All I Ever Dreamed

by Michael Blumlein

  “I couldn’t be happier. You know why? I’m firing on all cylinders. In here,” I pound my chest. “Upstairs,” I pound my head.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “You should be glad. It’s a beautiful thing. We live in a beautiful time. Beautiful minds, beautiful ideas, beautiful place. It’s a miracle to be alive. I’m more than happy. I’m ecstatic.”

  “You’re in a zone.”

  A zone, is it? As in something with limits? That ends? I shake my shaggy head.

  “I’m not. The zone is me. It’s not going away. Like the smell. It’s who I am. Same goes for what I’m building and discovering, and all the good that’s going to come of it, how much it’s going to change how people think, how much smarter and better they’ll become, how much better off and happier, and how it’s going to usher in a new age, a golden age, new, improved, and constantly improving—”

  “The Golden Age of Dr. Jim?”

  “Why not?”

  She’s checking out my hands, which are down at my sides and, strangely, still bunched into fists, like the residue of something, an indelible mark. She’s got a curious look on her face, as though puzzling through what this means, which is one of the reasons I love her. She’s interested in the what and the why of things, she’s observant, and she doesn’t jump to conclusions.

  Not that any conclusion she or anyone might draw would have an effect on me. I’m above and beyond—immune to, you could say—the tyranny of opinion.

  “The sky’s the limit,” I tell her.

  “In the Age of Dr. Jim.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where fists rule.”

  “Fists are good.”

  She makes a pair of her own, turns them one way then another, regarding them with the same curious and observant expression. After a while she unfurls her fingers, then clenches them into claws. She studies these as well, then pulls them back as far as they’ll go, fingertips and nails slightly raised, tendons on the backs of her hands in sharp and tense relief, as though readying for action.

  “Grrrr,” she says.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  She swipes at the air, left-right-left, makes a hissing sound, bares her teeth. Her eyes flash, then settle on my face.

  “Got a sec?” she asks.

  “Got a lifetime. What’s up?”

  She turns to the window and points with her chin. “That.”

  “You like?”

  “We had an agreement.”

  “It’s nearly done.”

  “I’m willing to talk. I can be flexible. I’ll listen to reason.”

  “Do you like it?” I repeat.

  The question hangs in the air like a coin toss suspended in glass.

  “Does it matter?” she answers at length.

  “Of course it does.”

  “Why? Are you building it for me?”

  “I wouldn’t be building it without you, that’s for sure.”

  She looks shocked. Then skeptical.

  This wounds me, as it should. Skepticism is a dagger to the pure of heart. The innocent, for some reason, are always the first to be accused.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?” I ask. “Have I done something wrong? Without knowing? Again?”

  Rhetorical questions, of course, and we both know she’d be better off not answering. She could change the subject—to the weather, the neighbors, the news—to anything else, but she’s smarter than that.

  She apologizes.

  Then she rubs it in by kissing me. “That’s so nice to hear. You know I wouldn’t be writing what I’m writing without you, so it goes both ways. And the answer’s yes—I do like it.”

  Being immune to opinion does not, apparently, mean being immune to praise. I feel a wave of happiness, then pride, and I take her in my arms, pressing her hard against me. I want to crush her, I love her so much.

  “Easy,” she says. And then, “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Don’t tell me. You want to be there when I finish. On the day. The hour. You want to be part of it. You want to celebrate my victory.”

  “Okay,” she drawls, as though taken up short and trying her best not to disappoint me. “Now you want to hear the one I was going to ask? Don’t go up any higher. Go out if you want to, fill the whole yard if you like, just don’t go up.”

  “You’re saying size doesn’t matter. It’s not what’s important.”

  “I’m saying control yourself.”

  “You’re right. It’s not. I don’t have to go up. I can go out. I can go in. In is up.” The meaning of this—the full, ecstatic meaning—explodes on me with the force of revelation. “Up is up, too. Up and up. And up. And away. Up and away.” What a hoot! What a miracle! Another explosion, this time of laughter. “Grab your hat, there’s a storm coming, it’s going to blow us to smithereens, but the coast is clear. Clear sailing ahead if you don’t go up. Go out. Go in. In is up, and up is in—”

  “Stop.”

  I hoist her in my arms and twirl her around.

  “I said stop!”

  Her voice is like the crack of a whip, and I have no choice.

  Once she’s down, feet planted firmly on the floor, she crosses her arms over her chest and squares herself to me. “I need you to promise.”

  “Your will is my command.”

  “I also need you to be serious.”

  I raise my hand and pledge to her. “Not an inch higher. Not an angstrom. Not a snowflake. I swear to you. I promise.”

  * * * * * * * * *

  Carol has her work cut out for her, trusting him to keep his word. She’ll believe it when she sees it, or rather when she doesn’t see it, doesn’t see the piece get higher, and she learns how much harder it is and how much longer it takes to be convinced by the absence of something than by its presence, in this case the absence of something happening rather than by its occurrence. It’s the difference between not and not not, similar to the task of carving out and then maintaining silence in a world defined by noise. But as the weeks go by and he’s true to his word, she begins to relax. This, in turn, allows her to devote her full energy to her paper, a good thing, seeing as how she’s scheduled to deliver a preview of it at an important conference in two weeks.

  She has it well mapped out, all save one new idea she’s been wrestling with. It’s a bit beyond what’s known and established on the subject, right on the cusp of the plausible. It’s sure to be controversial, which is precisely what she’s aiming for. Academics love a good debate, and an aspiring academic could hope for nothing better than to be the center of one.

  What she doesn’t want is to be laughed off the floor. She needs to run it by someone first, and the someone she has in mind is her husband. Who knows more than he does about the subject? Who, when he chooses, can listen with more intelligence? Who won’t pull any punches and be sure to speak his mind? When it comes down to it, there’s no one she trusts more.

  Rising early one morning, she whips up a batch of pancakes, which will slow if not stop him, and has them ready when he comes downstairs.

  He’s barely awake. His hair is matted and snarled, as it has been for weeks. His beard is becoming a bush. He half-shuffles, half-lurches into the kitchen, where he stops, raises his head, and sniffs.

  “Pancakes,” she announces.

  Half a minute passes before he eyes the basement door. It’s a record. The power of scent.

  She pulls out a chair. “Have a seat.”

  He doesn’t move, and she doesn’t insist.

  “I’m going away next week,” she reminds him. “For my conference. To deliver my paper.”

  He shifts on his feet.

  “I’ve been toying with something. Can I run it by you?”

  “Can it wait?” He edges toward the door.

  She opens her mouth to say no, but his hand is already turning the knob. The door opens, then he disappears, as if falling into a dream, she thinks.

  From Dr. Jim’s Diary:


  Wednesday, Jan 4th. The darkness at first is thick, but my eyes like darkness, they’re at home in it, and they adjust quick. The smell of the cellar is abrasive and sharp, and in seconds I’m fully alert. I take the last stairs in a single leap, land like a cat, straighten, look. He’s cowering in a corner. What a pitiful excuse for a man. No threat to me or to anyone, and yet at the sight of him my blood boils. Why this is I can’t say. But I can say this: he won’t fight anymore, not unless I make him.

  Which I do.

  Boom boom, and it’s over.

  I almost feel sorry for him.

  But I don’t. Why should I? Does the cherry feel sorry for the pit?

  Fact is, as he crumples to the floor, I’m elated.

  * * * * * * * * *

  “I’m going out on a limb,” says Carol, after her husband has surfaced. He’s sucking down the cakes as if he hasn’t eaten in weeks. “I’m speculating that an identical epigenetic change can happen to many individuals in a narrow window of time, possibly simultaneously. And this can cause a recognizable change in culture and society in their lifetimes. It doesn’t have to wait for the next generation to manifest itself. It can happen now, as we speak. In real time. Real-time evolution. Not engineered, but natural.”

  He gulps down a mouthful, goes for another. “Why are you saying that?”

  “I believe it, that’s why. Or I’d like to.”

  It’s part instinct, part intuition, part hope. It’s also part giving her esteemed colleagues something to chew on, and part poking said colleagues in the ribs. “The question is, am I going to sound ridiculous?”

  He doesn’t answer, leading her to suspect the worst.

  “I could leave it out. Stick to what we know.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The epigene is a blueprint for change. It’s a paradigm for both stability and adaptation, most notably for individuals, possibly for larger groups. It’s biologically based, but it has much broader implications. One of the best and most powerful is that it’s future-oriented.”

  She stops, fearing from his wandering expression that she’s lost him. Or lost his support. So she brings it back home, using his own words so there can be no doubt or misunderstanding.

  “The epigene is key.”

  More seconds pass without his responding, enough of them for her to realize how important this is to her, how much his opinion matters. At the moment, however, he’s focused on what’s in front of him, a fine thick cake from the pan, which he folds in half, then in quarters, smothering it in syrup, then stuffing the fat, dripping wedge in his mouth, chewing and swallowing it, it seems, in a single act, then wiping his chin and lips with the back of his hand, then licking the hand clean. With a belch he settles back in his chair, and finally, at long last, turns his attention to her.

  Their eyes meet. She feels a jolt, then a quiver. He gets it. Yes. He understands what she’s saying. He understands, and he agrees. She couldn’t be happier.

  But then he speaks.

  “The epigene is nothing. It’s dogmeat. It’s yesterday’s news. The perigene is everything. It’s all-encompassing. All change that has or will occur derives from and is contained in it. All being and all possibility. It and it alone is key.”

  She gapes at him. “The epigene is dogmeat?”

  “Don’t talk to me about the epigene. It pollutes my ears. All eyes should be on the perigene. It’s the source, the nexus, and the crux of existence. It’s Heaven’s Guiding Hand. Heaven’s Crucible. Heaven’s Heaven.”

  “You don’t believe in Heaven.”

  “I’m building Heaven.”

  His eyes gleam, demonically one might think, and she feels what can only be described as an epigenetic shift, which pricks her like a pin as she glimpses a future that may not include the man she adores.

  She’s too shaken at first to reply, but then she gathers herself and finds her voice. It’s not the steadiest, but it’s steady enough.

  “Fine then. Be my guest. Build it.”

  Easy to say, he thinks as he hurries into the yard, and not, in fact, that hard to achieve, not when the fire is raging. It helps that he’s had more than a mere glimpse of his celestial wonder, that he knows, for example, that the perigene occupies another plane of existence. Another dimension? Another universe? The jury’s still out on exactly what and where, but here on Earth, in his representation of it, it exists above and beyond what he’s already built. Obviously, then, to depict it properly requires that he build more, and to this end he’s constructed an ingenious internal ladder that spirals as it rises, nicely echoing the spiraling DNA portrayed by his cables, pipes, and ropes. The ladder projects well above the current peak of the project, which means it is well above the fence. From the top rung, were he so inclined, he could enjoy a fine view of the neighborhood, not to mention the neighbors, all of whom have fenced-in yards of their own. But he has no interest in them. All his attention is focused on the task at hand. Currently this involves welding ten-foot lengths of copper pipe on end and in parallel to a steel plate base, then welding the base to the quartet of pulleys at the top of the structure . . . in effect, projecting the parallel pipes into space. At the topmost end of each pipe he’s bolted a swiveling, laptop-sized screen, remotely programmed and controlled. Rising together, the pipes resemble a line of stout reeds and also a cross-section of the Golgi apparatus, which is to say, a system of transport tubes. Two way transport in Dr. Jim’s fervid and frothy imagination: from the epigene upwards, carrying information to the perigene, which is yet to be built, and to the epigene downwards from the heavenly p, which lies somewhere in the ether above, and from which vantage it conceives, conducts, and conveys its divine and masterful plan to its genetic and epigenetic underlings. The screens have been partially covered with duct tape (the stickum and glue of impatient inventors and freethinkers) in the shape of an ellipse, leaving a narrow slit exposed. When they light up, they look like eyes, and once the program starts, they’re always going on and off, always blinking, for what self-respecting perigene would ever sleep? What man, for that matter, who every day is drawing closer to the realization of his dream, every day inhabiting it more, would sleep? Not Dr. Jim. Sleep is the furthest thing from his mind. Not that he could if he wanted to: the need, it appears, has been blasted from his brain. And thank goodness for that. To close his eyes now, on the cusp of his epiphany, with his perigene a heartbeat away, would be insane.

  For altogether different reasons, Carol isn’t sleeping either. Her husband is unraveling, and their marriage is hanging by a thread. Couldn’t he have waited? she asks herself. Couldn’t he have chosen his words with more care? Her confidence is shaken, and the conference is now less than a week away.

  She moves to a separate room, which helps. This suggests to her that distance is a good thing, and she takes a room in a motel, which helps more. During the day she’s in her office, honing and polishing her presentation, defending it against attack, both expected and outrageous, such as his, so that by the time of the conference she feels prepared for just about anything.

  The hour arrives. Her paper is met warmly enough, and in one quarter—the activist, anti-social Darwinism bunch—she brings down the house. That evening, at one of the myriad parties spawned by such conferences, she’s approached by a colleague who had the pleasure of hearing her speak. A good-looking guy with all the right moves and a tongue that could charm a dead fish, it’s clear within minutes what he’s after.

  And why not? She’s a prize. She’s a catch. It’s the biological imperative at work.

  Her pants feel suddenly too tight around her hips: biology.

  The heat rises to her face: biology.

  Riot and rebellion lift their lecherous heads. There’s a creature that wants out.

  Law and order respond.

  It’s a bad career move for her.

  She has a husband.

  That husband is a jerk.

  Infidelity is no sin, but recklessness, in her boo
k, is. Not so much because it hurts people, which it does, but because it makes a mess of things. That’s the heart of the crime. It opens the door to chaos, mayhem, and unnecessary complications. Not to mention uncertainty, which is never a good thing.

  So she tells the guy thanks, but no thanks, and excuses herself.

  Later, in her room as she’s readying for bed, still buzzing from what might have been, she takes a moment to study her face in the bathroom mirror. She’s a natural blonde and has never thought to be anything but. Blonde and short-haired—for her entire adult life has always worn it short. She likes the compact, helmeted look, likes being tidy and meticulous, likes knowing that not one hair will stray from its place from the time she wakes up to the time she lies down at night. Not a hair or a thought. So the idea that she could grow her hair out, that she should grow it out, and not only that, she should dye it, comes as something of a shock.

  She has a glimpse of how she might look. Suppresses a giggle. Stretches her arms. Arches her back. Thinks of her mother. Husbandless and as poor as Mrs. Lamarck. What traits did Mom acquire in her life? What traits did she pass on? Can an inherited trait be gotten rid of, short of being engineered out or waiting for eons until it rids itself on its own? Is she right when she postulates, as she has, that its expression can be willfully, mindfully, purposefully controlled?

  It’s the subject for more than a single paper. A book, perhaps, but it won’t be written tonight. Her bed is waiting, neatly made, and she slides in, appreciating the starched, crisp covers. She’s a neat, crisp package herself, no loose ends, nothing wasted, and she’s had a productive and rewarding day. And there’s more to come.

  She, too, keeps a diary, of a different sort from her husband’s, a kind of counterpoint to her language-heavy, idea-dominated, scrupulously governed life. She doesn’t use pencil or pen. Her entries, you could say, are more like dances, storms, music, free-form collages. Her current volume (and there’s a box full of others) is sitting on her bedside table. Propping herself on a pillow and pulling her knees to her chest, she rests it against her thighs and opens it to a fresh page. She stares at the pure white rectangle, letting her mind empty, waiting for the moment of inspiration to make itself known. Tonight it comes quicker than usual, primed, perhaps, by the evening’s events, but it’s no less delicious for that, no less ecstatic, revealing, or fun. Nor is she less herself as she utters a deep-throated moan, then rakes the page with her nails and rips it to shreds.