Journeys of the Mind

by Sonny Whitelaw Sean Williams

  Flicking a simper at Model #3, he said, ‘Coil.'

  'That's nice.'

  Nobody bothered with plays anymore. A dying art, like communication and macramé.

  The eyes spread porcelain blue vapidity, and she deposited a small plastic cup between wires and diodes. ‘Let's take our medicine like a good boy, shall we?'

  No Viagra, of course. Seroxat and Xanax and Starlix and, out of place like Dolly Parton in the hip hop charts, Ginko Biloba. To encourage peripheral circulation. His fingers and toes were forever cold. He took the plastic cup, made a show of tossing back its contents. #3 smiled, he simpered, and she moved on. As soon as her back was turned, he spat out three of the pills. The smooth chemical ones. The Ginko was rough and grainy as a food pellet to flag up the herbal goodness inside, and he'd swallowed that. The smooth chemical ones sat in his palm, coated in saliva. He probably should take the Starlix as well. If his blood sugar levels got too high, they'd figure out what he was doing. But he didn't plan on staying for the lecture, did he? Not really. He stashed the pills in his pocket, wiped his hand.

  Trapped in the maws of her armchair, Miss Mehlworm stared at him and cackled. ‘We're not being a good boy.'

  'Coil,’ he said.

  Her mouth smacked into a sunken moue. ‘I'll tell the nurse.'

  'Coil!'

  She did. She curled into the upholstery, flipped open the portfolio, and sought solace in blandness. Slick move. He'd never mastered it.

  'Coil,’ he whispered.

  Not for very much longer. He had a spool, too. The trick lay in the transformation from spool to coil. Stiff fingers with bluish nails picked up the tungsten-bronze filament and looped it around a twenty-one-inch ferrite rod. Eighteen inches of it were meticulously wrapped in wire. Two inches to go, with further layers to come. Determining the correct method of winding had taken months. He'd briefly considered using carbon tube instead of the tungsten-bronze, but like all organic superconductors it required temperatures of below 3oK. Somehow he didn't think the installation of a high-end cooling system in the dayroom would have gone unnoticed. Miss Mehlworm would have told the nurse. Besides, the tungsten-bronze still was an improvement on the original design. That had taken 1.42 miles of #16 magnet wire per coil. He needed four coils. This was the last.

  Model #2 had looked troubled when he'd first unpacked bits of capacitor and coils-to-be on the table.

  'What are we making?'

  'The USS Eldridge.'

  'That's nice. A bottle ship.'

  Bottle ships were a dying art, like communication and macramé. Nothing he did would save it. Funny how nobody had picked up on the glaring absence of bottles.

  His answer hadn't been a complete lie. He'd simply overstated the case a little. So to speak. The array would be much smaller, and the staging platform would be this table. After all, he wasn't going to arc a 1,240 ton destroyer. He was thinking more along the lines of 170 pounds and change. He kept losing weight.

  How would Miss Mehlworm react to green fog in the dayroom? Tell the nurse or vanish into her portfolio?

  Maybe there wouldn't be any green fog. One theory put the haze down to water molecules excited by ultrasound. Nothing much to excite here. Just a few packets of man jerky past its sell-by date; flesh, blood, and bone dry with age, any H2O content evaporated or pissed away. Well, he'd personally slice open this packet. Eviscerate it, if—

  Don't do it. It's a crap idea.

  Oh.

  There was a theory about this, too. By a school of thought that saw no constraints but plenty of paradoxes. Like the one about the particle that enters the travel region, invariably collides with an other-timely mirror version of self, and gets deflected. If the particle doesn't enter, there's nothing to deflect it and it enters. If, on the other hand, it does enter, then it's deflected and never enters. Of course the theory was flawed. Quite simply because reality contained more than one particle. The possibilities were unlimited—countless particles merrily colliding among themselves. The only determinate factor consisted of attempts to deflect entry.

  But he would enter, wouldn't he? Else this particular agglomeration of particles wouldn't try to put a spanner in the works. Surprisingly early, come to think of it. The particles must be anxious...

  His face was much younger, the hair far from solid grey. The shaggy salt and pepper mane put him a couple of years after that assignment had gone to hell in a hand basket and caused certain people to play fast and loose with his synapses. He shambled closer, the reason for the limp camouflaged by a pair of faded jeans. Oh yeah, that had been fun. More fun even than being treated to colonic irrigation by #4.

  You know it can't work.

  'I know nothing of the sort.’ He shuffled a little, raised a not-quite-squeaky whimper.

  He bent sideways, cast a glimpse under the table. It almost looked like a dance step or the soft sweep of a yoga position. Had there really been a time when he'd moved with such grace?

  Carpet slippers?

  'In case we develop an urge to tie together our shoelaces and stage a creative exit. Neckties and suspenders are off-limits as well. They've got a perfect record. We die of decrepitude and dehydration or not at all.'

  Glad to see that the death wish isn't going to diminish over the years.

  He'd always been a sarcastic son of a bitch. Long, elegant fingers gently pushed aside a pile of clutter, and then he perched on the edge of the table. Weight off the gammy knee.

  No shoelaces, but they let you do this?

  'Hobbies are encouraged, as long as they're kept in the dayroom.'

  Maybe you should get one.

  'A dayroom?'

  A hobby. How about macramé?

  'That's a dying art.’ He looped more wire around the rod, carefully nudged it into place until it sat snug. ‘I figured out what happened.'

  You and a few thousand other nutcases addicted to paranormal websites. If memory serves, popular creed is that the Eldridge somehow short-circuited with the Montauk Experiment in ‘83. John von Neumann must have been intrigued to hear it.

  'Perhaps you should have finished your doctorate instead of joining the Marine Corps, Sergeant.'

  Perhaps. Turns out my choices were a tad limited thanks to your shining example.

  Ah yes! Perfectly identical. That was one of the few rules that actually applied. Poor devil!

  Another loop. Three-quarter inches to go. And back again in opposing helices. It was called a caduceus coil. That was a joke and a half. You'd think of healing, wouldn't you? He'd been incurable from the get-go. If something was incurable, you cut it out. Like a cancer.

  It won't work. You can't get past the fact that you're existing in a Cauchy Space. There are no crossing CTCs. Deterministic all the way.

  'Then why are you here? With those deliciously Newtonian notions you should have gone the opposite way. Late seventeenth century, to join your pal Isaac under the apple tree. Remember those fancy loopholes established by the General Theory of Relativity? How closed time curves can intersect a Cauchy Space?'

  That temper finally reared its ugly head, but he kept it in check, merely rose to slough off the excess energy, turned away, bare feet sucking on linoleum, shoulders squared, fists balled. He almost could feel the crescent moons his nails bit into the skin of his palms. Frustration personified. The same old impotent rage. If he was the worst the particles could throw at him, it'd be—

  He hadn't noticed it before, but he should have expected it, given his temporal provenance. He'd done it all the time back then. He'd been Bionic Man, the flute a part of his anatomy, impossible to leave behind or, God forbid, discard. He'd shoved it into the waistband of his jeans, and it stuck there, cool and gleaming and waiting to poke his kidney when he moved.

  'Please ...’ He dropped the coil to be able to reach, like a small child for a stick of candy floss. Whiney, the Eighth Dwarf.

  What?

  Head tilted for an underhand glare back at him. Screened by a black and gr
ey scrim of hair, his eyes were alive with hazel fury. He recalled it well enough. He'd shaved it every morning for decades, until one day—he couldn't say how long ago exactly—the act of shaving had required more strength than he could muster while still sustaining the anger.

  He assessed the stare correctly, but he'd always been perceptive. Too perceptive. Long, elegant fingers gently slipped the flute from its unlikely sheath. Then he held it out.

  Where's yours?

  Tungsten-bronze wire was expensive, and a handmade sterling silver Powell fetched a few bucks. But if he admitted it, the rage would return and the offer would be withdrawn. So he merely licked dry lips, as though anticipating a treat—in a way he was—and groped for the flute. Their hands touched for a second, warm and cold, and they both blinked and recoiled with almost comical synchronicity.

  I ... didn't think it was possible.

  'I'm glad it is.'

  The flute felt cool and gleaming, and the need to snap into the fingering rose from reflex rather than conscious thought. He couldn't even span the right hand (liver-spotted), let alone the left (vein-riddled). Toneless lungs and lips raised a not-quite-squeaky whimper.

  So that's why you...

  No. But the futility of it had made the sale seem less of a sacrilege.

  For a moment he looked panicked, like a man told that his obscure and deplorable ailment required castration. Then he slowly took the flute back. The fingering came with spiteful ease, and of course he had breath to spare. And yes, he would choose that piece, the sadistic little bastard! His bête noire, the Badinerie from Bach's second orchestral suite. A quickfire of notes, like diamonds strung in quivering impatience, too difficult to play to permit so much as a thought beside it. The final cadence chased and tumbled toward that last tone, dropping to dead silence, cruel in its abruptness. He'd been practicing.

  'Too slow.'

  We'll always be. But the other day someone told me to stop digging for imperfections.

  Long, elegant fingers stroked the flute. He looked puzzled, as if unsure as to whether that recommendation was worth pursuing. It was, but he wouldn't understand it in time. And she hadn't told him, she had yelled at him, her alto splintery with annoyance.

  The memory of short titian hair and angry green eyes over freckles provoked a faint but startling twitch in a dick dead to the world and Viagra. He shifted a little. The carpet slippers whimpered as an out-of-time ache inflated and uncoiled and reached up to twist his gut into a bleeding, absurd knot of jealousy.

  I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her.

  Yes. Krapp had been there, too. Two crazy old men who should have known better while still young—younger. He picked up the coil, schooled reluctant fingers into a semblance of precision and looped another loop. The first layer was complete.

  'How is she?'

  A pain in the ass. Defensive all of a sudden, he shrugged and hugged the flute.

  'True. But she won't go away. Not yet, at any rate. And you won't—'

  You shouldn't be telling me this! It'll change—

  '—drive her away. Not if you want to learn the difference between fucking and making love, my friend.'

  A lightning-fast reflex kept the flute from clattering onto not-granite linoleum. Had there really been a time when he'd moved with such speed?

  'Careful!'

  You fucked her?

  The putative Grandfather Paradox and its equally putative constraints forgotten, he leaned across the table, spluttering and hurt, stabbing some $9,000 worth of handmade sterling silver Powell in his face. By the looks of it, they were even.

  'I didn't fuck her.'

  'Nurse!’ Miss Mehlworm exploded from her portfolio. ‘Nurse!'

  From opposite ends of the dayroom Models #2 and #3 converged on the armchair, watches bouncing. They flanked the chair left and right, forming a porcelain blue and fuchsia triptych with blandness in the centre panel.

  A spidery finger pointed at him, and Miss Mehlworm chirped, ‘He used the F-word.'

  The triptych glowered its mortification across the room. He fumbled with the wire and started on twenty inches of return helix.

  'Coil.'

  He said it softly. Just loud enough for them to hear and assume he was like the other crazy old man who said spool a lot.

  * * * *

  The hot liquid sat in the cup, shuddering. Hands curled in his lap, he slouched, sniffed, grimaced. No. Wishful thinking. The liquid had the indeterminate colour of an ancient, mangy mink. Theoretically it could be anything, including wafer-thin coffee with too much 99% fat-free milk. Murphy's Law dictated that, if it could be coffee, it wouldn't be. It wasn't. The smell gave it away.

  'Malt.'

  He grimaced again.

  Three tables over, Miss Mehlworm's spidery fingers caressed her cup and raised it to her mouth. Lips moist and glistening and pursed in a pair of anaemic welts as though she meant to suck it in. Or kiss it.

  #3 shone a benign, porcelain blue smile on her. ‘We like our malt drink, don't we?'

  Miss Mehlworm slurped—a moist and glistening sound, anything but anaemic—and smacked the welts.

  He shuddered, his physical oscillations subtly in tune with those of the liquid in the cup, and cast a baleful stare at his coils. They were set up in a square, one at each corner of the table, and refused to oscillate, in tune or otherwise. By now Models #2 and #4 had twigged on to the absence of bottles.

  'Didn't we say we were making a bottle ship?'

  'Not anymore.'

  'What are we making now?'

  'A diorama. The Rumble in the Jungle.'

  'That's nice.'

  Boxing was a martial art. Not dying, unlike communication and macramé.

  His answer had been a complete lie. It didn't matter. #2 had dispensed a blank look to go with the medication. Then the square white shoes had carried her off to report to #4, who had been in her teens in 1974 and remembered the names Foreman and Ali. She didn't have the first clue of where to seek Kinshasa, though.

  'Malt.'

  Inside the boxing ring, created by four upright coils and their connecting cables, lurked the breakfast tray. It held one china cup of hot beige liquid (shuddering); one small plastic cup of cold pink liquid (viscous); one plate of runny beige substance with lumps (scrambled eggs, no salt); two triangles of lightly scorched toast (wholegrain) with margarine (suitable for vegans); and a tiny bowl of beige diabetic jam (negligible sugar and fruit content). He'd grown up in the South. Consequently, his idea of breakfast was grits swimming in brown butter. He hated grits, but that was beside the point. He'd have got coffee with them. Strong, black, too-sweet coffee.

  'Malt,’ he whispered, oscillating with disgust.

  He eyed the small plastic cup of cold pink liquid and, after a moment's deliberation, drained it. If nothing else, Pepto-Bismol was guaranteed to numb you to the taste of malt drink and underdone eggs.

  'We're not supposed to take it until after breakfast,’ said Model #4, beehive buzzing with disapproval.

  'Malt,’ he protested.

  'That's right. Let's have our yummy malt drink, so we won't lose any more weight.'

  Three tables over, Miss Mehlworm had poured a languid trickle of Pepto-Bismol on the scrambled eggs and was mashing it all into a stodgily psychedelic mess in beige and pink. It had to be the first truly creative impulse she'd experienced in her life.

  'That's nice,’ he said, meaning it.

  #4 rushed off to intervene.

  He would have to find a way to dispose of the mangy mink drink. Resistant to a habitat of drought and inhaler fumes, a rubber tree languished by the window. Adding to its woes by feeding it malt drink seemed unnecessarily cruel. Besides, he couldn't think of a pretext for approaching it. The curtains—whorls of taupe and beige—were drawn against the gloom of a late November morning. 0713 hours and counting. The plenary council of Busty Blondes had decreed that gloom was bad for the inmates’ collective psyche and needed
to be battled by closed curtains, gay strip lights, and compulsory PE after breakfast. Tai Chi for the Desperate. Miss Mehlworm excelled. He'd tried to get out of it, pleading his knee, and been informed that they expected him to clap his hands above his head.

  None of which solved the mink drink problem.

  The ankles of #2 pattered past, conveying fuchsia wrinkles and a fresh plate of runny beige substance with lumps (scrambled eggs, no salt, no Pepto-Bismol) for Miss Mehlworm.

  'Let's eat our eggs like a good girl, shall we?'

  The patter hooped across not-granite linoleum and up the table's legs and incited further oscillations in the mink drink. Ripples sloshed inwards from a seawall of cheap china and broke in conical upheaval at the centre.

  'Malt.'

  He blinked and risked a sideways glance.

  Three tables over, fingers spidered past watches and bosoms and flanks for an empty Pepto-Bismol cup stranded beyond the breakfast tray. #4 and #2 were spooning scrambled eggs into Miss Mehlworm.

  'Malt,’ he whispered, groped for a tape measure, and got to his feet.

  Twenty-eight inches from coil to coil, which meant the diagonal between two coils measured thirty-nine-point-five-nine-seven-nine-seven-nine-seven-four-six-four-four—

  A moist and gurgling sound, anything but anaemic. Miss Mehlworm had started to keen, runny beige substance trickling from taupe gums. It matched the curtains.

  —inches.

  He positioned a lump of scrambled egg at nineteen-point-seven-nine-eight-nine-eight-nine-eight-seven inches, measured the second diagonal, and fractionally adjusted the placement of the lump. Roping away from the egg mess was a minute knotted cord. An avian umbilical—always provided that chickens handled this type of thing the mammalian way.

  0721 hours and counting. Three tables over, #4 and #2 wrested an empty Pepto-Bismol cup from Miss Mehlworm. He adjusted the voltage on the transformers and eased himself back into the chair. Two fingers, long but not elegant anymore, picked up the cup of mink drink and set it over the marker and its umbilical before the Busty Blondes could find anything amiss.