by John Klima
Outside, the desert air bit at his skin and he clasped his robes closer. He hesitated for a moment, thinking: This is unwise. But he did not believe in ghosts or spirits: how could one, when one knew what happened after death? Then he hastened to the turret and up the crumbling steps to where he had seen the light, and crouched down to probe beneath the balustrade.
There was nothing there. He did not even know what he had expected to find: some kind of device. Perhaps it had been implanted in the stone itself, but even though Sao peered closely, he could not see any fissure or crack where the stone had been disturbed.
He straightened up and turned. Someone was standing behind him, a figure out of the desert shadow.
Sao’s hand went to his heart, an instinctive, protective gesture. He had not thought to bring a weapon.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Moynec said and smiled a ghastly grin.
“Moynec?”
“Moynec is dead. I no longer need to disguise myself under false and human names. My true name is Eshara,” Moynec said. “I am the last of the Uniqt.”
“What?” Sao backed against the wall of the turret; it felt reassuringly solid.
“My mother came from the last of the line,” Moynec said. “Uniqt females reproduce parthenogenetically. You do understand, don’t you, that as the last male I had to take vengeance? For the last two decades, my private research has been the development of a temporal disrupter. Originally, I hoped to travel to the Duality, but this was naïve: they do not allow the lesser races into their territory. So I had to wait for them to come here.”
Sao glanced around. Moynec stood in the doorway; there was no way out except around him. He must keep Moynec engaged.
“One can understand,” Sao said, “that you would wish for revenge.”
“You do not know,” Moynec said, very softly, “what it is like. You cannot. I am the last. This is my world. I am sorry, Vice Chancellor. I’ve enjoyed our conversations, even though your comprehension is sorely limited. But I must take my planet back.”
There was no indication that he was about to move, to draw a weapon. But then Moynec was crumpling to the floor, falling without a sound, and a needle-weapon was clattering across the ruined stones.
D-jiva stood behind him, arm upraised.
“I saw the future,” the Duality member said. “He was about to use the gun on you.”
You know what comes next, and yet you still fear it. Sao, shaking, said, “Thank you.” And called the proctors.
They found the temporal disrupter in Moynec’s rooms: a small box, with a blue flashing light. Inside lay a tangle of wires which, when tested, proved meaningless.
“Unless they’ve missed something,” Sao said to D-jiva, doubtfully.
The Duality member made a dismissive gesture. “They have not. This is not a real device. Just some wires stuffed into a box.”
“They’ve done tests in the medical wing,” Sao said. “He is not Uniqt, of course.”
“No. Merely someone who has gone quietly mad,” D-jiva said. “As had, it seems, A-vokt himself. While you were undergoing your own investigations yesterday, I took the most recent samples of A-vokt’s poetry and did my best to analyse them. I am not the poet that A-vokt was, but I think it is there all the same. Guilt, and the wish for repentance. Futile, of course, since such an action would not have brought back the Uniqt. It appears that A-vokt discerned some romance in dying at the banqueting table on the world which his own ancestors failed to save.”
And both he and Sao sat silently for a time after that, staring out at the burning glare of the desert, at emptiness, at that which is gone.
* * *
V•I•V•I•S•E•P•U•L•T•U•R•E
viv·i·sep·ul·ture 'vi-ve-'se-pel-'chur
noun
: an act or instance of burying someone alive
* * *
Vivisepulture
DAVID PRILL
“HEY, WHERE THE HECK is that music comin’ from?”
This was Big Jim McDiffie at a Memorial Day backyard barbecue, circa 1974, back when you knew exactly where pretty much all music came from; that was the appeal—you can’t hum along to the Unknown. Penny-loafer jingles, tinny children’s songs from the ding-dong man’s truck (according to moms everywhere, the music meant the truck had run out of ice cream), the mailman whistling an old Johnny Mercer standard, side A of the soundtrack of the suburbs.
And most importantly, Big Jim’s school song:
Wave the flag for Hillmont High School
Her colors black and gold.
Marching always on to victory,
No matter who the foe.
So, we’ll forever praise and cheer you,
Our Gobblers brave and true.
Wave again the dear old banner,
Hillmont High we’re all for you.
Brought a tear to Big Jim’s eye. Used to, anyway.
Big Jim had been a star athlete at Hillmont High, lettering in football, baseball, basketball, and cheerleader-chasing. He was the missile-firing quarterback in football, pitcher and cleanup hitter in baseball, and all-city forward in basketball. Until a back condition knocked him out of his roost. His spinal column was twisted like a snake on hot blacktop. The doctors said his athletic career was over and out. It was too frustrating to attend the games as a spectator, so began the isolation with occasional detours into alienation. Almost felt like he had already graduated, especially since he didn’t spend much time in class anyway. He spent less time hanging out at the Red Barn with the gang, tough guys with french fries dangling from their mouths, more time wandering alone down the paneled-station-wagon-lined streets. His coaches had always admired him for his ability to see the whole playing field, to anticipate what was to come, to be one step ahead of the other players. Now Big Jim, as he wandered, was trying to see the whole field, the future, but he couldn’t see much at all; the field was too big now, and there were too many unknowns.
Like the music, today.
Big Jim may not have been the smartest guy on the block—he once saw a sign in a yard that said Free Wood Chips and thought it was a political statement—but even he could conclude that the music didn’t fit in here, in the suburbs of his mind. Anybody could hear that.
Where was that music coming from anyway?
Big Jim asked the question.
“I don’t hear anything,” said his mother. “Have another ear of corn.”
“You don’t hear that? Listen. It’s music—beautiful, sad, hopeful music, woodwinds and quiet brass, the plucking of strings—you don’t hear that? It’s beautiful, wonder where it’s coming from.”
“You’re hearing things,” said his kid sister.
“I hear something,” said his dad. “Not sure what. Doesn’t sound like music to me. A factory, a plane, the wind, something faraway, not music, not music at all.”
I’m hearing things, I’m wondering things, Big Jim thought.
The wind shifted, and the music flagged.
Later, after the coals became ash and the rest of the family settled in before the idiot box, Big Jim remained outside, as the early summer night crept over the bungalows, the Big Dipper slopping darkness into the northern sky. He listened, he couldn’t catch anything.
I want to hear it again, Big Jim thought. I want to hear that music. Why the heck do I want to hear that music?
A while back a group of boys from prestigious west Hillmont formed a rock combo called Foxen. They played covers of popular songs. They were named after the leader of the group, Greg Fox, whose parents had given him a Sears Silvertone guitar and amp for his birthday and tolerated the din. Foxen practiced in the basement rec room of Greg’s house, where they also threw bashes for their friends from school. They charged a buck to get in, which included free sodas. Big Jim wasn’t allowed to attend the shows after he threw a punch and accidentally knocked over the Silvertone amp. Big Jim didn’t mind—the music they played didn’t stir up much inside him.
The doctor had prescribed heavy walking for Big Jim in order to strengthen his back muscles. He walked at night, roaming through industrial areas and along railroad tracks, on rainy cold nights and on T-shirt-and-sneakers nights. It was drudgery at first, but then he grew to like it, and even after his back had healed to the extent it ever would, he still tramped the streets.
Once while he was out wandering, a car passed by Big Jim, a ’65 Polara, containing Macy and Greg Fox. Big Jim and Macy had dated up until his back malady knocked him out of the race, and even for a while afterwards until she seemed to grow weary of the constant walking, walking, walking; okay, like, you know, a girl shouldn’t have to, like, soak her feet after a date, okay? Can’t blame her, he told himself; they traveled in different circles nowadays.
The Polara slowed when it saw him. A Foxen cover of “Radar Love” blared out of the car speakers.
“Where are you going, guy?” Greg asked. Macy smiled self-consciously and maybe a little provocatively from the passenger side. What was that about? He didn’t understand that. If she was done with him, she shouldn’t act like she wasn’t.
“Nowhere,” Big Jim said, keeping his eyes away from them. “Just walkin’.”
“You still owe me for bustin’ that amp, man.”
Big Jim didn’t reply. The Polara filled with laughter and peeled off down the street, taking “Radar Love” with it, the bass line like footfalls along the avenue.
Big Jim never did dig that song, the Foxen version even less.
“Did Macy dump you?” his kid sister asked after he returned from his wandering.
“What’s it to you, half-pint?”
“I saw her riding in a barracuda with a fox!”
“Polara.”
“Well they were driving fast.”
“Lookee you, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. You should know all about that, shrimp.”
“Well I never approved of her—I think you can do much better.”
“Oh you think so, huh?”
“I do! I do!”
“Maybe I’m happy the way I am.”
“You don’t look happy.”
“Listen, squirt, I…ah, what do you know. I’m goin’ to bed.”
It was a sleep-at-the-foot-end-of-the-bed night, windows up as high as they could be pushed, and after the rest of the house headed to slumbertown, the breeze rallied.
From the east.
Faint, hardly audible music found its way into an upstairs bedroom among the dusty trophies and sun-paled pennants.
Beautiful, sad, hopeful music. Now that he was alone with the music, now that it wasn’t filtered through the family proper, Big Jim understood. He connected. The music spoke to parts of him that nothing had ever spoken to before, parts he barely knew existed within himself. It was sweet and melancholy and most highly personal, a whisper in the ear, a note furtively slipped under the door.
Big Jim went to the window.
He listened, straining against the screen, wanting to get closer to the sound.
Once again the wind shifted, and the music found another home.
When he slept…
Big Jim dreamt of the music. He dreamt of the woman who was making it, a beautiful angel-hair blonde, royal-wedding white dress, embraced by irises and daffodils and daisies, a genteel look on her face, hugging one of those big ol’ violins, a cello, yeah, a cello, her soul was so beautiful—oh, so much better than Foxen, way better than Macy. Hillmont High could only wish to house so fine a specimen.
When he woke…
Big Jim wished he was still in dreams. He hustled to the window and listened, but overnight a warm front had settled in, bringing along a day that promised to be still and humid and…quiet.
The hot spell hung tight all week. Big Jim serial-dreamed of the music, of Her, and he began to worry. What if after the front moved through, the breeze returned but the music did not? I should have tried to find her that first night, he thought. I shouldn’t have waited.
Saturday was his dad’s birthday, and he wanted to go to Uncle John’s Pancake House, so that was the plan. Uncle John’s was famous for their early-bird and night-owl pancake-and-egg special—you got three buttermilk pancakes or toast, and two country-fresh eggs as you like them, all for a buck and a half.
“Is your back hurting you today, Jim?” his mother asked. “You’re so quiet. You’ve hardly touched your pancakes, three of them for a buck fifty and I’m not even including the country-fresh eggs.”
“No, I’m okay, Ma. I’m just waitin’.” He hummed the music of the late hours, and hoped like hell for a change in the weather.
Big Jim slunk back to the Red Barn during these still times and didn’t know why. Maybe wanted to see if there was anything left of his old life. Maybe that’s what he wanted to see. But there wasn’t anybody there, there was no aroma of the french fryer in the air, in fact the Red Barn was closed for repairs.
The cold front swept through town late on Saturday night.
Tagging along on the winds was a lonesome melody.
Big Jim sat bolt upright in bed.
He busted out of the house and was on the front sidewalk while the melody was still hot in his head.
Now he wandered the streets with a purpose, drawn to the music, allowing himself to be reeled in, passing by the dark signposts of the suburbs, the Jolly Troll Smorgasbord, the fiber-glass Jolly Troll perched on the boulder out front looking like a grim sentinel, the windmill at the putt-putt golf course a haunted, damned place.
He stopped and listened, then backtracked, keeping the music in front of him, trying not to get sidetracked. It seemed, slowly, and in very small degrees, that he didn’t have to strain as much to hear it. Big Jim found his anxiety and anticipation growing as he homed in on his dream.
And then the wind suddenly died. And the music with it.
Big Jim lingered, and listened, and hoped.
But the wind didn’t return, not that night. He didn’t take it personally. It was just one of those things.
Better luck the next night—a strong, steady breeze, a bona fide wind, and Big Jim didn’t waste any time. He reached the Menacing Troll while the first notes were still fresh in his head.
Now Big Jim was heading down the hill to Southtown Shopping Center, home of Red Owl supermarket, Dave’s Shoe Repair, Jolly’s toy store, Kresge’s dime store, and other icons on the Hillmont scene. Southtown was a modest dream of early suburbia, surrounded by vacant lots. Santa’s Workshop, which was hauled out to the middle of the parking lot in early December, spent the summer months lonely and abandoned-looking in the weeds behind Southtown. As a kid he wanted to peer into the dusty workshop windows, afraid of what might be lurking in there, afraid an inmate-eyed Saint Nick and his rabid reindeer would be peering back.
Used to be a bar on the nearby service road, but it had been shuttered long ago when a new elementary school had been built in the vicinity—a neighborhood dog visited the bar with some regularity, and the story goes that the patrons would give the pooch a beer or two and send him home in a cab.
The rest of the lot behind Southtown had been undisturbed as long as Big Jim could remember. But now a strange building had ended its peace, and it was that building, Big Jim realized, that was the source of his new soundtrack.
The building was white and classical and out of place. It looked like a temple, a museum, with columns and ornate decorative doo-dahs, an edifice that had been there for generations, not the usual go-go basement rec room architecture of the suburbs. It was like one of those buildings they showed in that humanities class he slept through last year, the type of building you’d see on a field trip to the planetarium downtown.
It’s funny, Big Jim thought as he walked by Santa’s Workshop and through the weedy lot, booting a discarded Fanta bottle, sending it clinking into the brush. Even though I’m so close to the music, to the beautiful one, that it doesn’t really sound any louder than it did from my bedroom window.
; Big Jim approached the building in a hurry, stumbling over the debris in the field as he closed in. A night critter scuttled into the heavier brush up against the hillside. The tall, grated windows were dark. An odd smell occurred to him as he went up the steps and passed between the columns leading to the heavy-duty ornate front door.
He knocked, twice, then leaned into the door, and as the music rose he stepped inside….
“Boy, do you ever look crummy!” Kid Sister told Big Jim the next morning, invading his room without knocking. “Where did you go last night? I tried to stay awake, but I just couldn’t!”
Big Jim rolled over and peered at her. “Stay far away from me, kid.”
“What did you do? Did you commit a crime? I bet you did! You robbed Jolly’s, I betcha. That’s what I would rob if I was going to rob something. Can you imagine, yo-yos, hula hoops, ant farms and Frisbees, German microscopes and Japanese kites, whee!”
“Kid, I have to ask you something.” Big Jim sat up.
“Ask me? What can this shrimp possibly tell you?”
“Yeah, look, serious stuff now, okay?”
“I’ll be good.”
“Promise me something, kid.”
“A cross-my-heart promise?”
“Even bigger than that.”
She came to the bed, wonder in her eyes.
He leaned in close to her. “Lock me in my room tonight.”
Her eyes grew white.
“Don’t let me go out, kid. Lock me in. Lock me in good.”
“You’re scaring me! Jeepers, quit kidding around!”
“I can’t tell you about it now, kiddo. Someday I will, I vow to you. Trust me. Lock me in my room. No matter what I say, don’t unlock that door!”