An Unusual Angle

by Greg Egan

  Another news bulletin and then a day like most other days is over.

  If I were due to die at sunset, would this day become a magical creation? I think not.

  As the term’s end becomes visible over the temporal horizon, time slows down just as it does at the approach of the end of a period. Each day lasts longer, and the three or four last weeks seem to stretch to twice their previous length with the passing of each day.

  That’s with the passing of each actual day, not of each time that seems as long as a day ought to seem. Otherwise the term would be subjectively unbounded. In words it’s clumsy; in tensor notation it looks like barbed wire.

  The arrival of the final day seems impossible, yet it crawls into place with a horrible grin saying I’ll take as long as I see fit and don’t you complain or I’ll stand still.

  After two periods pretending that all is normal we are put into form rooms to stretch out the boredom as much as possible.

  An endless lunch then an assembly in the hall.

  Complicated entrance procedure supposedly streamlines events, but it would have been faster to climb in the windows.

  —By Jove, he’s right

  yells the rabbit. The windows are twenty feet from the ground.

  —Take care!

  but he’s not even there.

  Why does he get all the fun?

  We wait for the people-sorting machine to miss yet another dozen clock-pulses before finally loading the last subcategory into the hall.

  And the longest of all hours begins.

  Our nervous Deputy Whatever comes first, but now for some unknown reason behind him a row of people sit on uncomfortable chairs but do not squirm. They are all the Senior Masters and Mistresses. (Teachers are never called masters or mistresses any more, that’s old-fashioned, but maybe Senior Teacher would sound funny. And why senior, anyway? They’re often not the oldest teachers in their departments. No point in thinking about it … there is no hidden meaning, nothing to learn … why do I waste my time pursuing these dreary paths of thought? It must be something in the environment.)

  A few insignificant words, and then Der Führer arrives with characteristic vigour.

  And he has a sheaf of notes. Nothing can save us.

  With a strange growing wariness he lists the wonderful improvements that he has brought to us, the tangible tributes to his ameliorative adroitness. But his attention is on us this time more than ever before; today he is going through all this for our benefit, not his. You’d think he was standing for election.

  But no, this is a lesson, not a PR exercise. When, every now and then, one student out of his class of one thousand strays in his attention, Seward halts suddenly and concentrates on that one lost lamb. The thousandfold increase in intensity is too much for the poor unfortunate, and he decomposes on the spot.

  And then there are awards; twitching, terrified students sneak up to meekly accept green felt triangles as symbols of their unfailing energies during the term. He jollllies-up each presentation with a short witty comment which leaves the victim in a state between laughing and crying. The absurdity feeds the temptation to laugh, but to laugh would be suicide, so the temptation to laugh feeds the terror and nervousness, which is really rather funny, considering. Positive feedback results in forced vibrations, and the structure collapses.

  Then a few more minutes of generalised raving, and it is finished.

  A long period of time, subjectively, with almost nothing in it. Which is not to say that listening to Seward is a neutral experience: it’s definitely on the unpleasant side. It’s just that it’s so repetitive, so contentless, so toothache dull.

  Slowly as possible back to form room, then wait agonisingly for reports to come and then, says the speaker:

  —The school will be dismissed once all report-folders are returned.

  The twenty (count them, count their components) minutes before that final siren are twenty (each containing fourteen parts) lies, that’s two hundred and eighty lies. Every single report-folder was rushed back at little less than light speed.

  Then goodbye for two oh so short weeks to inane questions.

  I walk backwards out of the school giving the correct perspective that is missing from zoom.

  Chapter 4

  MUSIC

  As I walk I whistle the theme from The Collector, sometimes mournfully, sometimes with a kind of wistful joy.

  The rabbit rolls his eyes.

  It is locked away securely in my brain, along with so many others: The Trap, Charade, The Pink Panther, Zardoz, Deliverance, Summerfield, The Last Wave, The Terminal Man, and Star Wars. Along with songs, from A Shot in the Dark, Casino Royale, The President’s Analyst, The Ruling Class, Cat People, and if…. To name but a few.

  Cliché!

  Shut up.

  And whenever I’m depressed, there’s that marching music that was played at the very end of Catch-22.

  Music’s such a powerful, choking thing. Mixing it with an image can sometimes just dilute both, but sometimes it produces something different entirely, something more powerful still.

  It’s like a chemical reaction.

  Cliché!

  Just testing.

  How I hate films when the music is used just as wallpaper for the credits and low-dialogue scenes, or when a thousand florid orchestras spill their brass hearts whenever the film’s characters move their eyeballs or take a breath. Almost as bad are the mimic scores, where every movement or mood (numbered from one to ten) is clumsily echoed in the music.

  Music should be independent, it should contain the parts of the information that the film image alone cannot convey. It should be another hook to sink into the flesh of the audience, but it must be a different shape, or it will make no contribution to the film’s firm grip, it will just slip out of the wound that the vision has made.

  Personally, I think that with the right music (along with perfection in all other things) someone could make a brilliant movie out of The Catcher in the Rye. Not that you-know-who would let them do it in a million years. But it is a thought.

  What a strange expression … everything’s a thought if you think about it.

  Good.

  And there’s the music from The Omega Man.

  I can drown in music, really I can. Every chord takes me by surprise, floods my eyes and forehead with patterns without light. The difference between hearing sound and perceiving music is just as vast a void as between any two different senses. The same is true of speech. The critics all laugh at me when I say that there are three senses of hearing: one which tells us what is making a sound, like footsteps or the sound of the wind, one which tells us what some human wishes us to do or think, and one which grabs our souls.

  —Shit or get off the pot!

  scowls a tall American politician.

  —Crass ass!

  scowls the rabbit, dropping napalm on him.

  It’s what happens when I try to think things through.

  Well.

  Where was I?

  —In the can by the look on your face!

  scowls the tall American politician.

  Go away go away go away go away.

  He begins to change shape into a swollen-bellied Ethiopian child (isn’t make-up marvellous? Still, since American Werewolf everybody has to get in on the act (Cliché! (Shut up.)).) but:

  —Obscene! Obscene!

  screeches the rabbit, filling the belly full of A-bombs and H-bombs and N-bombs. There’s not much left.

  —Well, better dead …

  smirks the rabbit through the ashes.

  Whose side is he on anyway?

  All this makes my hands feel wet. I shake them and shake them and shake them but they stay wet. I dry them by wiping them across my face, which feels very peculiar.

  That’s better now.

  I’m still feeling mournful, so I switch to the music from Summerfield. Now that movie had a lousy plot. Really lousy. But the music and the scenery were unbelievable. T
hey completely made up for the lousy plot.

  It is autumn and hence a little windy, but it is never windy enough in the morning. It’s best to whistle when there’s a strong, cold wind, so you can impose the tune on the wind by subtle perceptual self-deception. I never whistle very loudly or too well in-tune, but it doesn’t matter because I am whistling only to myself. I can actually recall a tune solely in my head, quite entertainingly, but it adds a little ‘realism’ if I can accompany it with a ‘reasonable’ approximation. My brain adjusts my hearing to fit the deficiencies. And when there is a good wind, my brain uses the sound of the wind as a kind of starting point, and lies to me to fit the sound in with the tune I want to hear.

  Not quite the same as the London Symphony Orchestra.

  Good.

  Summerfield is so beautiful and intricate that I stay with it until I reach the school, then I change, almost without a choice, to ‘Stand Up for College’ from if… and the strange echoes of stairways and corridors that come with it.

  And then the wind gets stronger and intangible clouds fly rapidly across the sky ahead of me (who ever decided that the sky was above? It’s mainly at eye-level.) and I change to ‘Sanctus’ which believe me is hard to whistle but my brain fills in the mistakes like capping teeth.

  Then I change to the music from Slaughterhouse Five when Billy Pilgrim is walking through the snow. Imagine how hard it must be for the Tralfalmadorians to appreciate music. They would apprehend it all at once, since they see time as a fourth physical dimension. All at once? What could that mean to them? This is getting silly. Still, I close my eyes when I take a record out of its sleeve, so as not to spoil the music by peeking.

  It is second term.

  Second term will be identical to first term.

  It is first term.

  Effectively.

  I’m trapped!

  Shut up.

  Think: the syllabus will be different and I will learn many new and exciting things and there will be lists of many stimulating, intelligent questions to answer every time I have learnt a module of information. (I’d love to say ‘a lump of learning’ instead of ‘a module of information’ but the word ‘lump’ has such a special significance that I really think I’d better just leave it at ‘module’. Of course I could start up a system of local and global meanings for words and phrases, but the notational problems are a bit too messy. Sigh!)

  Of course I decided this morning that this term will be exciting and enjoyable, but I seem to have about as much control over the future as I have (in the present) over the past.

  Anarchy, it’s all anarchy I tell you!

  Good.

  The critics love spontaneity.

  What they don’t understand is the Cruel Joke. And I’m sure not going to tell them about it.

  I can never remember all the words of ‘Sounds of Silence’ no matter how many times I hear it. I suppose I could look them up in a book, or go out and buy a copy of them, but that would be so repugnantly sensible: an example of planning, of foresight, of recognising the likelihood of a future wish to know the words (I am constantly mildly curious, but at times it becomes a regular craving), of doing something not because of a sudden wild impulse, but because of a sensible, reasonable, fully-thought-out motive. That would be a terrible thing to do, surely, because that would not be spontaneous.

  Also I’m too lazy.

  So I usually just whistle the tune and patch in words haphazardly.

  And I would give anything

  Careful!

  to understand why Mike Nichols or Paul Simon or whoever it was who was responsible chose ‘Scarborough Fair’ for The Graduate. I’m certainly not complaining about the choice … I think it fitted wonderfully

  Too bland thought unverbalised!

  Tough! Shut up!

  into the film. But I am filled with an enormous curiosity as to why it was chosen, how it was chosen, how anybody could make their mind leap in such a direction. Was it just chance? I mean it was hardly an obvious selection. Descartes, sitting by his fireplace, would not have made that choice.

  It was quite unjustified.

  It was spontaneous.

  I think.

  Well it’s just a thought.

  Just a thought?

  It’s what happens when I try to think things through.

  Crossing the oval and approaching the library could never bring on the welcome disorientation of déjà vu; it has been repeated too often and too regularly for that. I periodically wonder (about once a day during terms, so far) what it would be like to cross the oval in an extremely fast train which crashes into the school at hundreds of kilometres per second. Or on horseback. Or by helicopter. Or tank. Or motorbike. Or in one of those one-man fighters that were used to attack the Death Star in Star Wars …

  At least it would be different.

  At least winter is coming, and the times of oppressive heat are gone. I love running into icy wind.

  —Hello

  I say to everyone.

  —Hello

  it replies (everyone is quite androgynous).

  —Only thirteen more weeks to the holidays, eh!

  jests everyone.

  —Yes

  I laugh.

  —Only ninety-one more days to the holidays, eh!

  jests everyone.

  —Only sixty-five more week days

  I laugh.

  —And there are two holidays this term

  comments everyone optimistically.

  —Yes

  I agree cheerfully.

  In search of variety I must look elsewhere.

  One way is more detail. A smooth, flat surface may be a torn, jagged, mountainous landscape under an electron microscope. Can you imagine MGM forking out money for a movie shot entirely through a microscope … ?

  Well, rather than magnification, perhaps a little unsubtle, there is always the technique of increasing the depth of field and the angle of view. There is no excuse for leaving out peripheral detail on the basis that it is irrelevant when the only subject in sharp focus, the only subject framed, is itself as boring and pointless as anything ever captured on film.

  And if you shoot on location, documentary-style, real-life extras are free.

  No expensive costumes.

  They don’t have to be directed or made-up; they don’t need copies of the script.

  Yet I am still against it … making lumps merely by staring intensely at everything I see, no matter how irrelevant and petty, lacks interaction. There is a frightening sensual decadence about treating the whole world as music, revelling in the intricacy of what-are-to-me background events; drowning, no, basking in my inability to fully appreciate every detail of the big, wide, oh-so-structured surrounding world, when each one of those ‘background’ events is in a clearly resolved foreground for someone.

  With naturally occurring objects, like blades of grass and the moon and the clouds, I feel no guilt because it is the same for virtually everyone. But I cannot deal with manufactured articles in this way, because the hundreds of nuts and bolts which flash past in trivial seconds for me are so much of the lives of miners and factory workers and engineers.

  Yet surely a film is a manufactured inanimate object of enormous invisible and partly visible detail, and I feel no guilt in using films as a means of enormous sensory variation.

  Because they were made purely for that purpose.

  And that makes it all right.

  Good.

  Suppose I try it just for a while.

  The wall to my left is faded red-brick, two decades old, and the mortar in between has turned sour green-grey. At head-height, strips of louvred windows are framed by blue-painted wood. The regularly appearing doors are blue also, some are part-way open, revealing narrow strips of white-painted wall, and glimpses of blackboards.

  I feel sick.

  Alongside the wall is a strip of concrete two metres wide. Close against the wall are narrow unpainted wooden benches. Just above the
se are the grey-painted lockers, two-high.

  I will die of boredom/stimulation.

  —Oh really

  says the rabbit, very amused.

  Beneath the benches are scattered schoolbags; mainly grey, a few coloured heavy plastic. Similarly scattered above the benches are people—

  Enough!

  I am the centre of the universe!

  I grip something which is a vertical blue metal pole which is very cold and damp from dew and dirty with partly dissolved grime and the paint has flaked off in many places and there are one or two attempts at graffiti which are hard to read because they provided new starts for flaking and hence destroyed themselves revealing dull-shiny grey steel—

  NO!

  My arms are right around it and my head is slumped up close, my nose and forehead feel the cold dampness mingling with my sweat. My eyes are half shut to blot out the infinite detail which tries to crawl in and swamp my brain.

  In the shimmering of tears I see dusty red miners at work in long stony cuts, train drivers waiting for wagons to be loaded, conveyor-belt operators watching tonne after tonne of the red rock slide noisily onto the ship, and then off again at another port beside the blast furnace. More automated shuffling and sorting, more men watching and supervising and guiding, then pig-iron is born in fiery white light.

  In seconds it is cool and hard and in minutes by ship to the steel converter and the mill and warehouse and then yet again by ship to another warehouse and then by truck to this building site …

  And all along the way there are invoices and schedules and records, sheet after sheet of paper prepared by accountants and secretaries who have families and cats and dogs and front gardens …

  Get a grip on yourself!

  —Cliché!

  I say out loud.

  A few people stare but I hardly notice.

  —Well, pole, you have quite a history

  I say laugh crying.

  Then I turn and walk away.

  Suppose one of those secretaries’ cat got hit by a car. What would the children think? They’re so young and innocent it would shatter their world.