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InterText Vol 05 No 02
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InterText Vol. 5, No. 2 / March-April 1995
==========================================
Contents
FirstText: A Past and Future on the Internet......Jason Snell
SecondText: Ready For My Hotlink, Mr. De Mille...Geoff Duncan
Need to Know: From Paper to the Internet..........Jason Snell
Short Fiction
21st Century Dreamtime_..........................Steven Thorn_
Nothing, Not a Thing_.............................Sung J. Woo_
Flying Toasters_...................................Ken Kousen_
Josie_.........................................Marcus Eubanks_
Skin the Color of Blood_....................M. Stanley Bubien_
The Spirits We Know_..........................William Trapman_
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@etext.org gaduncan@halcyon.com
....................................................................
Assistant Editor Send subscription requests, story
Susan Grossman submissions, and correspondence
to intertext@etext.org
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 5, No. 2. 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 1995, Jason Snell.
Individual stories Copyright 1995 their original authors.
InterText is created using Apple Macintosh computers and then
published in Adobe PostScript, Setext (ASCII), Adobe Acrobat PDF
and World Wide Web/HTML formats. For more information about
InterText, send a message to intertext@etext.org with the word
"info" in the subject line. For writers guidelines, place the
word "guidelines" in the subject line.
....................................................................
FirstText: A Past and Future on the Internet by Jason Snell
===============================================================
In looking back at the 23 issues of InterText that precede this
one, I've discovered that just about every FirstText column I
write seems to be discussing our anniversary. In the issue
before our anniversary, I would write that our anniversary was
coming up. The anniversary issue itself would include a column
recounting how InterText began, a story I've probably told a
half-dozen times in these pages by now. The issue after our
anniversary, I'd spend some time ruminating on the fact that we
had just had an anniversary. By my rough calculations, this
means that half of my FirstText columns have discussed our
anniversary.
Suffice it to say that this issue marks our fourth anniversary,
which seems like no time at all and an eternity at the same
time. In March of 1991 the online world seemed to be a small
place -- not geographically, because before we published our
first issue we were an international publication, thanks to the
subscription list we inherited from Jim McCabe's magazine
_Athene_. InterText was created because I had decided that
without my initiative, there wouldn't be any magazine for people
writing fiction online to publish in except for _Quanta_, which
limited itself to science fiction. These days, a fellow named
John Labovitz spends untold hours updating his extremely large
"E-Zine List," wherein you can find online publications covering
just about every subject imaginable. And a large number of print
publications are now online, from Ziff-Davis' slew of computer
magazines to Time Warner publications like _Time_ and
_Entertainment Weekly_ to the (often painfully) techno-hip
_Wired_.
In our early days, few people besides college students and
researchers had heard of the Internet. Now magazines devote
cover space and untold thousands of words to every aspect of the
Internet. At first, my parents thought InterText was some silly
hobby I'd outgrow before I left college. Now my father pulls me
aside to talk about the concept of authenticating Digital Cash
over the Internet.
A glance at our mailing list database (still updated by hand,
though in the past two months I've automated the process
somewhat) also paints a picture of how the Net has changed.
Early entries (relics of _Athene_) are bare BITnet addresses.
Entries nowadays are more likely to come from domains like
aol.com or prodigy.com. Our "notification" distribution list,
most often used by people with FTP or World-Wide Web access,
started at a few dozen but now inches closer to 1,000 every day.
And as online services like America Online, CompuServe, eWorld,
Microsoft Network, AT&T's Interchange, Prodigy, and Delphi creep
out further into the Net (customers of most of these services
will be on the Web by the end of 1995), the size and complexion
of the online world will change even more.
You get my drift. In just four years, there have been incredible
changes in the electronic world around InterText. The question
is, what place does InterText have in the wider world of the
Net?
I'm no visionary. I can't answer that question. But the
philosophy I take with me into our fifth year of publication is
this: InterText is here to provide a place for readers to find
good fiction, as well as a place for writers to publish good
fiction. If the changing attitude of the Net toward commercial
endeavors means some form of sponsorship will allow us to pay
our writers, then all the better. But even if nothing changes,
InterText sports a large readership (many small-press magazines
reach only a few hundred subscribers), a _broad_ readership (we
have readers on all six populated continents), and a selective
editorial process. Like print publications, InterText is
particular about what we publish. We accept only a small
fraction of the stories we're sent, and the stories we _do_
publish are carefully edited before they reach readers. That's
good news for readers, but it's also good for writers: it means
being published in InterText says something. "Selling" a story
to us isn't the same as selling a story to
_Fantasy & Science Fiction_, but it means more than posting your
story to alt.prose for all the world to ignore.
There's a lot of good short fiction out there, but a very
limited number of places to find it (if you're a reader) or sell
it (if you're a writer). InterText is, as it was four years ago,
in the business of providing you with good reading. We'd like to
think we've learned a lot in four years, and we feel our issues
are much better now than they were in 1991. And as the Net
expands, the quality of InterText should improve along with it.
Beyond that, I have no predictions. The Net will keep changing,
and we'll have to change with it. We have no illusions that
we're the only game in town, but we've been playing the game a
(relatively) long time,and we've managed to be flexible in
reacting to changes in the online world.
Thanks for being with us, and a special thanks to those of you
who've been here since the very beginning -- you know who you
are.
Now I've said my piece. No more talk of anniversaries from me --
I _promise_ -- until next year.
SecondText: I'm Ready For My Hotlink, Mr. De Mille by Geoff Duncan
======================================================================
As Jason Snell notes in his column, this issue of InterText
marks the beginning of our fifth year of publication. As things
go in the online world that doesn't make us antique, but it's
still a respectable track record. Of course, for the moment, the
numbers happen to work out in our favor: remember when you were
four years old and bragged you were _twice_ as old as that brat
down the street? At that age, those two years difference were
proportionately significant -- and therefore worth bragging
about.
Now bear with me.
During its life so far, InterText has managed to grow and build
a modicum of credibility. We receive a fair bit of mail from
people and organizations looking for advice on starting
electronic publications, the subscription list has steadily
grown, and while Jason and I used to (virtually) jump up and
down each time the name appeared in print or we received a
request for an interview, we're not nearly so rabid about it
these days. InterText has acquired its own momentum. It's an
interesting feeling when I see a news posting asking about
online fiction and someone has already directed them to
InterText. We'd like to think we've been improving our quality,
we've managed to keep perhaps the most consistent publication
schedule of the online fiction magazines, and with our first
theme issue (May-June 1994), we somehow pulled off a project
that's really yet to be equaled in the online fiction world.
(And speaking of that world, the number and quality of other
fiction magazines on the nets has grown rapidly in the last
year, with some noteworthy newcomers. Welcome aboard!)
That said, now that the World-Wide Web has become the hula hoop
of the online world, all manner of commercial publishers are
setting up Web sites. The majority remind me of movie sets,
where what looks like a building is just a plywood facade
waiting for a good breeze. Most offer big, slow-to-download
graphics, maybe a phone number or e-mail contact, and those
ubiquitous "under construction" signs. But we're also seeing
big-name hype 'n` tripe sites that offer info-candy and Internet
hucksterism. A classic example was Paramount's site for the
movie "Star Trek Generations" (now, thankfully, taken down).
Another is the _Star Trek: Voyager_ site they've replaced it
with. Look -- you can download QuickTime movies of television
commercials! Too cool. Similarly, is it really worth pulling
down over a megabyte of data just to listen to William Gibson
reading the first few paragraphs of _Neuromancer_ (preceded, of
course, by some synth sounds and female moaning -- er, singing
-- which I guess serves as an audio version of a Boris Vallejo
dust jacket). While these items might have some appeal for truly
die-hard fans, I think I'm safe in saying their contribution to
the public good is somewhat... limited.
As commercial media conglomerates plug into the nets, they're
relying on conservative, tried-and-true marketing methodologies
to get attention, with little obvious understanding of the
online world. They're using "star power" to pull people into
their sites. A number of sites have set themselves up as the
"only" authoritative source on various subjects, some in blatant
contradiction of one another. And they don't necessarily know
what they're doing: in about 10 minutes, I managed to find three
sites claiming to have the "first" novel ever serialized on the
nets. Sure -- and I'm Elvis's love child.
Star power is a natural technique to use, especially since
publishers already own copious rights to that material. But
their manipulations are often incredibly obvious. You think Mick
and the Boys have been writing tunes via e-mail for years? I'll
bet dollars to donuts the Rolling Stones never saw a Unix prompt
before some wanna-be digital hipster in their PR machine thought
online promotion might be a good idea. For the most part, these
concerns seem to think of the nets as another drop in the bucket
of media saturation.
But there's a fundamental difference in the star power these
companies use and the "fame" of the nets. People are "famous" on
the nets because they've contributed something significant to
network communities or network culture. A lot of things can do
it: social activities, being an archiver or moderator, writing
software, or simply having been in the right place at the right
time. And some people are infamous on the nets, often for
similar reasons.
That's why I'm tired of being told I should be _excited_ about
these sites, and why I'm tired of hearing how _innovative_ they
think they are. There are huge numbers of creative, insightful
people who've been out here online for years. Some of these
people do extraordinary work. InterText brings you a small --
no, a tiny -- selection of those people every other month. I'm
sorry, but QuickTime movies of William Shatner just don't
compare. If these companies are going to promote online, they're
going to have to understand how "fame" is works online before
they get any of my bandwidth. They're going to have to
_contribute_.
Yes, fame is relative in the online world: someone who's a net
god in one context is an uncouth newbie in another. But fame is
relative in the real world too: my parents haven't the slightest
clue who Mick Jagger might be. And you know what? Famous people
on the nets have been out here two times, four times, five times
-- even 20 times -- longer than Mick Jagger. Really. Just check
the numbers.
21st Century Dreamtime by Steven Thorn
==========================================
...................................................................
A riddle: what do an ex-astronaut, an Australian aborigine, a
giant stone sphere, and the planet Mars have in common?
...................................................................
The sphere -- my sphere -- is built of stone, cut and measured
orange sandstone blocks, washed through with yellows and reds,
desert pastels, all cemented together with a flaking resinous
substance the color of dried blood.
Over four meters in diameter, it rests in a bowl-shaped
depression on a cliff. A meandering offshoot of the East
Alligator River flows, murky brown and sluggish, a hundred
meters below.
I found the sphere when I left Darwin nearly four months ago in
the olive land-cruiser that now stands, wedged nose-first in a
crack that zig-zags halfway across the jutting promontory.
The little I've learned of the sphere these past few months
leaves me increasingly puzzled. It clearly predates white
settlement, yet its construction would have required advanced
tools and mathematics that the aborigines didn't possess.
Architecturally it seems related to the spiral minaret of
Samarra -- which I have never seen -- and the Martian Helix,
which I have. The stones are largest around the sphere's
equator, and from there diminish upward and downward in spirals
that end at the poles with pyramidal keystones. A circular
opening in its southern hemisphere, though only a meter high,
serves as the entrance.
It was through this entrance I would crawl each painted evening,
returning from the river gorges that fragment this land as if,
long ago, it was made of thick glass that had been shattered by
a rain of hammer blows. I would moor my three-meter aluminum
dinghy on the rocky beach below the cliff, rope together the
crocodile carcasses hunted during the day, and walk up the
narrow ledge that led to the top. Then, using the hand winch on
the rear of the four-wheel drive, I'd haul the heavy saurians up
and prepare them for Kundullajapininni, the enigmatic aboriginal
who guts and tans them. Then the skins are ready for sale to
representatives of exclusive French and Italian fashion houses.
It's a lucrative, though illegal, business.
"What do you know about the sphere?" I asked him one star-fired
moonless evening as we contemplated our first month's profits
and the flickering campfire, and got drunk together.
"Maybe it's _tjuringa_ for modern civilization. Maybe it's more
personal than that," he said and laughed, his voice becoming as
quiet as shifting sands, as deep flowing waters.
"Churinga? What's that?"
"Here." He threw a small stone to me, spiral-lined and colored
much like the sphere. "A tjuringa for you, Spaceman."
"This is the Mars rock I gave you. You've carved it."
He opened his eyes wide, his teeth lit red by the fire, his pale
palms weaving patterns in the darkness.
I studied the churinga while listening to the flow of his
voice.
"You found the rock and it found you, so it is ever yours,
Spaceman."
Rough gritty stone, perfectly spherical.
"Your tjuringa is the home of your spirit, a map of the
pattern of your life."
Spiralling up and down, an impossibly continuous line, feeling
it in conjunction with the minute variations on the stone's
surface -- an impossible minute braille, sending electric
thrills up my fingertips, lighting haunted images, memories, in
my mind.
"Accept this. Sing with me, `medicine man' of the `people
descended from the spirits of the sky.' Sing with me. Become
spirit brother of sun and moon, planets and stars. Sing with
me."
And he began a chant, deep and resonant, that seared me to the
bone.
"No!" I said bitterly, interrupting. "I hate the stars, the
planets of the stars."
He chuckled then. "Oh well. `Destinies once set can scarce be
broken, but by the hand of death.'" A vaguely familiar
quotation. "Don't repeat the words `medicine man' or `people
descended from the spirits of the sky' to anyone." He had used
the aboriginal words for those. "They are secret, sacred,
_tabu_. It would be best if you forgot them."
After an uncertain silence, punctuated by the fire's crackling
and the taste of whiskey, I said, "I'm sorry I couldn't accept."
I offered the churinga. "It's just... just the past."
"No. What I have said holds true in any case. The tjuringa is
ever yours. What happened to you, to the Mars Project? Why did
it end?"
"Madness. I can't say. My secrets. My tabu."
"Ah well. Greater powers shape our lives than either of our
societies' primitive rituals." He often mocked his own culture
when we drank together. He had been born tribal, had attended
the Australian National University (as had the medicine men of
the last three generations of his tribe), and graduated with
honors in medicine and philosophy. That's where he had been
nicknamed K.J.
And that was the only time he answered my questions about the
sphere with anything other than a strange look or a muttered
aboriginal word. He was, to me, as mysterious as the sphere
itself.
I was outside cracking the empty blue dawn with rifle fire when
the autogiro appeared, a distant whirring insect, in my
crosshairs. Coke cans and bottles exploded off the
bullet-riddled hulk of the land cruiser as I let loose with the
rifle. They lay scattered and ruined, fragments in the dirt like
yesterday's forgotten dreams and remembered failures.
Harris, the Yank, and Kate.
I pulled the rim of the gray Akubra I was wearing over my eyes,
protecting them from the dust swirling up as the 'giro swept in
and came to rest just beyond the upturned land cruiser.
As I walked over to meet them, I reloaded the Ruger. They hopped
out and walked toward me, Kate in jeans and white singlet, as
beautiful as ever, Harris in a gray business suit, sweating even
though the sun had not yet broken the horizon, grinning broadly
with patent American insincerity.
"You're up early," I said as they hesitated. I slung the rifle
over my shoulder. "How did you find me?"
Harris answered, "That aboriginal pal of yours said to follow
the East Alligator River 'til we saw a patch of red desert in
the middle of the jungle. He came into Darwin last week, sold
some gator hides to a friend of mine."
"Crocodile skins," I corrected.
"Croc, gator, what the hell." He grinned again.
"So you found me. Why?"
"I was worried about you, Mark," said Kate. Harris slid his arm
around her waist. Something between jealousy and hatred rose in
my throat. I swallowed it.
"Going off on walkabout like that, not telling anyone. Thought
you damned well killed yourself." Their eyes -- his blue, hers
gray -- wandered over the land-cruiser.
"Unfortunately, I didn't damn well kill myself. You shouldn't
have bothered coming here." I regretted saying it immediately,
because Kate frowned and I realized she probably thought so too.
I _did_ want her to stay. I could put up with Harris and the
emotions I thought I'd purged through rifle fire, alcohol and
solitude, for just a few hours with Kate.
We had met one year after the Mars Project ended, with my three
months of isolation finished and six months of rehabilitation
ahead of me. We had been together for two years before coming to
Darwin trying to trace the origins of a unique aboriginal
artifact I'd bought, cheaply, at an auction in Brisbane.
It was cheap because most doubted its authenticity; two spheres,
one slightly larger than the other, connected by a helix, carved
out of a single piece of a dark, hard fined-grained wood.
Aboriginal? Unlikely, said the assayers.
A strange, geometrically perfect scepter or club.
Strange to me because it summoned images, memories: through
filtering glass, a blood-red, rock-strewn plain. Towering, twin
spirals connected by sets of three bars 10 meters in length,
each set indefinably patterned. Two vac-suited figures
approaching from left and right. We form the points of a
diminishing triangle around the Martian Helix.
Then... not even a scream. Static. Two vac-suits rippling as
though the bodies within are turning inside-out. A blackness,
consuming, feeling more like burning incandescent light. The
image faded. I bought the scepter.
At Kate's suggestion we presented the Heritage Foundation with
the artifact, and they presented us with a substantial research
grant. After all, an anomic ex-astronaut can gain the kind of
sympathy and publicity that cuts through the usual red tape, and
an ex-astro's pension isn't that generous.
I loved her then. I loved her when she left me for Harris five
months ago. I loved her now.
"Mark, are you still so serious, so dramatic about
everything?" she asked.
Was I? I looked to the ground, where I was unconsciously tracing
a circle in the red dirt with the toe of my boot. Were the
powerful emotions that ran through me, that had motivated me
since the end of my rehabilitation, just shallow melodrama?
I caused several ugly, embarrassing scenes during that last
month in Darwin after Kate left me, and in a moment of clarity
in the midst of a dizzying hangover, I stocked the land cruiser
and left so my self-pity, bitter jealousy and anger wouldn't
taint Kate's newfound happiness. A selfless act, I thought, a
brave act of self-sacrifice for the woman I loved. Or, as I
thought later in moments of drunken melancholy, the actions of
an immature, emotionally self-indulgent, unsophisticated
romantic fool.
Shallow melodrama? Only to those who lack a deeper sense of
feeling, of understanding.
"Come on, Mark, lighten up. Let's talk things over. I've got a
case of beer and a few quarts of Chivas in the 'giro." said
Harris.
"Bring the scotch." I said, forcing a weak smile. He grinned and
ducked back into the cab, then came out, still grinning, a
bottle in his hand. Harris couldn't be that bad -- after all,
Kate loved him, or at least thought she did.
"Weird place," Kate said as we passed the strange monument of
the land cruiser, with its bullet-riddled panels, dusted all
around with the jewels of broken glass and torn Coke cans, the
rope from the hand winch vanishing into the gorge, and the wide
bowl with its curious globe. My monuments to possibility and
enigma.
"What is it?" asked Kate as we approached.
"I don't really know. But you know what it's related to, don't
you?" Kate touched her fingertips gently to the surface of the
sphere, and a thrill rushed through me. I watched her intensely,
edging between her and Harris.
"The scepter and the Helix." Kate had shared my obsession, had
become part of it. Maybe that was why I felt so hurt, so bitter
and betrayed -- I had shared part of my delicately restructured
soul with her. I placed my palm on the sphere close to her's,
felt myself rocked by another emotional charge.
"I know the abs didn't build it, but it's too old to have been
built by whites. I had a piece radiometrically dated and though
that's only accurate up to a point, it dates back to the early
paleolithic. No one's ever really explored this land properly,
dug down to where its secrets are buried. There's been ages
enough for a dozen civilizations to have flourished and died out
here. Died without a trace. There's a lot of paradoxes, I know,
but...."
I was again sharing my obsession with her. This was something
between us, something that excluded Harris. If Kate had any
ideas on the subject, she kept them to herself. Had I raved too
fervently? Did I stare too intensely? Obviously she doubted
everything I said and probably thought I was mad, otherwise she
would have believed in the connection between the Helix and the
scepter. Wasn't the sphere further proof?
"Looks like a crummy model of Mars," said Harris, reaching
between Kate and me, pulling her hand from its intimate study of
the texture of the sphere.
I crawled into the cool interior, followed by Kate, then Harris.
I lit the gas lamp; hissing and flickering, it revealed the
incongruous evidence of human habitation: a small gas-powered
refrigerator; the back seat of the land cruiser, neatly covered
in blankets; stacked and fallen paperbacks; Coke cans; tinned
food; an albino crocodile's hide; bullets and bottles all
pointing to the center of the floor as if by some curious
magnetism; folded canvas chairs and two rifles leaning by the
entrance.
I placed the Ruger with the other rifles and unfolded the
chairs, while Harris and Kate puzzled at the unsettling,
baffling effect of the interior of the sphere. Everything
leaning at crazy angles and the illusory impact of spinning
created by both the spiral pattern of the bricks, and the swirls
and whorls in the colors of the stone, a chaos of indefinable
pattern, giddied and disturbed them.
"Ice?" I asked as they sat, relieved, their sight now distracted
by mundane things, though with that ever-wheeling universe
fluttering on the edges of vision and consciousness.
Both nodded, I passed them glasses and sat myself. Harris poured
the scotch, spilling it at first, again tricked by the angles.
"It fills to just above the entrance in the rainy season -- you
can see the water line. So I'll have to..." I was going to say
I'd have to come back to Darwin soon anyway, but I stopped,
because it occurred to me that the whole depressing situation
had caught up with me again. I gulped the scotch, picked up the
bottle and poured another. I sat avoiding Kate's eyes, avoiding
my own reflection in the bottom of the glass.
Harris eventually broke the silence. "A friend of mine'd pay a
fortune if we could dismantle this thing and ship it to the
U.S." I decided to argue with him, score some points off him in
Kate's eyes.
"That's all you Yanks do, exploit and plunder everything you get
your hands on. No wonder half the rock paintings have been
chiselled off the walls since the tourist invasion. You bastards
think you own the place."
"As a matter of fact, we almost do," he said, face flushed with
anger. We'd been friends once, for a while in Darwin. I don't
think he understood why I was attacking him. "I just leased the
mineral rights from the tribal council. It's no worse than what
you're doing -- illegally killing the wildlife."
"The government makes it illegal or legal at the drop of a hat.
Anyway, hunting's man's work. It's not double-talking the abs
out of their land by bribing crooked government officials. You
think you can buy anything with your all-powerful bloody Yankee
dollar."
"I can, and I have," he said quietly.
"Will you two please stop arguing," Kate said. Harris and I both
looked at her. She turned to him and, whispering something,
caressed his shoulder the way she used to caress mine. He
grinned. I burned.
I stood, kicking back the canvas chair, and smashed the glass in
my hand against the wall. Fragments.
"You Yanks are such hot shit? Let's see what you can do. I'm
going hunting -- either come with me or piss off." I grabbed the
Ruger, then picked up the Winchester and tossed it violently at
Harris. He caught it, accepting the challenge.
The sun burned behind the sphere now, filaments of light spread
and danced around its silhouette. We stood trapped between the
deep blue bowl of sky, the red cracked dish of land, the
green-brown shimmering horizon, in the black shadow cast by this
unlikely eclipse. Forgotten satellites on collision courses, our
converging orbits hidden in emptiness.
We walked down into the still-cool shadow of the gorge,
cancerous cells corrupting the land's veins. Harris jumped into
the dinghy, Kate hesitated.
"Let's just leave, Harris, please!" She said as if I couldn't
hear. "The sphere, the desert, they've driven him insane." The
words fell dead on my ears. Nothing more could penetrate the
armor of my inner turmoil.
"No," said Harris.
I pushed and the dinghy slid into the water, stones grating on
the smooth hull. I jumped in, rocking it, and ripped the cord.
The outboard screamed as I over-revved, and we roared off
dangerously, our wake lapping the corrugated walls of the gorge.
Kate screamed. Harris shouted, "Slow down, goddamn you! Slow
down!" Echoes bellowed through the chasm as I cut the engine,
not wishing to endanger Kate. Did I love her? Did I hate her?
The dinghy slewed around a crooked elbow bend and clanged
against the cliff wall.
"Look," I said, "There's no need to worry. I know these rivers
like the lines in my palm."
"Just take it easy, OK?" Harris said, then mumbled, "Damn, I
should've brought the scotch."
"OK. OK. A slow ride," I said, placating them. I knew where to
head. The crocs would be moving downstream now, disturbed by the
noise and shocked water. They knew when death was around, and
would move away from it.
Slowly now, like bored, discomfited tourists, we broke from
shadowy black water to where the sunlight sparkled on green.
Up ahead I saw bubble trails break the surface, signalling crocs
underwater. I held the throttle at a dull throb, herding the
beasts up a dead-end canal. Cliffs loomed above us, silent,
watchful.
Harris sprang up and rapidly fired three wild shots, dangerously
rocking the dinghy. Reverberations pounded back and forth like
the cliff's rumbling anger.
"I saw one! A dark shadow under the water," Harris said,
pointing with the rifle at the refuting water.
"Get down, you idiot," I said. "Don't stand up in the dinghy."
Harris sat, still peering into the water. The crocs would be
moving faster now, as death came closer. A dark stream clouded
the green-gold water and Harris smiled.
"I hit one," he said.
"Don't shoot at 'em if they're under the surface."
"Why?" he asked, a puzzled look on his face.
"Because if you don't kill it with one shot, it's likely to leap
out of the water and kill you." He grinned and laughed. I did
too, though for different reasons. Kate sat quietly, frightened,
or at least apprehensive.
We drifted into the lagoon that ended this canal. I cut the
engine and felt my heart quicken to the rhythm of the water,
thick with growth, that slapped and dragged at the boat. Lily
pads smothered the surface, hid the depths. Gently swaying bull
rushes fringed the sides. Dark algae crawled up the walls,
coated the black wood that lay like the rotting corpse of some
forgotten giant: fallen boulders against the far cliff his
knobby skull; sharp stone ridges the bared bones of his broken,
hollow rib cage; dead gum trees his skeletal hands clawing
opposite sides of his grave; one knee, a stone arch lifting from
the water, the other the snapped trunk of a once enormous tree;
the bones of his feet a series of stone pillars that thrust from
the water on each side of the entrance.
All clothed in glaucous algae, ragged swathes of dead brown
weeds and bilious hanging moss: his torn and festering flesh.
Buzzing clouds of insects rose and fell feasting on decaying
vegetation.
This macabre apparition, the stagnation, the slow pulsation of
the water, and the beat of a death chant filled me with despair,
recalling my love, now dead, corrupted by a cancerous hatred and
putrid jealousy that I had fed with self-pity until malignant.
Now it pulsed within me, an adamantine fist clenching my
withered heart. Harris and Kate sat quiet, oblivious to the
vision.
Rushes to our left suddenly rustled. Harris fired as a dark
shape slid into the water. Screeching birds flocked away over
the cliff's edge. One remained, however -- a cawing crow in the
tangled branches of a swollen boabab tree above the giant's
skull, the highest point of the escarpment. I aimed my rifle at
it, and, still cawing, it flapped lazily away.
"Here," I said handing an oar to Harris, "paddle us up to that
rock."
"I thought you said there'd be some crocs?" Harris said,
snorting, as the dinghy nosed into the skull's half-submerged
eyesocket. I stepped onto the boulder and pointed to the lily
pads closing over our wake. "Look."
He stood and turned as dark menacing eyes, long snouts and
serrated backs surfaced. They seemed to watch us with a cool,
appraising intelligence.
Then Harris fired, spasms of irrational fear shook him, and he
fell backward into the water.
A four-meter croc slashed forward toward Harris, screaming and
thrashing in the water. Another surfaced and snapped as Harris
got a grip on the boat's edge. Kate screamed and shouted Harris'
name.
I think I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes, but I shot
the crocodile behind Harris as he hung halfway in the dinghy,
then felt the crunching and tugging at my leg. I fell and
started sliding down into the water.
Strangely, I was cool and calm, the pain in my leg seemed a
distant remembered pain. Overhead, a crow circled and laughed. A
flaming crescent sun broke the edge of the escarpment, a dark
shape stood silhouetted there. I heard a booming, felt water
cover my face, felt hands grip mine and felt no more.
Blurred memories: the boat slicing through water; the sky framed
by cliffs; Kate crying; Harris somber and silent, and K.J.
muttering and bandaging my foot?
The autogiro, a crow flying into the white hot disk of sun.
Darwin below, a strange circuit board. Waking in Darwin Base
Hospital, a searing pain in my left foot that was no longer
there.
After a month in hospital, another in rehab, against my doctor's
recommendation I left Darwin. I saw Kate the day before I left.
She was going to the U.S. with Harris. She thanked me for saving
his life. Is that what I did? And said he had deposited 20 thou
in my account and promised more. He had signed over the 'giro to
me as well. She said something about her contract being
finished, her assignment, cancelled, over. Two years with her
and I hadn't realized. She was from the Project.
I didn't care. I was past caring.
No longer sure of my ability to fly a 'giro, I hired a pilot and
left Darwin, searching for the sphere, the patch of red desert
in the middle of the sub-tropical jungle. I searched for weeks.
I asked the tribal aborigines if they knew of it, knew of
Kundullajapininni.
They knew of neither.
Now living back in Darwin, I feel disassociated from the images
that run through my mind. They seem as vague, blurred and unreal
as a half-remembered dream. But when my plastic and aluminum
prosthetic foot takes the weight of my body and I feel the
echoes of pain, I see fiery eclipses, fractured landscapes,
helixes and spheres, skeletal giants and the slow-beating wings
of a crow.
Delusions, says the doctor. But what delusions?
Of being the sole survivor of the Mars Project? Fantasies of
being a crocodile hunter? An imagined aboriginal friend? An
illusory relationship with a dream girl?
A car accident, they say. Injury, exposure, shock.
Trauma. A common enough occurrence, they say. But I hear them
whispering about personality reconstruction and genetic
fluctuation and remember it from before. Confusion. Fantasy.
Therapy.
I turn the small, lined rock in my hands and study the dark
specks on my fingertips, and I realize the truth, the
connection. From the wardroom's window I watch the aborigines
smile at each other with a confidence and knowledge that runs as
deep, as ancient, as alien, and as strong as their genes.
So I wait.
Steven Thorn (steven_thorn@macconn.mpx.com.au)
------------------------------------------------
Steven Thorn grew up on the fringes of New South Wales country
towns, in the Adelaide Hills, the streets of Sydney, and the
roads in between. He left school at 16 and spent the next few
years travelling around Australia before going to college. He
studies writing, film, performance, and aboriginal cultures and
beliefs. He has written and published science fiction, fantasy
and horror stories in fanzines, student newspapers and other
small print media. He also writes poetry and screenplays. This
is his first electronic, international publication.
Nothing, Not a Thing by Sung J. Woo
=======================================
...................................................................
Some people have their lives mapped out to the last detail;
others take opportunities as they present themselves. So what
happens if there are no opportunities?
...................................................................
You find yourself wearing sunglasses a lot, even when the skies
are thick with clouds. Your mother has not yet asked just why
you wear your sunglasses all the time, but she's going to. She
has that inquisitive look about her lately. If she were to ask,
maybe you would lie to her, tell her that your eyes have
suddenly become hyper-sensitive, that sunlight, even in low
doses, does nasty things to your vision.
The real reason, of course, is that you wish to be unknown.
Nothing frightens you more than running into someone you knew in
high school. You've never been very good at ignoring people.
Throughout your life, you've always found the need to say at
least a friendly hello. Besides, ignoring your problems is no
way to solve them. You've heard that at least a million times.
But there's no way you're going anywhere come Thanksgiving and
near Christmas. That's when they're all back. You've already
crossed off November 23rd to November 27th, and you're going to
do your Christmas shopping very, very early. Maybe tomorrow.
"Why are you wearing your dark glasses?" your mother asks in the
car. She never says sunglasses, always dark glasses -- with that
emphasis on the _dark_ -- as if they're innately bad. It's 6:43
PM. There's no sunlight at all.
You ready your mouth for a lie, but before you can say anything,
you find yourself taking your sunglasses off. "I guess I
forgot," you say, and breathe out a sigh so deep that you fog up
the windshield.
You carry up four grocery bags to your parents' apartment.
"You're going to break your back one day," your mother yells, so
you take only two bags on the second trip. Only one bag remains,
and your mother carries that one up herself.
She puts away one item after another while you wait. Ever since
you can remember, your mother put the food away and you folded
the paper bags into a neat pile. She saves those bags for the
bathroom garbage and for other things. She is, as you often
jokingly call her, the kitchen goddess.
While folding one bag after another, you suddenly remember how
you used to cover your books with grocery bags back in grammar
school. You always wrote the name of the class, your name, and
the classroom number on those brown covers. You've been having
these flashbacks a lot lately. You wonder if it's about time you
take up Bingo and talk about how glorious the "old days" used to
be.
You were lucky this time, not running into anyone you know at
the supermarket. But you know it's going to happen sooner or
later. You're going to run into someone you know, and you're
going to have to tell them your whole sad story.
You close the door to your room and lie down on the bed
face-first. It's not even noon yet, but you feel like you've run
30 miles. You never thought you'd be this tired at 23.
You blindly feel for the remote control, and your hands finally
find it hiding between the folds of your comforter. You turn on
the radio to hear some loudmouth DJ making fun of one of your
favorite bands, but you do nothing about it. Actually, it's kind
of funny.
You slowly turn over and face the ceiling. Your room was turned
into a study while you were gone for these last four years. You
can see your father's business books where your favorite novels
used to sit. And a lot of his bookkeeping stuff is piled on your
desk. You thought about moving it somewhere, but you no longer
have a use for a desk. After all, your time in school is over.
Your college diploma hangs over your bed. It's one of those
laminated jobs. After graduation, while you were hanging out and
drinking your summer away on campus, your parents took your
diploma and had it sealed into a plaque.
Your old toys decorate the top shelf of the bookcase on the
wall. Your mother did that just before you came back from
college, as if to signify that all was good and that you were
welcomed back with open arms and warm hands. But when you look
at those toys now, one Tonka truck after another, you feel
relentlessly out of place. You feel the way Alice must have felt
in Wonderland after she grew really huge in that house.
Strangely, totally, utterly out of place.
You've been back from college for a month and you still can't
quite believe that you won't be going back to school. All your
life you've gone to school. When September came, you were in a
classroom, listening to the familiar buzz of a professorial
filibuster.
The first week back, you were OK. It was like a vacation, like
coming home for Spring Break. But for the last couple of days,
you've been feeling empty and terribly lost, like a tongue
poking around the spot where a tooth used to be.
You find yourself eating, sleeping, and watching a lot of
television. You never watched television in college, never could
find the time -- and there was always something better to do --
but now at home, alone, you cannot find a better companion. It
is always there for you. Even when it's turned off, you can
almost hear the voices of premieres and reruns, megastars and
fadeaways, chattering endlessly in their electronic vernacular.
Of course, you could have gotten a job like some of your
friends, who are now working in New York or San Francisco, some
big city, typing at their keyboards and making deals with big
business people everywhere. You tried, tried for a couple of
places, going to interviews wearing your killer black suit and
wing-tipped shoes, but nothing really piqued your interest. At
that time, you really didn't care enough to do anything.
You don't feel so badly for yourself -- for you are a young and
healthy man -- but you feel terrible for your parents. They
invested almost a hundred thousand dollars for your higher
education and now you are home with nothing, not a thing. On the
weekends, when your parents are home from their jobs, you almost
don't want to get the phone. Because every time you get it, it's
one of your mother's friends. What is your son doing? Isn't he
out of school? Oh, he doesn't have a job. My child? He's in
Harvard med. She's with Chase Manhattan. He's doing this, she's
doing that. You can only hear your mother's side of the
conversation, and you know your mother is ashamed because her
voice gets very soft and whimpery when she has to say her son is
home and no, he doesn't have a job. Hearing her say that is like
being pricked by a pin. It's not fatal, but it really smarts.
Another miserable Monday comes. You go out every morning to jog
a few miles, and you've done it for a month now, which must be a
record. You run for 20 minutes, stretch for five, and do some
push-ups and sit-ups.
By the time you are back in the apartment, both your father and
your mother have left for work. Your mother always leaves some
food behind for your lunch, and today's no exception. You've
told her numerous times that she didn't have to do that, that
you are certainly old enough to make your own lunch, but she
doesn't listen. In her eyes, you're still just a baby.
Last night, before _The Simpsons_ came on, you called Marty.
He's about the only friend from college you talk to now. You've
thought about calling other people, but it just isn't worth it.
All they'd talk about is their new job and their new place and
maybe a new love interest. You made the mistake of calling Chris
a couple of weeks back, and he just blabbed and blabbed about
how terrible his new job was and how he was getting only 32
grand for it.
Marty was one year your senior, and he's still living at home
with his parents, working at a low-paying, dead-end publishing
firm. Surprisingly enough, you kept in touch with him all last
year. While you and Marty weren't very close in college, your
friendship managed to grow through occasional phone calls and a
barrage of e-mail. You even talked about renting an apartment
together, once you landed a steady job.
You asked him for advice, and he told you to find some temporary
employment agencies. "That's what I did when I got out of
school," he said. "They find work for you. Companies hire temps
because they don't have to shell out any benefits."
So you spend your morning with a bowl of Cheerios, a cup of
decaf, and the Yellow Pages. You hunt for those temp agencies,
and one catches your eye.
> POWER-4 TEMPORARY SERVICES
> Putting Quality to Work
There are a dozen more temp agencies, but you decide to call up
P-4. You ask a woman named Rita if they have any time today to
interview, and she tells you that Mondays are always out. You
tell her to pen you in for tomorrow at 10, to which she agrees
wholeheartedly.
After finishing your bowl of cereal, you start doing the dishes.
Your mother told you not to do them, that it's her work, but you
have been feeling so useless that you need to do something,
anything -- even something as mindless and menial as dishwashing
-- to find some reason for your present existence. After
soaping, scrubbing, and rinsing, it's half past 11. You realize
that your mother could do them at twice your speed, and probably
do them a lot better.
The cheapest answering machine you can find is at Sears. It has
one spy-sized cassette under a secret door and has two shiny
buttons. You realize that you've never owned an answering
machine before; your roommates and apartment-mates have always
provided you with one.
According to Marty, having an answering machine was essential
when you worked for a temp agency. The place he used to work for
called him all the time, asking him to call him back to take a
job for a day or a week, or if he were really lucky, a month.
You look for this $24.95 wonder in a box, but it's nowhere to be
found. You search the area, but it seems like they don't have
any in stock.
"I don't think you'll find any other ones," a woman's voice says
behind you. You recognize that voice, but you're not sure from
where.
You turn around. "Do you work here?" you ask staring at this
tall, gawky looking woman. She used to be your English teacher
back in high school. "Oh, Ms. O'Brien," you say. "How are you?"
She says she's fine and how are you doing and what are you doing
here, shouldn't you be in school?
"I'm finished with school," you say faintly, looking down at the
answering machine.
"Oh," she says. "That's right, you graduated last May.
Congratulations. And from such a fine school."
"Well..." you say, looking at the answering machine.
"You did graduate with a major in English, did you not?" You nod
your head. "Good choice," she says, and offers you a smile. You
smile, too. "What's the answering machine for?"
"It's for my mother," you say. "I've got to go. It was nice
seeing you."
"You too," she says, and she's about to say something else but
you turn and walk away. That's how you'll always remember her:
her mouth half open, her voice stuck in her throat, her eyes
wide with pity.
You run out of Sears and go to Radio Shack, whose cheapest
answering machine runs for two bucks more. You pay the man and
rush to your car, head down, sunglasses on.
Inside the testing room of Power-4 Temporary Services, you
transcribe a fake hand-written office memo on the word
processor. It's not a terribly difficult task, but it's somewhat
intimidating. You've never actually written a real office memo
before, and it's been ages since you've had a real test -- maybe
two or three years. But it seems simple enough, and after
clicking away for a couple of minutes, you tell Rita that you
are finished.
"So soon?" she says. "Wow, what a typer." You realize that Rita
is the nice one and Colleen is the bad one. It's almost like the
good-cop-bad-cop charade they use in bad police flicks. Rita is
bouncy, attentive, and smiles and frowns to your every response.
Colleen, on the other hand, is serious, professional, and
straightforward. Colleen's got killer eyes, though, a shade of
brown that's at once familiar and mysterious.
"Let's take a look at the results," Colleen says, staring you
down. The automated grading system gave you an accuracy rating
of 67 percent and a speed rating of "Very Fast." Almost all the
mistakes come from a lack of knowledge in business writing, so
you point out this fact.
"A lot of people such as yourself," Colleen says, emphasizing
and enjoying her emphasis on the word _yourself_, "they come in
here and say they're really familiar with WordPerfect. Experts,
no less. But all they've done on their computers in college is
type term papers. Uh-uh," she says, wagging her index finger in
front of your face as if you were a bratty little kid, "that's
wrong. What you need in the real world is business writing
skills."
"These mistakes," Rita says, scrutinizing the graded paper, "are
the same mistakes I made when I first started."
"Anyway," Colleen says to you, "you're pretty good at typing,
though. Maybe we can find you some data entry jobs. Meanwhile,
let me set you up with these videos." She leads you into a tiny
glassed room in the corner. A TV-VCR combo is mounted against
the far wall.
She gives you a pair of workbooks. The first one is titled
_Power-4 Philosophy._ After a brief introduction, idiot
questions about the badly-acted scenarios follow.
"Watch the video and follow with the workbooks," she says, and
closes the door. It's like watching a red-eye infomercial.
Strong-jawed male with dark mane, cute blonde female with
perfect makeup. You recognize the woman. She played a leathery
lesbian in a porn video you saw couple of months back, "Dare to
Wet Dream." It's weird seeing her in a business suit and talking
so much.
In the video, whenever the woman talks, the guy looks at you and
nods. Then he smiles for a few seconds. Then he goes back to
nodding. And when he talks, she does the same thing. It's like
watching a pair of used car salesmen trying to double up on a
customer. Hey, she's good, real good. Yeah, but he's better, a
real pro. No, really. No, really.
It's too much excitement for one day. The workbook has answers
for the idiot questions in the back, so you just copy them. You
do the exact same for the second video, "Power-4 Quality
Service." It's the same duo, perfect man and perfect woman.
You imagine them ripping open their shirts: the guy with a
yellow-and- orange P inscribed within an upside-down triangle on
his pects, the woman with pink P tassels hanging from her
nipples. It's so funny you double over laughing, earning an icy
stare from Colleen.
The answering machine was so cheap that it didn't even let you
record a greeting. All you were allowed to do was enter your
seven-digit phone number, which was then melded into the
Automatic Greeting Program. The sweet voice of a well-educated
woman said, "You have reached XXX-XXXX. Please leave a message
at the tone." It did the job. And when you get back from the
temp agency interview, you find a message on the machine, your
very first.
You play it and listen to some woman who called from Everglades
Publishing looking for you. Everglades Publishing was one of two
companies who interviewed you in the spring. Your heart beats a
little harder as you dial the number.
"Hello, Mary Landis speaking," the phone says. You state your
name and your business in your very best voice. She tells you
that the assistant managing editor of _Upbeat_ magazine would
like to interview you. "Could you please come to our office in
Manhattan?"
You're there. You're hip. You make an appointment for tomorrow.
After you hang up, you head for the library. You have some
serious catching up to do with past issues of _Upbeat_.
You take a quick peek at your wristwatch, and you relax. You've
been talking to Helen D. McDougall for more than an hour, and
she still looks interested in everything you say. You're looking
dashing today, even down to your socks, a 12-dollar pair of Ivy
League argyle hosiery. When you cross your legs, Ms. McDougall,
the assistant managing editor, compliments on your spiffy
attire. You wave her off and laugh a finely controlled laughter,
full of good intentions and genuine humility. You tell her a
little more about your work with your college newspaper, about
all the deadlines you had to meet, the pressures of being behind
the night editor's desk.
Ms. McDougall tells you a little more about the job, an
editorial researcher position. Lots of phone calls, some
paperwork, but most of all, detail work, she tells you. You need
the eyes of a jeweler -- very, very careful -- but not sluggish.
And you need to be anal-retentive. `We pride ourselves in the
accuracy of the reported material.'
It sounds like a boring job, but it would get you out of your
parents' house. It doesn't pay very much -- if you're looking to
get rich in publishing, she tells you with a jackknifed smile,
you're going to be very disappointed -- but it would be room and
board, and probably a bit left over for some used CDs.
She shakes your hand. "You're a really strong candidate," she
says, and it actually seems genuine. She wouldn't be able to say
it in that way if she didn't mean it.
"Thank you," you say, giving her a fairly hard handshake. You're
still not too sure about shaking women's hands. With men, you
shake as hard as you can. But with women, it really all depends
on the woman and her attitude.
"Ms. Landis in Human Resources will be in touch with you very
shortly," she says. "We need someone right away."
"Thanks again," you say, and close the door behind you. On your
way to the elevator, you take in the surroundings. It's like all
the other publishing houses you've ever been to. The senior
editors and above have their own offices and the assistant
editors live in their maze of cubicles. You'd probably have your
own cubicle, too, and your own felt wall for pinning up little
_New Yorker_ cartoons.
It wouldn't be a great job, you think as you muse to the quiet
hum of the elevator, but it would be a living. At least for a
little while. And when you get this job, maybe you'll go back to
Power-4 Temporary Services and tell Colleen she can shove her
attitude up her fat butt.
You watch talk show after talk show, then reruns of old shows
like _Bewitched_ and _I Dream of Jeannie._ You were never a fan
of _Bewitched,_ mostly because it was made after _Jeannie_ and
was a cheesy copy of a great idea. You hate that -- copycats
with no creative abilities of their own, vultures who feed on
the leftovers of geniuses.
When you told your parents about the interview, they were
ecstatic, especially your mother. After hearing the wonderful
news, her whole tone was different in her phone conversations
with her friends. She didn't even talk about you, but you could
tell from her peppy little voice, slightly higher and faster,
almost chipmunk-like, just how happy she was.
But now two weeks have passed and nothing. No phone calls, no
messages. The answering machine just sits there doing nothing.
Sort of like you. Except it doesn't eat as much.
You've done the dishes, the laundry, even cleaned the toilet
with a scrub pad, left it so clean that it could be the star of
a Ty-D-Bowl commercial. You rearranged the closet, which didn't
need rearranging, but you wiped and scoured and dusted and
shined and now that closet is immaculate, hypo-allergenic,
brilliant.
Your mother doesn't ask, but when she comes home from work, she
has that look, that hopeful look. But all it takes is one glance
at your face and she knows that nothing has happened.
But something did happen. You broke down and called Everglades
yesterday afternoon, and Mary Landis told you that you were a
very strong candidate but they hired someone else. Somebody who
wasn't exactly more qualified, but "more directed for the
position," whatever the hell that meant.
You hear the slow steps of your mother coming back from work.
It's half past four, which is a bit earlier than usual. There is
no longer that hopeful look about her face. She's already given
up on Everglades Publishing, so there's no reason to tell her
anything. She shuffles in and goes into the kitchen.
"Did you have enough for lunch?" she yells from the kitchen.
"Yes, mom," you say sleepily. You've been watching TV since you
got up. "You know that Marty called last night, right?" "No,"
you say, although you heard her answer the phone call. She comes
out of the kitchen and goes to the answering machine. "I taped
this note here for you," she says, bringing a ripped corner of a
newspaper. You take it and put it in your pocket. She goes back
into the kitchen, clanging pots and turning on the water.
"He told me he got a new job," she screamed from the kitchen.
You never understood why she insisted on talking with the faucet
running, because she could never hear what you were saying.
"Yeah," you say to yourself, vegetating on some PBS documentary
on the birth of the universe.
"He says it pays pretty good," she yells again. "Yeah," you say
again.
"Call him back. He said he hasn't talked to you in ages," she
says. The bearded host guides you through a computer-drawn movie
of the universe. It's going backward, and everything becomes
smaller and smaller, then there's a humongous explosion. Or
implosion. It's hard to tell when everything is going in
reverse.
You get back from your daily run to hear the phone ringing. You
somehow find the strength to rush up the stairs.
"Hello," you say into the phone, trying to silence the panting.
"This is Colleen from P-4, and I think I'm talking to the right
person." "You are," you say, and sit down on the couch. "Got a
data entry job for you, but you have to start today. Can you do
that?"
"Today?" you ask. Marty warned you that temp services were like
this. Today's Friday, too. But then again, if wasn't as if you'd
just had four previous days of backbreaking work.
"If you don't want it, I'll give it to someone else," she said.
"Take it or leave it."
"All right, all right, I'll take it," you say. She gives you the
address, the directions, and the name of the person you have to
report to. After you hang up, you take a quick shower, eat a
quick tuna sandwich, and quickly jump into your car. It's a
45-minute drive, and you wonder if this is really worth it for
three measly days of grunt work.
The directions are not correct. You pass three traffic lights
instead of two after turning off the highway. Maybe Colleen was
trying to screw you up, laughing hysterically in her office
right now as she showed her awful videos to more overeducated
and underemployed victims.
You finally get to Savon Equipment, a huge building at the end
of Fulton Road. At least Colleen got that much right. You touch
up your hair, straighten your tie, and head for the entrance.
You can't remember the last time you've done something as
mindless as this. Enter item number then S then Y then N then N
then F12, RETURN, thank you, next. Over and over again. You're
not entirely sure what you are really doing -- for all you know,
you may be typing the launch code sequence for an ICBM to North
Korea.
You've become intimate with the keyboard and the computer
screen, which is a familiar shade of amber. Colleen's eyes are
exactly that color, you realize in the middle of one entry, but
you keep on chugging away, one line after another. Your life has
become quadchromatic: white, green, amber, and black. The sheets
you are using are the wide, white-and-green computer printouts,
the kind that computer geeks ogle and giggle at.
Barbara, the woman you rep
orted to, was in charge of all facets
of computer life in this company, and it shows. She's tired and
groggy and talks frequently about her upcoming vacation. She has
a foreign accent, probably Czechoslovakian, although you can't
be sure. "My name is Bar-ba-ra," she said when introducing
herself, pronouncing every syllable, and it dawned on you that
Barbra Streisand was the only woman named Barbara whose spelling
and pronunciation correlated.
You get up from your chair and stretch. After downing four cups
of coffee, your bladder thuds for some relief.
Savon Equipment has some of the widest halls you've ever seen.
You could probably walk these halls for a month without ever
bumping into another human being. No wonder the workers look the
way they do.
A man walks by you and looks at you funny. It's the tie, you
think. Barbara was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of faded
jeans. It was Friday, Dress Down Day. You are probably the only
guy in the whole place with a tie today. You briefly thought
about taking it off, but then what would the people think? He
had the tie on, and then he took it off. Wouldn't that be worse
than just wearing it?
When you get back to work, a girl is sitting in the booth next
to yours. She smiles in a friendly way and keeps your gaze until
you break it. You make some idle conversation throughout the day
while sizing her up. She's kind of cute, you think, maybe a
little short. You have lunch together, and she plays with your
food. She's a high school dropout, and she likes to smoke grass.
Her name is also Barbara, but she pronounces it like everybody
else.
She's only 16, but she kisses better than any girl you've ever
been with. Her lips are strong and assertive. Her tongue is
everywhere inside your mouth, probing, pushing, shoving. She
tastes like honey.
The car is so hot that it's all fogged up inside. Barbara pushes
you against the door, her hands inside your shirt, her long,
strawberry-scented hair covering both of your faces.
You try to remember when you last made out in your car, and you
realize that you've never done it. When you were in high school,
you never had a girlfriend, and in college, there was always a
room available somewhere.
She starts taking off her shirt, and you can see that she's not
wearing a bra. They are sad little mounds, barely big enough for
your hands, but you cup her breasts anyway.
And when she has her hands on your belt buckle, you start
sobbing. She's off of you in a flash, as if shocked by
electricity. She is silent, completely still, and watches you
without blinking. She's pushed herself as far away as she can,
smearing the condensation on the window.
"What's wrong?" she finally says. "Did I do something?" But you
can't tell her anything because you're crying louder than ever,
wailing away. You can't tell Barbara how low you feel, how you
have no idea what you want to do with your life, how your mother
can't stand the sight of you, how you thought about fucking her
anyway even though it would be statutory rape. All you can do is
let the tears flow on and on.
Eventually she comes to you -- crawls to you slowly and
carefully -- to hold your quivering face against her bare
breasts.
The phone rings and you let the answering machine pick it up.
"This is Colleen from P-4," it says, but you pick up the phone
before she can finish. You turn the TV down with the remote,
Gilligan's voice fading slowly to silence. It's another data
entry job. She gives you the directions, which you copy onto the
back of last week's _TV Guide._
You leave the turnpike on Exit 15 and get on Route 46. You go
for half a mile, trying to find Gate Drive. You make a left and
search for a brown and white building immediately on your left.
You keep driving for a couple more minutes, but you can't find
it anywhere. You eventually turn around, looking for a road
sign. You're on Payne Drive. It was probably the fork a couple
of miles back; maybe you should have veered right instead of
left. You study the directions on the back of the _TV Guide,_
but they tell you nothing you didn't know before.
You backtrack and try to find Route 46, but somehow you end up
on Route 17. Route 17 looks just like Route 46. There is no
difference.
Sung J. Woo (swoo@ieee.org)
-----------------------------
Sung J. Woo is an Assistant Editor at IEEE
Transactions/Journals. He is the editor of the online magazine
_Whirlwind._
Flying Toasters by Ken Kousen
=================================
...................................................................
So when was the last time you were at a garage sale halfway
around the world, offered someone a ride home, crash-landed in
the middle of Ohio, and learned about some nifty antiques?
...................................................................
Fred first saw Nancy in Caracas, in the Venezuelan Free State,
at an antique show featuring 20th-century bric-a-brac.
Immediately, his heart was captured. Fred's eyes swept from the
top of her spiraling blonde twirl-cut, down along her iridescent
monokini (where they lingered in the obvious places), and
finally reached her flats, upon which she bounced lightly. Of
course, what _really_ caught his attention was her long blue
tail, which swished back and forth excitedly, and, thought Fred,
excitingly.
For his part, Fred was unremarkable, decked out as he was in his
standard, blue-pinstriped skinsuit, all business. He leaned
forward hesitantly, partly to start a conversation and partly to
get a glimpse at the treasures so amply filling Nancy's
monokini. She abruptly straightened, however, with a shiny, flat
metal object in her hands.
"Isn't this just _divine_?" she asked rhetorically. Fred looked
about quickly, and decided she must be talking to him. He
straightened in an attempt to look dignified.
"Hmm, yes, of course," he said.
Nancy turned to face him, revealing sparkling silver eyes. Fred
was captured all over again.
"I've looked _everywhere_ for one of these, and here they've got
a set of four," she said. "The last two weeks I've been from one
end of the east coast to the other, from Scotia to Atlantahassee
to Rio. I thought I'd found one in Carolina, but it turned out
to be a fake. I was glad, though, because I never could have
gotten it through customs. Have you ever been to Carolina?"
"Sorry, no. But I -- "
"Well, don't go!" she said emphatically. "They're always hurting
for hard currency and they'll do _anything_ they can to cheat
you out of yours. And all you hear all day long is moaning about
tobacco. Tobacco this, tobacco that. Honestly, if they hadn't
wanted to be a one product economy, they shouldn't have seceded
in the first place! If my message filters hadn't heard about
their toaster, I _never_ would have gone."
Fred observed her tail performed an astonishing set of loops and
rolls as she spoke. Something she said caught his attention,
however, and brought him back into the conversation.
"Toaster?" he said. "What's a toaster?"
Her tail stood straight up in the air, and he wondered if he
hadn't asked the wrong question.
"Why, one of _these_," she said, thrusting the metal object at
him. It was shaped roughly like a comm unit, rounded along its
upper surface. Two gaping wide openings had been driven into it,
which seemed absurdly large for data disks. From one corner
dangled a long black cord, which presumably connected the unit
to an external power source.
She held it up so he could see better, and he noticed that the
sides had been polished to a glassy brightness. "It was used for
baking bread," she said. "Back in the 20th century they were
amazingly common kitchen items."
"I see," he said, trying hard to be enthusiastic. Not hard
enough, he thought, because the light that animated her so
brightly had already turned from him. He felt as though the sun
had just gone behind a cloud, which in fact it had, Fred noted.
She turned away and motioned for the roboid to give her a price.
The roboid was old, which fit the surroundings, and wasn't
terribly sophisticated. It haggled a bit, but once it reached
its narrowly defined limit, it was finished.
"Six hundred nacus," it droned.
"Oh, _please_," she said. "I've only got 400 nacus with me, and
I need transit fare back to Hio. Would you accept Hio dollars?"
"Six hundred nacus. We are sorry, but we accept North American
Currency Units only."
"Look, I'm the only customer here, and I haven't seen anyone
else in the last two hours. Surely it would be better to sell
something rather than nothing, right? Closing time is coming
soon, the dome will go up, and you'll just be stuck with it."
"Six hundred nacus."
Her tail slashed from side to side in obvious anger. It struck
Fred lightly, by accident, but the contact was enough to wake
him from his complacency.
"Wait," he said, straightening up and resting a hand on her
shoulder. The touch sent surges of power through him. "Maybe I
can help."
She looked up at him, surprised, but hopeful.
"Yes," he continued, mentally counting his own money. "I could
lend you 200 nacus, and give you a ride home."
Her tail went up to half-mast, which he interpreted as hopeful
caution.
"I don't know if I should," she said. "I don't even know your
name."
"Fred Tannen," he said. He held out a hand to her. She tucked
the toaster under one arm and took his hand, which made the
previous power surge feel like popguns next to plasma cannons.
Two hundred nacus was not too much to pay to stay near that
feeling. Not at all.
"Nancy Adams," she said.
"I know I'm being rather forward, but I promise to be a
gentleman. I'm a just minor executive with a multinational, and
I was only stopping by here to pick up something for my
daughter. My lift is out back, and I can surely spare the room."
The tail curled slightly, so he felt like he was making
progress.
"Well, OK," she said, "but did you want to pick up something for
your wife as well?"
"No, I wouldn't," he said. "I am not currently wedded, or I
wouldn't be offering rides to beautiful young women." There, he
thought, that was good. Get a compliment in and show her I'm
available. Nice work.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I'd be delighted to accept
your help. Once I'm back in Hio, I can get the money to pay you
back."
"Fine, under one condition."
"Yes?"
"That you have dinner with me tonight."
The tail swished back and forth rapidly, but she smiled.
"Very well," she said.
They boarded his lift at the Caracas spaceport, after Nancy made
appropriate complimentary noises about its shine and condition.
Fred stored her gear with his in the sleeping compartment aft,
except for the bag containing her toasters and his little
doohickey he had picked up for his daughter. The roboid had
called an "eggbeater."
They settled into the contoured pilot seats. Fred had wondered
how Nancy would accommodate her tail, but she seemed content to
simply slide it down between her legs and coil it in her lap.
His temperature rose several degrees as he surreptitiously
watched this maneuver. To cover up his reaction, he leaned over
the computer interface and made a great show of concentrating on
keying in her destination. After a minor delay, the tower gave
them clearance to launch, with only a mild warning about the
possibility of bad weather over the Midwest Territories.
The launch shook Nancy up a bit. Fred reflected that she no
doubt normally traveled by transit liner, which was a much
larger craft and gave a correspondingly smoother ride. He began
to apologize for the air buffeting, but she waved him off.
"No, don't worry," she said. "This is _fun!_ I've never ridden
in a single family lift before. How long have you owned it?"
"Actually, I don't own it. It's a company vehicle."
"Really? I thought you said you were a _minor_ executive."
Fred squirmed in his seat. "Well, there's minor, and there's
minor. My former wife was a pilot for Star Ways, which is where
I work, and they gave me this vehicle when she left."
A look of concern came over her face, which turned her eyes from
silver to light blue. "Oh, I'm sorry. I had no idea."
"Oh no -- it's not like it sounds. She was given command of the
_Toreador_ 10 years ago. You know, the interstellar craft taking
all those settlers to Rigel?"
Nancy nodded.
"Well, it's a relativistic trip, so by the time she gets back
she'll have aged only four years, but I'll be 172."
"How tragic," she said, resting her hand on his shoulder, which
made Fred dizzy. "And leaving you with a daughter to raise all
alone like that."
"Um, well, truth to tell, I can't be too upset. We knew this was
a possibility when we got married. My wife was born to be an
explorer. Besides, she didn't exactly leave me with a daughter."
"No?"
"No. Shyrra is actually a clone of my wife I'm raising with help
from Star Ways. They've been great about the whole thing, both
financially and otherwise. I'll tell you, though, it feels
awfully weird raising my wife as a child. I'm really not looking
forward to puberty."
"I'll bet."
"Yeah," Fred smiled. "The Freudian implications alone are
staggering."
As the ship rose higher into the atmosphere, the thinning air
shook them less and less and the sky became progressively
darker. Fred and Nancy both gazed out the viewport, waiting for
that brief time when they would clear the atmosphere and rotate
into a descent angle. During that time they would be able to see
the Earth below them, beautiful, blue, and majestic. When it
happened, Fred cautiously reached out his hand to Nancy, who
took it into her own. They remained like that, silent and
connected, until the ship turned in such a way that the sun
shone directly into the viewport. The computer automatically
darkened it in response, and there was nothing to see until they
rotated out of the way again.
"So tell me about yourself," Fred said hesitantly, releasing her
hand. He reached over to a nearby, well-worn knob and adjusted
it, which filled the cabin with soft music. "What do you do," he
said, "and why all the interest in toasters?"
Nancy laughed. "Me? I'm just an analyst working for the Midwest
Territorial government. Crop price projections, that sort of
thing. I guess all the time I spend studying forecasting grain
got me interested in the old ways of using it."
"You mean in bread and stuff like that?"
"Right." She stood up to open the compartment over the viewport
and carefully brought down the bag containing the toasters. She
took one out and held it carefully. "You know, people used to
use these all the time. They put bread in these slots and
pushed this little handle, and it gets all hot inside, which
bakes the bread. Eventually it would pop back up with the
finished product. They called it `toast,' naturally enough."
Fred regarded the little device skeptically. "I don't know," he
said. "It looks like the innards would get pretty gamy."
"Not if you clean it, silly," she said. "It's not self-cleaning.
You have to take it apart."
She handed him the toaster and leaned over him to point out the
various latches and levers. Her proximity suddenly caused Fred
to wonder about the efficiency of the air circulation.
"I'd show you how it works, but it needs a power source," she
said.
Fred felt she was generating enough power herself, but he didn't
think it was proper to say so. An idea struck him, though.
"Computer," he said, sitting up in his seat.
The computer responded with a short beep.
"Can you devise a power coupling for this object?" He placed the
toaster in a small opening in the cabin, which served as an
interface compartment for computer-manufactured devices. The
light in the opening glowed on and off a few times.
The computer said, "Affirmative," and beeped again.
"Then do so -- what's that, Nancy?"
"Your lift can do that?" asked Nancy incredulously.
"Top of the line," replied Fred.
"Please restate request," the computer said.
Nancy tugged at his sleeve. "We've got _four_ of them," she
said. "Let's plug them all in!" Sparkles appeared in her eyes,
which Fred identified upon closer examination as flecks of gold
swimming in the silver.
"Computer," Fred said, staring into Nancy's eyes. "Please
generate four functional power couplings for this device."
"Working," said the computer, and it beeped.
Meanwhile, the ship began its descent into the atmosphere. The
viewport cleared, but was quickly replaced by another color
shift as the computer selectively activated a thin injected
fluid layer to prevent overheating. This, combined with careful
navigational adjustments, automatic communication with flight
control systems, and the power conduit manufacturing process,
dramatically reduced available computational resources. An light
flashed on Fred's console indicating voice control was no longer
available, but he didn't notice. The computer attempted to
compensate by turning off the music and, conveniently, lowering
the lights.
"Oh, how romantic," Nancy said as the lights dimmed. She leaned
against Fred, which provided more than enough distraction to
keep him from wondering why the lights went down.
Fred put his arm around Nancy as the computer flashed another
warning and tried to correct their course through the
atmosphere, which had been turning into a unusually steep
descent. Finally, two of the power couplings were finished and
dropped unceremoniously into the interface compartment.
The plop sound they made as they fell startled Nancy. "What was
that?" she asked.
"A couple of our power couplings are ready! Get out the
toasters!"
They removed two toasters from the bag and connected them to the
couplings. Nancy depressed the levers on the side and the
toasters immediately began to get warm.
The computer searched desperately for systems to off-load, but
the primary tasks of heat-shielding, navigation, and life
support were all off-limits. The internal synthesis of the
remaining power conduits could not be aborted. This left few
choices for disconnect, but those available were taken with
abandon.
The lights went completely out, along with the circulation fans,
the built-in acceleration dampers in the couches, and the waste
recycling pumps. This brought the power drain to within safe
parameters, so the computer desisted just before power would
have been removed from the toasters.
Suddenly, Fred and Nancy were plunged into darkness and silence,
and were jostled randomly by the passage of the craft through
the atmosphere.
"Oh my!" Nancy said. "What's happening?"
"I don't know," Fred replied, but began using his brain instead
of another part of his anatomy for the first time since the trip
started. He saw the indicator lights on the pilot's console.
"We've lost power," he said. "We've got to shut down all
unnecessary systems."
As he was about to contact the computer, the final two power
couplings were finished, and plopped into the interface
compartment. The lights came back on.
"Whew!" Nancy said. "That was close! Fred? What's the matter?"
Fred stared at the blackness in front of him, then gasped when
he looked at the navigational viewscreen. The "possibility" of
bad weather over the Hio region had developed into a raging
thunderstorm, and the lift was plunging right into its heart.
Lightning arced around the ship, almost blinding them. The
computer made adjustments as quickly as possible to handle the
swirling air currents, but the ride began to get violent. "Strap
in!" Fred shouted, dropping his toaster.
A series of lightning bolts hit the ship and thunder shook her
hull. Fred and Nancy clung to each other for dear life. The
ship's heat shields were vaporizing. The temperature inside the
cabin rose rapidly.
A loud beep from the computer signaled the breakdown. Fred
pulled himself away from her and read the displays. "Shield
failure!" he shouted. "We've got to get out of here soon, or
we'll burn up! Follow me!"
Fred and Nancy scrambled out of their seats and made their way
unsteadily aft as the lift pitched and rocked. Lightning
flashed, flooding the cabin with bursts of blinding
illumination. Nancy used her tail to provide balance and kept
them from falling by wrapping it around a passenger seat.
"There's an escape pod at tail," Fred said. "It's got its own
shielding -- if we can get to it, we might make it."
"My toasters! They'll burn up with the lift!"
Fred leaned back to grab one, unplugging both of them in the
process. "Computer! Transfer power to the escape pod! Prepare
for emergency evacuation!" A series of beeps answered him.
When they reached the pod entrance, Fred reached for the handle
and immediately pulled his hand away. "It's too hot!" Fred
motioned Nancy to the other side of the round door handle as he
tore off the top of his skinsuit, wrapping it around the handle.
Between them, they twisted the handle until it opened, then
jumped inside.
The pod was small, but serviceable. Thick cushions lined all the
walls to prevent injury. A wide couch lay in the center of the
cabin. Rather than a limited number of individual couches, the
designers had chosen to create a single couch capable of holding
as many people as possible in an emergency.
Fred tossed the toaster to one side and they scrambled into the
couch, which automatically strapped them in. "Computer!" Fred
yelled, "release the escape pod!"
The computer replied with a single beep, and dropped the pod.
They felt a sickening plummet and almost passed out, then the
roar of the pod's thrusters kicked in. Wings unfolded from the
sides, and a tail surface rose from the rear. The onboard
piloting system engaged and stabilized their flight, spiraling
away from the last known course of the lift and scanning for a
level surface on the ground below. When it found one, it slowed
their descent, lowered the gear, and banked toward it.
"Brace for crash landing," the piloting system intoned, as a
deceleration chute was deployed.
The pod thumped hard, bounced twice, and scraped to a halt. The
stabilizing thrusters suddenly went silent.
Fred and Nancy opened their eyes. "Are you OK?" Fred asked.
"I think so. How about you?"
"A bit bruised," Fred replied, "but all the parts are working."
Lying together curled on the couch, Nancy quickly became aware
that Fred was telling the truth. She turned and smiled at him,
and Fred was, once again, completely captured.
"Initiating distress signal," said the pod.
"Don't do that right now."
"Do you wish to override emergency proced -- "
"Yes!" Fred looked deep into Nancy's eyes. "And, computer? Don't
disturb us." As nature took its course, Fred was amazed at the
interesting uses to which Nancy was able to put her tail. He
seriously considered acquiring one of his own.
Later, Nancy started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Fred asked, defensively.
"Oh, not you, darling. You were _wonderful,"_ she said, wrapping
her tail around him. "But something funny just occurred to me."
"What's that?" he asked.
"I was telling you about toasters, right? Well, we were in the
ship, and the walls got hot, and we were ejected, right? Toast!"
Fred laughed. "Still," he said, "bread rises when it's baked,
right?"
"Sure, but that's different."
"Not in this case," he replied, and pulled her close again.
"Oh my," she said. "I see what you mean."
Ken Kousen (kousen@rayleigh.res.utc.com)
------------------------------------------
Ken Kousen is a research engineer at United Technologies
Research Center in East Hartford, Connecticut. This story marks
his return to InterText after a long absence. His previous
stories have appeared in Mystic Fiction, Nuthouse, and the
anthology The Magic Within.
Josie by Marcus Eubanks
===========================
...................................................................
We hold that every action has an equal and opposite reaction: a
zero-sum game. So can value be found in anything we do, or are
all acts doomed to be cancelled out?
...................................................................
She glanced down at the clock on the dash: 18:52. Still about
three minutes from work and she didn't have to be on shift until
19:00. She had a big truck -- a rough-looking Rover, about 15
years old. Its appearance was intentional; actually, the car was
very carefully maintained. She refused to wash it, so the
once-tasteful gunmetal paint job was now closer to a matte
black. The windows, all but the windscreen, were dark enough to
seem opaque from the outside, and years' worth of city filth
only strengthened the impression.
The headlamps added illumination to a group of kids, late teens
to early twenties, shooting hoops under a streetlight in the
middle of the block. Some trick of the lighting made for a
stage-like setting, rendering the shadows on the side of the
street impenetrable lakes of pure black. Reflexively, she slowed
down.
Her subconscious muttered quiet nothings to her as the car
slowed. The group seemed to thicken before her as kids flowed in
ones and twos from various shadows, quickly adding themselves to
the game. In only a few seconds the group had become a mob. With
a deep breath its periphery expanded, and she was among them. A
tiny splash of reflected light on the roofliner caught her eye
as a figure immediately ahead of her turned, bringing a
sawed-off pump to bear even as she downshifted. The truck dipped
once as someone reached for the mirror mount and landed on the
passenger running board, but he rolled along the side and fell
away as the beast abruptly leaped forward.
The animal mind of the group took time to react -- it only
gradually realized that something was wrong. Bodies tried to
scramble out of the way when they heard the engine note change,
but one didn't quite make it. She felt the transmitted shock as
something bounced off the right fender, noting that neither the
front nor rear end lifted as it would have if a tire had climbed
over flesh. The pump went off to her side, pounding into the
vehicle but not crazing the glass. Her friends had accused her
of paranoia when she'd had the rear side windows replaced with
steel and sprung for custom glass elsewhere, but incidents like
this made her figure she'd gotten her money's worth.
Three minutes later and eight blocks away, she locked her own
12-gauge pump into the rack and stowed the flak jacket in her
locker. The jacket was better protection than the kevlar vest
for which she was exchanging it, but she needed the additional
mobility afforded by the arm cutouts. Even with metal detectors
and professional security, this was a dangerous place to work.
She grabbed a cup of burnt coffee, paused over the first too-hot
sip as she collected her wits, and then stepped out into the
melee.
"Hey Josie! Expand the market any on your way in?" Josie peered
over the counter the voice had come from, taking in the
sprawled-out form reclining there, feet on the desktop, eyebrows
raised cynically over a coffee mug of his own.
"Fuck off, Carter, you're not funny. Just give me your report
and get the hell out of here."
"OK, OK. Jeez." He tried to look hurt, but failed. He grinned
archly. "Premenstrual again? Wasn't that last week? You're gonna
be the beacon of pure joy tomorrow morning."
She sat down with him to run the list, thinking about the last
time she'd had trouble coming in, only a couple of weeks back.
She could picture the kid's face vividly as she replayed the
scene, the malicious joy on his features turning to wordless
astonishment as the gaping mouth of the Remington laid his chest
open. There had been no question about creating a customer that
night; that particular one went to the morgue.
Carter was in full swing, colorfully editorializing his way
through the status report when she heard the alarm tone sound
over the PA. She didn't need to listen to the words, but they
sang themselves to her, an oft-repeated mantra. She knew which
operator was working by the voice -- this was the one who always
sounded happy, carefully inflecting her words in rich,
well-modulated tones. "Christ," she thought to herself. "The
bitch could at least try to sound a bit bummed about it."
"Well, fuck me with a chainsaw!" That was Carter. "It's been
like this all day. C'mon, I'll help you get this one started.
You'll be totally swamped in a couple of hours." She smiled
thanks at him, leaned back to stretch as she stole another
swallow of coffee, and then got up to see what was coming in. It
was 13 minutes after the shift change, so this was officially
her baby.
It was all noise and confusion.
"Just shootin' hoops, man, and this big fuckin' black truck -- "
"Respiration 32, pulse 140, pressure 70 over 5. I'm calling him
a nine on the Glasgow scale -- "
"Bitch drivin' didn't even slow down! Izzee gonna make it? Aw
man aw man -- "
"Christ, he's flailed on the right! Gimme four of positive
pressure on the vent and get _him_ the hell out of here!"
"Gonna kill that bitch, aw man aw -- "
"Sir, you'll have to leave, no sir, I mean now. I'm sorry, but
-- "
"Mastoid hematoma and orbital bruising, 10-centimeter avulsed
occipital laceration with a depressed fracture. Someone call
neuro, call CT-scan -- "
In the midst of it all Carter, worrying with the vent settings,
glanced at her and cocked an eyebrow. "Black truck? That you,
girl?"
She examined the tape on the endotracheal tube, decided it would
do, then looked up at him, grimacing. She started to speak,
stopped herself. Instead she rolled her eyes. "A girl's gotta
work...."
Marcus Eubanks (eubanks@astro.ocis.temple.edu)
------------------------------------------------
Marcus Eubanks is an angry young medical student who has
conceived an incredible passion for emergency medicine. He
persists in his belief that he has the coolest job in the world.
Skin the Color of Blood by M. Stanley Bubien
================================================
...................................................................
Just as humanity seems driven by greed, it also seems driven to
demand an eye for an eye, blood for blood, and a wrong for a
wrong.
...................................................................
Reservation night dark like a blanked stained in blackness. And
in the darkness, bringing the comfort of stone, Lisa Jumping
Bear lived a vision.
Through her mind she traveled across the scape. Her feet trod
the bare earth, the dust of life, as she traversed its
perimeter.
Tepid wind curled dust into her hair as it passed, its voice
whispering through her, "Yours, yours, yours..." Then trailing
off, out of her vision's reach.
A cloud descended, engulfing her with its wetness, taming the
dust that had risen upon her. With the voice of the wind, it too
spoke through her, "Yours, yours, yours..." Fading around her,
only silence was left, joined with the gray, sunless sky.
Mud clung with dampness about her, a hardening clay covering her
nakedness. Quiet as sand, its voice moved through her flesh,
"Yours, yours, yours..." Slowly it became cast, solidifying
itself within her.
Without a struggle, she became the stone.
Ages passed, the engine came. She felt it rumble through her
rigid ears. She tasted the reek upon her taut lips. She felt the
hammer fall upon her granite skin.
As it battled to shatter her, its voice thundered, "Mine, mine,
mine..." Louder and louder it roared, until she was battered
into lifeless dust upon the earth.
Awake! Lisa Jumping Bear still felt the thunder surround her. It
grew briefly deeper then fell to silence.
She blinked water from her eyes, then bolted upright. Like the
gust of the wind, she knew the sound -- a car falling away from
the road in violence.
Forcing the vision-confusion away and tasting nausea in its
wake, the need for awareness was upon her.
She reached the telephone and dialed Emergency. Not recognizing
the voice -- not caring enough to recognize it -- she spoke her
address urgently, waited for the promise of help and hung up.
She pulled on her pants and T-shirt, grabbed a flashlight and a
white sheet, then ran out the door.
The night still blanketed the land, but she knew where the car
had flown from the road. Stepping to the edge of the hill, she
curled the sheet into a marker and placed it at her feet.
Her gaze fell down the embankment, united with her light
flashing across the scattered wreckage. Glimmers and reflections
cast silent beacons back from glass shards and metal fragments.
The sparkles danced a trail over the sloping descent, carrying
Lisa's gaze to the crushed heap laying with wheels pointed
skyward -- a noiseless contrast to its thundering destruction.
Her feet left the solidity of the hilltop and wove their way
downward toward the automobile. Dodging through the litter, her
light glanced across a shrouded object. She altered her course.
In the dirt lay a boy barely measuring enough years to be a
driver. He was on his back, arms outstretched and legs folded
beneath him. His face was battered and freshly scarred, covered
with the thick crimson of the heavy bleeding from above his
eyes.
Lisa knelt, considered the length of white cloth she had
abandoned at the hilltop, then ripped a strand from the bottom
of her shirt. With one hand she pulled the boy's severed
hairline back upon his forehead and used the other to block the
flow of blood with her cloth.
She felt the wetness stain her skin, but sensed a slackening in
the bleeding.
Now, she would just wait.
But in her vision-drenched mind she knew not for whom she
waited. Was it the bright light of promised help to arrive atop
the hill? Or did she wait for death -- standing close,
considering its chance to pull the boy's soul from her reddening
grasp?
The light broke a path through the night's cover. Lisa heard the
engine stop, the doors slam, the voices beckon from the
roadside. She turned her flashlight to arc a signal toward the
rescuers.
Appearing on the hilltop a silhouette motioned and then called,
"I see ya there! We'll be right down!"
There were two. As they traversed the hill carrying lanterns,
light reflected from their hair. The one hefting the medical
gear was obviously blond. The other moved stiffly but quickly;
Lisa guessed the color of his head was due to the weight of his
years.
It was he who arrived first, unhindered by the equipment his
companion was forced to shoulder down the hill. He bent to set
his light down. "You the one who called?"
Lisa nodded, and he replied, "Well, it's OK now. You go ahead
and move away, we'll take it from here."
Lisa searched the man for compassion, but the shadows danced a
murky beat across his white face. The sight brought the return
of nausea. She peered toward his eyes, but they stared back with
the color of the night. The shadow dance began to move across
his body, sending him into a rhythm of darkness played by an
illusory drummer. He stood erect and loomed with the arms of a
great bat ready to engulf her.
She forced the vision away.
"Young lady, I _said_ we could handle it now." He stepped
forward, bringing the scent of medicine with his breath.
"No!" she burst out, not used to the sound of her voice after so
much consuming silence. "He can't... I can't let go. He'll bleed
to death."
"No, he won't -- we're here to keep that from happenin'. We'll
stop that bleedin' and get him up to the ambulance."
"You can't.... His skin.... His head's been cut and I have to
hold it together."
The second light and the equipment arrived. The blond brought
his lantern nearer. "Little lady," the first man continued, "if
you don't let me in there to look, I can't do a thing. Not a
thing at all."
Lisa tried to read the man's eyes, but they remained black and
silent. Blood ran from her hands as the boy's life leaked
between her fingers.
She relented. "Come here close before I let go. I don't want to
spill any more blood into the soil."
"Good." The man dropped down next to Lisa. "Johnson, come here
with that light! I can't see a damned thing."
The blond stepped closer and held the lantern over the three
figures on the earth. The light flickered briefly then subsided.
"OK," The elder said to Lisa after he took her place. "You can
just step back now, you'll be out of my light." She obeyed as
her feet pulled her two paces back.
"Now, I'm just gonna lift this back and look at the wound." He
moved his hand away. Through the inconsistent light the gash
across the boys head shown to be an endless chasm dug to the
bone. Below the cut, illumination revealed now what blood had
earlier hidden -- battered cheeks, an unhinged jaw, a twisted,
broken nose -- blackened marks clouding his complexion.
Silence met her with the sight of the broken boy. But a sound,
small and throaty, began to cut its way through to her. It came
from the direction of the blond man. Before she could pinpoint
the source it gained strength, built itself into a pealing
thunder, and found her. Its grasp held her, echoed upon her, and
jarred the nausea within.
A flood unleashed, the nausea rose up and washed over her, the
roar of its fury mingling with the torrent from without. She
felt the earth buckle under the resonating forces. Ground and
sky fell away and she was left comfortless, floating through the
landless blackness.
She was no longer standing over the boy's body, and her only
companion -- the booming thunder which rang in her ears --
sought to break through her.
The thunder took on form. Beneath her feet, it bent into
splintered planks. Surrounding her, it rose up into the paneled
walls of a bar. About her, it shaped itself into voices.
Its power gave substance to the motions about the room.
A crowd filled the wooded barroom. White, faceless voids
oscillated as the thunder boomed from a corner jukebox. Each man
wore a hat and boots and a woman on one arm. They carried cups
so overflowing the liquid spilled upon the floor with the
rhythm. All were dancing together.
They became aware of Lisa. Around her a writhing circle formed.
Nearer with each beat the ring flowed until they threatened to
crush her with their proximity. The rumbling music eased from
the room, and the dancers halted.
Surrounded, Lisa tasted their closeness. A leather stench and
medicine reek breathed from stale lungs.
With the clear-eyed stare of hatred, the crowed raised their
fists to the ceiling. They stepped forward and let the weight of
their thousand fists fall upon her. The arms rose and fell. The
hammering repeated itself over and over, trying to shatter her
like the earth.
Raising her hands for protection, Lisa saw they were not her
own. Instead, the skin had a youthful roughness, with knuckles
gnarled into the grip of a farm boy. They offered no protection
from her enemy. Lisa's face bruised, her nose twisted
shapelessly, her jaw cracked, and her legs collapsed as the
pressure sent her to her knees.
Her assailants' eyes, still clear, now glowed with elation. With
their flickering, the silence shattered as the throng broke into
a roar of laughter.
From their throats Lisa recognized the sonic form which had
carried her here. It beat against her chest with each blow of
the thousand fists.
Lisa let her head bend, her body go limp, and she slid toward
the floor. But it was not the barbed splinters of oaken planks
which met her. It was a smooth, moist earth which embraced her
fall.
She lifted her face from the dirt and sought the marks of her
beating. Her touch found only soft skin, but her ears still rang
with the horror of the wooded barroom.
Raising her head higher, her eyes caught the flickering scene.
In front of her, she saw the specter of her vision, the source
of the ringing in her ears. It took form in the scorning
laughter pouring between the crooked teeth of the younger, blond
man.
"That's Dark Feather's boy!" he laughed, pointing. "And ain't it
just a shame. He's been scalped!"
"What?" the elder reared in surprise. "What the hell's so funny
about that?"
"Dark Feather!" he said, as though the name would be explanation
enough. He waited for an answer, and when there was only an
empty stare, he continued. "Don't you know? The Skin who's been
fightin' over them grazin' rights!"
They became caught up within themselves, forgetting, for the
moment, Lisa's presence. "What?" the elder questioned. "We don't
have time for this!"
"Ah, c'mon! I can't believe you don't know! You live in a hole
or somethin'?"
"Watch it, boy! I'm warning you!"
"Yeah, yeah -- Dark Feather's the one who been leadin' the Skins
in rebellion. They's the ones not wantin' cows grazin' on rez
land."
"I remember. Something about only Indian-owned cattle being
allowed to graze." The elder put the bandage back in place and
began to check the boy's eyes. "The white ranchers've been up in
arms about it."
"Yeah. They told ol' man Dark Feather he was gonna regret it.
Looks like they weren't kiddin' none either!"
The older man paused. "What're you saying?"
"Look at the bruises! I can see from here some of that blood's
been dryin' for a while. Kid's been beaten."
The elder looked over the boy's face slowly. "I guess you're
right..." He let his voice trail off as he considered the drying
wounds. After a pause, he fell back to business, "Well, you quit
your laughin' and get some wits about you! Grab me the
disinfectant. I got to clean this wound. Then cut me some gauze
so we can cover it and move him. We can worry about them bruises
later." He bent to examine the boy more closely, checking for
other injuries. After a moment, he realized the blond was simply
staring at him.
"Why're you just standin' there? Didn't you hear me? I said get
some disinfectant and cut some gauze!"
"I, uh..." The blond shifted his weight nervously. Then sucking
confidence into his lungs, he said, "We ought to think about
this."
"So while you're thinkin' give me some of that gauze!"
"Now look here -- what might them ranchers do if we save the
boy?"
"Why'd they do anything? It's our _job_."
"You know what I mean! Them ranchers are tryin' to send a
message by this!" The blond waved his arm over the prostrate
form. "If we save him, we'd be interferin' with that."
"This cut don't have nothin' to do with any message! Now stop
talking and get to work!"
"Hold on, I tell ya! What if they do want him dead? When they
find out we saved the kid's life, they'll be comin' after us!"
"No, they won't. We're just doin' our job."
"But let's say we don't do it. We just stand by and -- "
The elder man turned. "You're talking about murder."
"Murder? Don't say that!" The blond replied with an audible
shake in his voice. "It'd be... it's just... well, nature takin'
it's course! I mean, look at him! He's probably gonna die
anyway."
"I don't care, dammit! It ain't worth being guilty all my life
for! Just because some fat-assed ranchers can't graze cattle on
his daddy's land. It ain't worth it!"
"Stop bein' an ol' fool. Look at the future, will ya? Look at
the consequences." The blond stepped back and put his hands in
his pockets.
"I am lookin' at consequences! Right here on the ground!"
"I mean to the ranchers. Ol' Dark Feather's just the first of
the trouble. Next thing you know they'll all be denyin' us the
land. Then them ranchers ain't gonna have no place to go. They
won't be able to support their families no more. Then what're
they supposed to do? Starve?"
"That ain't our problem."
"Why you..." Stress inflected in the blond's words. "You're an
ol' fool, aren't ya! How 'bout if I told them ranchers you said
that? How you said you don't care for 'em tryin' to raise their
families? How all you care about is your own self! And how all's
you want is a swig from that bottle you carry around!"
The elder stiffened and the blond continued. "Didn't think I
knew 'bout that, did ya? You stink of it every day. I have to be
downright stupid not to notice."
The elder stared silently, hands still clinging to the boy's
bloodied head.
"Tell you what, ol' man," The blond said with a lilt. "I bet
that boy gonna die no matter what. If he don't, I might talk to
the hospital, too, tell 'em about some negligence here. How you
been so drunk you couldn't do first aid proper."
Anger flashed from the old man, but the blond cut him short.
"That is, unless you go along with me. Just do like I said and
let nature take its course. Then you'll be home free."
The elder's gaze passed back and forth across the space between
his assistant and the broken boy. He came to a decision. With an
effort in his garbled voice, he said, "If you got it all figured
out, what about her?" He lifted a reddened finger to point at
Lisa's prostrate form.
"Her?" The blond retorted with a scornful glance at Lisa. "She's
just a Skin! What's she gonna say? And who's gonna believe her
anyway? It'd be her word 'gainst ours. And we're two law
abidin', moral, Church-goin' citizens. They'd just laugh an'
call her crazy."
Silence bent through the darkness. The quiet gave Lisa back some
of the strength the vision had drained away. Without thinking
about the consequences, Lisa pushed her way up from the earth.
Though standing made her sway, she bent her head and charged at
the younger man. She caught him in the side, butting her head
into the soft part below his ribs. The air burst from the man's
lungs as her momentum knocked him to the ground. She sprawled
along side of him, briefly losing the strength that had
propelled her along.
She stood up, and turned to face the elder man and the boy. But
before her eyes could focus, a bony fist hammered into her face.
She knew nothing for a moment, then looked up from the ground
yet again.
"You bitch!" the blond screamed, kicking into Lisa's stomach.
"Stop it, damn you!" the elder yelled. "How do you expect to
explain away two bodies? Now get a hold of yourself!"
The blond stared down at Lisa with a black scowl and heavy
breath. He wiped spittle from the side of his mouth and turned
back toward the elder. "Yeah. All right. I'll leave the bitch
alone."
When he turned his back, Lisa forced herself onto her feet.
Uphill into the darkness, she fled. With pain biting into her
stomach at each stride, she ran back to the top of the slope.
Darkness shrouded Lisa's home -- covered from without, filled
from within.
After forcing the door open, she could not bring herself to find
the light switch. It didn't matter, though. Her mind knew her
destination even through the lightless room.
Lisa felt the closet air stale and cold upon her skin. It poured
over her as she reached into the stillness. Cold and stale again
the touch that came to her fingertips. But heavy the burden she
hefted from the must-laden shelves.
Her hands trembled across its smoothness. Remembering the warmth
after her grandfather used it and laid it into her young arms;
the force as it pushed against her shoulder, threatening to
knock her to the ground with its power.
She snapped the stock from the barrel and felt the two cylinders
which rested flush to the hollow.
Her grandfather's voice returned to her. "Always keep it ready,"
he had said.
As she locked the pieces back together, she recalled the sun's
glint off her grandfather's eyes when he spoke those words. It
was a joyless sight.
Stepping outside into the starless night to wait, her heart
weighed heavier than the metal she bore in her arms.
Outside, the blackness of night laid upon her heart and drowned
everything around her. So dank her thoughts that upon hearing
the first steps of the men pulling their burden up the slope --
they swayed under the mass of a portable litter -- she welcomed
their presence.
Distance and stillness shrouded everything as light poured from
the rear ambulance doors. She held ground until the men pushed
the litter up and in -- held until she saw the soiled cloth
pulled up across the boy's body and over his head, hiding the
lifelessness within.
Steeling herself like a stone upon a mountain top, she readied.
But before moving into the light she heard the two men speaking.
"...and there ain't no reason not for us both to take credit.
Why probably them ranchers'd be downright pleased. I bet them
boys'd even give us some reward. Maybe a piece of the action we
could call our own." The words flooded from the blond to rush
over the elder. The only response was the occasional grunt of
mild agreement. "A piece of rez space to live on. Why, sure it'd
still _be_ rez land, but I could have a little cabin an' land to
graze on. The Skins'd think nothin' of it after this." He waved
one hand into the ambulance and over the mute body. "Yeah, a
piece of Skin land I could call my own! Might be theirs on
paper, but this'd make it mine. There ain't no way me or them
ranchers'd let them Skins take what's by rights mine."
The words seared pain in Lisa's ears. Reluctance burned away and
she rushed forward into the light, hefting the gun toward the
two men. Her aim fell upon the younger and she began to squeeze
the trigger.
The two saw her enter from the shadows. Both recognized the
threat she wielded. When the younger saw his fate pointing at
him in the double-barreled steel, he pushed out his arms as if
they would stop the gunshot.
"No!" he said. "No, no. Don't. That's not... That's not a good
idea. Don't shoot I tell ya, don't shoot!"
As his voice fluctuated, Lisa felt the bile rise from her
stomach once again. This time, though, she was ready; she would
not allow the vision to overwhelm. Recalling the rock upon the
mountain, her body solidified, her muscles became cast, and her
finger rigid upon the trigger.
The young man's whimpering amplified in her ears. It began to
rumble, bending itself into a great beast shaped of sound. The
thunder had come again. It beat upon her heart like a hammer,
threatening to shatter her to dust.
Through the roar, she pushed her mind into focus. Now! Now she
would act. Defying the solidity of her stance, she flexed her
finger. Force of will bent it back slowly against the rigidity
of her own form.
The thunder reacted to her movement. As the trigger slid, the
sound pounded upon her harder and harder. But with the hammering
upon her flesh, she felt herself move more freely. Her joints
loosened in their action and the resistance of the firing pin
weakened.
An instant before contact, she tasted the reek of medicine
stench upon her lips. It polluted her. It stripped her of
control. It unleashed the force of the vision to rush over and
carry her away.
The vision took her again to a far-off place. A grave sight. She
stood upon the decayed body of a broken man. His arms were flung
wide, a black opening was torn through his ribcage, and patches
of blond hair clung to his skull. In the hollow sockets that
once were eyes, a bone-white glare flashed. They spoke a word
that Lisa heard with her soul. "Hatred," they said.
While she studied it, the body began to take on life -- the
chest filled in, pieces of hair grew in from decayed patches.
Flesh sprung upon the skeletal cheeks, smoothing in their tanned
flush. The brow rose and the nose took form.
Reborn. It had transformed itself in many ways. From blond
patches to black locks. From featureless to recognizable. From
man to woman. Yet as the life washed into the body, the eyes
remained hollow sockets.
Lisa looked upon her own broken body lying in the grave. Tearing
her gaze aside, she caught sight of the shell casing, discharged
and smoking in the dust. A voice came to her as the shell
cooled. "Hatred," it said.
The voice was her own.
Unbidden, a tear formed in Lisa's eye. Like a stream through
stony banks it trickled down her cheek. At once the scene
collapsed about her; a silent rush of wind blew through her and
carried her back to the dim standoff.
The rumbling returned, but now its voice was terrifying with a
song of victory.
Her finger had slid too far to stop. With the final hammer beat,
she let herself fall to the dust of the earth. As she crumbled,
the gun roared and a flash blasted away the night for one brief
instant.
Stillness met the three figures. Glass lay shattered around them
from the shotgun blast. The metal atop the ambulance was buckled
and pocked from the explosive force.
It was the young blond who stirred first. Looking up he saw the
damage above his head. He turned to Lisa as she erected herself
again, and he met a blackened gaze which burned through his
heart. Averting his eyes, he realized the gun pointed at the
ground, one barrel spent and smoking. Awkwardly the blond man
questioned, "Why...?"
Lisa answered with an unblinking stare.
Again he questioned, "What do you want from me?"
This time, Lisa gave her answer aloud. The gun remained steady
as she spoke, "I would ask the boy's life back."
"I can't do that. Ain't mine to give."
Lisa paused, fire leaping from her gaze like the flash of
shotgun. "It wasn't yours to take either."
The man's lips tightened, as if laughter would never escape from
them again. Though Lisa raised the gun a second time, he didn't
protest -- he just let his head bow, his eyes cast to the
ground.
"Know this," she said to the two. "The truth of the night is
etched upon the earth. As long as you two walk the land, it will
be the witness of your guilt."
She waited a moment to see if they understood. "Leave this
place." She told them and turned away. With the lowered gun, she
stepped into the shroud of the night.
Moments passed. She heard the engine howl to life, but refused
to watch them go. As their sound faded away, she bent the gun at
the center to break stock and barrel once more. She removed the
unexpelled cylinder. Twirling it in her hand, she weighed its
power and knew the one thing alone it could bring.
Her fist tightened, then her arm cocked back and she cast it
over the hill. The shell vanished into the abysmal void. But
before it clattered upon the wreckage in the valley, she had
turned and strode away.
M. Stanley Bubien (bubien@nope.ucsd.edu)
------------------------------------------
M. Stanley bubien makes his home in Del Mar, California, with
his wife Kathy. He is currently woring on his first young adult
novel, a story about California Indians before the discovery of
America.
The Spirits We Know by William Trapman
==========================================
...................................................................
Everyone has their personal demons, whether they begin life
among snow-capped mountains in the American west, the green
hills and fields of Ireland, or anywhere in between.
...................................................................
He flickered on the edge of my vision as I picked up my bag and
walked into JFK. `You won't be able to keep up with a 747,' I
thought, and an hour later I was flying higher than he ever
could.
I should have felt free. But what I really felt was lonesome.
I got off at Shannon, where the immigration officer was a big
red face under untidy thinning hair. Friendly, easygoing,
professionally disarming.
"Business or holidays, sir?" he asked. His hands, broad and
weathered, flicked through the pages of my passport. Maybe he
farmed in his spare time. Jenny's people had been farmers; mine
too.
"Just a short holiday," I said.
He stamped the document. "I hope you enjoy it, sir."
The rental car was small, but I smelled the newness and thought
of an old truck with a sagging bumper, and of an old man and a
mixed-up young boy. I turned on the motor, shifted awkwardly
into gear with my left hand, and drove out of the parking lot. A
sticker on the windshield reminded me that here, they drive on
the left.
Now and again, without thinking, I looked skyward.
Green and rolling fields gave way to harsher land with rough
stone walls instead of hedge rows. It was an environment
different from both New York and Wyoming -- a place without the
noise of one or the dust of the other.
It rained differently here, too -- sudden fine mists of wetness
catching windshield wipers unawares. In New York it rains acid
out of clouds invisible from the bottom of the skyscraper
canyons, and in Wyoming what rain there is tastes angry. I got
out of the car once and the Irish mist that trickled down my
face was sweet.
I found the ocean, first in brief snatches beyond seafront
villages, then below high cliffs which marked the western edge
of the land. From that height the ocean seemed peaceful and
slow-moving, until I saw how fiercely it chewed at the base of
the cliff. I'd had to walk a path along the side of the
precipice, inside a fence of stone flags laid on their edges.
Beyond these were flat grassless areas of clifftop, some with
people lying down to look over the edge. At the top of the path
I sat out on one myself and looked across the ocean.
Jenny's ocean. The other side of the ocean she'd walked into.
The only way she knew to go home. The sun came out suddenly,
gently warming my back, and then a voice intruded.
"There's nothing to see out _there_."
I turned to find backlit hair haloed red, and everything inside
me went wild until the sun hid itself again. Then her face came
out of shadow, I saw that she was someone _else_ with red hair
-- someone with smiling green eyes, wearing a bright rain
slicker. A small backpack hung from her shoulder. The sound of
the wind on the clifftop had prevented me from hearing her
coming.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," she said, and waved
out over the sea. "You were looking the wrong way for the best
scenery."
I shrugged, rather ungraciously; I didn't want distraction. "It
depends on how far you can see."
"And how far can _you_ see?"
"Wherever I've been." It wasn't my usual style, but my tone was
unmistakably dismissive.
"Sorry," she said, and gave me a little wave before walking back
to the path, clambering easily over the stone flag fence, her
red hair floating against the sky.
I turned back to the ocean. The crashing surf was soundless from
700 feet above it, but the keening and mewling of the seabirds
on the cliffs were the songs of the wake I'd come to keep.
I came back down the pathway past a weathered man posing for
photographs with a donkey. On its back was a small dog wearing a
cap, with a pipe in its mouth. I guess it's easier to show
friends back home a picture of foolishness than to try and
understand and explain a different culture.
I drove from the parking lot after a quick look at a map, turned
left and found myself on the wrong side of the road with an
approaching motorist panicking on his brakes. Swerving back, I
gave the guy a suitably chastened look; he muttered something I
couldn't hear and didn't need to. A bit further, a hitchhiker
stuck out a thumb, and, still a bit shaken, I pulled over.
"Hi, going towards Galway?" she asked, bending to window level.
"Oh -- " green eyes grinned, " -- the man with the long-distance
vision."
This time I smiled back, thinking absently about second chances.
"Sure. Get in."
When she'd done so, she held out a hand. "I'm Finnoula. Finnoula
Regan."
"Mike," I said, accepting a firm and friendly clasp. "Mike
Rainwater." I put the car in motion again. "Hey, I'm sorry I was
short with you on the clifftop."
"That's OK. It was your space. I've used the cliffs to clear my
head too."
I glanced over; she caught my look and smiled again, open and
incurious.
"What's Galway like?" I asked.
"It's nice. Lively.... It's a university town with lots of young
people. Great crack."
I gaped at her and the car swerved slightly.
She burst out laughing. "No, not what you think... `crack' means
fun, enjoying yourself, music and drinking." She paused and
looked thoughtful, and _there_ was the resemblance again. "If
you don't mind taking a small detour for lunch, I'll show you."
She brought me to a little pierside pub, which was full, mostly
with foreigners enjoying the music and the food. We ordered
salmon on coarse Irish bread and Finnoula asked for a glass of
beer. I had a Coke.
"I don't drink," I told her when she suggested I try a beer.
"It's a genetic thing. Low tolerance to alcohol."
"Genetic?"
"Native Americans and alcohol don't mix very well."
She was puzzled. "Native Americans? Oh... Indians?"
I nodded. "Yes, but we prefer `Native Americans.' "
She looked at me, openly curious. "You're the first I've met,"
she said, "as far as I know."
"And how would you know?" I'd had this conversation once before.
"I don't know. Your skin isn't really red, just... outdoorsy.
Your features, maybe -- they're not European." Her eyes glinted
mischievously. "Maybe you shouldn't have stopped wearing
feathers?"
"Maybe you should still be riding donkeys," I retorted.
She laughed. "Touche. Sorry."
We let it go and listened to the music, but she was obviously
still thinking about it. "How does it work out in your job?" she
asked when the musicians took a break. "Is there prejudice, like
as if you were black?"
I work on Wall Street, where a Sioux is unusual in an
environment of Jews and WASPs who tend to keep things in the
family. But I had made it my business to become very good at
what I did, and as long a
s I produced I was tolerated, I told
her. "I don't get invited to certain parties, but it's no big
deal."
It had been at one time, when I'd scholarshipped my way through
a college too good for my breed; when hard work brought me high
grades, which disturbed some of my financially and racially
advantaged classmates. When comments about `good dead injuns'
held real malice and a couple of physical confrontations made me
wonder if they wanted to make it really happen. There were some
depressing times.
The early times of the eagle.
Back on the road she told me something about herself. She was
21, an only child, and worked as a computer programmer. And her
parents had split a month after her last birthday.
"They had it so well organized. I realized they'd only been
waiting until I turned 21," she murmured. "They tried to be so
damned civilized about it, but I know now the marriage
probably ended years ago. They'd stayed together for my sake."
"That's bad?"
"Yes. They didn't think about how I'd feel, knowing I was the
only reason they'd stayed together living what must have been
empty lives."
"And how _do_ you feel?"
She looked at me and winced. "Mixed up. I was angry with them
and said things that maybe I shouldn't have. That's why I'm over
here, trying to clear my head."
Two of us doing the same thing. "I'm sorry I didn't let you
share my space."
She grinned at that, which was better. For both of us.
We drove through layered hills of uncovered limestone, the color
of the clouds which sometimes came down over them. I'd not seen
anything like it.
"There's plant life here that's not found anywhere else," she
told me, and brought me to a perfumery which concentrated the
scent of rare flowers. We went to a cave with bones of bears
("There haven't been bears in Ireland for five thousand
years!"), and then she brought me to something which threw me
right back to home.
"It's a _dolmen,_ a stone age burial site." Four large rocks sat
in a massive but delicate construction that looked poised to fly
from its rocky field. "There are lots of them in Ireland, and in
Britain. Some say they have magical properties."
I put my hand against one of the upright stones. "We have
places which feel like this -- " I said quietly " -- they are
places of... communication."
She didn't laugh. "Communication with what?"
"Memories, and things beyond memory."
I felt her green eyes scanning right through me. "You're a deep
one, Mike Rainwater," she said eventually.
As we walked back to the car I thought once that a high shadow
flickered just beyond my vision. But I didn't look up.
"I'm going to stay with a friend from college." She was poised
at the half-open door of the car.
"Thanks for the company," I said, "and for the tour. Maybe we'll
see each other again sometime?"
I didn't expect to. And then I did one of those impulsive things
which don't come from rational thinking.
"Come with me tomorrow," I said.
She nodded, and I was surprised.
"Four in the morning," I warned, expecting a change of mind.
"OK," she said, then smiled, touched my hand briefly, and got
out of the car into the bustle of the Galway evening.
I sat on a limestone slab a little back from the dolmen and
waited for the sun. She was beside me, bundled in a warm jacket.
"You're not going closer?"
I shook my head. "It's not necessary."
It was like a sound which kind of sneaked in and built slowly,
growing under the lightening sky, and when the sun slipped up
from behind the eastern hills and cast the shadow of the dolmen
around me, the stones relayed its song. The ancient music
enveloped me like the old robe of buffalo skins in which I had
taken my tribal initiation vows, bringing me away into the past.
It lasted until the sun cleared the stones, and it was long
enough for Jenny to tell me that she hadn't meant to do it, and
to properly say her goodbyes. And then she was gone.
I looked at Finnoula.
"Finished?" she asked quietly.
I nodded. "Could you hear?"
She shook her head.
A pity. She would have liked Jenny.
We had breakfast in a local hotel, the first customers of the
day. She waited until we were finished to tell me she was going
to Dublin on the afternoon train. To see her father. The
prospect was bothering her.
"You don't know what to say to him?" I asked. "You're scared?"
"It's difficult for me to talk to either of them just now.
Somehow..." she paused, searching. "Somehow I feel guilty."
I looked at her for a few moments, then signalled the waitress
to bring the check. On the road I told her about my grandfather.
"He raised me. My parents died when I was small, killed when
their old truck went off the road. He was the one who pushed me
into regular school, instead of the one for people like us. One
day I came back upset after somebody called me a no-good redskin
-- " It all welled up again. "Know what I was feeling? Guilty.
Guilty for _being_ an Indian. I was feeling ashamed because
history had written us as the bad guys."
"That feeling wasn't rational," she murmured.
I grinned at her. "No, it wasn't. Is yours?"
Then she smiled too -- tentatively, but it was there. "No, it's
not." She reached across and squeezed my arm. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. And remember, you still _have_ parents to talk
to."
I don't like railway stations much; too often they're places of
saying goodbye. But we had time for coffee.
"How did you handle the guilt problem?" she asked.
I added sugar to my cup and stirred. "My grandfather took me on
a trip into the Tetons, high up until we could stand on a ledge
and see back down over Wyoming. Then he told me simple truths.
That my people had been there long before the people who taunted
me. That we had a civilization in this land much older than
theirs. That though the white men had taken the land, they
couldn't take our souls."
"He sounds like a wise man," she said. "But it doesn't sound
like enough to solve all your problems."
I nodded. "You're right. But he also gave me something else that
day."
We were high, but he was higher still, circling in the air
currents around the peak. My mind's eye provided detail which
distance hid.... talons and beak razor sharp, eyes which could
find a mouse hundreds of feet below, a majesty befitting his
place in the kingdom of life.
"That is your soul, Michael," my grandfather said softly. "That
eagle will always be near when you need him, when you have
difficulty finding yourself. Look up and you'll see him."
The bird dropped a wing and came swooping down towards us. I
made ready to run but my grandfather held my arm firmly. "Do not
be afraid of your soul," he murmured.
The eagle came so close that we could feel on our faces the wind
of his slowly beating wings, and I could see the beak and talons
and eyes which I'd only imagined before. He circled us once,
then gave a strident call and rose back up into the blue above
the Tetons.
"I haven't felt guilty or afraid since then," I said when I'd
told her about him. "Call it superstition if you want, but I
believed in that eagle."
"Have you seen him often?" she asked.
I nodded. "Several times, in school and later in New York when I
needed sorting out. I'd look at the skyscrapers and see him
wheeling around the peaks of the city."
Until he failed me: when Jenny went, I blamed him. I needed
something to blame, even though it had been inevitable. A
genetic thing, a low tolerance to life. And one night, when the
demons of fear had momentarily overcome her, she had gone to the
ocean and walked in until her red hair floated lifeless on the
waves.
I had asked him to help her and he'd failed me, and afterwards I
wanted to be free of him to curse him. But there is no freedom
from the spirits we know.
"There was a girl... Jenny, an Irish girl, in New York," I told
Finnoula. "Neither of us fitted perfectly in our lives. Both of
us were lonesome for our homes and our own people. But we had
also both said our goodbyes and we had to make good."
I had my eagle, but Jenny had a different bird, a raven that sat
on her shoulder. That's what she called her depression.
"She'd been dumped by a guy, her husband, in the small village
where she came from. She felt... ashamed. She became convinced
it was her fault, that she hadn't tried hard enough. She ran
away, from her village and her shame." I paused, remembering the
helplessness, hers and mine. "We became friends, and I was
trying to help her see that she couldn't hold herself
responsible for what happened, but one night when I wasn't
there, she drowned herself."
I looked at Finnoula and saw the woman that Jenny could have
been. "I came here to be sure she got home."
The public address system blared a call for the Dublin train and
she stood up. "I have to go, Mike." She came close and kissed me
on the cheek. "Thanks, again," she whispered, then she drew her
head back and looked at me. "Will you be coming to Dublin?"
I shook my head. "I've only another couple of days, and there's
something I have to do before I go back. But I'll come here
again."
"We don't have eagles in Ireland now," she said softly, a little
sadly. "We used to."
I hugged her and she felt warm and soft and very close. "They're
inside of us, Finnoula," I whispered. "We just have to let them
fly."
She waved to me until the train disappeared around the first
bend. And then there was only the locomotive's horn mourning me
a fading last goodbye.
The village was tiny, a straggle of houses tight into a bay,
with a small finger of pier pointing toward America. When I
drove in, I knew every house and the hidden people behind each
window.
There was no family to see; Jenny had told me her parents had
died some years before she left. And an only brother had gone to
Australia since then. When her crisis came, there was no one
close.
I parked the car near the pier and walked slowly through the
main street, and it was as if Jenny was beside me pointing out
her happy times. I recognized the house she'd grown up in, now
closed and dilapidated, with a `For Sale' sign that also looked
tired. A school seemed too new to be the one she'd talked of,
and then I found the original one-room building was now a
library. A church at the end of a laneway stood guard on a
graveyard and I creaked open an iron gate which echoed the final
hopes of generations.
I found her parents' grave and said goodbye for her.
I met a few people as I walked back in a cool wind coming off
the sea, but none paid me much attention. Most seemed to be old.
It was like the tribal villages back home, where the young
people had left because there was nothing for them.
On the pier I stood for a few minutes looking at the bay. Waves
staggered in from the ocean, falling exhausted onto a rocky
beach from which the child Jenny had paddled and swam, and on
which years later the woman Jenny had decided to run from her
raven. But it had followed her to the other side of the ocean.
I went back to the car and took a small box from the trunk. When
I stood on the end of the pier and scattered her ashes into the
waves, the raven finally flew from her shoulder.
The morning before I left, I waited on the clifftop. Soon I
heard the sun begin to rise behind me, and, as the music got
louder, a speck on the horizon grew.
Eventually I could feel on my face the wind of his slowly
beating wings.
William Trapman (brian@mariseo.internet-eireann.ie)
-----------------------------------------------------
William Trapman is a journalist and broadcaster from County
Kildare, Ireland. He has been writing short stories and plays
since the mid-'80s. He is the author of the published short
story collection _Mariseo's House and Other Stories_, and is
currently working on a novel based on an Irish Celtic
background.
Need to Know: From Paper to the Internet by Jason Snell
===========================================================
We live in a digital world overflowing with analog information.
For every e-mail message a person receives, there's usually a
corresponding voice mail item, a fax message, and probably a
large heap of "snail mail" or a package delivered to you
courtesy of your friendly postal employee.
Quite an industry has sprung up around the need to convert that
analog information into digital. Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) systems transform faxes and paper messages into ASCII text
(or -- better yet -- styled text, complete with a font which
closely matches the original). Voice recognition systems
translate the human voice into a form more capable of being sent
over a slow modem link or placed in a searchable database.
Though these tools can seem impressive, they're still not smart
enough to take human beings out of the process. Even the best
OCR packages still make enough mistakes to force someone to
check over the entire result for errors. And when it comes to
something as sensitive as converting works of _literature_ to
digital form, the time commitment required to make sure the work
is rendered faithfully begins to soar.
Enter Michael Hart, who, in 1971, began a project to convert
public domain texts -- ones whose copyrights had expired -- to
digital form. While early attempts didn't bear very much fruit
(only a few small texts were converted back then), in 1991 his
project, named after the man who sparked the printing
revolution, finally took root.
To date, Hart and his 500 Project Gutenberg volunteers have
converted almost 250 texts, ranging from the U.S. Declaration of
Independence to _Frankenstein_ to part of a turn-of-the-century
version of the _Encyclopaedia Brittanica_, into plain ASCII
text, readable by users of just about any computer on the
planet.
Though at first converting a book from page to hard drive might
seem a simple matter of running it through an OCR package (or
typing it in by hand) and editing out typographical errors,
Project Gutenberg insists on a rigorous production process.
First, source material (chosen by the volunteers themselves;
Hart says he has his own favorites, but "I don't want _my_
biases, much as I may love them, to effect things too much.")
must be old enough to be out of copyright -- Project Gutenberg
runs a copyright check on a work before volunteers even begin
work on creating an etext.
Second, Gutenberg volunteers try to make their plain ASCII texts
as readable as possible. All Gutenberg texts are unformatted,
with carriage returns at the end of every line. While plain text
doesn't allow editors very many tricks -- no special characters,
no altering the spaces between letters, words, and lines --
Gutenberg's guidelines do encourage editors to break their lines
at the ends of complete thoughts or with punctuation marks. For
example, take this passage from _Frankenstein:_
> How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and
> snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have
> hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those
> whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend
> and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
which might read better (and more poetically) as:
> How slowly the time passes here,
> encompassed as I am by frost and snow!
> Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise.
> I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors;
> those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom
> I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
After a while, it seems, one gets in the habit of thinking
carefully about how to break ASCII text at the end of lines.
Hart himself seems to take this habit to the extreme -- every
line of text he writes (except those at the end of a paragraph)
is exactly the same length. Some of us choose our words after
carefully weighing their meaning; Hart seems to weigh their
meaning _and_ their length.
Finally, editions are reviewed by Hart himself, and then the
"Gutenberg etext" is released to the world as version 1.0. As
the work is disseminated and errors are discovered, volunteers
will release new versions of the texts every so often.
While systems like the World Wide Web's HTML and Ian Feldman's
Setext (used by InterText and _TidBITS_) allow creators of
electronic texts to create texts without line breaks and add
attributes like italics and bolding, Gutenberg relies on plain
text. Hart's rationale is that while standards may come and go,
ASCII is forever.
"Only two authors of hundreds I have spoken with actually say it
may make a difference whether their works were emphasized in a
particular way, so most of the time it wouldn't make any
difference," he says. But Hart indicates that Gutenberg would be
willing to post books in some mark-up format, as long as "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" editions always remain available.
Of greater concern to Hart and Project Gutenberg are possible
changes in copyright laws. Currently, a copyright expires after
the creator of a work has been dead for 50 years. The more that
length extends, Hart says, the less information will be
available to "the Information Poor" -- people who don't have the
ability to pay for searching through or reading copyrighted
material. Right now any text created before 1920 is in the
public domain, and new works will begin coming into the public
domain this year. But the United States Congress is considering
legislation that would extend the copyright moratorium so that
post-1919 works wouldn't begin entering the public domain until
2015, and there's no guarantee that copyright protection will be
extended even further before 2015 comes along -- long after the
original creators of a work have profited off it, died, and left
their estates to others who have also profited. "Adding another
20 years to the copyright incarceration of information won't
help the Information Rich so much as it may move an Information
Poor person over twice as far into the Dark Ages, by making them
wait an additional 20 years for free access to information,"
Hart says.
The philosophy of making texts available to the information poor
is what drives Hart and Project Gutenberg, and that's why the
texts are available in ASCII. Essentially anyone with a computer
-- even if the computer is of the 15-year-old, garage-sale
variety -- can read Gutenberg etexts. If a computer has even the
most rudimentary searching ability, it can be used to search
Gutenberg etexts for relevant passages. In the end, an unlimited
number of people will be able to choose from a large electronic
library of texts while paying very little for the privilege. As
CD-ROM technology expands and decreases in price, whole
libraries of information will be available on just a few CD-ROMs
at low cost.
For Hart, the birth of every new electronic text is cause for
celebration. "I feel as if I have discovered Archimedes' Lever,"
he says, "and am jacking up a whole world just a little with
each book."
FYI
=====
...................................................................
InterText's next issue will be released May 15, 1995.
...................................................................
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