The Ice House

by Ray Ouellette

  “Any idea about the distortion of the voices that I heard?”

  Lynn thought for a moment, offering no immediate reply. They had gotten used to asking a question and maybe receiving an answer minutes later. Each knew that the other was working on an answer, and anyway, this was a trip to be enjoyed equally for the scenery, which right now was the spectacular Berkshire Mountains. It was as if time had slowed for them. What would normally require an immediate answer to not appear rude, would be perfectly acceptable if answered within a minute or two on this long drive.

  “Maybe it's a different medium. Sound travels at different speeds in air and in water right?” she finally suggested.

  “Right, but I assume those people I'm hearing are breathing normal air.”

  “Maybe it has to do with time varying, the rate at which it moves forward. I don't know. Some psychic effect. We know almost nothing, certainly nothing provable, about the afterlife. There's lots of literature but no proof, no real data. Only reports.” She held up an instructive finger for an instant to make a point. “It would be useful if a psychic researcher had a near-death experience...or a physicist, or a medical researcher.”

  “Or one of us,” Frank said without a smile.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Mass. Pike became the New York Thruway as the Berkshires grew smaller in the rear view mirror. Vast expanses of blue Corn Flowers colored the roadside in friendly competition with the clear skies and the rest of the natural beauty around them.

  “I've been thinking,” Frank said. “Do you feel uncomfortable about this? I mean we've never even been out together and here we are heading off to central New York for maybe a week. We'll have to be staying there.”

  “Oh yeah, it would be a little awkward, wouldn't it, if it were a date. At least awkward for a first date, I mean. But this is more of a sort of business trip isn't it? And there's the psychic aspect.”

  Frank looked over at her, not doing a good job of concealing his disappointment at her answer to his leading question. She had been taken by surprise and was answering by reflex, regretting each word as it spilled out. She tried to regain control and answer in some way that they both would feel was acceptable, and yet still leave room for possibilities to be explored later. But it didn't work. What came out was, “Don't worry. If Frankenstein had a psychic experience I'd go with him to look into it.”

  Frank put on an exaggerated look of shock, obviously realizing the whole time what was happening.

  “Oh God, I didn't mean that.” she blurted. “That didn't come out right at all. It must have sounded like an insult, right? That's not what I meant.” Frank changed his expression to one of seriousness. She noted it and continued. 'You know you're good-looking, right?”

  He couldn't hold back a smile anymore. “And you're good looking too. Even better looking than the Bride of Frankenstein.”

  She laughed but gave him a hit on the leg, just the same. Frank added, “I'm glad it was you that knows about psychic phenomena and not...” He thought for a moment. “The boss's wife.”

  “The boss's wife?”

  “That's all I could think of. Nobody at the firm is all that bad looking.”

  “Oh, so you've been checking everyone out when they're daydreaming have you?” Now it was her turn to put on a look of disapproval.

  “No, just you...a bit...once-in-a-while.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, putting her hand out in a stop sign gesture, “Is this whole thing a plan to pick me up? If it is, you deserve an Oscar...or a Pulitzer Prize.”

  “Pulitzer Prize?” he said.

  She just shrugged her shoulders

  “That would be nice,” he said. “If it was a line. There wouldn't be any dreams and we wouldn't be heading for this town in the middle of nowhere to find out who knows what.”

  “It's between Syracuse and Albany.” she said to lighten the mood. He looked at her questioningly. “I mean, it's not nowhere,” she smiled.

  “It's nowhere to me. I wish I just had the money to hire a private investigator to look into it. And when he was finished he'd come and tell me what it was about. Hopefully it would be nothing, no connection to Lawrence Lowell. Just meaningless nightmares or whatever they are.”

  As they were leaving a rest area, passing cars, trucks, campers, and R Vs with different license plates on them, Frank began a new conversational theme, saying, “Things change don't they? I remember my mother used to say that if you wanted to see someone that you hadn't seen in a long time just hang around Times Square in New York long enough and eventually everyone in the world will pass through. I think you'd have a better chance now at a rest area like this one. Everyone's out on the road aren't they?”

  “All looking for someplace they want to be, I guess, said Lynn.

  “Think Lawrence Lowell has ever been through this rest area.” joked Frank.

  “He sounded more like a Times Square type to me, said Lynn. “Wall Street actually.”

  “Nobody likes where they are?” said Frank, a half statement, half question, making his way out of the clogged parking lot back onto the highway.

  “ Nobody's satisfied,” she said, “Except kids. Kids seem satisfied for the most part. I mean they play and draw, watch DVDs, play games. Whether they're rich or poor, kids seem to enjoy themselves and accept the way they are and just get on with having fun.”

  “Unless they're in India and they say they're not with their real family.”

  “Yeah, but I bet they don't worry about it. They say what they want to say and then they're out again playing!”

  Frank countered, “What about the 19th century, when 10-year-olds were put to work in the textile mills along the Merrimack River in Newburyport or Lowell.”

  “Lowell! That name again,” Lynn said.

  “Forget about the city of Lowell then. You drive across the Merrimack River in Lawrence and there are huge...” They looked at each other for a moment and then laughed at the names Lawrence and Lowell. “Can't get away from it can we?” Frank joked. He continued where he had left off. “Anyway there are huge shells of buildings lining each side of the river as far as you can see, buildings that used to be textile mills. I saw a show on WGBH that traced the life of a girl who left the farm to work in the mills because her family needed the money. It was common back then to work twelve hours a day and then spend the night in a dormitory, then back to work the next morning. Then they'd have to send their pay back home to their parents on the farm in Derry or someplace.”

  “Yeah, I suppose that it's only recently that kids have had it pretty easy. I think it might have to do a bit with the guilt that parents feel about the way the world is. My father confided in me that the reason he wasn't strict with me during my childhood was because he wanted my childhood to be extra pleasant. He knew he'd be sending me into a world that was ten times worse than when he was a kid, with the crime rate, the lack of good jobs, lack of opportunity, sky high prices for everything, generally a rat race. I guess he felt guilty about his generation being the last one to e able to walk the streets at night and feel safe, guilty that he didn't do something to prevent it.

  “Yeah, can't do that anymore. I wonder if we'll be able to walk the streets in Southford and feel safe.” Lynn didn't speculate on whether Southford would an idyllic Mohawk Valley town and said nothing. Frank continued.“Yeah, it's all gone to hell. I mean what does it say about karma?” He glanced at Lynn as if to say, 'I've been doing some reading too.' “Karma, is supposed to make the world a better place, right. It's supposed to make people who are evil come back and have a bad life to atone for that evil life.” He glanced at Lynn. She nodded in agreement and Frank continued, “It's supposed to teach them some kind of subconscious lesson so they'll be better in their next incarnation. Have I got that right?” Lynn nodded again. “So how come,” he said, “the world seems to be getting more rotten?”

  Lynn put down her book, getting more involved in the conversation. “Right, for example, when my fathe
r was a child if a kid was kidnapped, everyone would sit around the home waiting for some ransom demand and the phone would ring. Today if a child gets kidnapped nobody expects ever to see the child again.”

  “Yeah. What does that say for karma and reincarnation? If the world's becoming a more rotten place then karma isn't working.”

  “Makes you think they're all wrong.”

  “Who?” he said.

  “The world's religions.” She glanced at Frank to get his reaction to that but he appeared to be thinking about it. She continued. “Maybe life has no significance at all. Maybe the beings in the afterlife choose a life full of conflict just to experience it. Or a boring life, just to see what that's like. Or a violent death or tragic death for the same reason. Then after they die they get together in the afterlife and discuss their incarnations.”

  Frank just said, “Wow!”

  Lynn said, “Maybe some spirit invented incarnation because the spirit world is boring?” Another half question, half statement.

  They thought about that for a while, neither saying anything. Lynn read some more. They watched the scenery of the Mohawk Valley pass by, later stopping at a scenic view point to eat a picnic lunch by the roadside. Much later Frank said, “So where does all this leave me? There's another body that tries to steal my spirit every time I sleep?”

  Lynn recalled another book. “I read about reports that people who witnessed the silvery cord during near-death experiences occasionally report that another spirit is messing around with it, apparently trying to sever it and make it theirs, maybe so that that spirit can return to the body instead of its real spirit.”

  “You mean the reports of people who don't act at all the same after being unconscious after an injury?”

  “That might be it,” said Lynn. “They're called walk-ins.”

  “Why the hell would this guy that I never even knew be trying to steal my spirit?”

  Lynn hesitated, remained silent for a bit, then with her head down, peeked out at him from beneath her eyelashes and said, “Maybe its his spirit too.”

  Frank challenged, more out of fear of such a possibility than out of disagreement. “But this guy Lowell is dead! When you die your soul leaves your body and unless you're saved quickly your soul is gone...off to the afterlife...never to return...at least not unless it's reincarnated.”

  “Exactly!” Lynn's eyes flashed with enthusiasm as she nodded.

  Frank stared right through her, his mind running through the implications of Lynn's suggestion. He looked back out of the windshield to make sure he was still driving straight then said, “You think I'm reincarnated from Lawrence Lowell!” He looked at Lynn but she just shook her head, then shrugged. After running the implications through his mind for a while he just said “Christ!”

  CHAPTER 9

  They drove for a while without either saying anything, maybe both still considering the implications of Lynn's suggestion that Frank might be reincarnated from Lawrence Lowell. Frank's thoughts began to drift away from the reincarnation possibility and he found himself wanting to know more about Lynn than would be required for a casual acquaintance. What were her favorite things, what did she like to do? Questions that a man would ask a woman that he cared about. And she asked similar questions in return. Was she having the same feelings about him or was it that they were on a five hour car tip? Just casual talk? Or more? Lynn had seemed like she felt the need to break any extended period of silence with some conversation. So who knew?

  “In answer to her question about her hobbies, she answered, “I like parapsychology and the unexplained, as you know. I play tennis...more or less.”

  “I do too. More or less.” Frank thought back to the despised tennis parties with Allison at the Regency Hunt Club. “Maybe we should get together and see who's worse. Favorite movie?”

  “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” she said.

  “Oh yeah, isn't that the one with Barbara Streisand where she undergoes hypnosis to past lives to a time when she and the psychiatrist were involved, but they don't like each other in the present life and are incompatible.”

  “Right and then he asks her under hypnosis if they were ever married and she says yes and he asks her when and it urns out to be sometime in the future.”

  “Reincarnation.” Frank summarized the theme of the movie.

  “It was beautiful,” Lynn said. “The way they went through eternity coming together in various lives, never really losing each other because of dying.”

  “Hand me a cola?” Frank said. Lynn reached into the back seat and got two out of the cooler and handed one to Frank. He popped the top and continued. “It would be nice...with someone you cared about.” He avoided her eyes so she wouldn't read too much meaning into his statement. He was unsure about her reasons for being on this trip too. “But that's just fiction. That's a movie,” he cautioned, referring to Lynn's favorite.

  “Well, in case you're having doubts about reincarnation, there was a real case I heard of, A husband and wife had a child die at the age of seven, I think it was. She was hit by a car and the parents were devastated. They mourned and were depressed for years. Never got over it.” Lynn opened her cola, took a sip, then continued. “Eventually the pain lessened a bit and they had another child. And this child was a girl and this girl had an area of less pigmentation, and it was in the area of the injury that the original daughter died of.”

  Frank listened, imagining how the parents must have reacted when they saw that. At first, he pictured them elated, but then questioned this picture, wondering instead if they might have been appalled at seeing an area with less pigmentation in the same area as the injury that killed their first daughter.

  “But listen to this,” Lynn said. They noticed that she also had the exact same birthmark on her arm, the same shape that the first daughter had, a purple, elongated spot in the same location.”

  Frank now could picture the parents exchanging looks, being first amazed, then filled with joy as they concluded that their daughter's spirit had returned to be with them again.

  “They even looked similar, I mean, as much as can be seen at that age. The hair color, eye color, and as the girl grew she seemed to know about everything that the departed daughter knew. She developed the same mannerisms, the same expressions. She preferred the same type of toys as the dead daughter. Everything.”

  “So how did it turn out? What was the final verdict? Reincarnation?”

  “That's what everyone involved believed. The parents had never even thought about reincarnation before, but that's the firm conclusion they reached.”

  “That must have set their minds at ease”

  ”Completely.”

  “But is there any possibility,” said Frank, “of coincidence? Maybe some irregularity of the woman's womb that could cause a birthmark to repeat itself, and maybe they encouraged certain behavior in the new child.”

  “But the light pigmentation mark in the same location as the injury.”

  “Right,” Frank said, caving in after playing the Devil's advocate.

  A lecture was in order. After all, Lynn had done a ton of reading and research on every aspect of the unknown, including life-after-death. “Early people were close to nature,” she said. “Their lives depended on noticing things in nature and one thing was most apparent, that every winter almost everything died in the plant world and every Spring it grew again. They saw a tree 'die'. She held up the fingers of both hands making quotation marks, “and bloom again each Spring. They saw the sun go down and the light fade into darkness and in the morning the sun was back. Everything to them indicated that rebirth was the way of things. They extended this to people and many early religions believed in reincarnation. I think that even Christianity did, until the priests who dictated church doctrine decided to exclude it.”

  “I guess that the concept of reincarnation brings comfort to people and they wouldn't need the priests to comfort them so the priests did away with it. Frank said.<
br />
  An 18-wheeler passed them. A sticker on the back of the truck read, “I believe.” Lynn gestured towards the sticker in case Frank missed it.

  Frank read the sticker and said, “You're not the only one.” The conversation fell off into silence for a few minutes as they watched the truck gradually leave them farther behind.

  Lynn took out a bag of jelly beans, that she had been given by the owner of a company that produced them, one of her accounts. Frank was amused and felt inspired to say something funny about jelly beans but couldn't think of anything.

  She held out the bag to him. “Want some?”

  “No green ones...please.” After a moment's silence he couldn't hold back the smile. “They make me deathly ill. I think I'm allergic to green”

  “I bet you don't eat your Brussels sprouts or broccoli.”

  He then thought of the joke that he wished he'd thought of earlier. “Do you feel the urge to be counting them?”

  She thought about that for a moment then said, “Oh yeah, bean counters. Accountants. I think I'll forget about the firm for a few days and just eat these. I'll save the green ones for you so you can throw them out the window.”

  “What, and poison some poor ants that find them?”

  “I'll bet you secretly like the pink jelly beans,” she kidded. “Come on. Admit it.”

  “Close. The red ones.”

  After enjoying the scenery for a while, Frank said, “Do you have any other favorites that might fit in with the purpose of our trip?”

  Right off she answered, “My favorite book. The Razor's Edge.”

  “Really. At the risk of appearing sexist, I'd have thought that book would appeal more to a man. The war, the adventure.”

  “I beg your pardon.” She put on a mock tone of being offended and said, “What am I doing right now? Am I sitting at home watching a soap opera on TV? Am I reading a historical romance? Am I eating chocolates while lounging in a bubble bath? In case you didn't notice, I'm on a pretty good excuse for an adventure right now.” She gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder, then said, “Really, a man's book. Thank you very much Frank Tilton.” She shook her head, put on a look of disapproval, then added, “By the way, it would be more effective when I'm telling you off if I did it with your whole name. Is Frank short for something or just Frank?