The Place Where

by Rodion Pretis

  “What ... what happened to me?”

  “You fainted in your editor's office.” Rotten number, my boy. Many of us would not refuse such an exit, but it's frank cowardice to arrange such a melodrama when leaving the stage. This will create a bad impression of your endurance and vitality. How will you be able to cope with a literary tour of several cities, if, due to some kind of fatigue, you cringe like an empty bag of chips. So they will talk about it. Well, be that as it may, you were brought here by ambulance. And I spotted you when you missed our meeting.

  “Oh my god, now Wankel will probably blacklist me.” To the very first position.

  Stiljack's sour expression.

  “As if you weren't there already.”

  Corso is upset.

  “So you already know that I missed the deadline.”

  - Who does not know. In the “Locus” there was even a side column dedicated to your difficulties - in the December issue. Have you not seen?

  “I didn't sign up anymore.” With money tight. And reading the Locus, I'm just getting nervous. All these major transactions, all these brilliant, contented lives, professionals shaking hands. What does all this have to do with a real dream ...

  “Come on, Corso, it's someone, and you shouldn't believe all these printed fables.” None of us really feel safe. Most writers just keep a good face.

  An unworthy feeling of anger and envy of a friend.

  “It's good for you to say, Malachi, with your estate, and contracts, and ... and cohabitants!”

  The cartridge is not offended by the trick of its peon. Magnanimously and carefully looking from their heights.

  - Well, well, Corso, you do not fit such grievances. But I, of course, understand what the creative crisis says in you. This is the root of your problem. But not material difficulties at all. Or your wife's departure.

  A cry of despair.

  - Good God, in the “Locus” and there was a column about this?!

  - No, no, what are you. However, rumors ...

  “These damn brothers of mine can stop gossiping even for a minute - if only to recount their bonuses?!”

  “Let us leave all these too human defects of our colleagues, Corso, and consider my diagnosis.” Think a moment. If I had stagnation, would all my money and property have made me even a bit happier. Of course no. The same applies to physical health. For easy and natural functioning, whether it is psychological or somatic, the necessary condition is peace of mind. Deal with your creative dead end, and you will again find yourself on top of the world.

  - A simple recipe. But hardly applicable to himself.

  “Let's work on this together for a while longer.” Now is not so late. We still have time to have lunch. But first of all, you need to be discharged.

  The doctor is called. Corso reluctantly issued a clean sanitary sheet. There may have been a slight food poisoning. In the Papoon Skluts. Rotten coelacanth with prehistoric cuisine. A decent meal for all these defiantly wealthy visitors. An invitation to dress was received from a sullen but attractive red-haired sister. The sister does not stop to glance at the unattractive masculine dignity of Corso. As if half-invented. A lonely and, lately, too-little-caressing professional dreamer. Soon they go out onto the twilight street.

  Stiltjack waves his cane with a golden knob. Giving a radiant approving glance to the whole world around. Fussing business drones. Sweaty messengers. Bored teenagers. Choosing a cherry for a tooth. Or a kick. Should he be possessed by a corresponding vicious-sovereign whim. Droit du seigneur [72]. My loyal subjects. Corso silently walks nearby. Sure that if any pigeon decides to empty himself. Excrement will fall on the head of the one who represents the most miserable goal.

  “Well, now tell me about your problems, man.”

  Corso obeys. Describes his frustration at work.

  Moving trails into real life. And the state of the fugue. And at the same time when he talks about his ailment. Corso nervously awaits a new attack. However, nothing happens. But a lightened sigh fades on his lips. With the following words of Stilljack.

  - So this is your wild fits! I figured they won't reach you for a few more years. However, they happen in direct proportion to talent. So there is nothing to be surprised at.

  Corso is both flattered and scared.

  - Wild fits?

  - Named, of course, in honor of you-know-who. Our patron saint. [73]

  - So you mean, you want to say ...

  - That I also have them. Well then! Anyone, even the most hardcore science fiction writer, sooner or later goes through this. Most come from the other side. But some, of course, remain in the middle. If you are lucky, you will not be among the last.

  - That is, is it an occupational disease?

  - Oh, this is not a disease! This is a view of reality given to us.

  Corso stops.

  “What are you saying, Malachi ...”

  “Aren't you listening to me?” You have been given a vision. The plastic, unstable nature of reality. The illusory nature of the universe. This is a perspective view of the gods. A breakthrough in knowledge.

  Corso's voice sounds mocking:

  “And I suppose you have greatly benefited from such visions.” Maybe they even learned how to become a deity themselves. Maybe I'm just a character in one of your fictions.

  “Uh, actually, I really became a kind of demigod.” As for which one of us created whom, or both of us are fictions of some kind of a higher order, well, this question is still open.

  “I would be grateful if I received any confirmation that you are simply not crazy.”

  - Naturally. Here look.

  A stream of pedestrians freezes in place. As well as traffic. On the sidewalk are Sharon Walpole, Clive Maltrem and Roger Wankel. In a standard configuration. But then each of them mutates into its paranormal state. Crab claw prosthesis Walpole. Lizard-like appearance of Maltrem. Wankel's Android stillness. Corso approaches marble-faced figures. Pokes them with a finger. Turns to Stiltjack.

  - Well, are you satisfied? - he asks. “Or show you also Jenny with her new friend.” As far as I understand, at the moment they are at a car race in Dalat. I could bring this poor fellow with Pennstation to the stage. By the way, his name is Arthur Pirty. A charming guy if you really get to know him.

  - No. It's not obligatory. Just send these ... these phantoms away.

  Editors and literary agents disappear. Life resumes. Stiltjack fun forward. Corso numbly follows him. The cunning fragility of the world is affirmed. Flimsy ruins. Painting painted on rice paper. Corso feels nauseous.

  - In fact, it is better not to cause such large-scale gaps. The universe, whatever it is, is not our toy. We did not create it. We do not rule this ongoing theater of shadows. We do not know the ultimate background of its existence. But we allow ourselves to nip off a little here and there. In order to personal well-being. Such small spin-offs are allowed to those of us who have come out on the other side of wild fits.

  “But, but ... but even if you decide to continue living, how can you continue to write science fiction!” In the face of such knowledge.

  Malachi is suspended. To emphasize the importance of your words.

  “Well, as far as motivation is concerned, here, Corso, the whole question is whose imagination dominates, isn't it?” No matter how strange the Universe may seem to you, when you finally know it, a trained brain, such as yours or mine, proclaims that our own imagination in our concepts can be even more powerful. Anyway, if you're a real science fiction writer. Well, now why don't we go and enjoy a good meal? I can guarantee that no one will bother us.

  And corso laughs

  loud enough to force passersby

  look at him in amazement

  for his appetite

  suddenly becomes huge

  and not just food.

  “To Fat Horseback, Jonathan Herovit, and, of course, to the Red-haired.”

  Pat cadigan

  Mother's milk

  Milk appeared for brea
kfast, which is such an unappetizing sight that one can see on a summer morning at seven thirty: long and straight, like tow, his hair and look will plunge into a cup of oatmeal, an old faded shirt with shredded sleeves opens sinewy hands with flowing from above down rivers of tattoos, even older jeans faded to sky blue with a brown glow.

  “Say hello to Moloku, Lynn,” my mother told me, putting a quart of milk on the table next to his painted elbow. “I bailed him yesterday from prison instead of your father.”

  “Hello, Milk,” I said.

  He turned his head slightly, and I saw a watery hazel-brown eye peering at me through locks of hair. It seemed to me that the wary notes in my voice amused him. Probably, I would also be funny if I were in his place, but I was not in his place. I looked at my mother: the folds of her crispy white overalls, as usual, looked so sharp that they seemed to cut into the flesh. In the mornings, my mother always looked exceptionally good, even if she had stayed up late the day before.

  “Drunk driving,” she explained, sitting to the left of Milk with her own cup of oatmeal. “We can no longer tolerate this.”

  “Drunk driving isn't a joke, mom,” I said.

  Milk straightened in a chair. He looked like a killer with a knife in his hand.

  “I meant your father, not Milk,” my mother explained. - Milk attracted for theft in a supermarket.

  “I understood who you mean.”

  Milk looked at my mom. She patted his hand.

  - Do not worry! I said that you can stay - that means you can stay. If you want to.

  - And if not? He said, turning his crazy face to me. “Aren't you afraid to repent of having bailed me?”

  “My mother is not afraid of anything,” I said. “Don't you understand this yet?”

  Before leaving for work in her “Slapy Hands”, mother showed Molok a complete list of tasks for the day and read it out loud before him - just in case, as she put it, “difficulties with grammar”.

  - Wash the dishes, tidy up the living room, clean all the carpets, wipe the furniture on the lower floor with a rag, change the linen on the beds upstairs - there are three bedrooms, including the one where you will sleep, and wash both bathrooms. If you do everything right, then when I get back from work, a treat will be waiting for you.

  He took the list from her hands with that expression that I call Standard Dumb Amazement. Mom, rising on tiptoe, patted his head, turned and rushed to the garage door; he blinked and stared after her. “Run” is the only word to describe the way my mother moves; once you see how she does it, and you understand exactly what that means.

  He went to the window above the sink to watch it move off.

  Finally he turned back to me, holding the list in his hand - as far as I saw, so people usually keep the bill, again received from the car repair shop. He asked:

  “Is she joking?”

  I spread a thin layer of cream cheese on the other half of my rye bagel.

  “Are you still in prison?”

  He laughed, crumpled the list, and threw it over his shoulder into the sink.

  “In any case, I will soon be gone here.”

  I got up, went to the tool box and pulled out a gun.

  - I do not think so.

  His watery brown eyes suddenly became very large.

  - Mother-pummel! Baby, what are you?

  - What do you think? Ah, milk?

  His gaze darted from the pistol at me, again at the gun and again at me.

  - Give up? I asked. He began to raise his hands, exactly as people on television do. - Tableware. I help you wash the dishes.

  He took a step in my direction, and I aimed the barrel in his crotch. Many make the mistake of targeting a person in the head or chest - but believe me, lowering the point of sight, you will get much more attention.

  “Should I convince you that I can and will use it?” Do you really think that this is the first time I have breakfast with a convicted criminal whom my mother took care of?

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “God damn you, who are you people?” What do you?

  “Conscious citizens,” I replied. “Listen, I want your presence here no more than you yourself.” However, it just so happened. I jerked my head toward the table. - Gather the dishes and take them to the sink. I can always refer to self-defense.

  “Are you going to keep me on the fly all day?” This is the only thing you can do.

  “We all have to do what we have to do, Milk,” I said. “Now you have to take a little trouble.”

  - How old are you? He asked suspiciously.

  - Sixteen.

  - Oh my God!

  Of course, he did not believe me: I am built as a goalkeeper, thanks to genetics.

  “There's a mess in the house, Milk,” I said. - Well, how?

  He folded his sinewy arms over his chest.

  “And if I just don't move?”

  “Then both of us will have a very boring day,” I said. - And in the evening you will return back to prison.

  It finally dawned on him.

  “But I can't do it!” And here I also can't stay, ”he said. “Please, dear ... Lynn ... give the guy a break, huh?”

  “You already got a respite.” You got out of jail.

  He squinted at my gun.

  “Well, more or less,” I added. “Listen, my mother looks eccentric, even by your standards ...”

  - I already heard that.

  “... however, one must not think that she is not speaking seriously.” My mom is not joking. She just does not know how to do it. - I pointed to the plates waiting on the table. - Come on, Milk, proceed. You won't die if you wash a couple of plates!

  He understood the hint - but, I tell you, even he himself was surprised to realize that he was really collecting cups, spoons and plates from the table and taking them to the sink. The whole time he rinsed the dishes and put them on the dryer, I literally heard the wheels spinning in his head: when will the gap finally open to try to cope with this hefty nutty gangster girl; and how far he will be able to run away, and whether he will have to run fast, and what the hell is he doing here; and first of all, why on earth did he agree to be given to the care of a complete stranger?

  However, my mother always knew how to choose. Starina Molok clearly passed away more than a couple of nights in the open air, and the prospect of sleeping at least one night under the roof, with the possibility of subsequently washing off, taking with him everything that was not nailed and costs more than five dollars, was too tempting for him to be resist. Leaving prison with the demented little gray-haired lady, who preferred him to her husband in order to pay a deposit, should have seemed to him a pretty good idea in the middle of the night.

  The phone rang just at the moment when he pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the closet in the hallway. This, of course, was my mother; she was glad to hear that Milk had not gone out of the schedule, but she was saddened that I should still have him on the sight. As if this was something unusual. It would seem that by this time she could already remember: at least on the first day they all work exclusively at gunpoint. My mother is an eternal optimist, she always hopes that the next one will be a more capable student.

  Just before lunch, he made a jerk to the front door. I let him twitch it and try to break the window. Then I forced him to vacuum the path in the hallway and after that gave him lunch. Breading his tomato soup with a spoon, he muttered again and again: “I can't believe it, I just can't believe it!”

  In the process of wiping the dust, they all usually try to call. I left the room for a short time - just to give him the opportunity to try. When I returned, he poked the buttons with the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner. I would not start talking about it in his place, but he apparently could not restrain himself.

  - How is it that they call you if the phone does not work here? He asked in accusatory tone.

  “The phone works,” I said, “you just don't know how to use it.”

  - Lord Jesus! - he threw the nozzle on
the floor. “I would like to know what is going on here?” Your mother said that I can stay here if I want. So what if I don't want to?

  I lifted the barrel of the revolver a bit.

  “I think you still want to.”