by Rudy Rucker
“I thought so,” April spat out. “I saw you sneak in and steal the food-money out of my purse. I saw you and your friend running down the street. And you know what?” Numbly I shook my head. This was going to be bad. “All day I’ve been hoping you wouldn’t come back.”
The costume judging was over, and the kids were streaming past us. “I guess it’s Halloween,” I said.
April stopped walking and I stopped too. She was about to say that she was leaving me. I could feel it coming. Quickly I spoke between. “April, that wasn’t me in the Drop Inn. I’ve been out of my body all this time. I was…I was in this sort of after-world. It’s called Cimön and I had to get to the White Light before I could come back—”
“You’re parents called last night,” she said, cutting me off. “I had to talk to them and act like everything was fine. Yes, Mom, Felix is at the library. He’s really working hard these days.” She started walking again and I tagged along, pushing the stroller. “But she knew I was lying. Did anyone see you at the Drop Inn?”
“April, listen to what I’m saying. I’ve just done something that no one’s ever done before. I’ll be famous.” It occurred to me to look through my pockets for that little pamphlet on Cimön I’d gotten from Sunfish. But it was gone…elsewhere…
“Famous for what, Felix?”
“I’ll, I’ll…” My voice trailed off. There had to be some way to use the experiences I’d just been through. “I’ll think of something.”
We were walking up Tuna Street now. April stopped, picked Iris out of the stroller, and led her up to someone’s lit-up porch. Bunches of trick-or-treaters were flitting about all up and down the street. The wet leaves formed a pasty carpet underfoot. The sky was low and starless.
Up on the wooden porch Iris stared expectantly at the door, her stuffed rabbit-ears leaning back. A friendly jack-o -lantern glowed on either side of the white door. It opened, a slender woman exclaimed over Iris and handed her a candy. Iris dropped it and April bent over to retrieve it, graceful and sexy in her tight jeans. They walked back down the path looking satisfied.
I didn’t try to talk anymore, just followed along, smiling and marveling at the simple reality of it. When we got to our house, April went in to hand out candy and I took Iris to a few more houses.
The Kazars lived two doors up from us, and we were pretty good friends, although they were a little older. Marguerite Kazar opened the door as we walked up. Iris squealed, “Tweet!” and dumped her candy out on the porch to look over what she had so far.
Marguerite gave a big laugh, stagy but sincere, “Isn’t she cunning! And I bet her Mommy sewed that suit herself.” I nodded, attempted a smile. It felt like my face still worked.
Marguerite gave Iris a candy bar and looked up at me.
She was short with a pretty face. “You poor man! You look like death warmed over!” She threw up her hands in mock dismay.
“I’ve…I’ve been on a trip.”
Her eyes widened. “Aren’t you worried about your chromosomes?”
“It wasn’t really that kind of trip.” I bent to reassemble Iris’s scattered booty. There was a long, questioning silence, but I left it at that.
“Say hello to your lovely wife,” Marguerite said as we left. She was quite a gossip, and I winced inwardly as I thought of stories about my “trip.” Eventually—this was the bad part—the stories would get back to April. Oh well. At least it was beginning to look like I might not lose my mind.
The DeLongs rented a small house across the street from ours, and I went there last. Nick DeLong was the only real friend I had in Bernco. He taught Physics and was also new this year. He had thinning blond hair and the mandatory beard. He worried a lot.
Nick came to the door and waved us in. Iris dumped her goodies out on their tattered living-room rug. Nick’s dachshund sped over and snatched a cookie. Iris’s face was red in an instant and tears popped out of her slitted eyes. “Doggy NO!” she hollered with all her strength.
Nick’s wife Jessie gave her amazed-at-it-all laugh and locked the dog up in the kitchen.
“Beer?” Nick said, and I nodded. Jessie was handling a fresh group of trick-or-treaters, and he went to the kitchen himself. The dachshund wormed out the door, Iris roared, I put the dog back.
Finally I was sitting in their wooden rocker sipping a beer. Iris sat on the couch next to Nick, feeding. Jessie stood behind the couch, observing Iris with interest. They were expecting their first child that spring.
“April’s really pissed at you,” Jessie said without looking at me.
“She came over last night,” Nick added with a worried expression. He took people’s relationships very seriously.
I took a hungry pull at the beer. When I’d come to at the Drop Inn that afternoon I’d had to sober my body up with Cokes and hamburgers. But I felt that by now I could handle a few beers.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “And I’ve got to get back to April.”
“Why doesn’t she come over too?” Nick suggested. “Call her up, Jessie!”
“That would be good,” I agreed. “It might be easier that way.”
Jessie went into the kitchen to call. The dog got out again, but Iris had all her candy back in her bag. The dog put his feet up on the couch and sniffed hungrily. Iris fixed him with a stony stare. “Gweedy,” she observed finally. The dog returned to its bed by the radiator.
I opened the door for April, and she favored me with the ghost of a smile. There was still hope. Jessie got her a beer, and she sat down next to me on a folding canvas chair.
“I hope the kids don’t attack our house,” she remarked.
“Did you put the pumpkin inside?” I asked, in an effort to sound like a responsible member of the family.
She blocked the attempt with a cold stare. “You wouldn’t know if we even have a pumpkin.”
“I’m really depressed today,” Nick put in.
“Why?” April asked responsively.
“Well, first I got an article rejected, and then the Chairman told me he thinks I’ll be terminated next year.” He stared glumly at the floor. “I’ve been working so hard on my lectures, and it’s as if no one even cares.”
“What was the paper on?” I asked in an effort to forestall a long discussion of Nick’s career. If no one stopped him, he would discuss his prospects deep into the night. And April would sit there looking interested. That was what I couldn’t stand. If I ever tried to complain, she would just get angry that I could be unhappy when she was making such sacrifices. April had the monopoly on suffering in our family, just as Nick held the franchise in his.
I realized that Nick was talking to me, and tried to assimilate what he was saying. “…aether theory. Hell, I made a point of saying that it’s compatible with special relativity, but I don’t think they even read past the abstract, let alone look at my data. The idea’s quite plausible really. There should be two types of basic substance…”
Bells were ringing in my head. I’d heard about basic substances in Cimön. Cantor had mentioned a paper of his from 1885, and had suggested trying a physical test of the Continuum Hypothesis. Nick had discussed his work with me before, but of course the significance had never hit me. I leaned forward in excitement. “You’ve worked with matter and aether, Nick, but could there be a third basic substance?” I rattled on before he could answer. “Because if there were, then we would know that the Continuum Hypothesis is false. Cantor said so when I was talking to him in Cimön—before he went into Dreamland. I just have to read his 1885 paper, and I bet we can work out an experiment. We’ll be famous!” They were all looking at me, and I kept talking. “I know where people go when they die, too. You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve seen.”
“Felix just spent the last twenty-four hours at the Drop Inn.” April interjected acidly. “And I think he’s been tripping on top of it
all.”
Suddenly I remembered the dream I’d shown April. “I’m high all right,” I said, staring at her intently, “But not on false drugs. All I need is a clean windshield, powerful gasoline and a shoeshine.” April hesitated. “Do you remember, April? The man in the airplane? You dreamed it right after you dreamed about seeing me passed out on a sidewalk. I’m high all right, but not on false drugs.”
“Isn’t that from the Firesign Theatre?” Nick put in. “Jessie and I saw them at—”
“Please,” I cried, waving him silent. “This is so important. I saw April dreaming. I know what she dreamed. It’s the only way to prove that—” I fell silent, waiting for April to say something.
Finally she spoke. “That’s so weird, Felix. As soon as you said that, a dream came back to me. I took a nap before supper today and it was just like—” She looked at me with wondering eyes.
I filled in more and more details of the two dreams, and April recognized all of them. By the time we were through she was really talking to me again. She believed me.
“Where did you say you were?” Nick said. He was smiling, happy to see us make up. Baby Iris had fallen asleep on the couch, and Jessie brought out some cake.
I talked for the next hour, sketching out the whole wild ride. They listened spell-bound, and I realized that at the least I had the makings for one killer of a surrealistic novel. Nick got up several times to bring more beer. I waited till I’d finished talking before I drank the second.
“What was the one word that you read at the end?” Jessie asked.
“I’ve got to know that word.”
“Greetings,” Nick suggested with a laugh. “Like in the Vonnegut book where the robot brings a one-word message all the way across the galaxy. Greetings.”
“Or Hi,” April said with a giggle. They’d heard me out, but I was still just their crazy Felix. It was a relief.
“It should only have one letter,” Jessie mused.
“I don’t remember what the word was,” I said. “When I got to it, there was only one of anything. Which meant that the word and I and the Absolute were all identical. Like there were no more distinctions, no thoughts.”
“But then you still had to reach Nothing,” Nick remarked. “I take it you don’t have a great deal to say on the subject?”
“Felix always has something to say on the subject—whatever the subject is.” April was smiling at me now.
23: Research
I couldn’t sleep for a long time. I was leery of leaving my waking consciousness again. April dropped off to sleep right after we made love. It was a good, thorough sex act—even better than with Ellie. There had been some element of physicality missing from all my experiences in Cimön. April was nothing if not physical. I loved her in the same unquestioning way I loved the Earth.
We were lying together spoon-style, and I pressed myself against her long warm body. She made a humming noise and shifted against me. A car drove past and a fan of light swept across the ceiling. My eyes twitched a little as I followed the movement. I kept thinking I saw bloogs.
Walking across the street from the DeLongs’ I’d been sure I’d seen one hovering from over our chimney. But when I stared it wasn’t there. And now I saw something flicker in our closet. I tried to convince myself that it was just phosphenes.
April and the DeLongs hadn’t tried to argue with me, but it was obvious that they didn’t take my story at face value. Their tacit assumption seemed to be that I had dosed up with some heavy acid and ridden it out at the Drop Inn. It was much easier to account for my knowledge of April’s dreams as straight telepathy. Unusual, but nothing to make you question your sense of reality.
My astral body and physical body had run on the same time-line as long as I stayed on Earth. But the two days I’d spent in Cimön had only counted for an hour here. From Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon I’d been ghosting around Bernco and Boston. I’d hit Cimön at about five in the afternoon Earth time, and at six I’d snapped back. The fat bartender—Willie—had noticed the change at once.
“The dead man walks,” he’d bellowed when I stumbled to my feet. I’d been sitting at an empty table staring at the TV. A few people at the bar turned their heads to look at me. “We’ve been trying to decide whether it was catatonia, autism, aphasia or sheer insaneness,” Willie added cheerfully. He’d been a Psych major at Bernco several years ago.
I’d had a couple of Cokes and hamburgers then. I was too wiped out to talk. At seven I’d drifted out into the crowd around the Halloween parade. Tomorrow I was going to have to go back and talk to that barmaid—Mary.
Another car drove past. Again I saw a light flicker, saw it out of the corner of my eye. A face. I sat bolt upright on the edge of the bed. It had looked like Kathy.
I had a bad feeling about her. I should have taken her all the way to the Absolute. I knew she’d never go there on her own, and sooner or later Satan would catch her. That was the one thing Jesus had asked me to do, to get Kathy to God, and at the last minute I’d blown it. And they had warned me to be sure not to bring her back. But how could she come back? On earth she was dead.
April and Jessie had both known about the business with her father getting the most expensive coffin. The fact that I had found this out didn’t impress them. “I told you that, Felix,” April had insisted. “You just weren’t listening.” I wondered again if Kathy could have followed me back to Earth. I hadn’t really noticed which way her light had gone after I killed her.
But now everything looked normal. I went into the kitchen for a sandwich and a glass of milk. I heard the college bell-tower strike midnight as I ate. I felt a tremendous sense of relief. Halloween was over. Maybe everything would go back to the way it was before.
I looked in on Iris, sleeping on her back with both arms stretched up by her head. She looked like she was doing exercise, or like a capital Y. My eyes watered at her perfection, her solidity. I thanked God I was back.
I woke up in Dreamland sometime during the night. I was a red ball of light, moving through the familiar continuum of possible visions. Urged by some inner bidding, I picked one, and found myself back in the Temple Hill graveyard with Jesus and Satan. A bad dream.
Satan is holding a shrink-wrapped package with a styrofoam tray. A supermarket meat package. There is something green in the package. A featherless seagull. Kathy.
He shows his teeth when he sees me. “It’s you or her, Rayman. What do you say?” His voice is like rusty iron dragged across concrete.
I look at Jesus for help. There’s a crack in the ground like before. He and I are on one side, Kathy and Satan on the other.
Jesus gives off an even, golden light. His eyes are deep…like black holes. He smiles a little and holds out one of his hands. There’s a ragged hole at the wrist, with blood scabbed on it.
I step back, shaking my head. “I can’t do that. I’m not you.”
Satan laughs, and the laughter echoes.
I woke up covered with sweat. It was dawn. Iris was babbling happily in the next room.
I got up and fed her, and when April got up I made scrambled eggs for the two of us. “And do you know what I dreamed last night?” April asked over coffee.
I shook my head. “I didn’t look.” April waited expectantly, so I told her my dream. “I dreamed that the Devil had that girl. Kathy—what’s her name?”
“Kathy Scott. I don’t know why you keep talking about her. You never even met her, did you?”
“Just in Cimön.”
April lit a cigarette and gave me a worried look. “Maybe we should move, Felix. I don’t think it’s good for you here. These wild ideas you have all of a sudden—” Her face quivered, close to tears.
“You didn’t used to be like this.”
I went over and put my arm around her. “I wish it was over too, April.”
She s
tabbed her cigarette out. “Last night with the DeLongs it just seemed like a funny adventure. But if you really didn’t take anything—” She hesitated, then went on haltingly. “I mean, to just forget who you are for a whole day like that. It’s not normal.” She looked pleadingly into my eyes, “Please, Felix. Go see a doctor. I think you need it this time. You’re too far.”
From her standpoint it made sense, of course. But the request annoyed me. It annoyed me very much. Fighting for control I said evenly, “The only way I’m ever going to the nuthouse is in a strait-jacket. I got myself into this, and I can still get myself out.”
“Muy macho,” April said bitterly. “Meanwhile you’re ruining my life.”
There was a hot balloon of anger growing in my lungs, and my solar plexus felt like the tight spring of a wind-up duck. I had to get out before I said something awful. “Please, April,” I said as I backed away from the table. “Just give me a little slack. I need to think things through. I don’t care what you call my trip to Cimön. But I have an idea, or an idea for an idea, that could really—”
Suddenly she softened. “Oh, Felix, don’t worry me so much.” She stood and walked over to me, gave me a hug. We held each other tight for a minute. Iris crawled over to worm between our legs. April scooped the baby up and held the little blond head next to ours. We all stood there kissing for a minute. There was sun on the kitchen floor.
My schedule was such that I had no classes on Thursday, so my absence had gone unnoticed at school. Friday mornings I had Calculus and Math for Elementary Education. They went pretty smoothly. In the El. Ed. course we reviewed some more for the test I’d scheduled for Monday, and in Calc we covered the formula for the arc-length of a curve.
After my classes I hurried over to the library to look up that paper Cantor had told me about. His collected works are available only in German, and it took me awhile to find and translate the passage I was looking for. It went something like this: