Afterlife Crisis

by Randal Graham

  I uttered an audible squeak, for I’d heard neither the Regent nor her canine friend approaching. I clasped a protective hand on the pocket of my pyjamas, keeping Fenny under wraps. I’m generally a friend of dogs of all shapes and sizes, but their views on hamsters differ, and I wasn’t willing to risk my little pal’s future on the undisclosed intentions of this particular dumb chum.

  “I apologize, Mr. Feynman,” said the Regent, “but the scope of my powers is not your concern.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Oan, looking abashed, “I didn’t intend—”

  “No matter,” said the Regent, another champion interrupter. “What has been said has been said. We did not bring Feynman here for a discussion of Climate Change. We brought him here to show him the respect that he deserves.”

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow. I mean to say, as far as I knew they’d brought me here by accident, mistaking self and Vera for Napoleons.

  “And now that you are here,” said the Regent, who seemed to pay no heed to my skeptical brow and carried on regardless, “we find that you may be well positioned to help us.”

  My brow rose farther.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Indeed,” said Norm, looking intently toward the Regent as though he hoped to receive some sort of telepathic directions. “There’s been a — well, a development involving your friend Vera.”

  “What about her?”

  “While she slept,” said Norm, “she kept repeating the same phrase. Something about—”

  “Two chairs?” I asked.

  “How did you know this?” snapped the Regent.

  “Vera and I were housed together in the hospice,” said Oan. “She had suffered terrible injuries, and lost most of her memories. When she came to, all she would say was ‘two chairs.’ At least, that’s all she said until the day she met Rhinnick. Shortly after he’d left the hospice she seemed to enter some kind of trance before reciting a whole poem with these ‘two chairs’ as the theme.”

  Here the Regent piped in.

  “Two chairs define a man and men;

  Two chairs that free and bind;

  Two chairs that open worlds and free

  The body and the mind;

  One chair sought and held by both,

  The other coveted by none;

  The first chair reunites two souls

  Intended to have been just one.”

  “That’s the poem!” said Oan.

  “She said precisely the same thing while recovering in our care,” said Norm. “She was unconscious, still recovering from her wounds, but sat upright in her bed and said those very words.”

  “Odd,” I said.

  “Very odd,” said Oan.

  “I mean to say,” I continued, “I’d never have thought of Vera as the sort of bird who’d recite poetry. Oan, yes, but that’s because Oan is one of those soupy, emotional birds given to flights of whimsy, the sort who sings old folk-songs, engages in cross-stitching and writes poetry at the merest provocation. She has what you might call a spiritual complex. But not Vera. Vera isn’t the poem-spouting sort. Have an engine that needs fixing? Count on Vera. Need to have your rocket repaired? Vera’s the person you need to see. But when it comes to reciting poems, rhyming or otherwise, you can include her out.”

  Oan seemed to take offence. I wasn’t entirely sure why, as everything I’d said was backed by sufficient empirical evidence to withstand peer review, and I was on the verge of citing sources when the High Priest piped in.

  “The words were prophecy,” said Norm.

  “Oh, ah!” I said, cottoning on. “And you recognized the symptoms, you being a soothsaying, prophecy-spouting bimbo yourself.”

  “That’s right,” said Norm, “but none of us has any idea what her prophecy means. What are these ‘two chairs’ to which she alludes? Who are the ‘man and men’ she mentions? occupying chairs that free and bind?”

  “Well, I suppose one of them might be Isaac,” I said, thinking aloud. “I mean to say, from what I’ve learned of him of late, the current version of Isaac Newton, call him Isaac 2.0, is practically famous for occupying a chair. The Lucasian one at the university, to be precise.”

  The Regent seemed to be deeply moved. She wheeled ’round in my direction, gripped the Feynman shoulder, and stared intently into my eyes with a gaze that could have shucked an oyster at fifty paces.

  “What do you mean, ‘the current version’ of Isaac Newton?” she said.

  “Well, I mean to say, his prior iteration wasn’t a scientist at all. At least,” I continued, for one likes to be precise, “not in any professional sense. He was the City Solicitor’s personal secretary, and any scientific pursuits were of the amateur variety. But now, following what must be the latest revisions of the Author, I find this Newton has been recast as a famous scientist who has occupied the Lucasian Chair for years and years.”

  “The Author?” said Norm Stradamus, looking baffled.

  “Pah!” said the Regent, who from her manner seemed to suggest she wasn’t inclined to discuss the Author. She kept her gaze fixed on me. “So you perceive Isaac Newton to have changed completely,” she said, still boring into my soul, “to have been one thing, and then to have always been someone else — not to have changed sequentially or organically, but through — through what you might call retroactive changes to his life?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “From what I gather he’s always been the Lucasian Chair — well, for years and years at any rate, but that’s only been true for a month or two from my perspective. His history’s been revised. Nothing to do about that, of course. The Author writes what the Author writes. If He wants to revise His manuscript without telling me, then—”

  “Climate Change!” said the Regent.

  “Climate Change!” said Norm.

  “Oh, my!” said Oan.

  “Pish tosh,” said I. “I don’t want to be a Climate Change skeptic, but the change you’re prattling on about is a mere whatnot. A revision. The Author’s editorial work. Nothing to worry about at all. Happening all the time, that sort of thing.”

  This didn’t seem to make an impression. The Regent turned toward Norm and carried on as though I hadn’t said anything at all.

  “This Isaac may be the subject of Vera’s prophecy,” she said. “One of the men occupying these two chairs.”

  “He might be both!” said Norm. “Rhinnick says there are two versions. Isaac Newton the personal secretary and Isaac Newton the scientist.” He turned to me. “Tell me, Feynman, when this Newton was, as far as you can recall, a personal secretary to the City Solicitor, was he known for sitting in any particular chair?”

  “Sorry, no,” I said. “I mean, not any one chair in particular. Civil servants are widely known for sitting on their backsides, but not in any specific chair, at least not in Isaac Newton’s case.”

  “Hmm,” said Norm.

  “Hmm,” said Oan.

  The Regent clicked her tongue. Or it might have been a hiccup. In either case, her dog responded by rearing up and perking its ears, which I found disconcerting. He didn’t appear to be the sort of dog who’d curl up in one’s lap, but rather the sort to whom the command “go for the jugular” might evoke a quick response.

  “Memphis, down,” said the Regent, stroking the dumb chum’s head.

  I’m fairly astute, and gathered from this that his name was Memphis.

  “Not to raise a point of order,” I said, stepping an inch or two backward out of the Memphis Zone, “but, why do we care about this poem? I mean to say, I know you’ve suggested that it’s a prophecy, and Vera is known far and wide as a prophetess, but what’s the issue? So there appear to be some man or men — one or both of whom might be Isaac Newton — who occupy a chair or chairs, and these chairs have something to do with freeing bodies and minds. What’s the big deal? Plenty
of chairs to go around for everyone else,” I added, shrugging a shoulder to indicate that one needn’t give a single damn about either chairs or poems.

  “It’s because of my own predictions,” said Norm. “Years ago I predicted the coming of a greater prophet, one who would guide us toward the Great Omega’s realm. And in this prophecy I foretold that the coming prophet’s name would be Truth and she would travel with the Hand. You, of course, are the Hand.”

  “And you think that batting 500 is close enough?”

  “Batting 500?” said Norm.

  “Fifty percent,” I explained. “You say I’m the Hand, but that the prophet’s name is Truth. The prophetess of whom you speak is named Vera.”

  “The name ‘Vera’ does mean Truth,” said Oan. “She fulfills all of Norm’s conditions.”

  “Not entirely,” said Norm. “My foretelling also suggested that the prophet would have ‘no past but what her prophecies could bring.’ I’ve no idea what that means.”

  “Egad!” I said. “That’s Vera in a nutshell. She had her wires crossed and grey cells scrambled in the recent past, wiping her memory entirely. No past, if you see what I mean. And those memories that she does seem to have are what you might call ‘syndicated reruns’ which arrive via television: she sees images of herself in the past, or foresees future images of herself remembering things. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but it does seem to square up with your predictions. It’s amazing how you prophet types work these things out.”

  “She must be the one foretold!” exclaimed the Regent. “Her prophecy points the way.”

  “The way toward what?” I asked.

  “The beforelife,” said the Regent. “Norm’s prophecy foretold that this greater prophet, speaking in dreams, would guide the Servant of Truth on the path to the mortal realm.”

  “Who’s the Servant of Truth?” I asked.

  “It’s one of Norm’s titles. Members of the order frequently call themselves the seekers of truth.”

  “I thought the word was servant,” I said, in that penetrating way of mine.

  “Norm regards himself as the servant of the Order. It all makes sense,” said Oan, although I remember thinking she was straining the word “sense” rather uncomfortably.

  “Be that as it may,” I said, seeing myself as the only hope for injecting a voice of reason into all of this prophecy chat, “I don’t see how we’re going to make sense of this ‘two chairs’ business. Isaac may be one of the chaps in chairs, but there again he might not. It’s not as though Vera’s poem came with an index of terms.”

  “That’s where you come in,” said Norm. Indicating me, I mean, not someone else. “You’ve known Vera longer than we have. You’ve spent time with her, you know her habits. She trusts you. We want you to visit with her to see if you can help unpack this poem. Unlock its meaning.”

  “We know you’ll succeed,” said Oan. “You cannot fail us. You’re the Hand of the Intercessor.”

  Once again I found myself chafing at this title, and would have ground a tooth or two had I not felt that the act might cause offence. “Hand of the Intercessor, my eye,” I might have said, renouncing the title, turning on my heel, and making a quick march to the exit. But I didn’t, what with one thing and another. I mean to say, all they’d really asked me to do is hobnob with Vera, a good egg who, as I’ve said before, it’s always a pleasure to see, and do my best to interpret a poem. And while the interpretation of poetry is one of those activities calculated to bore any man of spirit into a comatose state, it wasn’t as though I had anything else pencilled into the agenda. My quest to find Zeus was at a standstill. And I was musing on this fact, about to agree to the course of action prescribed by Norm, the Regent, and Oan, when I was struck by a whatdoyoucallit of memory.

  “Nappy!” I cried.

  “Nappy?” said the Regent.

  “Aroo?” said Memphis, or words to that effect.

  “My friend, Nappy. A female Napoleon. Not one of the ones you’ve bunged up here. She’s been taken by someone else. And as odd as it may seem to have people on all sides clamouring for the chance to kidnap Napoleons, I give you the straight goods: she’s been taken by some person or persons unknown, and suggests that you, Norm Stradamus, might be able to tell me who. Or whom, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?” said Norm.

  “Do try to keep up,” I said. “I have a friend who suffers from Napoleon Syndrome and goes by the name of Nappy—”

  “Lots of Napoleons are called Nappy,” said Norm Stradamus.

  “I suppose that’s probably true,” I said. “But this one is my friend, and her given name is Maria. Ramolino, if that’s of any interest. She was once housed with self and others at the hospice. She passes her time with my friend Zeus, and was recently scooped up from her home by some person or persons unknown, leaving not a rack behind, as the expression is. Except that she did leave a rack, I suppose, if a note or clue left in one’s wake counts as a rack. I’d have to look into it. William would know.”

  This didn’t appear to have clarified matters. I tried to elaborate. But before I could roll up the sleeves and get down to it, the Regent silenced me with a glance — she was singularly gifted in this respect, and I imagined that she could silence a whole platoon with little more than a wiggle of her nose or a twitch of her hand.

  “This female Napoleon is here,” said the Regent. “She is housed with your friend, Vera.”

  “Abe’s drawers!” I said. “Nappy is here?”

  “She is,” said Norm Stradamus.

  “But her note to you suggested she’d been taken by someone else. And that you’d know who’d taken her.”

  “Ah, yes, the note. Vera showed it to us shortly after she woke up. It said, ‘To Norm Strad. They’ve taken me.’ That’s the note to which you refer?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I’m afraid you’ve been led astray by Napoleonic grammar,” said Norm, chuckling lightly.

  This floated over the Feynman head. It didn’t seem to mean anything. I asked for amplification.

  “They’re always getting things backward,” said Norm. “You must have noticed. It’s the result of some sort of cognitive impairment, we suspect. A common symptom of the Napoleon Syndrome. Instead of saying ‘I have to do the laundry’ they’re apt to say ‘the laundry I must do.’ Instead of saying ‘you require no more training,’ they say ‘no more training do you require.’ That sort of thing. No doubt she overheard our agents say they were planning to bring her to me, and, not realizing they were taking this action for her own good, she left a note, addressed to no one in particular, intending to convey ‘they’re taking me to Norm Stradamus.’ To Norm Strad., they’re taking me. I can understand your confusion. An understandable error.”

  I nodded the pumpkin, for there was sense in what the bearded chap had said. And the fact that Nappy had, in fact, hitched up at the joint lent credence to his claims. None of this did me any good, though, for this discovery had sucked some of the helium from my balloon. Nappy was with the rest of the Napoleons here, in the Regent’s HQ. And unless the Regent’s agents had also been kidnapping Zeuses, my hope that Nappy would be a bread crumb on the trail of my missing pal went up in smoke, as the fellow wrote.

  Oan seemed to notice the dark clouds forming over the Feynman head, perceiving that my general aspect was now somewhere down among the wines and spirits. She tried to give consolation.

  “Don’t worry, darling,” she began. And you’ll realize just how depressed I was when you learn that I didn’t bother to cringe at being called “darling” in mixed company.

  “It’ll be all right,” she continued. “You’ll go to Vera and help her work out the meaning of her prophecy. If Norm is right, Vera’s prophecy could hold the key to solving all of our problems.”

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but this mana
ged to take even more wind out of the Feynman sails. I mean to say, it’s fair to assume no one’s day was ever improved by poetry, and it seemed to me that nothing was to be gained by plumbing the depths of Vera’s verses. I’ve never really gone in for aesthetics, and dishing out poetic interpretations was the last thing I wanted to do at the moment of going to press, unless the poem in question started with “There once was a chap named Zeus,” and went on to lay out a series of rhyming clues about his whereabouts. Or maybe a few rhyming couplets with instructions on how to get out of a pair of accidental engagements. But deciphering a ditty about two chairs was not on my list of ways to lift the Feynman spirits. I saw no profit in parsing a prophet’s poems.

  I couldn’t say any of this with the present gang of onlookers, of course. Norm was a fan of prophecy, and Oan was just the sort of weird gosh-help-us who’d spend her spare time curled up with a poem. So I bore up, kept the upper lip stiff, and agreed to do my best to pitch in.

  “Right ho,” I said. “I’ll do my best. Just point me in Vera’s direction.”

  And at the risk of dishing out spoilers and ruining all of the suspense we’ve built thus far, I have to say that it was through this supreme act of self-sacrifice — signing on to analyze poems muttered by an unconscious, psychic fiancée — that I put myself on the path that led me straight toward happy endings. There’s a lesson to be learned from this, I’m sure, though I’ll be dashed if I have a notion of what it is.

  Chapter 20

  The useful thing about psychics is that they’re handy when making plans. I mean to say, just think of the extra room you’d have in your luggage if you had a medium or soothsayer standing by your side to help you pack. He or she could peep into the future and not only predict the weather, but also the number of times you’d spill coffee on your trousers or be called upon to dine in formal dress.

  My present reason for musing on the utility of psychics has nothing to do with travel plans — at least, not with any travel beyond the rather trivial journey from the Regent’s splendid parlour to Vera’s quarters. Instead, my current appreciation for prophets and their prescience has to do with drinks. For Norm Stradamus, foreseeing that anyone who proposes to spend an afternoon deciphering poems would need a bracer or two, very kindly prepared another round of deeper-than-average martinis. This useful round of drinks was doled out to only two imbibers — self and Norm — for Oan indicated something about making wedding plans and shipped off toward her quarters, and the Regent moved off to parts unknown, Memphis stalking in her wake. Norm and I made up for their absence by having a third round of drinks on their behalf.