by Anthology
“Hello?” he called, his voice timorous. “It’s me—er, the good shepherd.”
Figwort sweated and searched and eventually found Nimrod over by the Euphrates, sitting under a date palm beside what appeared to be the same goat as had observed the professor’s splashdown some sixteen years previously. The boy had his arm draped around the animal’s neck. Both wore skullcaps.
“Nimrod!” Figwort exclaimed. “What’s going on? Where’s your mother?”
The teenager’s eyes were glazed and he stared unseeingly at the river. From deep within his throat he grunted something that rippled through the Pithwort Thought Helmet as, ‘She’s dead’.
“Dead?” Professor Figwort’s mouth trod water. Phileas the guppy. “What—But—How?”
‘Wolves.’ Nimrod’s speech was a grating, open-mouthed wail. ‘I didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know.’ He looked up. For a moment his eyes focussed and he made a pitiful wail of inquiry. ‘What should I have done? What should I have done, father?’
The goat bleated. ‘It happened here.’
Professor Figwort emerged blinking into the Mesopotamian winter of six months’ previous. It was cold and wet and he lurched face-first into the date palm.
A torrential downpour having covered the plain, nothing could be seen of Babylon or the distant mountains. The vainglorious sun now sulked behind murky grey clouds. Even the goat had left its post, opting for greener, drier pastures elsewhere.
A wolf growled and Figwort reeled away from the date palm, only to slip and fall over. Spitting mud, he scrabbled like a turtle in the quagmire.
“Help!” The woman’s scream came from close by. Her panic and desperation needed no translation. “Nimrod! Help me!”
Figwort looked around and caught a flash of her limping painfully towards the river. Of Nimrod there was no sign, but several dark shadows closed in pursuit, low to the ground and smelling heavily of dank fur. Figwort struggled to stand.
“Nimrod!” the woman sobbed. She couldn’t tell him what to do this time. Her plea was a sentiment without guidance. She was hurt. She needed him to help her. He had to think of something.
But Nimrod had spent his life immersed in Figwort’s thought helmet. He understood perfectly, but thinking was the one thing he’d never learnt to do.
Even as Professor Figwort found his feet and went stumbling to the rescue, the woman lost hers and dropped to the ground, her final communication one of abject helplessness. “Nimrod!” she shrieked, the wolves pouncing, jaws tearing at her throat. “Nim—”
And then she was silent, her thoughts left hanging in time, never completed. Figwort skidded wildly and fell into the river.
History flowed.
Not much changed over the next 5,000 years. The sun cast its rays and the planet spun, each period of enlightenment followed by an inevitable regression to darkness. Dawn. Dusk. Hope. Fear. Civilisation remained very much in the cradle.
As the universe blinked and ziggurats gave way to launch pads, Professor Figwort shot urgently forward in time—a midwife in shaky control of a Morris Minor; both hands on the wheel but thoroughly unsure as to the correct address.
In the end, he overshot his personal present by a couple of months and screeched to a stop just outside of Ankara, where the Turkish Prime Minister was hosting the most delicate of diplomatic talks between Syria and Israel. Rolling his sleeves up, Figwort burst into the conference room.
The Turkish Prime Minister was a dapper little man, clean-shaven except for the wispy outline of a moustache. He wore a neat suit, offset for this momentous occasion by a striped tie in alternating swathes of red, blue and white. It was bold, bordering on flamboyant. The Prime Minister shot to his feet and exclaimed, in precise if heavily accented English, “Who is this joker?”
Figwort dropped two thought helmets onto the conference table and slid one towards each end. “These, gentlemen, are the devices that will answer all your prayers.”
The Israeli Prime Minister, whose twinkling eyes had seen much of the world and whose beard was no stranger to an internet keyboard, reached for the crown of thorns. “I recognise you,” he declared, in Hebrew. “You’re the one who wrote about molecular sexuality.” He placed the Pithwort Thought Helmet over his head and frowned. “Hang on. Aren’t you supposed to be dead? There was something on the news.”
The Syrian President, meanwhile, was turning the other thought helmet over in his hands and staring at it with distrust. His heavily browed eyes reflected the politician’s dilemma—a ceaseless balancing of risk and gain. He levelled a penetrating stare at the Turkish Prime Minister—who was sputtering left then right like a malfunctioning funfair clown choked on Ping-Pong balls—then placed the Pithwort Thought Helmet over his own close-cropped hair. “Now,” he said, in Arabic, “what is the purpose of this umamah?” His thought helmet gave ‘umamah’ the taste of ‘head bandage for the mentally ill’.
Professor Figwort beamed. “The Pithwort Thought Helmet allows us to taste the pure essence of thought. It affords us communication such as mankind has never seen. Total honesty, gentlemen. No longer need you fear duplicity or dissembling. No longer shall paranoia run the circle of the round table. You may now conduct your talks with 100 per cent opacity.”
The Turkish Prime Minister sank slowly back onto his chair. “Oh dear,” he murmured.
Like rabbits who had evolved to drive cars, the Syrian President and the Israeli Prime Minister locked eyes and couldn’t look away, trapped in the glare of each other’s headlights. For half a minute or so they sat motionless, their thoughts speeding towards each other through the ominous pall that hung over the room. Both men wanted to remove the thought helmets. Both men wanted to withdraw. But neither could be the first to step down. Professor Figwort looked from one to the other and waved his hand through the intervening airspace. “Hello?”
Eventually, the air became so thick that the Israeli Prime Minister was forced to clear his throat. He then declared, “I have only one question: in light of recent diplomatic exchanges with North Korea, what is Syria’s position with regard the State of Israel?” In essence: ‘You’ve gone nuclear. Now what?’
The Syrian President licked at dry lips. “The Syrian Arab Republic wishes nothing more than for a lasting resolution to the conflict between our two countries . . .”—‘No peace. No recognition. No negotiation.’—“. . . I therefore call on you to break from your country’s policy of nuclear ambiguity. Does Israel have nuclear weapons?”
The Israeli Prime Minister bristled from the beard up. “Israel has long stated that we will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.” In essence: ‘We have them. America doesn’t want us to use them, but we have them.’
“That is very reassuring . . .”—‘America, who found reason after the event to sanction Operation Orchard’—“I foresee peace blossoming.” In essence: ‘We, too, can strike pre-emptively.’
“So be it.” The Israeli Prime Minister removed his thought helmet and stood up.
“Be it so.” The Syrian President did likewise.
Then both men left the room—stiff of gait and gaunt of face; dead men walking. The Turkish Prime Minister glared at Professor Figwort and raised one finger to his temple. “Good men trust that each will put his prejudices aside and do what is necessary. It is their words that represent their intentions, not their personal thoughts or opinions.” He shook his head and looked at his watch. “Good men should never know each other’s thoughts.”
Figwort was speechless. How could this happen? How could perfect communication precipitate what would be the most destructive conflict in human history? The Dead Sea War, they’d call it—mankind’s lowest point—and he, Figwort, would be responsible.
Billions dead. The world decimated. Everything as he knew it, history.
But how? Could the solution he had found be worse than the problem? Miscommunication. Perfect communication. Perhaps they were, after all, just two sides of the same bur
nt piece of toast. At that uncertain moment in time, with history starting to smoke, suddenly, clearly, it seemed so.
Professor Figwort picked up his thought helmets and returned home, tears welling behind his wide, haunted eyes.
Slowly, the universe blinked.
Professor Figwort made just one more trip back through time, to farewell Prunella Bonsoir and to retrieve the gun he’d put aside and lost those sixty years ago. The undergraduate Miss Bonsoir didn’t recognise Phileas Figwort as an old man. She was puzzled by his sad, silent smile. But the gun was there, cocked and ready. Figwort picked it up and returned to the present.
For the best part of a lifetime, Professor Figwort had held that gun to his head. His was the finger on the trigger—bone upon metal with but a layer of skin to separate them, stretched thin by the wretched pull of obsession. Figwort’s were the hopes and expectations that cavorted throughout time and history, heedless of consequence, dragging the professor this way and that as he strove to free himself from the pitfalls of existence. Professor Figwort had pointed the gun; unwittingly, perhaps, but no less damningly. For now, as Life’s clock ticked over and the cuckoo sprang out, Figwort finally came to terms with the greatest of his discoveries:
“Time contraceives,” he murmured, the storm having passed and delivered a new day unto the world. “When we try to alter what is, causality intervenes and inevitably we must face that which could be.” Light shone into the empty room and Professor Figwort blinked sadly. “Miscommunication pulls me one way. Perfect communication pulls me the other. So who am I to decide? Each person must strive to find the answer, otherwise it is meaningless.” He shook his head. “Even though I have it. It’s right here.” He regarded his trembling hands. “After all these years, I could change the world.”
But only for the worse.
And so it was that Professor Figwort came to an understanding, free at last from time’s passing and the tinkerer’s damn. Outside in the jungle, all was peaceful. The universe sang while sleepy orangutans dozed in the morning sun. Closing his eyes, Figwort crooked one finger and beckoned the future.
PRUNING THE TREE
Chris Pierson
I saw it happen. Right in front of me. It’s still sinking in.
The cars came around the corner, into the plaza. Open-tops, a convoy of them, like you see on TV. The people were smiling and waving. It was a beautiful day, sunny, warm, the smell of fresh-cut grass in the air. Not bad for November—part of why I moved down here. Everyone was shouting his name, waving signs and flags. Women cried to see him. Men stood proud. I felt it, too. That was the way he was, the way we always wanted a president to be, really. Not like the other guy, sweating on TV during the debates, always looking like he was up to something. Thank God he lost.
And his wife . . . man, what a beautiful woman. I’m not the kind of guy who uses words like poise, but yeah, she had it. They even made the governor look good, sitting next to them. I was proud to be an American that day.
For a while.
They came around the corner. It gets hazy after that. They came around the corner, into the plaza . . . hang on, give me a moment. It’s still a little hard to talk about.
Some people say they saw puffs of smoke, but they can’t agree about where they were. Behind the hill, up in one of the buildings . . . I heard one guy say Secret Security did it, which sounds like bull to me, but I don’t know. I’m not sure what to believe any more. You’ll see why.
I didn’t see where the shots came from. I just saw him grab his throat, like he was having trouble breathing. Then the back of his head blew up. I saw his wife trying to help him, but I fought in the war. I know when a man’s hurt, and when he’s dead. He couldn’t be helped.
They’d killed President Clayton.
I hear the cops caught a guy. Communist, they say. Had three names—they always have three names, don’t they? John Wilkes Booth with Lincoln. Alan Harvey Emory with Hoover. Now this guy, this Gary Robert Anderson. I dunno, maybe the news just likes to use their middle names to make it sound more serious. Like Jim Clayton getting killed isn’t serious enough.
They caught the shooter in a movie theater, of all places. Watching a show. Yeah, that’s where I’d go, if I’d just shot the President’s head off. A lot of people don’t think he’s the guy. I guess we’ll find out, soon enough. Soon enough. I don’t think it was the Soviets behind it, myself—Morchenko and his boys are still supposed to be our friends, last I heard. I think it was Himmler’s lot. They’re still pissed that Clayton named Leibowitz his vice-president. Now we’ve got ourselves a real-life Jew in charge, running all forty-six states. There’s gonna be another war now, just you wait. Probably by summer. They’ll try to invade Britain again, and this time they’ll have Spain on their side. We’ll have to help Churchill out of a jam again. Leibowitz won’t sit by. President Leibowitz. Still sounds weird, but it’s only been a couple weeks.
There’s gonna be another war. World War Three. If we’re still here.
If any of it’s still here.
Because I know something, and you’re not going to believe it when I tell you. Something that makes Jim Clayton getting shot look like nothing. You probably won’t believe me. Hell, I wouldn’t believe me, and I’m me. But I gotta tell someone. I can take it if you laugh. I just need you to listen.
All right. Here goes.
Like I said, I was down in Jackson the day Clayton got shot. I watched him go down, saw the flecks of blood on his wife’s face, the bits of skull on the trunk of that open-top Tucker he was riding in. Jesus, I’ll be having nightmares about that till I die. If I die. If I last that long.
Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.
After the shots, the motorcade took off. Men in dark suits and sunglasses everywhere. One pointed a gun in my face, then moved on. No one knew what the hell was going on, not the people, not the cops, not the Feds. Everybody scattered. We all thought we might be next, like a presidential assassin would stick around to pop random civilians. We weren’t thinking straight. And I’m not proud to say it: I ran. Ran crying, even before they broke out the tear gas and fire-hoses to quell the riots. I just had to get away. It was chaos.
I made it half a mile before the adrenaline started to fade. I don’t even remember most of that. I was in a part of town I didn’t know too well. I’ve only lived in the area three months, and I stay home with my wife most evenings. Christ, my wife. She hasn’t stopped crying over Clayton. The woman cries in her sleep.
I don’t have the heart to tell her the other thing.
There was a bar there, and the door was open. I thought, yeah, I could use a drink right now, so I went in. The place was close to empty—just a couple of coloreds at one of the tables in the back. Colored bartender, too. That part of town. I got nothing against them, though—I’m pro-Full Rights—so I sat down, ordered a drink. They had Kraft on tap. I got a shot, too. Good whiskey, from Lower Canada. Smooth going down.
The TV was going. Ben Lambert, old stone-face from FBC news, was on, and he was crying and saying Clayton had been pronounced dead at 2:43 PM, Monday, November 14, 1966. May God rest his soul. I watched a bit of it, but it didn’t say much new. No one seemed to know what was happening. I let it fuzz out, ordered another shot, and nursed my beer. I didn’t even see the bartender when he went over and shut the door. I just heard it when he shot the bolt.
I set down my beer, looked around. The other coloreds had gotten up too, and were closing the windows. One went and turned off the television. I stood up, getting scared for the first time. I thought these people might be some of King’s Avengers, looking for a white man to hang from a tree. Shit, I liked Martin Luther King. I broke my radio when I heard he’d died when that nut blew up that bus in Memphis. That lunatic had three names too, but damned if I can remember the middle one. Dick Something Nixon.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“Easy now, mate,” the bartender said. He didn’t sound like any colored I’d he
ard in the South. Fellow sounded like he came from overseas. British? Australian? I never found out.
“Easy?” I asked. “You’re not gonna make pale fruit out of me?”
The guy frowned, like he’d never heard the phrase before. “Pale what?”
“White lynching,” said one of the others, an older woman with the same accent. “I read about it in Cimino’s last report. Happened all over the South in this fork.”
“It was going on in last fork I was in,” said the third colored. He sounded more normal, but he wasn’t from these parts. Minnesota, maybe. That weird, sorta-Swedish accent. Coulda been Upper Canadian, I suppose. “It’s why they sent us, instead of Nelson’s crew. We’re safer here.”
“Look!” I snapped. “Would someone just tell me what’s going on?”
“Easy,” the bartender said again. “We ain’t gonna hurt you. We just want to ask you some questions.”
“See,” said the woman, “we’re kind of lost.”
“Why don’t you sit down,” said the bartender. He held out a hand. “I’m Paul. Paul Clayton.”
That put a shock through me. “Like the President,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Who?” he asked.
The woman rolled her eyes. “The President, Paul. Just got shot. Weren’t you paying attention to the tube?”
“Oh,” the bartender said. “Yeah, him. Sorry.”
“Jesus,” said the other guy, the Canadian-sounding one. He headed toward the front door. “I’ll keep watch. You two handle the Q&A.”
“My name’s Emma Truman,” said the woman. “Also like the President.”
I frowned. “I don’t remember a President Truman.”
They all looked at one another. Paul grinned, then shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Emma. “Over by the door, that’s Tom Mansfield. What’s your name?”
“Jeff,” I said. “Jeff Wilcox.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jeff.”