
him the half-mile west to the new elementary school, up to the
east-facing double-doors that opened into the kindergarten. Inside,
the darkness seemed not merely a lack of light but more of something
alive, spreading outward from the room and into the playground, toward
Justin. He felt fixed to the spot, unable to do anything but shake, as
Roosevelt let out a long, slow howl beside him.
He could not remember how he got home. He was sitting in his
easy-chair, looking outside at the darkness. No Roosevelt. No vision,
nothing. But his shoes were on, the soles stuck with wet grass.
Justin had trouble getting a few hours' sleep that night.
The next morning, he was sure the whole thing had been a dream.
Sleepwalking, probably. He comforted himself with this conclusion as
he drove by the elementary school on his way to work. He slowed as a
kickball bounced lazily into the road. An older child with an orange
crossing-guard sash carefully crossed the street to get it. Justin
turned toward the school. A number of children were playing outside.
Then he saw Roosevelt again. Standing in the middle of some children.
The smallest children. The kindergarten class, Justin supposed. Then
Roosevelt was gone. The ball had been retrieved, and a car behind him
honked, but Justin couldn't drive on. Instead, he parked his truck by
the curb and walked to kindergarten the doors. Inside, Mrs. Nolla was
straightening a few chairs when he entered.
When she turned and saw him, she gasped and put her hand to her chest.
"I..." she stammered, "I wasn't expecting... to see... you... there."
Justin apologized and muttered something about stopping by. They had
met a few times during the last round of school board meetings when the
latest draconian cuts had been proposed. She was a few years from
retiring and had a remarkable teaching record -- Justin still came
across her old students in his class who remembered her fondly.
He asked her if anything was wrong, which surprised her again, but she
said no. He offered to help with some last minute cleaning, but she
declined, visibly becoming more nervous. Instead of explaining
anything, which he thought (knew) would make things worse, he decided
to invite Mrs. Nolla and her husband to a non-existent faculty dinner
on Saturday. She thanked him, and he left, wondering how quickly he
could throw together a faculty dinner on Saturday if they decided to
RSVP.
The dinner never happened, because while Justin sat in his third period
Physics course, Mr. Nolla entered his wife's class and shot her dead in
front of her twenty-six students. When he shot himself a few moments
later, he had the decency to do it outside.
Justin tried to live with the guilt, but it kept growing inside him
like a child, or like cancer. He sought ought a psychologist, who kept
harranging that it wasn't his fault, a fact Justin knew in his head.
But his heart didn't agree, and soon the pain inside him was so bad he
had trouble keeping his food down. He kept noticing how his colleagues
would look at him and whisper... or how their conversations would stop
when he entered the room. Finally, he resigned, sold everything, and
moved to Arizona. Sometimes he would call his sister; usually, he
talked to his niece, Julia.
The friends he left behind had heard that he had visited Mrs. Nolla the
morning of the shooting. A few even hinted that Justin had believed
that something would happen, but not what or when. Mr. Nolla hadn't
left a note - perhaps there had been an affair? But despite varying
theories, the general consensus was that Justin had left due to his
guilt -- unable to save Mrs. Nolla's life.
They were wrong. Somehow, the life of Mrs. Nolla had seemed, and still
seemed, out of his hands. Not his responsibility that morning.
Instead, he had failed those twenty-six small, shattered lives. That
was what had haunted him and turned his insides out. And as he shut
himself away, he told himself that he was dealing with the problem head
on.
For years, he had been left alone. The few who had tried to invade his
privacy found out quickly that entrance into his life was by invitation
only. Trespassers were sometimes shot at, but never actually shot --
until today. If you can call a body that disappears "shot".
Justin lightly turned over the clipboard with his foot. He picked it
up and raised it to eye level to be sure his eyes weren't fooling him
-- they weren't. Not a drop of blood anywhere.
He turned on a light and tried to make out what he could (given that
the pages were no longer in order and had a bullet hole running through
them). He found a white page, marked 3G, that read:
Complaints, Problems, Irregularities:
1) I don't know who's been photocopying form 3G lately, but they have
been doing so on white paper. Keep in mind that the color code system
is there for your benefit, and all forms marked 'G' are meant for
goldenrod. You'll find it tucked away under the photocopier (under the
coral).
2) After taking notes on Justin and his recent activities, call Julia
and leave a message. Tell her that Justin is ill and hospitalized but
that all is well. Maybe a kidney infection (?).
Justin reread the note, stunned. Some kind of conspiracy. A big one,
maybe. He had been right about the danger (but then, he had known
that, although it didn't hurt his faith in his own sanity to get
confirmation). His hand came to rest on some gray sheets that
contained a series of mathematical formulas. He gave them the once
over and almost put them down before he realized what they were. As
quickly as he could, he gathered all six gray papers together, put them
in order, and read slowly them through. When he was finished, he was
so surprised that when he stopped to scratch his scalp he -- literally
-- disappeared.
17. In Charge
"Everyone rises to the level of their incompetence."
-- Traditional
"And he shot me!" the Lab Coat Man shouted (again), flinging himself
into a swivel office chair. He put his hands to his forehead and
massaged the red spot right between and just above his eyes that would
eventually scar, forever to mark the spot where the bullet struck an
instant before he had vanished and reappeared back in the basement.
"Right between the eyes!" he bleated.
"No, right between and just above," Neoldner corrected. "You've gone
over this fifty times now..."
"Shut up!" the Lab Coat Man bellowed. "He shot me! If he had fired
just a millisecond sooner..."
"You'd be dead," Neoldner noted. "So what are you going to do about
Forrester?"
Prof. Sigger, huddled quietly in the corner, added: "Well, I for one am
very glad that you escaped with only --"
"Shut up, both of you! I have to think!"
There was yet another crisis. Not only had he been shot (almost), two
unauthorized persons had possession of clipboards. Of the two, Nelson
was the most likely to make sense of them, but there was no reason to
be relaxed about the other. The problem was, no one had a spare. How
was he supposed to look up the relevant procedure if he had lost his
(damn) clipboard?!
Well, he was in charge now, at least until the Director showed up. Not
Forrester, not the clipboard. And he needed some help. There was only
one choice he could make. He walked out of the office and to the cell.
Kurt was scratching his arm in the garish light cast from the lone
bulb.
"I'm afraid we're running out of time. You know what will happen if we
cannot conclude matters by a satisfactory hour."
Kurt continued to scratch.
"Does your arm bother you?"
"No."
It wasn't the answer that shocked the Lab Coat Man, but the fact that
he had replied at all. "Good! I mean... too bad! Good that you
answered one my questions, but too bad that -- wait, what made you
finally answer one of my questions?"