An Unusual Angle

by Greg Egan

  One, two; one, two, three:

  Stand up! Stand up! For Fenkirk!

  Who readies us for life!

  Without this guiding influence

  We’d soon be lost to strife!

  And when our deaths draw nearer and

  We see that we’ve gone far!

  We will remember Fenkirk,

  Who made us what we are!

  Ho hum.

  They want to turn our stomachs of white bread into stomachs of raw steak, but it means nothing to me, for I have no stomach at all, just a papier-mâché cavity.

  And I’m quite happy with it, thanks very much.

  I am in my Social Studies class.

  Here is sober sanity as we study the differences between India and the United States of America. Why not the differences between India and Australia? Would that be just a little too close for comfort? Not that it would make any difference. The inertia of apathy is too enormous to overcome. How can we find a ten per cent drop in our standard of living unacceptable, but not the death of a hundred (a thousand (a million)) newborn children a day? Don’t we realise that we have to have one or the other?

  Perhaps we don’t really believe it’s happening, despite all the film clips on television. After all, it could just be actors—they can do wonderful things with make-up these days. Amazing things. What about all those aliens in the cantina in Star Wars! Incredible. Well, it only goes to show. Yes, it’s probably just a plot by the Communists to make us feel that we’re too well off. They want to take all our food and give it to lots of nasty foreigners. What would the kids eat? They’re so hungry lately, and I just couldn’t manage with an ounce less than what I have now. And I do send twenty-five dollars to Austcare every Christmas.

  Ho hum.

  Every day after school, I check to see if he’s still around:

  —Nobody can say I’m incredibly handsome.

  —You’re incredibly handsome! Not that I really mean it! I was only joking!

  —Nobody can say I’m you.

  —You are me!

  No contradiction at the end. No retraction. I try again.

  —Nobody can say I’m you.

  —You are me! You are me!

  He must be joking. Surely. Or lying. That’s it. Just because he’s told the truth all the time so far does not mean he tells the truth every time.

  —Nobody can say I am equivalent to you in every way.

  —You are equivalent to me in every way. You really are.

  —Nobody can say I am the same being as you.

  —You are the same being as me. No kidding. Cross my heart and hope to die.

  A storm cloud above shudders violently, then a flash of violet and white lightning flies up from the ground to meet it. The rabbit is incinerated.

  —Nobody can say I just got hit by lightning

  I scream frantically.

  —You just got hit by lightning. At least, a holographic projection of yourself. Do you think you’d risk your actual body for a stunt like that?

  I don’t believe you, rabid rabbit.

  —Suit yourself, I’m going home.

  The projection vanishes. Far away, there is a brilliant orange light as the elevator leaves its geosynchronous orbit and switches on its interstellar drive.

  —Nobody can say I’ll miss you!

  I scream defiantly.

  He’s out of range. The orange light has vanished.

  I’ll miss you.

  I really will miss you.

  Goodbye.

  Miss who? I can hardly remember. What?

  Chapter 12

  RAIN

  Wait for a gap in the loud, aggressive bombardment even though I know it will be too short. Run quickly but never quickly enough because despite the threat it is so good to walk slowly in the dry, icy air into the exhilarating wind filled with the music of a million symphonies.

  When it starts again, dash like lightning between the trees which keep out little more than half the icy drops.

  I see the pattern of drops on my clothes merge into a homogeneous dampness that soon soaks into my skin with a tingling coolness.

  Hurry across the oval but I am nearly breathless so now I merely walk quickly. More rain makes very little difference now, anyway.

  Finally under shelter it seems almost hot but that is my sweat which won’t evaporate even in the anhydrous atmosphere. My hair drips little streams of water down my face but I wouldn’t swap it for summer in a million years.

  The sky is pure cloud and it is evening all day long. Fluorescent lights flicker above everywhere. The rumours say that they explode after a thousand flickers but I have never seen it happen.

  Short cut-away to fantasy sequence: I am standing under one of the fragile-looking white tubes. It is pulsing rapidly, faster and faster. I look up curiously. In slow motion, the fracture starts at one end in a shower of purple sparks, then breaks into two branches, each branch then splitting and on and on until the length of the tube is crisscrossed with cracks in the shape of a wind-warped tree. I see this but cannot move. With a slow, deep wail the fragments fly downwards into my face.

  What would it look like, on the big screen: A sliver of glass penetrating my eyeball? Seen through that eyeball itself, it would certainly be spectacular.

  Not that I intend trying it.

  In the classrooms there is near-silence against the howl of the wind. The air is warm from the fires. Everything that makes work impossible in the summer makes it seem only natural now. Almost logical.

  A kind of wide-awake, crisp, fresh, healthy feeling about everything.

  Aesthetically, pretty revolting. But I wouldn’t swap it for summer in a billion years.

  It is Tuesday morning and double English is endless as the rain makes sounds like a geiger counter at Three Mile Island. Our teacher is sulky because there isn’t even a hint of a crucifixion analogy in our comprehension passage, so she just sits at her desk and broods.

  The passage is about sixty per cent inanity, the questions about eighty per cent. Relatively, quite good. I screw up my eyes and try to think like the person who set the questions—degrading, but the only way. I manage to write some compatible answers. I quickly move the page out of my sight, knowing I’d rip it up if I ever saw what I’d written.

  Recess, and the canteen dispenses hot tomato soup and chicken soup and vegetable soup in china mugs with five-cent deposits.

  —Awful weather, isn’t it?

  says someone.

  I look at him incredulously. How can they be like that? How?

  The wind rises to a moan of agony and the windows and doors shake violently. A bin blows over with a metallic echo. Nearby girls scream.

  As if keeping up with the wind, the rain begins pelting down with a new vigour. Out on the oval, the bores fountain water feet high into the air to meet the rain.

  In Social Studies the rain is interrupted erratically by loud pops from the fireplace as we read about the Soviet steppe.

  Halfway through the second period, there is a bang then a tinkling noise. I look up nervously at the fluorescent tubes but it was a window shattered by wind-borne debris.

  Then it is lunchtime eaten upstairs on the benches outside the art room. Avoid the lights dripping water from shorted sockets to puddles below.

  In the library, the screaming and fighting barely hide the sound of the violent pounding on the roof and the wind howling against the walls and windows.

  Everything that slows the passage of time in summer speeds it up now. Lunchtime flashes past, and Metalwork, cutting cone-shapes on the ends of cylinders, seems almost bearably short.

  The air is warm in Technical Drawing and the rain seems miles away as we draw arches and bridges and churches.

  Then run home through the rain that promises never to stop.

  I lie on my bed and listen.

  Hours or minutes later I get up and go outside. The rain has covered the house with metres of water, and what little sunlight had penetrated
the clouds is now lost in the water. I switch on the floodlight (to be used only in case of flood) and the back yard turns green-blue. I open my mouth and a cluster of bubbles brush past my nose and eyes, temporarily blinding me. I breathe in water, choking for a few seconds as my lungs adjust.

  A rabbit swims past me, pursued by a black-and-white cat. I try to call out to him, but my vocal chords merely beat weakly against the pressure of the water.

  I shouldn’t sleep. I have Maths homework to be done by tomorrow.

  I get up and begin the set of seventy-five identical trigonometry problems.

  Outside, trees groan in protest as the wind blindly bashes them into painfully bent curves. They spring back in the brief pauses only to be twisted again by the next onslaught. Like bending coat-hanger wire back and forth with infinite patience, trunks must snap eventually.

  The rain stops suddenly with almost an audible click, and the sound of the wind blowing droplets from branches now takes over.

  It isn’t quite five o’clock so the newsagent will still be open so I walk trancelike to buy the latest issue of American Cinematographer and read the first article as I walk home into the wind.

  Very low on the horizon is a patch of blue sky which the sun is struggling to reach, but the wind up high is blowing in the opposite direction to the wind below, and the grey cloud stretches over the jewel-like hole and the sun sets without having been seen even once.

  The rain starts again a few metres from home so I push the magazine under my jumper. Too expensive to let it get wet.

  Home to the sound of boiling vegetable water and the smell of burnt cabbage.

  I force myself to finish the final fifteen problems before I continue reading. Why do I do them? These ones will never be checked and doing five is as good as doing five hundred. Just In Case. Might As Well? Habit? Conscience?

  I fall asleep in the middle of an article on stop-motion photography techniques and wake disoriented. Sinking in muddy depression I bury my knuckles in my eyes and contemplate suicide. I know it will last until the next morning so there is no point in staying awake so I have a short steaming shower then asleep explode escape.

  I dream of being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, clinging to a packing case as the wind sweeps house-high waves over my head. I wake and my windows have blown open, wrapping the curtain around itself in a complex knot. I switch on the light to make the evil shapes of the tormented trees invisible as I push the windows closed again and untangle the curtain.

  I lie awake for hours, listening.

  That’s what comes from sleeping in the afternoon.

  —Meeeeeeew!

  I force myself out of bed, walk down the passage, open the door.

  He runs in, shakes himself briskly, flicking drops of water all over my feet.

  —Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

  I put down food and milk. He runs up to the plate, purring loudly. I switch off the light and go back to bed, leaving him to eat, dropping the occasional mouthful of food into the milk bowl.

  I am floating in the limbo that is nearly asleep.

  —Meeeeeeeeeeeew!

  I ignore him. Let him mew again if he really means it.

  —Meeeew!

  He’s in my room now, just a few inches away. He jumps onto the bed, licks my nose, then mews right into my ear.

  I get up. He jumps off the bed, runs to the doorway of my bedroom. I follow him down the passage in the dark. He stops at the end, and I trip on his tail.

  —Sccroww!

  he hisses angrily. I fumble for the light switch.

  Cliché!

  Leave me alone, I’m tired!

  Outside it is pouring heavily.

  He stands at the end of the passage, mews again.

  —What do you want?

  I ask idiotically.

  There is still some food in the bowl, and some milk, so it can’t be either of those. He must want to go out. I open the door. He takes a few steps towards it, sniffs at the storm outside, then looks at me.

  —Meeeeeew?

  Which translates as: You expect me to go out in that?

  Quite frankly I couldn’t give a damn whether you stay inside or go out, just so long as I can go back to sleep.

  He hears my thoughts and looks offended.

  Tough.

  I close the door after waiting about a minute, then I stamp back up to bed.

  This time I hardly have time to become warm again. He is sitting in the doorway.

  —Meeeeew!

  —Go away you stupid animal!

  —Meeeew! Meeeew!

  —Just tell me what you want! I’ll do anything! Just let me go back to sleep!

  He jumps onto my bed, starts to claw the blanket.

  I sit up and open my eyes, look straight into his face.

  —Meeeew!

  he says sadly, and licks my nose. Then he jumps off and runs down the passage.

  I stick my head under the blankets, swearing I’ll ignore him no matter what.

  —Meeeeeeeeeeew!

  I jump out of bed, run down the passage. I hear his footsteps. I switch on the light. He’s standing by the door. I open it, and he runs away, into the darkness.

  The darkness inside the house, alas.

  I resist the temptation to cry.

  —What do you want?

  —Meeeeew!

  He runs over to his food and begins to eat it. I wait.

  When he finally finishes he walks into the kitchen and sits down under a chair. I switch off the light and start to go back to bed.

  —Meew!

  He runs to the front door. I follow him, open the door. Outside, the rain has stopped but the wind is blowing litter down the street. A block away, a dog is barking.

  Unhappily.

  He hesitates in the doorway. I nudge him with my foot, and he runs out, looks around, then darts under the house.

  Good riddance.

  No malice intended, but …

  Back in bed, I listen to the wind.

  And then the rain starts again.

  The tiles of the roof shiver in the cold.

  A branch tears, hangs miserably to the trunk for a few seconds, then crashes to the ground.

  The dog yelps mournfully at the stinging drops.

  I float towards sleep …

  … Then float away again because it is morning.

  —Wake up, it’s seven thirty!

  But it can’t be later than two. Surely.

  Drifting half-way back to sleep, I dream of getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and leaving for school.

  —Get up! It’s quarter to eight!

  This time I really get up. I try to stand, fail, lean my head on the pillow. Then I lift it off, tear my eyes open.

  I skim through the paper as I eat breakfast. Rarely anything of interest between the front page and the movies, but you never can be sure. That’s where they put reports of nuclear-waste leaks and other unimportant incidents.

  And then the breakfast dishes. Not included in the dream. Which makes that version infinitely better.

  I hurry and manage to finish by eight thirty. Why hurry? Because time must be better spent doing anything except washing and drying breakfast dishes. Unquestionably.

  Wait for a gap in the loud, aggressive bombardment even though I know it will be too short. Run quickly but never quickly enough because despite the threat it is so good to walk slowly in the dry, icy air into the exhilarating wind filled with the music of a million symphonies.

  When it starts again, dash like lightning between the trees which keep out little more than half the icy drops.

  Reminds me of yesterday. And the day before.

  But there is a Rule which says today can be similar to yesterday, but it must not be identical.

  But there is so little room for change. What can be different today? Can the walls be a different colour? Not likely. Can the siren go an hour later? Hardly. Can gravity be half of its normal value? Not without upsetting poor
Sir Isaac.

  Ah, but there is one difference.

  Today is Wednesday which means Maths first thing, while it was English yesterday.

  But it was Maths first thing last Wednesday too.

  Stop complaining. It wasn’t raining last Wednesday.

  Why am I trying to convince myself that every day is identical to every other? And why am I angry when I fail? Shouldn’t I be happy with the realisation that today is unique, that it has never happened before and it will never happen again?

  Big deal.

  Unique boredom is barely better than repeated boredom. There are millions of different states of the Universe which all seem almost identical to me; I guess I perceive a sense-created, soul-created sort of model of the universe, and the mapping is entropy-increasing.

  But I’m babbling.

  Even the glorious wind seems bland today. I wish the sky would turn green and the clouds would turn orange.

  My sisters are always telling me I have poor colour taste.

  Some satisfaction in Maths: By an unbelievable coincidence, he decides to collect and mark our trigonometry homework. Then I become depressed because I can be cheered up by such a trivial incident.

  Which is silly. What’s wrong with getting cheered up by trivial incidents? It’s all relative. I decide to be stoically happy all day long.

  It doesn’t last.

  Out of frustration I create a viewpoint and send it up into the rain to take aerial shots of the school. You could never risk a helicopter in this sort of weather, so the footage is, in its own funny way, unique. Nobody else in the world could ever take it.

  And nobody else in the world will ever see it.

  Let’s not get onto that track.

  The rain stops, and there is the sound of gutters emptying rapidly, just like the sound of a giant urinating.

  The wind rises, and the trees moan complaints.

  The rain starts again, tapping on the roof with an irritating beat that sets my teeth on edge.

  Cliché!

  I wouldn’t swap it for summer in a billion years.

  But after a trillion, I think I’d start to get sick of it.

  Or perhaps even sooner.