Bad Blood

The moral of this short story is either "Don't judge a book by its cover" or "Be careful who you piss off."  Both of them seem like decent takeaways.

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Bad Blood

Melba Crane looked up as Dr. Carlisle entered the room.  She smiled, revealing a row of straight, white, and undoubtedly false teeth.  “Hello, doctor!  I don’t think we’ve met yet.  How are you today?”

Dorian Carlisle looked at his new patient.  She was tiny, frail-looking, with carefully-styled curly hair of a pure snowy white, and eyes the color of faded cornflowers.  “I’m fine, Mrs. Crane.  I’m Dr. Carlisle—I’m looking after Dr. Kelly’s patients while he’s on vacation.”

Mrs. Crane nodded, and raised one thin eyebrow.  “My, you look so young.  It’s hard to believe you’re a doctor.”  She giggled.  “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Not at all.”  Dr. Carlisle lifted one of Mrs. Crane’s delicate wrists and felt gently for a pulse.  “I take it as a compliment.”

“It will be even more of a compliment when you’re my age.  I just turned eighty-seven three weeks ago.”

“Well, happy belated birthday.  I hear you had kind of a rough night last night.”

Mrs. Crane gave a little tsk and a dismissive gesture of her hand.  “Just a few palpitations, that’s all.  Nothing this old heart of mine hasn’t seen a hundred times before.”

“Still, let’s give a listen.”  Dr. Carlisle pressed his stethoscope to her chest.  Other than a slight heart murmur, the beat sounded steady and strong—remarkable for someone her age.

“How long will Dr. Kelly be away?”  Mrs. Crane asked, as Dr. Carlisle continued his examination.

“Two weeks.  He and his family went to Hawaii.”

“Oh, Hawaii, how lovely.  Such a nice man, and with a beautiful wife and two wonderful children.  He’s shown me pictures.”

Dr. Carlisle nodded.  “They’re nice folks.”  He pointed to a small framed photograph of a somewhat younger Mrs. Crane with a tall, well-built man, who appeared to be about thirty.  The man was darkly good looking, with a short, clipped beard and angular features.  He wore a confident smile, and stood behind Mrs. Crane, who was seated, her legs primly crossed at the ankle.  The man had his hand on her shoulder.

“Your son?” Dr. Carlisle asked.

Mrs. Crane nodded, and smiled fondly.  “Yes, that’s Derek.  My only son.”

“Do you get to see him often?”

“Oh, yes.  He visits me every day, especially now that I’m here in the nursing home.”  She paused and sighed.  “His father was Satan, you know.”

Dr. Carlisle froze, and he just stared at her.  She didn’t react, just maintained her gentle smile, her blue eyes regarding him with grandmotherly fondness.

He must have misheard her.  What did she say?  His father was a saint.  His father liked satin.  His father was named Stan.  His father looked like Santa.  But each of those collided with his memory, which stubbornly clung to what it had first heard.  Finally, he said, “I beg your pardon?”

“Satan,” Mrs. Crane said, her expression still mild and bland.  “That’s Derek’s father.  Lucifer.  He used to visit, too, quite often, when Derek was little, but I expect he has other concerns these days.”  She giggled again.  “And I’m sure he’s had dalliances with other ladies since my time.  Quite a charmer, you know, whatever else you might say about him.”

“Oh,” Dr. Carlisle croaked out.  “That’s interesting.”

“Well, of course, you couldn’t ask him to be faithful.”  If she heard his tentative tone, she gave no sign of it.  “He isn’t that type.  I did have to put up with a great deal of disapproval from people who thought it was immoral that I had a child out of wedlock.  But after all—” she tittered—“what else could they have expected?  He’s Satan, after all.”

"Satan," from Gustave Doré's illustrations for Milton's Paradise Lost (1866) [Image is in the Public Domain]

Dr. Carlisle cleared his throat.  “Yes, well, Mrs. Crane, I have to finish my examination of you, and see a couple of other patients this morning, so…”  He trailed off.

Mrs. Crane gave her little wave of the hand again.  “Oh, of course, doctor.  I’m being a garrulous old woman, going on like that.  I’m sorry I’ve kept you.”

“It’s no problem, really.  And I wouldn’t worry about the palpitations—usually they’re not an indication of anything serious, especially if they don’t last long, as in your case.  Your blood pressure is fine, and your last blood work was normal, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“I tried to tell the nurse that.  But she insisted that I see the doctor this morning.  I’m sorry I’m keeping you away from patients who need your help more than I do.”

“No worries, Mrs. Crane.”  Dr. Carlisle hung his stethoscope around his neck.  “Take care, and have a nice day.”

“You too, doctor.  It’s been lovely talking to you.”

Dr. Carlisle opened the door, and exited into the hall, feeling a bit dazed.

He stood for a moment, frowning slightly, and then came to a decision.  He walked off down the hall toward the nurses’ station, and set his clipboard on the counter, and leaned against it.

“Excuse me, nurse…?”  He smiled.  “I’m covering for Dr. Kelly this week and next.  I’m Dr. Carlisle—my office is up at Colville General.”

The nurse, a slim, middle-aged woman with gold-rimmed glasses and short salt-and-pepper hair, gave him a hand.  “I’m glad to meet you.  Dana Treadwell.  If there’s anything I can do…”

“Well, actually,” Dr. Carlisle said,  “I do have a question.  About Mrs. Crane, in 214.”

Dana gave him a quirky half-smile.  “She’s an interesting case.”

Dr. Carlisle nodded.  “That’s my impression.  She’s here because of advanced osteoporosis, but is there anything else that you can tell me that might be helpful?”

“Has periodic mild cardiac arrhythmia.  She had a full cardio workup about six months ago, showed nothing serious of note.  Some tendency to elevated blood pressure, but nothing that medication can’t keep in check.”  She paused, gave Dr. Carlisle a speculative look.  “Some signs of mild dementia.”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about.  Is she… is she delusional?”

“That depends on what you mean,” Dana said.  “Mentally, I hope I’m as with it when I’m eighty-seven.  But she is prone to… flights of fancy.  Particularly about her past.”

Dr. Carlisle didn’t answer for a moment.  Should he mention the whole Satan thing?  He decided against it.  “She does seem to like telling stories,” he finally said.

Dana's smile turned into a full-fledged grin.  “That she does.”

***

The following day, Dr. Carlisle was making his rounds, and passed Mrs. Crane’s room, and heard a male voice.  Curiosity did battle with reluctance to talk to her again, and curiosity won.  He knocked lightly, then stepped into the room.

Mrs. Crane looked up from a conversation she was having with a man who was seated at the edge of the bed, gently holding her hand.  When the man turned toward him, Dr. Carlisle immediately recognized him as the man in the photograph—noticeably older, perhaps in his mid to late fifties, but clearly the same person.  He still had the same carefully-maintained short beard, the same dark handsomeness, the same sense of strength, energy, presence.

“Oh, doctor, I’m so glad you’ve stopped by!” Mrs. Crane said.  “This is my son, Derek.”

“Dorian Carlisle,” Dr. Carlisle said.  “Nice to meet you.  I’m going to be your mother’s doctor for the next two weeks, until Dr. Kelly returns.”

Derek got up and extended a hand.  “Derek Crane."  They clasped hands.  Derek’s hand jerked, and a quick flinch crossed his face.

“Sorry,” Dr. Carlisle said, almost reflexively.

“It’s nothing.  Three weeks ago, I hurt my hand doing some home renovations.  I guess it’s still not completely healed.”

“I didn’t mean to…” Dr. Carlisle started, but Derek cut him off.

“It’s nothing.  Mom has been telling me about your visit yesterday.  It sounds like she talked your ear off.”

Dr. Carlisle smiled.  “Not at all. It was a pleasure.  I’d much rather chat with my patients and get to know them—otherwise, all too easily this job starts being about symptoms and treatments, and stops being about people.”

Mrs. Crane beamed at them.  “Well, it’s so nice of you to take time from your busy schedule to stop in.  I haven’t had any more palpitations.”

“That’s good,” Dr. Carlisle said.  “I just wanted to see how you were doing.  Nice to meet you, Derek.”

“Likewise.” Derek smiled.

Was there something—tense? speculative? about the smile?

No, that was ridiculous.  Mrs. Crane had just primed him to be wary of her son because she’s delusional.

Dr. Carlisle exited the room, and then stopped suddenly, his face registering shock.  He looked down at his hands.  On his right ring finger he wore his high school class ring, from St. Thomas More Catholic Academy.  He raised the ring to his eye, and saw, on each side of the blue stone in the setting, a tiny engraved cross.

***

That night, Dr. Carlisle told his girlfriend about Mrs. Crane over dinner.

“Now I want to meet this lady.”  Nicole grinned.

“Can’t do that. I can’t even tell you her name.  Privacy laws, and all that. I probably shouldn’t have even told you as much as I did.”

“It’s not like I’m going to go and tell anyone.  And I want to hear about your job.  It’s a huge part of your life.”

He took a sip of wine.  “And this one was just so out of left field.  I’ve dealt with people with dementia before, but they always show some kind of across-the-board disturbance in their behavior.  This was like, one thing.  In other respects, she seems so normal.”

“You didn’t talk to her that long.”

“No,” he admitted.  “But you learn to recognize dementia when you see it.  There was something about the way she looked at you—you could tell that her brain was just fine.”

Nicole raised an eyebrow.  “So, you think she really did have a fling with Satan?”

He scowled.  “No, of course not.  But I think she believes it.  But then…” he trailed off.

“But then what?”

“Her son jumped when I shook his hand, like he’d been shocked, or something.  Then he made some excuse about how he’d hurt his hand a couple of weeks ago.  But I noticed afterwards—I was wearing my high school ring.  It’s got crosses engraved on it.  And it was probably blessed by the bishop.”

“You’re kidding me, right?  I thought you’d given up all of that religious stuff when you moved out of your parents’ house.”

“I did.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” Nicole said.

“All I’m saying is that it was weird.”

“You’re acting pretty weird, yourself.”

“I just wonder if it might not be possible to test it.  See if maybe she’s telling the truth.”

“You do believe her!  Dorian, you’re losing it.  Satan?  You think she got laid by Satan?”

He sat back in his chair.  “I dunno,” he finally said.  “All I can say is, she believes it enough that it made me wonder.”

***

The next day, other than a quick walk down the hall in the early morning hours, Dr. Carlisle avoided that wing of the nursing home until after lunch.  When he finally went down the hallway toward room 214, he found that his heart was pounding.  But he was stopped in the hall before he got to Mrs. Crane’s room by the nurse he’d spoken to two days earlier, Dana Treadwell.

“You missed some excitement,” Dana said.

“What happened?”

“A bad spill.  Broken leg, possible fractured pelvis.”

Dr. Carlisle swallowed.  “Which one of the patients?”

“Not a patient,” Dana said.  “Mrs. Crane’s son.  Slipped on wet tile right outside his mother’s room, and fell.  Hard to believe you could be so badly hurt from a fall.  They brought him to Colville General—I heard he’s still in surgery.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.

“Mrs. Crane was really upset.”

“I’m sure,” Dr. Carlisle said.

Dana seemed to pick up the odd tone in his voice.  She raised one eyebrow.  “Yeah.  She was completely distraught.”

“Really?”

Dana nodded.  “Especially after her ex-husband came by.  We finally had to give her a sedative.”

Dr. Carlisle tried to think of something to say, and finally just choked out, “That’s too bad,” and turned away, hoping that Dana wouldn’t notice the ghastly expression on his face.  He stuck his hand in his lab jacket pocket, and fingered the small glass bottle, now empty, that he’d filled early that morning at the font in the nursing home’s chapel.

“Oh, and Dr. Carlisle?” Dana said, and he turned.

“You might want to know that before we finally got her to go to sleep, your name came up.”

“Me?” Dr. Carlisle squeaked.  “What did she say?”

“Something about your ‘needing an ocean of holy water.’  You might want to let Dr. Bennett handle her case from now on.”  She smiled.  “Just a suggestion.”

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It's kind of sad that there are so many math-phobes in the world, because at its basis, there is something compelling and fascinating about the world of numbers.  Humans have been driven to quantify things for millennia -- probably beginning with the understandable desire to count goods and belongings -- but it very quickly became a source of curiosity to find out why numbers work as they do.

The history of mathematics and its impact on humanity is the subject of the brilliant book The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization by Michael Brooks.  In it he looks at how our ancestors' discovery of how to measure and enumerate the world grew into a field of study that unlocked hidden realms of science -- leading Galileo to comment, with some awe, that "Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe."  Brooks's deft handling of this difficult and intimidating subject makes it uniquely accessible to the layperson -- so don't let your past experiences in math class dissuade you from reading this wonderful and eye-opening book.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

The Hourglass

Folks who have read a lot of my stories will recognize Flanagan's Irish Pub as a setting for a number of different scenes, and the friendly blonde bartender Valerie who works there has shown up as a recurring minor character in several of my books and short stories.  It's based on a real pub -- the Rongovian Embassy to the United States, in Trumansburg, New York -- now several years defunct, but a fixture for decades in this part of the Finger Lakes.

The idea for "The Hourglass" came to me out of the blue one October day, as I was picturing the interior of the Rongo (as locals called it), and suddenly I had a powerful image of two twenty-somethings, strangers, coming into the bar and both ordering a pint of Guinness.  This starts a conversation... about what? I had to write the story to find out.

The result is a story-within-a-story that is one of the twistiest things I've ever written, and I submit it to you for this week's Fiction Friday, along with a question: what do you think happened at the end?

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The Hourglass

Chad Tarlow consulted his watch.  Seven thirty.  Plenty of time for a pint.  Only one, as usual, both because the beer he liked was expensive, and also because he needed to be lucid when he got back to his apartment.  He still had about five hours of reading and writing to do for his graduate classes, and he’d seen the results of writing papers in an alcohol-induced fog.  He only had two semesters left and he’d have his master’s degree and his teaching license.  No sense screwing it up now.

He sat at the bar, and gave a smile to Valerie, the cute bartender.  Valerie, he knew, was taken, in a long-term relationship with a guy who worked for the college as some kind of environmental researcher.  No use to hit on her.  He did a slow look around the bar, to see if there were any other prospects, but Flanagan’s was pretty dead. Oh, well, it was not like he had time for a girlfriend anyhow.  He sighed, and turned back to find a foamy pint of Guinness waiting for him.

“Saw you come in,” Valerie said, grinning and wiping her hands on a towel.

“I’m getting predictable.” 

“Nothing wrong with knowing what you like.”  She headed off to the other end of the bar to pour a drink for an elderly man who looked like he’d already had one too many.

The door opened, letting in a rush of cool autumn air, and a few dead leaves.  Chad looked up from his pint and saw, with a pang of disappointment, that the newcomer was a young man.  He was perhaps twenty-five, with tousled curly hair, dark eyes, and an angular jaw that was in need of a shave.  He stopped for a moment, and glanced around the place as if looking for someone.

No single women here tonight, bud.  Hope you weren’t counting on getting any.

The man seemed to consider leaving, then with a little shrug came up to the bar, shucked his windbreaker and woolen scarf, and hung them over the back of the barstool two down from where Chad sat.  Valerie came over wearing her usual friendly smile.  “What can I get you?” 

“You have Guinness on tap?”

“Yup.”

“A pint, then.”  He slid a ten-dollar bill toward her and sat down, leaning forward, elbows on the bar.

She drew the pint, and while it was settling she gave him his change.  “You from around here?  Haven’t seen you in here before.”

“I live in Skaneateles.  My first time in here.”

She slid the pint toward him. “Nice town, Skaneateles.” 

“That it is.”

Valerie went to attend to the elderly gentleman, who was waving at her in a rather woozy fashion, leaving Chad and the newcomer with their pints and the awkward silence that always descends between people who are strangers but who are forced to be near each other by circumstance.

“What do you do in Skaneateles?”  Chad finally said, feeling that he couldn’t just sit there without saying anything, drink his beer, and then leave.  But once said, it sounded ridiculous – an empty sentence, like “Have a nice day.”

But the newcomer smiled faintly, and said, “I’m a writer.”

“Really?  What do you write?”

“Novels.  Science fiction, mainly, and some fantasy.  Mostly speculative stuff.”

“That’s cool.”  Chad swiveled a little towards him.  “I’ve always wondered how writers think of their plots.  Especially you science fiction guys.  I mean, you not only have to make up your plot and characters and all, you have to invent a whole world.”

The man smiled again, and took a sip of his pint. “I get asked that a lot.  By the way, my name’s Aaron.”  He extended his hand, which Chad shook.

“Chad.  I’m a grad student in education.  Heading toward teaching physics in high school – provided, of course, that I can get a job.”

Aaron nodded.  “Not easy, these days.”

“But you work from home.  Pretty cool.  You just write stories, and your customers come to you.”

He looked down.  “Something like that.”  He glanced over at the window for a moment, again seeming like he was looking for something or someone.  Then he turned back toward Chad.  “It’s usually the plots that get me stuck.  It can take a long time to work out plot points, because in science fiction, everything’s got to hang together.  The readers immediately pick up on it if there’s an inconsistency.”

“How do you work it out when you get stuck?”

Aaron shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Usually the solution just comes to me sooner or later.  I’m not sure from where.  But when I get badly stuck, sometimes it takes weeks to figure my way through it.”  He paused.  “In fact, I’m trying to work something out right now.  It’s why I went for a drive today – to try to clear my brain and see if I could figure out how the story should go.”

“What are you stuck on?” 

“You want me to tell you?” Aaron's dark eyebrows lifted a little.  “I don’t want to bore you.”

“It won’t bore me.  Look, dude, I have several hours of reading educational philosophy when I get home.  Anything you could come up with would be fascinating by comparison.”

Aaron laughed.  “All right.  It’s a time travel story.”

“Okay.”

“But the time travel isn’t really the point.  I mean, it’s not like The Time Machine, where it went into the fictional technology and all.  Even though it depends on being able to reverse the hourglass, this story focuses more on an ethical dilemma.  And I want to make sure that the story works out the right way.  You know, not corny or trite.  And I’m not sure what to do.”

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Michael Himbeault, Hourglass , CC BY 2.0]

“So, when does the character travel to?”

Aaron took another pull on his pint.  “Here’s the deal.  The main character is a nice guy, but he had a really shitty childhood.  His mother was a complete whackjob.  Borderline personality, controlling, manipulative.”  He gestured with one hand.  “The kind of woman who should never be allowed to have children.  But like a lot of borderlines, she appeared normal enough on first glance.  In fact, she was kind of a magnetic personality.  Most people figured out soon enough that she was psycho.  She lost job after job, and so on.  And made her son’s life miserable.”

“Poor kid,” Chad said.

“Right?  The main character’s father was a decent guy, kept trying to help his wife, even though she was kind of beyond help, and stayed in the marriage to shield his son as much as he could.  But the mom was nuts enough that it didn’t really help.  And when the main character was seventeen, his mom had a total flip-out and killed his dad.  She ended up in jail.”

“Wow.  Seriously heavy stuff.”

“Yup.  So, anyway, that’s the setup.  That’s all in the past, in the story.  The reader just finds out about it in the first few chapters.  The son grows up, and he’s got a shitload of baggage from what he went through as a kid.  I mean, graduating from high school – mom’s in jail for killing dad.  The kind of thing most kids never have to deal with.”

“I hope not.  I don’t know what I’d do if something like that happened to one of my students.”

“I guess it happens sometimes.  Teachers got to deal with all sorts of stuff they wish they’d never had to see.  In fact, in the story, it’s the main character’s teachers, and some of his dad’s relatives, that save him.  So, anyway, he grows up, mostly normal, but has all of this psychotic stuff in his past.  Then, time travel is invented.  Scientists find a way to send people backwards, forwards, whatever you want.  And the guy gets an idea; what if he goes back in time, and stops his mom from meeting his father?”

“Seriously?  Like Back to the Future, only in reverse?”

Aaron smiled.  “Sort of like that.  He knows that if he does that, he’ll save his father from twenty years in a horrible relationship, that will end with his being shot to death by the woman he’d married.  But of course, you see the dilemma.”

“If he succeeds, he’ll cease to exist.”

Aaron nodded.  “And I have to be able to answer the question, confidently enough that what my character does makes sense.  You know?  If I’m not sure, I won’t be able to write it convincingly.  So, I guess the question is: do you save someone decades of unhappiness and an early death, at the cost of your own life?  Or do you save your own life even if it means someone you care about will be miserable?”

“The father might have been just as miserable had he not met the mom,” Chad said.  “You never know.”

“That’s true.  But even so.  What should he do?”  Aaron held up one hand, palm upwards.  “It’s just a story, after all.  I can make it come out whatever way I want.”

“Is the main character happy with his life?  I mean, if he’s screwed up himself, maybe he’d be better off, you know… not existing.  Kind of a clean suicide.”

“I didn’t want to make it that clear-cut.  That seemed too corny.  Like, he’s just wanting out, so he goes back in time to kill himself painlessly and save dad the trauma as an added benefit.  In the story, he’s kind of ordinary.  Some days good, some days bad.  He’s got some memories and shit to deal with, yeah – but he’s not, like, despondent or anything.”

“Wow,” Chad said.  “That’s a really interesting question.  I can see why you’re stuck.”

Aaron smiled, and took another drink.  “A puzzler, isn’t it?”

“Well, here’s an idea.  Maybe he should go back in time, you know… and present the idea to the dad.  Tell him what is going to happen.  Let the dad decide.”

“That’s kind of a cop-out.”

“Yeah, but, you know, see if the dad thinks all the misery would be worth it, to have a kid.”

“How could the dad judge that?  You know, condemn himself to twenty years of misery, and knowing he’d be killed at the end of it by the woman he’d married?  Do you really think anyone would be willing to do that voluntarily?”

“I don’t know,” Chad said.  “Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t know our futures.”

“Believe me,” Aaron responded, with some vigor, “since I started working on this story, I’ve thought about that many times.”

Chad finished his pint.  “Well, I’ve got to get going.”

“Educational philosophy waits for no man.”  Aaron gave him a smile.

“Nope.  And, with luck, once I’m actually teaching I’ll never have to read this crap again.”

This got a laugh. “That’s why I stick to writing science fiction.  People actually want to read it.”

Chad stood up, and shook Aaron’s hand.  “Good luck with your story.  I think it’s an interesting idea.  I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

“I hope so,” Aaron said.

Chad picked up his backpack from next to the barstool, and said goodbye to Valerie.  As he was approaching the door, it opened, admitting another gust of cool air.  A woman walked in – slim, with shoulder-length brown hair and sparkling blue eyes.  She glanced his way, and smiled.

No boyfriend in tow.  Okay, did he really need to stop at one pint?  He had time for another, right?

Chad opened his mouth to say something to her – his usual pickup line was, “Can I buy you a drink, or would you prefer to break my heart?”, which worked about fifty percent of the time, and in the other half of the cases just resulted in an eyeroll.  But something in him seemed to stall.  The words would not form, and the smile died on his lips.

The woman walked past him, and up to the bar. Chad turned to watch her.  And up on a shelf, behind the bar, was something he had never noticed before – a large hourglass in an ornate wooden frame, filled with white sand.  Valerie turned away from the elderly gentleman, who was finally paying his tab and seemed to be trying to determine if he could successfully stand up.  The woman sat down on one of the barstools at the otherwise empty bar, crossed her legs at the ankles, and rested her elbows on the polished mahogany top, smiling at Valerie and saying something too quietly for Chad to hear.  Valerie smiled, and turned – and then picked up the hourglass and flipped it over.

Chad watched the stream of sand spilling downwards for a moment, a distant expression on his face, like someone just waked from dreaming.  Then he walked out, alone, into the windy October night.

***********************************

Like many people, I've always been interested in Roman history, and read such classics as Tacitus's Annals of Imperial Rome and Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars with a combination of fascination and horror.  (And an awareness that both authors were hardly unbiased observers.)  Fictionalized accounts such as Robert Graves's I, Claudius and Claudius the God further brought to life these figures from ancient history.

One thing that is striking about the accounts of the Roman Empire is how dangerous it was to be in power.  Very few of the emperors of Rome died peaceful deaths; a good many of them were murdered, often by their own family members.  Claudius, in fact, seems to have been poisoned by his fourth wife, Agrippina, mother of the infamous Nero.

It's always made me wonder what could possibly be so attractive about achieving power that comes with such an enormous risk.  This is the subject of Mary Beard's book Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern, which considers the lives of autocrats past and present through the lens of the art they inspired -- whether flattering or deliberately unflattering.

It's a fascinating look at how the search for power has driven history, and the cost it exacted on both the powerful and their subjects.  If you're a history buff, put this interesting and provocative book on your to-read list.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Menagerie

For this week's Fiction Friday, here's an odd little short story I wrote a while back when I was pondering what my life would be like without the anxiety and emotional ups-and-downs I've dealt with since I was a child.  Would you simply delete unpleasant feelings if you could?  And if so, would you end up losing more than you gained?

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Menagerie

“Your body is completely relaxed.  You are tranquil, floating, totally comfortable.”  Fay Devillier’s soothing voice was the only sound in the room, other than the soft breathing of her client who sat, legs crossed, on a yoga mat, hands on his knees, eyes closed.

“You can still hear my voice, and are able to respond to my questions.  You are not asleep, just very, very relaxed.  Do feel relaxed, Jesse?”

Jesse Goldman’s lips opened, just a little, and he said, “Yes.”

“Excellent.  Now, without losing your sense of peace and relaxation, I want you to become aware of your anxiety.  Picture it.  Keep it in front of your attention.  But your anxiety is not you.  It is something you are curious about, something you are observing.  Think of your anxiety as an animal, some small animal in front of you.  It can’t harm you.  You are watching it.  Can you see it?”

“Yes,” Jesse said again.

“What do you want to say to it, Jesse?”

“Get out of my body,” Jesse said, his voice barely audible.  “I don’t want you any more.”

“That’s very good.  How did your anxiety-animal react when you said that?”

“It didn’t like it.  It’s glaring at me.”

“But you know it can’t hurt you, right?  It can only go back into your body if you let it.”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Now, go deep into your breathing.  Let your vision of the anxiety-animal fade away.  Give your attention to your breathing.”

Jesse sat quietly for several minutes, breathing.

“When you are ready, let your awareness rise like a bubble rising in water.  Expanding, floating to the top.  When it reaches the top, open your eyes.  You will awake feeling no anxiety, only peace.”

In a few moments, Jesse opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and then smiled.  Fay, seated in the lotus position in front of him, smiled back.

“How do you feel, Jesse?”

“Great.”  He stretched, his back cracking pleasantly.  “That was awesome.  I’m not feeling jittery any more.”

“Now, remember, you may feel your anxiety trying to sneak back in.  When you do, just close your eyes and breathe.  What you did today, you did—not me.  You can go into yourself any time you want.  Any bad feeling you have, you can banish this way.”

Jesse nodded. “I’d like to try to get rid of a few others.  I have other feelings I’d like to get rid of.”

“We can work on those next time.”  She reached out and touched his shoulder.  “But just remember that you don’t have to try to tackle everything at once.”

***

Jesse rode the bus back to his apartment feeling lighter than he had in months.  Maybe years.  Anxiety had been part of his life as long as he could remember.  The nervous clutch in the belly, the sweat breaking out on the skin, the heart racing—all were familiar sensations, sure to come any time he was faced with a challenge he thought he couldn’t achieve, which was often.  This probably explained why Jesse, the prep-school-educated only child of a lawyer father and a doctor mother, was working for twelve dollars an hour as an aide in the public library.

When he got back to his apartment, he met his roommate, Dale Warren, leaving for work.

“Hey, Goldman.  What did you think of the hypnotist chick?”

“Pretty good,” Jesse said.

“Told you.  Rachel said she was amazing.”

“Tell Rachel thanks for recommending her.”

“We’re going to see a movie tonight.  I’ll tell her.”  Dale grinned.  “Rachel’s friend Sarah is still available, dude.  You think the hypnotist could help you get over your being too big a wuss to ask her out?”

Previously, such a question would have made Jesse’s heart give a nervous little gallop, but now, all he felt was calm.  He gave his roommate a confident smile.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I think she might.”

Jesse had two hours before his shift began at the library, so he went into his bedroom, figuring he’d take a quick nap—his feeling of relaxation was really extraordinary.  He hadn't felt this good in a long, long time.  He was caught between astonishment and happiness at the well-being that washed over him.  He felt like he could actually sleep soundly, something that had never been easy.  But when he opened his bedroom door, all thoughts of sleep vanished.

Sitting in the middle of his bed was a squirrel.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Nickomargolies at English Wikipedia, Common Squirrel, CC BY-SA 3.0]

The squirrel was just sitting there, shivering.  It didn’t look cold, it looked more like it had a disorder of the central nervous system.  Its entire body was vibrating, almost as if it were being subjected to periodic electric shocks.

Was this what rabies looked like?  Then he glanced over at his window, which was closed.

So how had it gotten into his room?

Then he realized two other things, in increasing order of bizarreness.  First, he didn’t feel at all alarmed by the fact that there was an apparently diseased squirrel in the middle of his bed, and second, the squirrel looked a lot like the way he had imagined his anxiety during hypnosis.

Without taking his eyes off the animal, he reached over and picked up his tennis racket, which was leaning against the wall behind the door.  He walked slowly toward the bed, and then extended the racket, and poked the animal in the side with the end of it.

“Shoo,” he said.

The squirrel looked up at Jesse and said, in a high-pitched but perfectly clear voice, “Fuck off.”

Jesse dropped the racket.

“You talk?” Jesse said.

The squirrel just gave him a sour look, and its face twitched.

“Are you the animal I visualized when I was at the hypnotist?”

“Bright guy.  Got it in one.”

A thought floated through his head, wondering why he wasn't freaking out about this.  Any normal person would be beyond freaking out by this point.  “How can you be real?”

“You did it,” the squirrel said, a bitter tone in its voice.  “You figure it out.”

“I’m having a hallucination.”

“Suit yourself.”

“So, you really are real, then?”

“Look, I’m not going to spend my time discussing existential issues with you.”  The squirrel looked up at him.  “Say, you got some of those anti-anxiety meds you always pop like candy?  I could use a couple.”

Jesse frowned.  “Is this… is this why I feel so much better?  Because you’re not inside me any more?”

“Oh, sure.”  The squirrel's voice cracked as its body shook.  “Lord it over me.  Think about how I feel.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Jesse said, and then realized that he didn’t actually feel very sorry at all.  “But you were the one making me upset, making it so I couldn’t cope.”

“Seriously?  That’s what you think?”  The squirrel snorted.  “Try again, buster.”

Jesse sat down on the edge of the bed.  “Well, whatever. I feel better, so I really don’t care if I’m hallucinating you or not.  Now, move over, because I’m taking a nap.  I feel like I could sleep for days.”  He set his alarm clock for two hours.  “But I still have to go to work, so I’d better just make it till eleven o’clock.”

***

Jesse woke up, after one of the soundest, most refreshing sleeps he could remember, just before his alarm went off.  The squirrel had moved to the top of his bookcase, where it sat, shivering and glaring at him.  Jesse changed into his work clothes, and twice had to stop himself from breaking into whistling.  He did feel a twinge of guilt about the squirrel’s apparent discomfort, and didn’t want to rub it in its face too obviously.

While on a break at the library, he called Fay Devillier, and asked if she had any openings later in the week—that he felt so much better, he wanted to see her more than once a week.  She sounded pleased, and surprised, but cautioned him against being too aggressive.

“Don’t push things too fast, Jesse.  I’m happy you feel our work has been helpful, but slow and steady is best.”

“No, I really want to try this again.  Can we?”

“I have an opening Thursday at ten.  Can you make that?”

“Yes.  And I know just what I want to work on.”

***

“Shyness is not necessarily a bad thing,” Fay said, at ten o’clock on Thursday morning.  “What we think of as negative or unpleasant emotions can sometimes serve a purpose.”

“It’s a problem to me,” Jesse said.  “I can’t face asking a girl out.  I’m totally awkward at parties.  I hate it.”

“Well…”  She sounded hesitant.  “If you find it to be that big an impediment to your life…”

“I do.”

***

When Jesse returned to his apartment, he was not really all that surprised to see that there was a little bird sitting on his dresser, which put its head under its wing when he looked at it.  The squirrel was splayed out on its back on Jesse’s pillow, a cool, wet washcloth on its forehead, its body still wracked by tremors.

He barely gave them a glance.  He went to his telephone and picked it up, and dialed a number he’d written on a slip of paper next to his nightstand.

“Hi, Sarah?  This is Jesse Goldman—I’m Dale Warren’s roommate.  I was wondering… would you like to go catch a movie or something tonight?”

***

Fay Devillier looked at Jesse doubtfully, as he walked into her office at ten o’clock sharp the following Tuesday.

“You look… good, Jesse,” she said tentatively.

“I feel great.  Hey, I’ve already had two dates with Sarah.  She’s great.  I haven’t had a panic attack in over a week.  I’m doing awesome.”

“That’s good.  I mean… yeah, that’s good.”  Fay paused and shook her head.  “Look, I have to tell you that I have some misgivings about this.  You seem like you’re… changing too fast.  Like you’re imposing your will over your problems—forcing yourself to make big changes quickly.  I’m worried that it won’t be permanent, that you could have a setback.”

“I’m not.  And it’s not me imposing my will, or at least in the way you mean—that I’m somehow just submerging my feelings.  Your hypnotherapy hasn’t made me able to control my bad feelings—it’s taken them away.  I had therapy for years that was designed to help me control my feelings.  It never worked.  What you’ve helped me to do is to remove the feelings entirely.”

“Feelings aren’t bad things, in and of themselves,” Fay said.  “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Feelings are there for a reason.”

“They’re making it too hard for me to do what I want to do.”

Fay looked at him uncertainly.  “Are you sure…” she began, and then stopped.

“I’m sure.  I want to do it again.”

She bit her lip.  “Once more.  Only once.  And then you need to sit back, and let yourself just be for a while.  The whole point of this isn’t to tear yourself apart, you know.”

“Maybe not.  But I sure don’t mind tearing away the parts of me that cause me pain.”

Fay frowned at him, and then took a deep breath.  “All right.  One more time, then.  What will it be this time?”

“Fear.”

***

Jesse caught only a glimpse of the rabbit’s white tail as it zoomed under the dresser when he walked into his bedroom at a little before noon.

The bird was standing in front of the mirror on his dresser, both wings over its eyes.

The squirrel had somehow opened the bottle of Southern Comfort Jesse had sitting on top of his bookcase, and lay next to a mostly-empty glass in an alcoholic stupor.  It was still shivering.

This was awesome.  No fear.  No anxiety.  No shyness.

Of course, there were other parts of him that he could sure do without.  Wouldn’t it be nice not to be angry at his parents any more for all of the head trips they put on him when he was a kid?  Wouldn’t it be great not to feel sad any more about his beloved grandma dying last year?  Wouldn’t it be easier if he didn’t feel jealous of Dale for being better-looking than he was?

He lay back on his bed, and cupped his hands behind his head.

Fay said she wasn’t going to help him any more, that what he was doing was dangerous.  But he didn’t feel afraid to do it, so what exactly was the problem?  He peered over at the rabbit, which had poked its whiskered face out from under the dresser.  As soon as he turned its way, it dashed back into the dark space and disappeared.

He closed his eyes.  Focused on his breathing, made each breath deep and deliberate.  He concentrated on the air moving in and out of his chest, felt his heart beating more slowly as relaxation seeped through his body.

Anger. Sadness. Jealousy. Pain. Loss. Grief. Rage. Laziness. Destructiveness. Greed.

How much better it would be, how much more peaceful and quiet and calm, without any of them.

Jesse Goldman sank back, descending, his awareness pulling one emotion, then another, then another, out into the sunlight for him to watch and then to banish, until finally there was nothing left, nothing but an empty beam of sunlight with only a few particles of dust swirling in it to give it substance.

***

Dale Warren got home from work at a little after seven.  He dropped his lunchbox on the counter, chucked his keys onto the coffee table, then went over to check voicemail.  He’d left a message with Rachel about going to a party that evening—a yes from her would make what had been an otherwise fairly boring day have at least the promise of a good end.

The voice on the only message, however, wasn’t Rachel’s.  “This is Jessica McVeigh,” came a pinched, annoyed female voice.  Dale recognized the name of Jesse’s boss at the library.  “Jesse, where are you?  Louise is sick today, and we’re short-handed.  Call me when you get this.”

Dale frowned.  Missing work without calling in wasn’t like Jesse.  It wasn’t like him at all.  He went to Jesse’s bedroom, and knocked on the door.

“Yo, Goldman, you in there?”

There was no response, so Dale opened the door.

Jesse Goldman was lying on his bed, his hands still behind his head, a beatific smile on his face.

“Goldman?” Dale said, and walked over to the bed, and shook his roommate’s arm.

Jesse didn’t awaken, didn’t even stir.  His chest still rose and fell, slowly, rhythmically, the only thing that showed that he was still alive.

And that was when Dale noticed that he and Jesse were not alone in the dimly-lit bedroom.  In every corner, on every surface, there was an animal of some kind.  A large snake was coiled around the base of Jesse’s floor lamp, its forked tongue flicking, watched him through lidless eyes.  A monkey sat beside the bookcase, systematically tearing up one of Jesse’s old college chemistry textbooks.  A basset hound, its long ears drooping, gazed at Dale for a moment, then gave a heartfelt sigh and curled up in a pile of dirty clothes on the floor next to the bed.  A packrat was scurrying back and forth, picking up objects in its mouth, and bringing them back to pile them up in the corner by the window.  It already had a small stack of coins, several paper clips, a flash drive, a keychain, and Jesse’s wristwatch.  There were others animals there, too—he could make out several different kinds of birds, a frog, a scorpion, a lizard of some sort, and most alarmingly, what appeared to be a black panther, sitting inside the closet, looking out at Dale through the half-open door.  As their eyes met it gave a low, throaty, dangerous-sounding growl, and Dale caught a glimpse of white teeth.

Dale backed toward the door, his heart jittering uncertainly against his ribs.

“Jesse?” he said again, his voice coming out as a squeak.

A squirrel raised its head from a spot on the bookcase, and regarded Dale through bloodshot eyes.  “Don’t bother,” the squirrel said.  “He can’t hear you.  He thought he’d be better off this way.  Moron.”

Dale turned and ran out of the room, and was dialing 911 when he heard the squirrel’s shrill voice call after him, “Don’t blame me.  I tried to tell him.”

*****************************************

I've mentioned before how fascinated I am with the parts of history that still are largely mysterious -- the top of the list being the European Dark Ages, between the fall of Rome and the re-consolidation of central government under people like Charlemagne and Alfred the Great.  Not all that much was being written down in the interim, and much of the history we have comes from much later (such as History of the Kings of Britain, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, chronicling the events of the fourth through the eighth centuries C.E. -- but written in the twelfth century).

"Dark Ages," though, may be an unfair appellation, according to the new book Matthew Gabriele and David Perry called The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe.  Gabriele and Perry look at what is known of those years, and their contention is that it wasn't the savage, ignorant hotbed of backwards superstition many of us picture, but a rich and complex world, including the majesty of Byzantium, the beauty and scientific advancements of Moorish Spain, and the artistic genius of the master illuminators found in just about every Christian abbey in Europe.

It's an interesting perspective.  It certainly doesn't settle all the questions; we're still relying on a paucity of actual records, and the ones we have (Geoffrey's work being a case in point) sometimes being as full of legends, myths, and folk tales as they are of actual history.  But The Bright Ages goes a long way toward dispelling the sense that medieval Europe was seven hundred years of nothing but human misery.  It's a fascinating look at humanity's distant, and shadowed, past.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Retrograde

One thing I haven't done yet on Fiction Friday is to post one of my pieces of fiction.  Seemed a bit ironic, that, so today I'm sharing "Retrograde," a strange short story about time, a chance meeting, and how we all watch the film unwind from our own perspectives.  It's not available anywhere else, so here you have it: an Exclusive Release.  Enjoy!

*************************************

Retrograde

I met Hannah about a month ago.  Of course, she wouldn’t phrase it that way, but maybe there’s no other way to say it and be understood, so let’s just leave it there; I met her about a month ago, the week before Christmas.

It had been an unusually cold December.  Even people who’d been born and raised in Ithaca were complaining.  There were about two feet of ice-crusted snow on the ground, and the sound of the plows growling by became so common that you stopped hearing them.  I was walking up Meadow Street, and as my boots pressed into the snow on the sidewalk, they made that squeaking noise that only happens when the temperature is getting close to zero.

I do this walk most nights, up from the bicycle shop where I work to the Ithaca Bakery to grab a bite to eat, then over two blocks on Cascadilla Street where I rent an upstairs room from an elderly couple.  It’s an okay life but you don’t need to tell me that I’m floating, that I’m slipping through life doing the bare minimum.  My mom tells me that most times I talk to her, but it’s not like I don’t see it myself.  I’ve got a decent brain.  I know I could do okay in college, but right now, I just don’t see a path.  I’d rather work at the bike shop, come home with my food and sit and read or watch TV or mess around online, than go to college and spend lots of money to spin my wheels, you know?

Anyway, I was doing my usual trek on that icy December night.  It was right around the solstice, so it’d been dark since around five o’clock, and by this time it was that kind of dark that seems to be an actual substance, not just an absence of light.  Even the streetlights didn’t help much, just illuminated the flakes of snow that were beginning to fall again.  I passed a guy I often see on that walk – tall middle-aged dude, wearing an old-fashioned felt hat with a feather, always going the other way, carrying a briefcase.  That night he had a thick scarf wrapped around his face, and I could barely hear his voice as he said, “What happened to the goddamn global warming?”

 
“No kidding.” 

“Winter storm warning tonight,” he said.  “Supposed to get another foot and a half by tomorrow noon.  Christ.”

I shook my head.  “Unbelievable,” and then we both went on our way.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Mehr News Agency, 23 January 2020, Arak (13), CC BY 4.0]

The Ithaca Bakery was empty except for me.  There never were many people in this late, but it wasn’t usually completely empty.  Probably the winter storm warning kept everyone with any common sense home.

I could hear a couple of folks in the kitchen, bumping around as they cleaned up.  There was only one person behind the counter.  I’d never seen her before, and I knew most of the staff by name.  She’d been looking down when I walked in, her hands holding onto the counter, but then she looked up at me.

She was one of those people who is hard to describe; pretty but not beautiful, medium-length blond hair held back by a clip, oval face, medium height.  Her only real standout feature was her eyes, which were a very pale blue.  An artist might describe them as a chilly blue, an icy blue, but that’s not right; there was no cold in them at all.  They had a fire in them.  I’ve read that the hottest fire, past red hot, and yellow, and white, is blue; and after seeing her eyes, I think I understand that.

And as soon as those eyes met mine, she started crying.

She looked down again, still clutching the counter, her whole body shaking.

“Jesus,” I said.  “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, kept on crying, and I just stood there, feeling weird and uncomfortable, and glad there were no other people in the Bakery that night.

Finally she just looked up, those pale eyes still flooded with tears, and said, “Eli, I can’t believe it’s already that time.”

I stared at her for a moment, and then said, “Do I know you?”

“Not yet.  But you will.”  She drew a sleeve across her eyes, and attempted a smile.  She finally unclenched one of her hands from the counter edge, and reached it across for me to shake.  “I’m Hannah.” 

“Eli,” I said, even though she apparently already knew that somehow.

“What can I get you tonight?”  She was obviously trying for that cheerful and courteous sound restaurant staff always have, and mostly succeeded.

“Sun-dried tomato bagel, toasted, cream cheese and lox.”

She smiled a little bit, for real now, said, “The usual, then,” and turned away to get me my food.  I put a ten dollar bill on the counter, and pretty soon she came up, handed me my plate, gave me my change.

“Look,” I said, still feeling strange, “you want to talk for a while?”

She shrugged.  “No one’s here tonight, and the place closes soon anyway.  We won’t get many more people in this weather, and if we do, I can just get up and take care of them, right?”

“That’s fine.  We can talk for a little while.”

I went to a table, over in the corner by the window, and she followed me, sat down, and rested her chin in her hands, her elbows on the table.

I looked at her, trying to place where I knew her from, but still drew a blank.  I’ve got a good memory for faces, and I wouldn’t forget those eyes, I knew that.  I was certain I’d never seen this woman before.

“I know you don’t understand now, Eli,” she said.  “It’s so awful for you.  I’m sorry about the way I acted.  Inexcusable, really inexcusable.”

“Are you sure you know me?” I took a bite of my bagel.

She just smiled a little.  “Do you want me to explain?  It won’t make much sense now.  It will later.”  She paused.  “My name is Hannah, by the way.”

“Hannah,” I said.  “I know.  You already told me.  But explain?  Explain what?”

She looked out of the window, at the snow falling faster, hissing against the glass panes.

“I don’t see the world the way others do.”

That was kind of a vague start, I thought.  “None of us see the world the same way.  That doesn't mean your point of view isn't valid.”  I was trying to be helpful, but only ending up sounding like somebody who’s read too much pop psychology.

Her lips tightened, her face looking resolute.   “Okay. I guess I just need to say it straight out.”  She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.  “What’s the past for you is the future for me,” she said, in a low, intense voice, and then just looked at me, her pale eyes searching mine.

My rational mind said, This chick is crazy, but something about her demeanor seemed so normal that I couldn’t just attribute her odd behavior to her being a nut.  “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“When you say something is in the past,” she said, patiently, “it hasn’t happened for me yet.  What I remember is what you call the future.  What you call the past I don’t remember, because it hasn’t happened yet.  For me, at least.”

I stared at her, my mouth hanging open a little.  “That’s impossible.  The past is the past.  The future is the future.”

“Not for me.”

“Time passes the same way for everyone.”

She shook her head.  “It’s been this way all of my life.  All the few short weeks of my life.  Time runs backwards for me.”  She gestured at my plate, and smiled a little wryly.  “Can I have a bite of your bagel?  I’m starving.”

I picked up half of the bagel, handed it to her.  “Why did you ask, if for you it’d already happened?  For you, you’d already taken a bite, right?”

“Yes.  But I knew by what you said that it was going to happen, and if I hadn’t asked afterwards, you would have wondered why the hell this strange chick had taken a bite of your dinner without asking.  I learned this stuff the hard way.  I’m beginning to adapt.”

“So you asked to have some of my bagel because for you it had already happened?”

She shrugged.  “I guess from your perspective, that’s the only way you could make sense of it.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.  The clock only runs one way.  No one lives in a world where glasses unbreak, snow falls upward, balls roll uphill.  That’s scientifically impossible, right?”

“I can’t answer that.  All I can say is that we see the same things.  For me, the film runs backwards, that’s all.  Other than that, there’s no difference.  There’s nothing I can do to change the way things unfold, same as with you.”

“That’s why you were crying, when I came in.  Because of something that for you, had already happened?  What was it?”

She shook her head.  “I shouldn’t answer that.”

I thought for a moment.  “It’s me, isn’t it?  For me, I was just meeting you for the first time; for you, it was the last time you’d ever see me.”  I winced, and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand.  “Jesus, I’m starting to believe you.  But that’s it, right?”

She didn’t answer for a moment.  “The thing is, you know, you just start looking at things as inevitable.  Like you’re in some sort of film.  The actors seem to have freedom, they seem to have will, but in reality the whole thing is just scrolling by and what’s going to happen is only what’s already written in the script.  You could, if you wanted to, start at the end and run the film backwards.  Same stuff, different direction.  No real difference except for the arrow of time.”

“I guess I’d cry, too.”

The corners of her mouth turned up a little.  “It’s no problem, I can get you another bagel.”

 

Before I could ask her what she was talking about, there was a sudden crash as someone dropped something in the kitchen.  I jumped, and my hand jerked.  The plate with my dinner slid off the table and fell upside down on the floor.

I looked at it, mutely, then at her.  She shrugged and smiled.

“Yeah,” I finally said. “That’d be great.”

She stood up, one eyebrow raised quizzically, and went off to the kitchen.

My mind was spinning.  Was she crazy, or was what she was saying the literal, factual truth?  How could anyone perceive the world in reverse?  If what she was saying was true, someone should be told; it would blow away all of what was known about science.

But then, how could they test it?  As her life unrolled, she would forget more and more, because as our clocks moved forward, hers would be moving backward.  Only at the present moment did our lives touch – for an instant only, and then continued to spin away along their inverted paths.

She returned with the bagel.

“Sun-dried tomato, cream cheese, and lox,” I said.  “You remembered that, at least.”

She just smiled at me, and sat down, then reached across the table, and took my hand.

Then I realized -- no, she didn’t remember.  I'd just told her.  All she did was get what I just told her to get.

Looking across at her, my heart gave a funny little gallop in my chest.  She knew it because it had already happened for her.  It was the past.  She was remembering, not predicting.  And I think that’s the moment when I was convinced that she was telling the truth.

“It’s been three weeks since it all started,” she said, still holding my hand.  “It’s nice to find someone to tell about all this.  You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Three weeks?  Three weeks since what?”

“My life started three weeks ago.  I don’t really understand how, but there it is.”

“Started?  Started how?  What happened three weeks ago?”

She looked down, her eyes becoming unfocused for a moment, as she searched her… memory?  What else could you call it?  After a moment, she looked up.  “The first thing I remember is a shock.  Like an explosion.  Then I felt wind.  Before I knew what was happening, I was up on a bridge, near Cornell, over that really beautiful gorge, I forget its name.  It was snowing, just like today.  Cold.  I didn’t know where I was, all I knew was that my name was Hannah and I was cold.  And I began to walk, and finally came here, and talked to one of the managers, and he offered me a job.  They let me sleep on a cot in one of the offices in back.  Only till I can get a place, and it was really nice of them to let me.  I honestly don’t know why they agreed.  But three weeks – yes, that’s when it all started.”

“So that means you’ve only got three weeks to live.”

“I suppose that’s the way it would appear, from your perspective.”

“My perspective?” I shouted.   “My perspective is all I have!  You don’t mean to tell me that in three weeks you’re going to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it?”

Hannah shrugged.  “I don’t know any other way to explain it.  It really is all about perspective.”

I leaned back in my chair.  “So you’re telling me that from your point of view, you’re going to get younger and younger, and finally a baby, and then you’ll disappear up into your mother’s uterus, and then you’ll just… cease to be?”

“It’s not so very much weirder than your life seems to me.  Where were you before you were born?  And what will happen to you when you die?”

Well, she got me there, and I didn’t respond for a moment.  “I don’t know,” I finally said.  “I’m not religious.  But even so, I don’t know how you can expect this to make sense to me.”

“Look, you don’t have to be upset on my behalf.  It is what it is.  Maybe we should just stop talking about all these matters of life and death, and the afterlife.  Or beforelife.  Or whatever.”

The snow was falling faster now, beginning to pile up on the older drifts, swirling in curtains against the streetlight.  “I’m not upset,” I said, and I was telling the truth.  I felt completely calm for some reason, despite having spent fifteen minutes in what was the most peculiar conversation I’d ever had.  I ate the last bit of my bagel, and looked into those eyes, those strange, luminous eyes.  “Look, I don’t know.  Do you want to come back to my place?  I know it’s weird to ask, but it might be better than your staying here, alone, and having to be left with… your memories.”

 
She smiled. “I’d like that.”

I held out my hand for her, and she stood.  “Let’s go,” I said.  “I just live a couple of blocks away.”


We didn’t talk any more about time and perspective – just talked about what we liked, talked about the weather.  We each had a beer and sat on the couch for a while, and then went to bed.  I offered her the couch, but she smiled and shook her head, saying that that if the point was for her not to be lonely, the couch was no better than her cot back at the Bakery.  I didn’t argue.

We made love that night, and as I was drifting off to sleep, I wondered what that had been like for her – an explosion, merging into excitement, fading into anticipation, then subsiding into silence.  I hoped that it was good, however she had perceived it.


She stayed with me for three days.  On the morning of the fourth day, I awoke to find a note on the pillow next to me, and that she was gone.  It wasn’t really a surprise, but still, it made my stomach clench when I picked it up.  Time was spooling by, the clock was running; it never stopped, whatever direction it was going.  You couldn’t halt it either way.

The note read:

Eli… 

I know you won’t understand, but this can’t go on indefinitely.  It will make sense to you eventually, I hope.  I hardly know you, and as time passes for you, I will know you less and less, and finally forget you entirely.  It’s better this way. 

Hannah

I looked at the note for a while, then got up, showered, dressed, and headed up to the Bakery.

Hannah was behind the counter.  She looked up at me, and I was greeted by a smile.  I went up to her, stood silent for a moment.

“My name is Eli,” I said.  “I don’t want you to forget that.  Eli.  And for three days, you were important to me, Hannah.”

She smiled again, those odd eyes glittering.  “I won’t forget,” she said, and reached across and touched my hand.

“Don’t forget,” I said.  “Don’t ever forget me.”


And that was all.

I went in to the Bakery a couple of days after that, near closing time, taking my usual route after getting off from work at the bike shop.  Tom, the long-haired, multiply-pierced counterman, greeted me with a grin.

“Hey, Eli,” he said.  “The usual?”

“Yeah,” I said.  He started putting together my dinner.  “Hey, Tom.  What do you think about that girl who works here, Hannah?”

Tom half turned, my bagel in his hand.  He rolled his eyes.  “That chick is wack, and that’s my considered opinion.  Owner said she could live in the back room for a coupla weeks, till she finds a place.  But she’s a strange one.  Nice-looking, though.”

I nodded.  “Yeah.  Pretty strange.  You got that right.”


Then last week, in the Ithaca Journal, the following article appeared on the front page.

Local Woman Killed in Fall from Bridge 

Hannah van Meter, 24, was killed in what police are considering a probable suicide.  On the night of January 17, she fell from the bridge on Stewart Avenue into Fall Creek Gorge.  A witness, whose name has not been released by police, stated that she had been standing for some time, looking down into the gorge, and that he went up and attempted to speak to her.  She seemed disoriented, and would not leave the bridge even though the witness attempted to persuade her to do so.  She threatened to jump if he approached her more closely, he stated.  After five minutes, the witness went to a nearby house to get help, and was walking back up toward the bridge when van Meter jumped or fell over the bridge railing. 

She was the daughter of David and Helen van Meter of Chenango Forks.  She had lived in Ithaca for only a few weeks, and had been employed by the Ithaca Bakery since mid-December. 

Police are investigating.

I sat in my room, crying and reading the article over and over.  Sometimes you still cry even when you know how the story’s going to end.  But perhaps, if the story is read backwards, it will have a happier ending.

 

Or beginning.  Or whatever.

At least that’s what I am hoping for.

*********************************************

I've been interested for a long while in creativity -- where it comes from, why different people choose different sorts of creative outlets, and where we find our inspiration.  Like a lot of people who are creative, I find my creative output -- and my confidence -- ebbs and flows.  I'll have periods where I'm writing every day and the ideas are coming hard and fast, and times when it seems like even opening up my work-in-progress is a depressing prospect.

Naturally, most of us would love to enhance the former and minimize the latter.  This is the topic of the wonderful book Think Like an Artist, by British author (and former director of the Tate Gallery) Will Gompertz.  He draws his examples mostly from the visual arts -- his main area of expertise -- but overtly states that the same principles of creativity apply equally well to musicians, writers, dancers, and all of the other kinds of creative humans out there. 

And he also makes a powerful point that all of us are creative humans, provided we can get out of our own way.  People who (for example) would love to be able to draw but say they can't do it, Gompertz claims, need not to change their goals but to change their approach.

It's an inspiring book, and one which I will certainly return to the next time I'm in one of those creative dry spells.  And I highly recommend it to all of you who aspire to express yourself creatively -- even if you feel like you don't know how.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]