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InterText Vol. 6, No. 4 / July-August 1996
==========================================
Contents
FirstText: There's a First Time for Everything...Geoff Duncan
Short Fiction
Tongue-Tied.......................................Diane Payne
Little Acorn..................................Rupert Goodwins
Iowa Basketball.........................Michelle Rogge Gannon
With Thoughts of Sarah...................Christopher O'Kennon
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@intertext.com geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
Assistant Editor Send correspondence to
Susan Grossman editors@intertext.com
susan@intertext.com or intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 6, No. 4. 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 1996, Jason Snell.
Individual stories Copyright 1996 their original authors.
For more information about InterText, send a message to
intertext@intertext.com with the word "info" in the subject
line. For writers' guidelines, place the word "guidelines" in
the subject line.
....................................................................
FirstText: There's a First Time for Everything by Geoff Duncan
==================================================================
Back in 1990, I was getting worried. I'd recently been recruited
as an assistant editor for InterText's predecessor Athene, and
was having an e-mail conversation with Athene's editor, Jim
McCabe. Jim was lamenting the fact the current issue was more
than a month behind schedule, and he still didn't know when he
was going to find time to finish it. I commiserated, told him I
was sure it would get done somehow, and (fool that I was!) tried
to convince him to offload as much of the work as possible to
the group of assistant editors. "It's not that simple," Jim
tried to tell me. "Some work just can't be passed along."
Six years later, I know exactly what he meant.
Jason Snell and I have been producing InterText every eight or
nine weeks for about five and a half years. I can count on the
thumbs of one hand the number of times in the past we've been
late with an issue. And never -- never -- have we been as late
with an issue as we are with this one. Over the years, we've
taken a certain amount of pride in maintaining our bimonthly
publication schedule. Sure, a regular publication date may not
carry the same meaning for an online magazine (particularly a
free one) as it does for a typical print-based publication. But
we felt -- and still feel -- that consistency is the better part
of valor. Consistency tells readers and authors InterText is
serious, and willing to make a commitment.
Jim McCabe later remarked via e-mail that he thought he was
creating a new form of editorial: the apology. Every issue, it
seemed, he was telling readers how sorry he was that the issue
was late.
Well, I'm not going to apologize.
Quite a bit has happened since Jason pulled InterText from the
ashes of Athene, and we couldn't have predicted any of it. The
Internet certainly isn't what it used to be -- when InterText
got started, Gopher was considered pretty cutting edge, and no
one had ever heard of the World Wide Web. These days, no one's
heard of Gopher.
Jason, Susan, and I have also changed, and we couldn't have
predicted that, either. We all earn our livings (allegedly)
working in the computer industry, with all the associated
technical jargon, impossible deadlines, hardware snafus, and
never-ending e-mail. Jason and I do significant work in addition
to our jobs: Jason recently published a very solid book about
Internet services; I do a lot of software development,
free-lance writing, and stuff I'm not even supposed to talk
about. I'm personally amazed Susan finds time to breathe, let
alone meet the outrageous editorial deadlines often associated
with her work. Whenever I think my workload is impossible, I
think of the miracles she routinely performs under much greater
pressures.
None of this is new, but it has been building for some time --
years, in fact. When InterText started, the idea of publishing
on a computer was new and exciting; now, electronic publishing
is our job, and regardless of the intent or content, at a point
doing anything with a computer is work. After a while, staring
at pixels is just staring at pixels, whether you're doing it to
pay rent and buy groceries, or simply because you think it ought
to be done.
We haven't been keeping track, but since we started we've
undoubtedly processed well over a thousand submissions, most of
which are read by more than one person. We've produced thousands
of files, from the setext and PostScript versions of the
magazine to the PageMaker layouts and individual edits only we
see. Jason puts a phenomenal amount of work into maintaining
InterText's mailing lists and extensive Web site, as well as
managing the bulk of our editorial e-mail. We do this out of
enthusiasm and because we think it ought to be done, rather than
from any sense of obligation or duty.
And we still think InterText ought to be done, and still believe
there's a place for well-edited, established fiction
publications among the noise, drivel, and seemingly unending
Internet hype. But we need to seriously examine how it ought to
be done. In the same way we've personally been changing all
these years, it's reasonable that InterText should change as
well. Maybe the changes will all be behind the scenes -- new
ways of processing submissions, and handling edits, and
producing issues. Or maybe the changes will be very visible.
Maybe both. In any case, change is inevitable.
And I'm not going to apologize for it.
Tongue-Tied by Diane Payne
==============================
...................................................................
It's said the Lord works in mysterious ways -- you would too, if
your work was never done.
...................................................................
I walk down Seventeenth street praying Jesus will provide me
with powerful words to convince the Road Knights motorcycle gang
and the Lock family to want Jesus. Though I'm only thirteen, I
have visions of becoming a famous evangelist, the youngest one
with a TV show. It'll be called something hip, like
_Freaked Out on Jesus_. Billy Graham can still have his show
and audience. My show will be for the more difficult converts,
the skeptics who ridicule everything. But even they will come
around after watching my show.
Come on, Jesus, I pray while walking, Give me the words and I'll
do your work. My first stop is at the Road Knights' house. Once
when they were drunk playing poker, a friend and I were
collecting money for a school project and they emptied their
pockets for us. And Grandpa bowls next to them on Tuesday
nights. He says they're all right. They just like long hair and
loud mufflers. One of the guys even helped him fix his lawn
mower.
Yet there's something about making these house calls alone
that's a bit intimidating with folks like the Road Knights. God
is not their thing. Jesus didn't always drag his disciples along
when he preached. He was strong, and didn't get humiliated when
people ridiculed him.
That's it, I remind myself. I've got to be humble. Be like
Jesus. Come on, Jesus, give me the words and I'll be humble no
matter what they say or do. Let them pick me up by my shoulders
and throw me on the streets. I won't be embarrassed. I'll
return. I'm doing this for you. I hope you're paying attention,
Jesus.
Sometimes Jesus seems to get distracted. I can be certain he's
about to fill me with words and when someone opens their door, I
freeze. I get tongue-tied for Jesus. This is especially
unfortunate for someone who wants to have her own TV show.
Except for all the Harleys parked on the lawn, no one could tell
this was the home of a motorcycle gang. Except for the oldest
neighbors on the block, most of the homes look like they need
paint and windows fixed. This is a house filled with people
wearing leather, both men and women, and none of them seem to be
parents or family-oriented. I have never seen one motorcyclist
leave alone. If one pulls out, all the rest follow. Guess that's
why they call themselves a gang.
That's it. Jesus just gave me an idea. Before I lose my nerve, I
knock on the door. A large man with a long scraggly beard
answers. He's being too friendly; must not have any idea I'm a
Christian on a mission.
"You bowl on Tuesday nights?" I ask him. He looks suspicious, so
I quickly add, "My grandpa's team bowls next to you."
"Who's your grandpa?"
"Hans. The guy who mows lawns."
A deep smoker's laugh vibrates off his chest. "Hans. He's a good
man. Reminds me of my own grandpa. He's all right, isn't he?"
"Oh, yeah. Fine. That's not why I'm here." Come on, Jesus. Don't
leave me tongue-tied now. "You know, I was wondering if the Road
Knights might like to get involved with my church. You know,
start a club called Jesus' Mufflers, or something like that."
The big man spits out his beer laughing. Leaning over the
kitchen table, he pounds another guy on the shoulder, the one
who is waiting for him to get back to their poker game, and
says, "Did you hear that? She wants us to start a motorcycle
club called Jesus' Mufflers!"
Come on, Jesus, I'm losing them. Make me say something sensible.
It's not like I'm trying to sell them a used Pinto. Don't you
want these guys on your side? Think about it, Jesus. They could
be your crusaders with other bikers. That's it! "Okay, that name
may not be right. But what about Cruisin' Crusaders? You could
cruise all night and when you see people, you can tell them
about Jesus."
"What do you want us to tell people about Jesus? That he's a
hypocrite who hates people like us?"
"Oh, no. As a matter of fact, you look a lot like Jesus. Jesus
would have been driving a Harley instead of wearing out all
those sandals if they had them back then. Don't you know that
Jesus loves you?"
"I'm glad your grandpa don't talk like this. Don't you want a
beer or something? Is it that hard for you to be like other
teenagers?"
"No, I get high on Jesus. And you could too."
"Yeah, but we don't want to. So go on," the man at the table
says.
"But if you die," I hurry and get this crucial part in, "do you
know if you'll go to heaven or hell?"
"What difference does it make? I'll be dead. I live for the now,
sweetheart. When I'm dead, my body can go to science for all I
care. Is that why you do this? To get a place in heaven? You
wouldn't do this otherwise? If Jesus wasn't promising you a room
in heaven, you'd have a beer and live like normal people?"
Come on, Jesus. These people are smarter than most. I've never
thought about this before. Why aren't these things in the Bible?
Come on, give me words quick. "You know, you'd be a great
evangelist. Really. Are you sure you don't want to get saved?"
"Enough," he says, ushering me to the door. "You should take up
bowling with your grandpa. Stay away from the churches. It's
ruining you."
"It don't have to be called Cruisin' Crusaders. You can think of
another name," I say walking to the sidewalk.
"We got a name. The Road Knights!" the man at the table yells
back.
As I head to the Locks' house, I wonder if I'd be a Christian if
I didn't believe in heaven. Heaven does sound unbelievable. Do
babies go to hell because they're not saved? Do Christians who
backslide go to hell? I wonder who really gets to heaven? Mom
thinks her mother's in heaven but what if she isn't? What is
hell -- a Grand Canyon of fire?
Mrs. Lock is sitting on her front steps. This makes it much
easier than knocking on the door. People who knock on the door
remind me of the bill collectors we hide from at home. I feel
like Lazarus, or whoever that greedy bill collector was in the
Bible. But I'm not a bill collector. I'm a soul collector. Can't
they see the difference? If I could just get these people to
church Sunday night, they'd understand what I'm talking about.
The _Strung Out For Jesus_ rock band will be playing. It'll be
mostly young people in blue jeans. The old folks go to the
morning services and think these evening services are a disgrace
to God, but the minister says God is flexible and doesn't mind
seeing the church used this way, so they don't say much.
Mrs. Lock is drinking beer out of a quart bottle and smoking a
cigarette. I don't see her kids around but I hear the stereo
blasting and figure they're in the house.
"How ya doing, Mrs. Lock?"
"I got a goddamn headache. Why?"
This isn't the greeting I was hoping for. "That's too bad."
"You're telling me. I was up all night. Now I got to go to work
in two hours." She laughs a minute, "But it was worth being up
all night. There's a goddamn price you got to pay to have fun."
fun."
"Ain't that the truth?" I say, desperately trying to fit in.
Then Lou Ann joins us on the steps. It's never been the same
between us since that night Lou Ann and her brothers saw me
pinching my tits in the mirror. Now I've learned to close my
curtains. And I'm trying to be less vain, more like Jesus, but
Jesus was from a different time, and he wasn't exactly normal.
If he was a girl, he probably wouldn't have cared about breasts
because they wore those loose robes no one could see through
anyway.
"So, what brings our neighborhood Jesus Freak to our House of
Sin?" Lou Ann asks. Mrs. Lock laughs with her. And once again,
Jesus leaves me tongue-tied.
"This ain't no house of sin."
"Come on, what is it you want?"
I want to say _your soul,_ but can tell that doesn't sound
right. "Nothing. I just thought I'd invite you to our church
Sunday night. You know Ray Gonzalez, right? Well, his group is
playing then."
"Ray used to be a cool dude. Liked him when he played in garages
better than in churches."
"Well, he plays about the same kind of music."
"Shee-it! You think I'm stupid?"
"I'm telling you our church is different at night. People go
barefoot, wear cut-offs."
I don't get to finish. "And talk about being high on Jesus. I
know your rap. Damn. Give me my weed and let me get high on the
real thing."
"I ain't been in a church in years, " Mrs. Lock says. "Didn't
even get married in one. We ain't got nothing against you and
your church; it just ain't for us."
"You probably think I'm worried you'll go to hell but I don't
think that way. Doesn't really matter to me if there's a heaven
or hell." I'm on a roll, though I'm not sure if this is the Road
Knights speaking or Jesus. Gets confusing when the adrenaline
rolls. "All I care about is the now. And the now ain't all that
great. But there's something about being with other Jesus Freaks
that makes it seem less shitty. You know your house ain't no
more a house of sin than my own."
"I don't know why your Ma don't throw your old man out. We can
hear him hollering over here. I know men like him. Plenty of 'em
come in the bar and drink 'til they pass out on their stool.
They're at their best when they're unconscious. I don't bring
those men home. Once we drag them out the back door, I never
think twice about them. Ain't none of my concern what happens to
them. Those loudmouth bastards are nothing but trouble. Some
people drink and have a good time. Those are the people I like
serving booze to. Your ma should throw him out."
"Yeah, I know. I keep praying he'll change."
"So Jesus ain't working no miracles on your family, is he?" Lou
Ann laughs.
"Not really, but things are better now. You never know, things
may change."
"Yeah, sure. Maybe a tornado will wipe us all out. I like
getting high my way. Don't need to wait for no miracles cause I
feel like I'm having a miracle when I take acid. You should try
it. See what Jesus looks like then."
This has been a difficult day. First I lose faith in heaven, now
I lose faith in miracles. I don't know if Jesus is trying to
make me see things more clearly or if Satan is leading me
astray. Sometimes they're like the same person. "Well, I got to
go make dinner but remember tomorrow night you can walk to
church with me if you want."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's what we'll be wanting to do. Right, Ma?"
"Quit picking on her, Lou Ann!"
"Don't worry. She's got Jesus on her side. She can take it.
Ain't that right?"
"Yeah, sort of. Well, remember Jesus loves you," I add before
crossing the street."
"Thanks, I feel better now. Hey, your tits haven't grown much,
have they?" Lou Ann yells. "Maybe that will be God's next
miracle!"
"Lou Ann, don't be such a brat," Mrs. Lock says while laughing.
It ain't easy to love my neighbors, but I keep trying.
The next day I ask a few friends to pray the Road Knights and
Locks will come to church. They laugh. Think I'm getting more
and more fanatical. I remind them if they'd pray for the Locks
and Road Knights, it'd make a difference, but no one believes
me.
Our church is three blocks from Seventeenth Street. About an
hour before church begins, the Locks are sitting on their front
steps drinking beer; even a few of the Road Knights are there. I
keep looking at them through our front porch window, praying
Jesus will give me the confidence to return with one more
invite. They seem to be having a good time, a better time than
they'll have in church. Jesus wouldn't back away. He'd be over
there. So I cross the street. Everyone laughs as they seem me
approach. In my head, I repeat, "I'm high on Jesus. I'm high on
Jesus." By the time I get near them, I actually believe it.
"Well, anyone want to go to church with me? It'll be good
tonight."
They all laugh. "Can we bring our beer?" a Road Knight asks.
"Sure," I say, hoping it'll be finished by the time we get to
the church door.
"Oh, yeah? Can we bring a full cooler?"
"If you want." Jesus, I pray to myself, if I ain't saying the
right things, you should intervene now. I'm not too sure about
all the church rules.
"Shee-it! What the hell. I'll go with you," Mrs. Lock says. "It
won't kill me. You say they have live music tonight? Well, I'm
ready for some music. Back home our church used to have gospel
music, good gospel music, but you say they got rock and roll
tonight. Well," she laughs again, "I like rock and roll, too."
"You mean it, Ma?" Lou Ann asks.
"'Bout time I do something to set a good example."
"Oh, get off it!"
"No, I'm serious."
"Ah, what the hell. If I can bring my beer, I'm coming too," the
Road Knight man says.
Next thing I know, they all pick up their bottles of beer and
walk with me. Fortunately, no one bothered to fill a cooler. My
underarms are sweating something terrible. This must be what is
meant by a religious experience. Unless I control myself, I'm
certain I'll start talking in tongues. That's how close I feel
to Jesus right now, but I know it'd frighten the neighbors if I
started talking in tongues, so I bite it, hoping I'll feel like
this again. I've seen others talk in tongues but I haven't yet.
"Jesus, don't tell me this is my only chance," I pray. "I don't
mean to be cutting you off right now, but we may lose them if I
start talking in tongues."
Before entering the church, they set their beer bottles by the
bushes instead of bringing them in.
"Will be like piss water when we get out, but it'll be better
than nothing," a Road Knight says.
"I ain't bringing mine in case Jesus does a miracle and turns it
into holy water," Mrs. Lock says. "Can't take no chances. Be my
luck she finally gets to see a miracle when he screws with my
beer."
"Ya never know," I say, certain this is already a miracle.
There's ten of us and we're not quiet, so most of the people
turn around to watch us find a seat. All of their faces look
like they're praying we won't sit next to them, but I forgive
them for those thoughts and know they'll change their mind after
they see my neighbors go up to the altar call and get saved. We
take up one entire pew, the last pew in the balcony. It's
extremely hot up there and all of us are sweating, but no one
says anything. They're just as curious about the other folks as
they are about them.
The young preacher starts off with a rather slow prayer, one
that puts the Willy the Road Knight man to sleep. Mrs. Lock
wakes him and he groans loudly. It's a good thing the band
starts playing right away or they'd walk out. Long prayers can
make anyone feel that way. On my show, I'll only have short
prayers and I'll try to say them fast, not in this long, drawn
out voice some preachers use. The music gets our entire row
tapping their feet and shaking their hips. It looks like the
band is going to convince them.
"Shit, can't believe Ray sold out to a Jesus Freak band," Lou
Ann whispers, but not quiet enough to stop the people from three
rows ahead of turning their heads. "Nothing's the same anymore."
When it's finally time for the altar call, none of my neighbors
leave their seats. Lots of other people do, but some of them are
regulars and go to every altar call. I start praying one of them
will get up and get saved, but no one moves. They just stare at
those weeping by the altar.
"God, they know how to ruin a good night, don't they?" Willy
says.
I try not to lose faith, hoping the music is just having a
delayed effect and will hit one of them at home.
As we walk home, Mrs. Lock says, "It wasn't half bad. Better
than I thought. But I got to tell you, I'm not going back."
"It's just too bad Ray turned Christian," Lou Ann adds.
When we get to our homes, we say goodnight, and I fall asleep
dreaming of my TV show. On my show we'll have a different
ending, an ending where everyone gets saved. But my show is on
hold. Jesus makes me wait for everything. All of this waiting
must be to make me strong and patient, but I seem to be getting
more impatient and confused. I'm not even sure how I'll describe
miracles or heaven anymore. I guess that I'll just have to count
on Jesus to untie my tongue and say the right words. Don't know
why he's not as eager as I am to get this show on TV. Can't he
see how it'll change the world? Seems like my days not only end
with more questions than answers, but my stomach is getting as
knotted as my tongue is tied waiting for all these things to
happen.
Diane Payne (dpayne2555@aol.com)
----------------------------------
Lives near the Mexican border with her daughter and dog, and
teaches writing at her local community college. She has been
published in numerous magazines. "Tongue-Tied" is an excerpt
from an unpublished book about growing up in Holland, Michigan.
Little Acorn by Rupert Goodwins
===================================
...................................................................
Throughout history, humankind has only been able to watch in
amazement as its ideas take on lives of their own.
...................................................................
"I can never get enough of trees," says Simon Beswick, the
artist. His latest structure -- _Grand Oak of Orion_ -- is the
largest object he's constructed. Sometimes he says that it will
never be finished; alternatively, that it was finished the
moment he finalized the programs for the tiny, powerful
spacegoing robots or worker ants that are doing the donkey work.
For _Grand Oak_ is assembled in space, between the orbits of
Mars and Jupiter, in the middle of what used to be called the
asteroid belt. The mining craft bring in rocks, minerals, metals
from the region, and from that bounty produce two things -- more
of themselves, and more of the Oak.
The Oak itself is, at the time of writing, some five hundred
miles long from topmost branch to deepest root. It is in form as
in name, an enormous tree, complete, uprooted, thick trunk
fractally branching out top and bottom to dense and mazy tips.
It is, as everything is this far from the sun, a dark and cold
place, fitfully lit by flashes of light from the worker ants. On
command from Beswick, though, the ants take up position and
illuminate the Oak with a thousand brilliant beams. The effect
is indescribable: there are more colors here than one ever
suspected existed, and mundane words such as glitter,
iridescence, and jewel are grotesquely inadequate. It may not be
the greatest spectacle in the Solar System, but it's the closest
we men and our machines have come to mirroring the massive
beauties that nature has carelessly condensed from the dust.
Yet Beswick is surprisingly sanguine about the importance of
this work. Propose that the Grand Oak may be the most
significant work of art this century, and he shrugs. "It took so
little effort, and so little cost," he says. "And it's hard to
claim significance for a work that has demanded so little of
either from me." Indeed, he refuses even to claim authorship for
it, preferring to be seen as a director of what he refers to as
"the project."
"The thing builds itself, and has done so from the beginning. I
suggest how certain aspects may progress; there's a wide variety
of materials found by the workers, and often the choice for
which to use on a certain part is aesthetic. They ask me, but
more often mechanical pragmatism determines the result. I
sometimes feel that the real art lay in making it happen,
organizing the finances and practicalities."
Bureaucrats would agree. While the popular image of the Grand
Oak is of one man and uncountable machines, beavering away in
the lean, dark corners of the system, the resultant corporate
structures on Earth and Mars have a size and complexity to rival
the branches of the Oak itself. The mining companies who support
the project are much more than mere sponsors -- they reap an
exceptional knowledge of the asteroid belt, together with
substantial proportions of the finer elements discovered.
They're also managers of by far the largest fleet of autonomous
mining ships in existence -- a fleet that built itself, and that
is growing exponentially. The whole business long ago became
self-financing, and Beswick has been known to publicly muse that
while the Oak is the nominal reason for the activity surrounding
it, it may be no more than a metaphor for what is actually
taking place.
It's natural to ask where it all may end. The dynamics are
fascinating; as the Oak grows exponentially, so does its
appetite for raw materials. A rough sphere of mining activity
has grown outward from the site of the Oak; if you assume an
even distribution of material in that space, its increased
surface area will nicely match the demands of the tree. Ferrying
the stuff in gets more difficult; the algorithms behind the
workers are choreographed were based once on bees returning to
the hive "as much from instinctive, aesthetic reasons as from
analytic, reductive reasoning," says Beswick. But the dense mesh
of computers that runs the workers has long since modified those
designs on its own initiative: another part of the community of
humans that live in the branches of the bureaucratic shadow the
Oak casts on the ground is devoted to unravelling these
decisions and understanding just what it is that's growing out
there.
And before you can predict where it'll all end, points out
Beswick, you have to know where it is now. That's surprisingly
difficult: there are graphs of materials used, radius and length
and mass, and all show the same pure exponential law. But
exponential systems distort their media in unpredictable ways --
the third Law of the Net -- and nobody's prepared to say just
which bit of the medium in which the Oak is growing will buckle
beneath the stress first.
If pressed, Beswick will admit that he'd like to see the Oak
reach maturity -- whatever that will be -- before he dies. "If
you follow the analogy through," he points out, "at some point
the project will reach some form of equilibrium where its own
growth will slow dramatically or stop and its energies will go
into procreating a forest. Which raises the problem that's
dogged creators ever since the activity became fashionable; it
looks as if durability of a work depends on independence,
mutability and mortality. And sex."
It's known that the consortium behind the Oak is more keen to
see the tree finished. Nobody who's seen it ablaze in space is
in any doubt that here is a sight of infinite attractiveness in
a damn awkward spot. Proposals to move the Oak into a LaGrange
point have been circulating, although even here the tidal forces
of gravity may damage the structure. And Beswick's teams of
programmers are surprisingly unwilling to say with any certainty
that the huge machine out there can ever be turned off.
Meanwhile, the Grand Oak of Orion is unperturbed, attended by
its artificial acolytes, following with absolute certainty the
single purpose that it undoubtedly owns: to grow.
Rupert Goodwins (rupertg@cix.compulink.co.uk)
-----------------------------------------------
London-dwelling Englishman, 31, with own modem and mild
Ballard/Dick fixation, seeks lifestyle of indolent SF
authorhood. Currently technical editor on PC Magazine UK. More
-- or less -- can be found on
<http://www.fly.net/%7Erupertg/goofimr.htm>.
Iowa Basketball by Michelle Rogge Gannon
==========================================
...................................................................
We'd all like to picture a good death for ourselves. But few of
us gets to choose the way we go into that good night.
...................................................................
Right now I'm lying under the dining room table, trying to rest.
It's the only space available where Dad won't step on me when he
gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
It's not a bad place, as long as I remember I'm not in a bed and
don't sit up straight and smack my head. From here I can watch
the television in the living room, even though all that's on is
a grade-B western, the kind stations run at one in the morning.
Somehow I find that bad western comforting. The good guys are
gonna win. We're talkin' a happy ending, most definitely. I'd
like to see some old episodes of _Perry Mason_, though -- Perry
Mason with his gut instincts about a client's innocence. But
Dad, even though he is asleep in his favorite living room chair,
has first dibs on the television. I learned long ago I couldn't
just tiptoe into the living room and switch channels. He would
always wake up and, trying to be gruff, say, "Hey! Turn back to
that western." Or that basketball game. Or whatever he happened
to have been watching.
From under this table, I'm close enough to hear my 18-month-old
son Jamie if he should wake up and cry. He is asleep in Mom's
bedroom on her bed. I'm nervous because the bed is kind of high
off the floor, and I have to tuck pillows all around to try to
prevent his rolling off.
Most importantly, from under this table, I'm close to Mom. She
is sleeping her troubled sleep about five feet away from me.
Her hospital bed takes up most of the dining room. We set it up
in here because it's warmer and easier to take care of her, and
she's not isolated in a bedroom. I hope she doesn't feel like
she's on display. Actually, I don't think she gives a damn.
Dad is snoring. He's not watching that western at all. "How many
times do we have to endure John Wayne?" I grumble. At least
there's no sign of Gabby Hayes or Glenn Ford.
Dare I risk it? Being careful not to bump my head on the
underside of the table, I steal into the living room, glancing
guiltily at Dad. He's asleep in his easy chair, bent slightly
forward, his head hanging down. It is the only position Dad can
sleep in without going into an coughing fit. Sooner or later, he
leans further forward, jerks himself awake, and catches himself
from falling out of the chair. I wonder if he dreams in that
position.
As quietly as possible, I change the channel. The light on the
television flickers noticeably. Dad snorts and sits up,
blinking. His glasses are still propped on his nose.
"I'm changing back to your show. I just wanted to see what else
was on."
Dad nods and closes his eyes for a moment. Then he stands and
totters off to the bathroom. Shuffling along in his
sweatsock-covered feet, he glances at his sleeping wife as he
passes her bed.
Sighing, I slip back into my place under the dining room table.
The floor is carpeted, yet, even with Mom's lady long johns on,
I'm still cold. I pull one of Mom's hand-crocheted afghans over
me. I'm not fond of polyester yarn or the strange purple and
green combination Mom chose for this afghan, but it's something
she made that I can wrap around me. We already piled the heavy
quilts on top of Mom and Jamie, so they wouldn't be cold. After
all, it is the middle of January.
Dad shuffles back to his chair. He peers at me through his
bifocals, looking at me as if I'm some kind of a nut. "Why don't
you go to bed, Amy?"
"This is my bed," I say. "I want to be close to Mom in case she
needs me."
"Don't look too comfortable to me." He closes his eyes after a
moment and bends slightly forward, returning to his
Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa sleep.
I must have dozed off for a little bit. Suddenly I'm aware Mom
is trying to ring the bell.
"Mom, I'm right here." Forgetting about the table, I sit up and
crack my head. Wincing and rubbing my crown, I hurry over to
Mom.
"I gotta go to the bathroom," she says.
"Okay." Mom was a big woman, and it's awkward to help her onto
the port-a-potty next to the bed. I strain to support her until
she sits down. Once she's seated, I steady her because she's
dizzy from her medication.
I hear a thump and a cry in Mom's bedroom. Jamie.
"Oh, great." I stand there, unable to leave Mom. If she falls,
she might fracture some of her fragile bones. "Jamie, come out
here. Mommy's out here with Grandma. Commere, sweetie."
He stumbles out, wailing, holding one arm out to me, his bottom
lip stuck out. "Ma-ma. Ma-ma."
"I know, sweetie, I know." Mom is almost done. After a few
moments, I help Mom clean herself and help her back into the
bed. Jamie is holding onto my leg, crying.
There's nothing like being needed.
"Sweet little thing." Mom's tiny bird eyes, dulled by cataracts,
manage to locate Jamie. She holds out one shaky hand to him.
"The little thing."
Picking up Jamie, I place him within Mom's reach. She pats his
chubby left arm gently. "Don't cry, Joey, don't cry."
Joey is my second brother's name, but I don't bother to correct
her. Tucking the quilt under Mom's chin, I notice the
frightening, alien way she looks at me. But I know she can't
help it.
I slowly lull Jamie back to sleep in the rocking chair next to
Mom's bed. Mom watches us. She shifts, trying to find a
comfortable position. That must be hard to do when you have a
tumor as big as a basketball rising out of your stomach.
"How are you feeling, Mom? Are you in pain?"
She sighs. "I always have pain."
Being careful not to bump Jamie, I glance at my watch. "It's
almost time for your medication."
"Don't give me the full dosage. I don't want to be too doped
up."
I nod. Gently rising, I carry my sleeping son back to Mom's
bedroom. This time I pile pillows and blankets higher, creating
a mountainous barrier. Jamie doesn't wake up.
Returning to the kitchen, I get Mom's pills. One kind is a pain
pill, and the other is a tranquilizer she's taken for more than
forty years, since her breakdown. I count out the dosages,
recording the time and number, then bring them to Mom with a
glass of water.
She can barely push the pills from her tongue to her throat. I
dread seeing her struggle to swallow, knowing we'll have to
resort to liquid morphine if it gets worse. "Mom, is there
anything else you need?"
She shakes her head slightly, watching me.
"Is -- is there anything you want to talk about?"
She draws a very audible breath. "No, not really."
I sit down on the edge of the rocking chair, feeling pressure to
say something significant since she's wide awake. The doctor's
prognosis hangs over everything: your mother has two weeks left
to live, three at best.
But I have never been strong under pressure. I think of the time
I choked in a high-school basketball game when we were one point
ahead and I threw the ball to a girl on the other team, who
turned and made a basket with ten seconds left in the game.
I keep twisting the gold tiger's eye ring on my right hand. It's
Mom's class ring, 1934. She gave it to me years ago after I lost
my own.
"Did I tell you, Mom, that the Twin Cities Women's Club asked me
to speak at one of their dinners? I'm so nervous."
Mom stares at me but doesn't respond. It's as if she's off
somewhere, contemplating something a lot bigger than the stuff
I'm talking about. This isn't like Mom -- usually, she's
interested in the mundane doings of her youngest child.
But then, usually, she's sitting at the kitchen table,
crocheting, smoking a cigarette, slugging down coffee, listening
to the confessions, boasts, and amusing tales of her children,
grandchildren, and old-lady friends.
I miss seeing her sit at that table.
I fumble around for something else to say. "Well, Mom, I haven't
talked to Jamie's dad in quite some time. But I'm applying for
child support. Hennepin County says I'll have to prove he's the
father, since we weren't married -- "
A look of complete distaste settles like a terrible weight on
Mom's wizened face. I'd better shut up now or I'll have to slap
myself.
"Guess I'll get some sleep," I mumble as I slide under the
table. Mom's lying wide awake, a few feet away from me, but I
know anything I say is going to sound inane in the face of
death.
Only two days ago I was in minneapolis, unaware of the struggle
going on in Iowa, inside my mother's body.
When my sister Louella told me over the phone that Mom had two
or three weeks left to live, I laughed -- a short, nervous,
disbelieving laugh.
"What do you mean?"
"It's complicated, Amy. But that's what Dr. Nichols told us.
Mom's known for a long time that something was wrong. She just
refused to go to the doctor."
My sister's voice began to tremble. I sat with the phone to my
ear, stupefied. In front of me was a pile of papers: forms to be
signed, notes to myself, a draft of a speech. I made a mental
note: cancel all your appointments for the next month.
First Dad got lung cancer. My brother Rocky and my sister took
turns driving fifty miles to Sioux City every day with Dad,
until the radiation treatments destroyed the tumor. So, just
when we think we can breathe a sigh of relief...this happens.
"How could she keep this a secret?"
"Amy, you haven't been around. You haven't seen what's been
going on."
"I was home at Christmas," I said. "That was only three weeks
ago!" She'd seemed fine then -- just the usual aches and pains.
"She fixed chili on Christmas Eve. And she had plates of sugar
cookies, all the usual -- "
"I know, I know," Louella said. "She made Christmas as normal as
possible. She kept it a secret from all of us."
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
"Sis," I said at last, "I should come home right away."
"It's a good idea. Actually, we need you to -- to help take care
of Mom."
"I don't understand -- isn't she in the hospital?"
"Right now she is," Louella said. "But there's no point in
keeping her there. She wants to spend her last days at home.
That means we'll have to take care of her around the clock. I
can be there during the day, but at night..."
I understood. Louella has a husband and family. My brothers have
families too. I only have my infant son.
"I'll be there tonight."
During the six-hour drive to Battle Creek I had plenty of time
to think, and the more I thought, the angrier I became. This was
so _typical!_ Knowing something was wrong and refusing to go to
the doctor, believing she could control and conquer this disease
herself. Maybe she thought the tumor would go away on its own,
or if she didn't acknowledge its presence it simply would not
exist. God knows what she thought.
But I wasn't surprised. For the last three years, Mom had
suffered from cataracts. Instead of having an operation, she
kept getting new glasses, trying different prescriptions. She
wanted new eyeglasses to solve the problem. But, of course, they
didn't.
Finally, not long ago, Mom permed a customer's hair at the
beauty shop, and she wasn't sure she'd done a good job. Since it
was affecting her work, she decided to have the eye operation.
When the nurses gave her a physical, however, they discovered
her blood was too thin for an operation of any kind -- she'd
taken nine aspirin that morning to dull her pain from the
ailment she'd told no one about.
The Battle Creek doctor knew what was wrong almost immediately.
He could feel the tumor just by pressing on her abdomen.
One thing led to another, with my sister Louella dragging Mom to
the hospital in Sioux City. Mom was told her days on this planet
were finite. There was nothing the doctors could do.
I wake up -- or do I just dream that I wake up? All I know is
that the moments I'm about to describe seem like a dream.
Getting up from under the table, I look at my mother. She is
wide awake, and her eyes don't seem so filmy, so blind. I can
talk to her straight.
Sitting down next to her, I savor the warmth of her crumpled
body. Still alive. I clutch her right hand a little tighter than
I should.
"Amy," she says.
"Mom -- " Frantically, I search my mind for anything that will
make her keep fighting. "I won't be able to bear it if you go.
Minneapolis is so stressful. The only way I cope is knowing
you're here, carrying on. It keeps me sane -- "
"I know," she says. And she does seem to know. She really does.
"You can't let this beat you, Mom. You gotta keep going -- "
She nods and takes one of her deep, shaky breaths. "I'll try."
She means it. She won't let this disease take her away from us.
Something in her still believes she can lick this thing, just as
she has conquered so many other problems in her life.
For the moment, I believe it too. I hug her, just as if I were a
little child. And then I go back to bed, to my under-table nook.
In my sleep, I embrace the seeming reality of my dream.
What wakes me up is not the sunlight or Dad's snoring. It's the
television.
I can imagine all sorts of things being on at 6 a.m. -- an old
movie, a Lucille Ball rerun, a religious meditation, or news,
maybe. But looking past Mom's frail body in her hospital bed,
past Dad snoring fitfully in his Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa stance, I
see a blond, pink-cheeked woman in a skimpy aerobics outfit
saying, "Energy! Energy! Let's show some energy this morning! Up
and down, and up and down...stretch, stretch, stretch!"
"Stretch all you like, honey. You've got enough energy for me
and this entire household. And then some."
I sound cranky, but I'm feeling better -- although "better" is a
relative term. Better than rock bottom?
Regardless, I prefer daytime. Everything seems more upbeat. In
an hour or so, my oldest brother, Rocky, will check on us before
he goes to work. Then my sister Louella will come to relieve me.
And, no doubt, there will be other visitors, coming to say
good-bye.
When my sister arrives, I greet her with a hug. She gives Mom
her medicine and talks to her briefly. We both coax Mom into
trying a can of Ensure -- this high-calorie, nutritional milk
shake. When she drinks half of the can's contents, we cheer up,
making jokes. We even talk about mundane things in front of Mom,
and I don't feel stupid. Jamie's new word, "Cowabunga." Whether
or not it will snow. That beautiful purple and green afghan.
I walk out to the kitchen, smiling. practically giddy. It feels
good to feel good. I can only feel bad for so long.
Louella is right on my heels. She puts Mom's medicine away and
turns to me. A smile lingers on her lips, but there is something
else in her eyes. Shaking her head, she glances at Mom. "How can
this be?" she says. It is not really a question.
The phone rings; it is my aunt Judith. I am relieved to hear the
healthy, energetic sound of my aunt's voice. As a child, I
always looked forward to her visits. She was so much fun.
Today, however, she sounds strained. Mom is Aunt Judith's big
sister.
"Can I speak to your mother, dear?"
I turn the phone over to Mom, holding it to her ear. Mom's eyes
become brighter for a few minutes. She listens intently,
responding to Aunt Judith in monosyllables. There is death in
her voice, and I know the sound of it must carry over the wires.
Gradually, Mom retreats into that limbo place, a time-out. The
enlivened look in her eyes fades, and she stops speaking.
I take the phone from Mom to speak to Aunt Judith. All I can
hear is this choking sound -- inarticulate grief. Wordless, I
hand the phone to my big sister.
I go to the living room and sit in Dad's easy chair. Staring at
the television, I can't laugh, although what's on seems damned
funny just now -- the soap opera, _One Life to Live._
As the days go by, I notice a change in Mom. Because she has
trouble swallowing the pain pills, we switch to liquid morphine.
She appears sleepy all the time and has difficulty forming
sentences. I don't know if it's the medicine affecting her mind,
or the disease. She strains, searching for ways to finish what
she wants to say.
Watching her struggle, I imagine the way death should be: easy,
without pain, the mind lucid, the body allowing you to
accomplish whatever you want in your last, glorious moments.
Everyone should get to make that final basket before the buzzer
goes off, winning the game by one point.
Instead death is wasting away in bed, cancer destroying your
body, organs shutting down one by one, someone cleaning your
bottom for you, your final words distorted.
I call the nurse from the hospice program in Sioux City. "Can we
lessen the dosage? Mom can barely communicate with us. She hates
that."
The nurse advises: "Try cutting the dosage in half."
I do so, and it isn't long before I see a change. Mom becomes
paranoid.
The nurse comes, but Mom refuses her bath. Mom never refuses
anything, is never rude. But today she tells the nurse, "Go
away!" And she looks at me with suspicion as I give her the
morphine. She is certainly not sleepy now.
My family is milling about. My brother Joey came at high speed
from a business trip in New York with his wife Elisha. This
traveling salesman of a brother can put everything he wants to
say in a few magic words. He's the kind of basketball player who
can travel in a basketball game without the referee blowing the
whistle.
Last night, I saw Joey holding Mom's hand and telling her
things. The right things to say at a time like this, the things
I would never think to say. Afterwards, I know he has said
everything he needed. I envy him the peace that is in his eyes.
My dad turns the radio on in the kitchen, and the familiar
sounds of a high school girls basketball game drift into the
dining room. It's tournament time. My sports-minded brothers
lean against the counters and listen. Smith passes to Uhl. Uhl
dribbles, passes to Wright. Wright goes in for the lay-up and
makes it!
"That Wright girl is a pistol," Dad says.
My sister puts one arm around my shoulder. "You were a darned
good basketball player."
"I was just a substitute my last year -- don't you remember?"
Louella shakes her head. "You were a good basketball player,"
she repeats.
I shrug. Coach Baumgarter had thought otherwise. I warmed the
bench my senior year because I choked in key moments. I stuck it
out until the end of the season, although the coach probably
wished I would quit. I lost my passion for the game. It bothered
me that somebody always had to lose.
Hope Sorensen, a neighbor lady, comes to visit. She is elderly
and delicate, but healthy. I try not to look at her resentfully.
She is bearing a plate of Rice Crispies bars. "I thought your
mother might like a sweet treat," she says. She holds onto the
bars, evidently worried the rest of us might eat them before Mom
can try one.
If we could get Mom to eat anything, I would do handstands.
We've tried everything, from favorite foods to new foods, but I
could only cajole her into drinking a little more Ensure. She's
almost finished a second eight-ounce can. It's only taken her
three days.
I told the hospice nurse about it on the phone. "I'm not sure if
it's the cancer that's killing her," I said, my voice cracking,
"or if she's starving to death."
The nurse answered gently, "Your mother's body is giving her a
message."
"I don't think I like that message."
Hope Sorensen sits in the kitchen -- where Mom always used to
sit and visit -- and chats with my brothers and me before she
talks to Mom. Hope's gossipy ways tended to annoy Mom, but Mom
was always polite to her.
Rising from my chair, I go into the dining room when I hear Mom
talking with Louella in an angry, alien voice.
"Send her away," Mom says. "I don't want to talk to her. Get rid
of her!"
I look at Louella. "Get rid of Hope?"
Louella is smiling behind her hands. "Yes -- we have to kick her
out."
This is going to be awkward. But before we can stop her, Hope
walks into the dining room to speak with Mom. "Elizabeth, I
brought you some Rice Crispies bars. How are you feeling?"
Surprising us, Mom puts a smile on her face. "Better," she says.
There is a lot of orneriness in that one word.
"Wonderful!" Hope looks at us as if to say: you're wrong, she's
not dying, you silly children. Fortunately, Hope only stays a
few more minutes, without hearing Mom be rude to her even once.
She leaves, convinced that she has put Mom on the road to
recovery.
Louella's husband calls and asks her to come home to help with
the chores on the farm. So I tend to Mom while my brothers hover
around somewhat helplessly, discussing the local high school's
chances of making it to the state girls' basketball tournament.
It is time for Mom's medicine again, and I'm dreading it. Mom
stares at me, not with suspicion anymore, but, it seems to me,
with...hatred.
"I won't take it. You're trying to poison me."
I stand there, flabbergasted. Can this angry old woman be my
mother? "Mom, I would never hurt you. This medicine takes away
the pain."
"You're trying to poison me," she repeats. She slaps the cup
with surprising strength, and the morphine spills on her
blanket.
"Boys," I call out, "I need your help."
My brothers surround me almost before the words are out of my
mouth.
"Mom," Rocky says soothingly, "what's the matter?"
"You're trying to kill me," the old woman insists.
"No, Mom, we love you. We would never hurt you," Joey says.
"You don't love me. And I don't love you."
The words rise up out of me in a sob: "Oh, Mom." I turn away.
This is not my mother.
Somehow Rocky and Joey manage get this woman to take the
morphine. They settle her down.
I sit holding my head, which feels quite hot, thinking about the
speech I have to give for the Twin Cities Women's Club. It's
supposed to be about the influence our mothers have had on our
careers, the inspiration they have provided. Thinking about it
calms me. And then I remember: I'm supposed to give that speech
tomorrow in Minneapolis.
After waiting until things have calmed down, I tell my brothers
I have to go. I can't cancel -- it's too important to my career.
It will only take one day. I'll go there, give the speech, and
turn right around and come home.
Rocky and Joey stare at me but say nothing. They understand --
work comes first. Mom set that standard for us. Immediately, my
brothers start to figure out schedules for tending Mom and
Jamie.
Mom sinks into sleep before I leave. I can't go near her bed,
afraid that those eyes will open and look at me accusingly. Part
of me wants to hold her hand, at least, but I can't. I tell
myself I'll do it when I get back. Instead, I hug my son a
little too tightly. He wriggles out of my good-bye embrace.
On the way to Minneapolis, I go over my speech, reinventing my
mother, erasing what I've witnessed:
My mother had graduated from high school, attended beauty
school, and started her own business at the tender age of
eighteen. She supported her immigrant mother and five younger
siblings with her earnings. Later, when she married, she
supported her own family. She was the town's oldest original
owner of a business, running her beauty shop for over fifty
years. Elizabeth Cooke was still working up until one month
before her illness.
An uninvited memory rises up: Mom, fifteen years ago, when she
fell in the living room and broke bones in her right foot. She
never went to the doctor, afraid that he would put her foot in a
cast and she wouldn't be able to work. She would lose her
customers. Mom worked in spite of the pain, standing for hours
at a stretch. Over time, she developed a huge lump on one side
of her foot. One toe twisted and curled on top of another. She
had to wear shoes specially made for her feet because no others
would fit. Mom complained about the price of those shoes -- over
$400.
At first, I do not see the state patrolman behind me, his lights
flashing. He has to turn on his siren for me to notice him. I
pull over.
I am developing an elaborate story about why I am speeding when
he says, "You should go home, Miss. We got a call from your
brother -- they asked us to keep an eye out for you, to send you
back."
It's late when I get home. The family members who live nearby
have gone home. Dad, of course, is there, and so is my brother
Joey and his wife Elisha.
When I walk in the dining room, I see that Mom is gone. The
hospital bed has been taken away. The dining room is just a
dining room again.
It doesn't register. I stand there in the space where I would
have stood next to Mom's bed holding her hand. I'm digging my
nails into my palms.
Tonight my dreams will try to convince me that Mom is still
alive. Part of me won't know Mom is dead for a long time to
come. Every day, for months, I'll wake up, thinking for a few
sweet moments: she's alive. Then I'll remember.
Joey greets me, breaking off my reverie. He is not a salesman
now. He hugs me and asks, "Amy, can you make some hot fudge
sauce for ice cream?"
I nod, relieved and not surprised at all. I find Mom's recipe
easily. Searching through the cupboards, I find that Mom has all
the ingredients we need -- unsweetened chocolate, sugar, flour,
evaporated milk, vanilla, and Oleo. I make sauce, measuring,
stirring, and pouring ingredients, performing a ritual.
Joey and Dad are the only ones still up. They sit at the kitchen
table, talking about little pieces of nothing. I'm glad they
haven't mentioned the funeral preparations. Just now, I can't
think about a funeral.
They watch me make the sauce, and I realize I'm more of a
comfort to them than any episode of Perry Mason could be. I hand
Dad and Joey bowls of ice cream and let them to help themselves
to the hot fudge sauce.
Joey looks at me gratefully. "Just like Mom's." He drowns his
vanilla ice cream, creating a mud-and-milk lake. I smile and am
about to make a dish myself when I look at Dad. He is eating
without enthusiasm.
"Forty-nine years ago," he says, "Your Ma and I got married. We
eloped 'cause your Grandma Ellis didn't approve of me. I didn't
have a job. We drove to Nebraska in a car that leaked oil the
whole way. We'd have to stop every once in a while to dump in a
can of oil. I was surprised we made it. Nebraska...maybe we were
married in South Dakota." He laughs shortly. "I can't
recollect."
He continues to eat, almost as if he's not really tasting the
ice cream. With each swallow, it seems to me I can see a tumor
growing in his chest, one the radiation treatments didn't check.
And I keep thinking, maybe, just this once, the referee will
stop the clock, to show a little mercy.
Michelle Rogge Gannon (mrogge@sunflowr.usd.edu)
-------------------------------------------------
Is an adjunct instructor in the English Department at the
University of South Dakota, and volunteer webmaster for the
English Department web site. She has published an article in
_The South Dakota Review_, and wrote the biography _Ceaseless
Explorer: Conversations with Joseph Spies_ (USD Press). She
lives in Vermillion, South Dakota with her husband and
eight-year-old son. Her home on the Web is at
<http://www.usd.edu/~mrogge/>.
With Thoughts of Sarah by Christopher O'Kennon
==================================================
...................................................................
People like to believe in lofty goals and higher ideals, but,
more often than not, selfless acts are performed with only our
own interests in mind.
...................................................................
I just didn't think it through. I was blinded by the pain of
loving her and I just didn't think it through
I suppose it all started with Weed Mulligan. Surprisingly, it
didn't take us long to get used to him. As long as I didn't
think too hard about what he actually was, drifting gently in
his tank, I found I could look at him as just another piece of
equipment or an exceptionally ugly lab animal. But what amazed
me the most, and still does, was that the damned thing could
communicate and seemed completely unaware of what had been done
to him. But communicate he did. And he even seemed to know his
new name.
The name Weed Mulligan was someone's idea of a joke. I don't
remember who started it -- probably some technician or
Foundation bigwig, but the name stuck. Weed was a floating
jumble of nerves and brain tissue that actually resembled a
cross between a patch of seaweed and a pot of Mulligan stew. He
was now just the central nervous system and much of the
peripheral nervous system of a chimpanzee, with a few bits of
the endocrine system thrown in for good measure. The idea was to
see how much Weed could remember and communicate while in this
state. But, as interesting as that was, the real corker was that
Weed had been dead for more than a week and didn't seem to know
it yet. He was a collection of memories that had been fooled
into thinking it was alive.
Dr. Sarah Yuen, my partner on the experiment, sat across the lab
comparing a stack of readouts to various displays and meters.
Her pace bordered on frantic, held in check only by discipline.
"I'm getting a slight deterioration reading from the optic
chiasm and the corpus callosum," she said as she pushed her
straight black hair out of her face. "I'll increase the vitamin
input long enough for us to get the memory recording finished."
"I'll be ready in just a second," I said, turning back to my
keyboard, but trying to keep an eye on Sarah just the same. I
suspected she had stopped taking her medication, as she
sometimes did when she felt it numbed her thinking. Sarah was
bipolar, but she had it under control with the meds. When she
bothered to take them.
Mark Walker was standing beside me, keeping track of a few
thousand wires and tubes while making sure no one wanted coffee.
Mark was a grad student helping us for free because he didn't
have much choice -- that's part of the deal when you enter grad
school. You become a professor's slave for four years or so. You
dot his i's and do the dirty work he doesn't want to do. A great
racket, if you happen to be a professor.
I finished entering the important data and handed Mark the
keyboard. He smiled slightly and took over for me, verifying
computations and that sort of thing. I walked over to Sarah
under the pretense of being some help. "This should be Weed's
last recording gig," Sarah said as she reached over and squeezed
my hand. "Soon the old boy will be a star."
"He won't be the only one," I said, and kissed the top of her
head. She gave me a wonderful smile and returned to her work.
I stood there a bit longer, just looking at her, enjoying her
presence. Being in love can be one of the nicest feelings a
human can experience, but you can count on not getting much done
until you get used to it. And I certainly wasn't used to it. My
life had never been saturated with intimate relationships, for
one reason or another. I had had brief encounters when I was
younger, but I could never master the trick of keeping a
relationship going for more than a few months. So when I found
someone who wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with
them, it looked like I might be able to finally fill that void
in my life. Sarah made each day worth living.
"Whenever you're set, David," she said, leaning back in her
chair. "I'm ready at this end."
I took my place back at the computer terminal as Mark went over
to Weed's tank to check the hook-ups. When he gave the all-clear
sign I started telling the computer what to do.
And what the computer did was record Weed. Every electrical
impulse, every memory imprint, every chemical pattern in his
nervous system was recorded on a special disc whirring like a
small star inside the MRAP. The disc was only a small part of
the MRAP, which stood for Memory Recorder and Playback device.
The MRAP itself was such a marvel that I almost blush to admit
that Sarah and I helped put it together. The process was complex
and irreversible; unlike other forms of recording, the original
did not survive the replication. In that sense it wasn't really
replicating but transferring. We broke Weed's memories, the
essence of his personality and all that made him unique, down
into data more easily stored. If everything worked as predicted,
he would never notice the change. As the laser disc slowed and
stopped, I looked over at the readings for the original Weed in
the tank. No electrical activity was present. None of the memory
chemicals were to be seen. The holographic imprints that had
lived in his brain were gone. All that was left of Weed in the
tank was just so much garbage.
"Play back the disc," I said. Mark carefully removed the disc
from the MRAP, being careful not to touch the shiny surface, and
changed several settings. Eventually the MRAP would do that
itself, but refinements take time. He slid it back into the MRAP
and turned it on.
"He's in there!" shouted Sarah as the memory data flooded across
both my screen and hers. "That beautiful chimp made it!"
"Let's go for broke. I'm starting computer assist," I said. Our
computer-assist program was a translator: it took data from Weed
and created a form of output. It read Weed's memory of himself
and created a hologram to match. It also gave him a voice, not
that Weed would get much out of that.
A ball of static appeared in the air over the holographic
projector. The faint outline of a chimp appeared, its insides
shifting colors like a badly tuned television. Then it snapped
into focus and was, as far as I could tell, a perfect likeness
of a chimpanzee.
"Hello Weed," I typed into the computer. "This is David. How are
you feeling?"
The chimp hologram started gesturing, using the sign language he
had been taught when he still had a body. I saw Sarah smile out
of the corner of my eye and looked at the screen. Weed want
banana, he signed.
"I think it's your turn to feed him," said Sarah, laughing.
Then the world fell apart.
I still remember her laughing. The way her entire face lit up
when she was happy. The way her almond-shaped eyes turned to
thin, dancing lines. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
I know it hurts to remember, but that doesn't make it bad.
The experiment was a success. We still had a bit to do, little
polishings here and there before we wrote up the final research
article for the journals and the press. Neither Sarah nor I
would have made huge sums of money out of the deal, we worked
for the Foundation and any discoveries we made were technically
theirs. But the prestige would send us both into history. Life
could be good sometimes.
And sometimes not.
It was about a week after the recording of Weed's memories when
Sarah slipped into one of her depressive phases. I had seen it
before. Sarah's self-destructive tendencies worried me. She had
mood swings, sometimes drastic ones, and she always became
depressed after a project -- even if it was successful. The
break in the routine seemed to be a trigger. I remember one
time, when she was at one of her lows, staying up all night
listening to her cry. Sometimes she had definite problems that
were beating around in her head, but more often than not it was
just a vague, generalized despair, and that was the worst. She
would sob into my chest and I would hold her, feeling just as
bad with the frustration of knowing there was nothing I could
do. I would have given the world to shoulder her pain myself,
anything to save her from what she went through.
Eventually she would fall asleep, but it would be several more
hours before I could follow her.
I suppose she just grew tired of it. Despair can get old after a
while, that much I've learned.
On a night much like every other night, sometime while I was at
the lab closing up, Sarah managed to get the courage to do what
she must have been thinking about for a long time. With surgical
precision she slit both her wrists. By the time I returned to
the apartment we had been sharing for almost a year, she had
bled to death most efficiently.
Everything that happened next had an almost mechanical feel to
it. The last normal thing I recall doing was throwing open the
bathroom door, expecting to find Sarah in the middle of a bubble
bath. I can still feel the way my face froze in disbelief when I
saw her laying there in the tub, the red water still warm and
her arms draped along the side of the tub. Her eyes were closed
and her face had a calm, almost dreamy expression. If it weren't
for the blood and the criss-crossed cuts on each wrist I would
have sworn she was asleep.
I felt for a pulse, not because I expected to find one, but
because I couldn't think of anything else to do. I kept my hand
on her neck long after I was sure there was nothing there.
Eventually I put my arms around her, sliding her half out of the
tub and myself half in, and rocked her gently in the water. I
sat there in the bathroom, just holding her and sobbing her name
into her wet hair.
Sarah, oh Sarah, what have you done?
A year and a half of shared experiences poured through my head.
The first time we met. The way she had to tell me it was okay to
kiss her that first time. The night we were snowed in at the
University and had to camp out in a classroom. The shared
secrets and midnight promises. The time we both got stinking
drunk and couldn't find our way home. The first time we made
love. The taste of her. The smell of her. The feel of her.
I trusted you, Sarah. I let you past the walls of my heart and
into my most secret of places. I gave you my trust and you do
this to me? How am I supposed to live without you? How am I
supposed to go on with no one to love? What about the future we
could have had? What about the life we could have had? You can't
go, Sarah! I love you!
And then, like a door opening into the darkest corners of my
mind, I knew what I had to do. I knew a way to bring her back.
If it worked for Weed, it would work for Sarah.
Getting Sarah's body to the lab was my first problem, and that
one proved the easiest. First I drained the tub and washed her.
It wouldn't do to leave any trails of blood. With luck, no one
need ever know she had died. I could always come up with an
explanation for her disappearance later.
I taped the wounds on her wrists with electrical tape and
carried her from the tub to the bedroom. She was a small woman,
so I had no difficulty placing her on the bed and wrapping her
in the sheets, but when I was almost done I had to stop and look
at her. So many jumbled thoughts clamored around in my head, but
none of them would focus enough to make sense. The pain I was
feeling welled up and threatened to wash me away. My vision
blurred and I thought I was going to fall, but I clamped down on
my emotions and switched back over to whatever automatic pilot
was managing to keep my limbs moving. I pulled the sheets over
Sarah and made sure they wouldn't come undone. I had no trouble
getting her into the back seat of my car -- it was three in the
morning on a Tuesday, so there wasn't much of an audience. Even
if there had been someone out at that time, I doubt if anyone
would have cared enough to wonder about the large white bundle
the good professor kept talking to. Possibly ten years ago, but
not now. The only real problem occurred when I reached the lab
and found Mark still there.
Under different circumstances I might have tried some shrewd
plan of misdirection and hustling in order to get him to leave.
But, as I sat in the car looking at the bright windows of the
lab, with Sarah draped across the back seat, no inspiration
came. Nothing even remotely clever. So I once again turned
myself over to the autopilot and slipped a good sized wrench
from under the seat into my back pocket. I didn't know if I was
going to use it, but I thought bringing it would be a good idea.
I picked Sarah up and carried her into the lab.
Mark looked up from the table where he was working, a little
startled. He started to smile and stopped, his eyes moving from
my face to the bundle in my arms. We stared at each other, him
with his pen suspended centimeters from his notes and his face
thoughtful, me like a marble statue, my face stuck in neutral.
He suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing and put the pen
down, making more of a production about it than was necessary
but keeping his eyes on Sarah and me.
"I didn't expect you back tonight, Dr. Hammond," he said slowly.
When I didn't answer, he continued, "That's not what I think it
is, is it?"
"It depends what you think it is," I said, walking forward.
"It looks like a body wrapped in a sheet," he said, not quite
sure if he was joking or not.
"Then it's what it looks like, Mark. I hope that doesn't alarm
you."
Mark opened his mouth as if to say something, but changed his
mind. He just watched as I put Sarah on top of one of the larger
tables, still wrapped up. "Would I be far off base to guess that
this isn't something the University has okayed?" he asked.
"No. Nor the Foundation. This is something that just came up.
Would you help me move this table closer to the tank?"
For a second I thought Mark would bolt for the door, and I was
tensed for it. I probably would have killed him. But he had
always been a nice kid, so maybe I would have recorded him too.
But after grinding his teeth, he got up and helped me with the
table.
"Is it anyone I know?" he asked as we lifted the table. He was
trying to make his voice sound casual, but we both knew he was
failing. I don't think he knew it was Sarah, but I'm sure he
knew it wasn't some cadaver from the Medical School.
"Yes," I answered simply. He almost dropped the table, but we
had it where I wanted it anyway."It's Sarah. She killed herself
tonight and I'm going to bring her back."
"Jesus Christ in a wheelbarrow! Dr. Yuen? You want to record Dr.
Yuen?" He took a step backwards.
I put one hand on the wrench and tried to look relaxed. "I don't
have a choice, Mark. She's dead. She slit her wrists and she's
dead."
"Shit," he said and ran both hands through his hair. He seemed
unable to come up with anything better to say so he said it
again. "Shit."
"I'm doing it because I need her, Mark. But think of the
implications, for science and for you. Weed was impressive, but
he was just a monkey. The first recording of a human's memories,
of a human's personality, will put us into historic immortality.
You think Freud is important, Mark? He wasn't even a good
scientist. All he did was come up with unprovable theories. You
and I can shake the world."
Mark was quiet. I knew he was thinking it through, trying to
talk himself into it. Granted, it was a bit odd, but Mark was a
struggling graduate student in psychology trying desperately to
make a name for himself. The payoff could be staggering for him.
"What about the police? This has got to be against the law."
"We didn't kill her, Mark," I said as I unwrapped Sarah,
carefully placing the sheet on the table like a tablecloth.
"She'll even be able to tell the police that once we're
finished."
"I don't know, Dr. Hammond. I don't think I can do it."
"We won't have to do her the same way we did Weed. We stripped
him down to the bare essentials because we didn't have the
experience we have now. We couldn't keep his entire body from
decomposing while we experimented. But we won't have to...to
damage Sarah," I finished, a little uncertain. Mark knew what I
meant by "damage" -- neither one of us thought we could cut
Sarah open and remove her nervous system. But we wouldn't have
to. We wouldn't even have to put her in the tank. "Please, Mark.
I could use your help."
He looked at Sarah and then at me.
"Hello Sarah, how do you feel?" My hands were shaking as I
watched the holographic image of her form in the middle of the
room. It had been necessary to remove a portion of Sarah's skull
to get some of the probes in place and that hadn't been easy.
Mark was almost as pale as I was but he was mercifully covering
the body with the sheet. When he finished he silently moved over
to the other terminal to watch what happened.
The holo of Sarah snapped into focus and I thought I would cry
again. She was wearing baggy jeans and her favorite brown
sweater, the way she dressed when we were alone and casual. She
looked around, giving the impression that she could see what was
going on. I knew that was an illusion. She no longer had much in
the way of stimulus input, just the computer and the MRAP.
"David? Is that you? Where are you?" she said, with help from
the computer. It was uncanny how good the voice was.
"Yes, this is David. I'm here. You've had an accident, but don't
worry about it. You'll get better."
She flipped the hair out of her eyes and moved slightly in place
as if her feet were getting tired. "What kind of accident,
David? The last thing I remember was... no. You didn't."
"Don't get excited, Sarah. I'll take care of you."
Sarah sat down in a non-existent chair, which frightened me for
a moment. Either the computer was trying to be inventive or
Sarah was actually seeing and responding to something in her
mind. "You did it, didn't you? Yes, that must be it. I couldn't
see anything at first, but my vision is clearing slowly. Only
it's not really my vision, is it?"
"I'm not sure," I typed. "What do you think I did?"
"You recorded me, didn't you."
"Yes. I had to. You killed yourself."
"That's what I thought," she sighed. "The last memory I have
is...starting. Everything else must not have made it out of my
short-term memory. I can almost see you now, David. That's
pretty strange, I shouldn't be seeing anything at all, should
I?"
"No, you shouldn't be seeing anything. Maybe the computer is
adjusting for you. It adds to your memories as well as plays
them back."
Sarah blinked twice and looked like she was trying to focus on
something. "Maybe. But I doubt we're where I see we are. We'd
probably have to be in the lab, I'm in our apartment. It could
be my brain making something out of nothing. Only I don't really
have a brain anymore."
"You don't have the actual organ, but that doesn't matter. The
organ is a vessel and a recorder, just like the disc and the
MRAP. All that makes you up is still there."
"I'm not sure about that, David. Are you? Is this all I am? All
I ever was?"
"Personality is a product of memory. You know that."
Sarah was quiet, her image looking thoughtful. I wished I could
see what she was seeing. I wanted desperately to touch her
again. "I can see you now. You're sitting across from me on the
bed, wearing those silly bear feet slippers. You shouldn't have
done it, David. You shouldn't have done this to me."
"I had to." I wondered if she could feel the pain in those words
and wished I could speak them to her. "I love you. I need you,
Sarah."
She smiled gently and stood up. "I know you do, David. That's
what made it so hard to kill myself, even with all the pain I
was feeling. But it was too much," she said as she walked to the
limit of the projector. She seemed to be looking at me, but I
knew what she was seeing was her illusion of me just as I was
seeing my illusion of her. "I wanted to die. I needed to die."
"We can work it out. We always have in the past."
"No, we never worked it out. We just put it off. The only
solution I could live with was the one that killed me. It was my
decision, David. No one twisted my arm."
"Sarah, please. We can do so much together."
She smiled again. "I don't think you've thought this through.
What can we do together? I'm a disc, David. And I belong to the
Foundation now. I wish things were different. I wish I were
different. But I'm not."
I put my head in my hands. I could feel the tears again, and
this time I let them come.
"You know what you need to do," she said.
"You want me to destroy the disc, don't you?"
"Yes. It was nice to be able to say good-bye to you David. I
didn't think I'd have that chance. But it's time for me to die
again."
"It will mean my killing you, Sarah. I don't think I can do
that."
"Don't think of it as killing me, David. I did that. You're just
sending me back where I had intended to go anyway."
"There's another problem. I had Mark help me and I don't want
him to go to jail for this."
Sarah looked surprised. "Then you didn't find my note? It's on
my desk. It should do the trick."
"A note. I didn't even think to look." I stared at the screen.
"This hurts more than anything."
"I know it does, David. I'm sorry."
"I love you, Sarah. I'll always love you." I reached for her
outstretched hand and passed right through it, as I knew I
would. She hugged something I couldn't see and stayed in that
position while I fit myself into the empty space. It was almost
like the real thing. "I loved you too, David. Be strong. Do what
you have to."
I nodded to Mark as I stood there, hugging Sarah, and he turned
off the MRAP and the projector and left me hugging air. But then
I'd really been hugging air all along, hadn't I?
"Will you be okay?" asked Mark.
"I don't think so," I said. He put his arm around me and led me
to my chair. "Does it ever get better?" I asked him, as if he
had the answer. "Does it ever stop hurting?"
"I'm told it does," he said, "But I've never known it to happen.
It just gets so you can live with it."
We sat there for what seemed like hours, saying nothing.
Eventually I got up and went over to the MRAP. My finger hovered
over the button that would erase Sarah forever.
After a time I pushed the button.
Christopher O'Kennon (psy3cho@atlas.vcu.edu)
----------------------------------------------
Is a freelance writer living in Richmond, Virginia. He has been
published in several newspapers and magazines (where, he
reports, he has managed to enrage both the Henrico Police
Department and the U.S. Navy). He spent two years working in a
psychiatric hospital, which altered his outlook on life quite a
bit.
FYI
=====
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