GUD Magazine Issue 3 :: Autumn 2008

by GUD Magazine Authors

  "You good?” one of the nurses asks again.

  I blink as if I'm waking up. Whatever I was feeling has passed. It's like it never happened. I can hear the door opening. “I think so, yeah,” I say.

  I go to rise and a nurse holds me down. She gives me some candy. Obediently, I put it in my mouth. The nurses want me to stay on the couch for a few more minutes. I turn my head to look at the wall, feeling ashamed of being so weak.

  I feel a hand touching my cheek. When I look back, a nun is sitting beside me. She wipes my forehead with a damp cloth. She is smiling. I smile back sheepishly.

  "It's going to be fine,” she says in a low voice.

  "It will,” I say, realizing that it sounds more like a question than a statement.

  The twelfth nun says, “You'll see."

  Benkelstein and the Time Warp by Evil Editor

  Benkelstein, trying to recall the lyrics to a Rice-Krispies jingle while driving eastward on Highway 70, almost missed the new sign. “To I-40,” it read, with an arrow pointing to the right. Benkelstein hit the brakes, just hard enough to slow to twenty-five miles per hour, and pulled off at the new exit. “It's about time!” he said to his wife. “I was beginning to think they'd never get this road finished."

  "Hmm?” Mrs. Benkelstein said, looking up from her book.

  "Why, this'll cut a full ten minutes off our trip easily,” he went on. “Let's see, that's twenty minutes round-trip, and since we visit your mother twelve times a year—twelve too many, I might add—"

  "I'm not listening,” Mrs. Benkelstein said. She went back to reading 101 Ways to Slice a Bâtard.

  Benkelstein pressed on the accelerator as he mentally calculated the number of years it would take this new shortcut to save him a full twenty-four hours behind the wheel.

  Fifty yards in, Benkelstein passed the new road's first sign. “840,” it read, and below that was the word “Future."

  "That's interesting,” he said to Mrs. Benkelstein.

  "What's that?” she asked, mildly irritated. She was reading about the diagonal crosshatch heel slice.

  "Apparently this is the road to the future,” he told her. He checked the speedometer, which had reached sixty. “At this speed, I estimate we'll be there in fourteen hours."

  "Be where?"

  "In the future."

  "What are you babbling about?” she asked, finally looking up.

  "That sign we just went past. It said, ‘840, Future.’”

  "What about it?"

  "I think I know what it means,” Benkelstein answered. He had already discarded his original theory and formulated a new one. “We're in the future,” he said. “Don't ask me how; we must have passed through some kind of time warp. And while this is the year 2006 in the present, it's the year 840 in the future."

  Mrs. Benkelstein rolled her eyes. “Correct me if I'm wrong,” she said, “but if this is the year 840—which it most certainly is not—then this would be the past, not the future."

  "Don't be ridiculous,” Benkelstein said. “There were no asphalt highways in the year 840."

  "As Columbus didn't reach the new world until 1492,” Mrs. Benkelstein countered, “who's to say what was here in the year 840?"

  "A valid point,” Benkelstein admitted. “But you'll at least have to admit there were no road signs printed in the English language in central North Carolina in the year 840."

  "There were no cars, either,” his wife noted. “And as we've seen no other cars since you pulled onto this road, I persist in claiming this could as easily be the past as the future. Or are you saying that cars no longer exist in the future?"

  "Not at all,” Benkelstein said. “I was merely suggesting that you think outside the box for a change."

  "Darling, I was so far outside the box, I almost fell out of the car,” she told him.

  "Keep in mind,” Benkelstein said, “that time did not begin with the birth of Christ; only the calendar did. And before his birth they didn't refer to the year as, say, ‘250 B.C.’”

  "What did they do?” his wife asked.

  "They undoubtedly measured time from some local historical event. ‘The year 52 since the end of the first Punic War’ or ‘The year 6 since Moscovicz got his tunic caught in the water wheel.'

  "Uh huh. So what was your point about the calendar, again?"

  "Just this: for all we know, some momentous event takes place in the year ... oh, say 2340, and they decide to start a new calendar, start it with the year zero. And now it's eight hundred and forty years later. That would make it the year 840 to them, but the year ... 3180 to us, which means—"

  "Which means you're a very old, very senile man. Did you forget to take your pill this morning?"

  "I don't—"

  "By the way, even if this is the year 3180, it's the future only to us. To everyone who's already living here, it's the present. So your road sign should have read, ‘840, Present.’ Case closed. Now may I go back to reading my—"

  "Not so fast, dear. Maybe this road itself is the time warp, and is seen only by those traveling to the future—"

  "The past."

  "And when we reach the end of the road—and our destination year—the road will vanish from sight."

  "It'll vanish, all right, because you'll pull off of the future 840 bypass and onto Interstate 40, leaving your so-called time warp behind. And I don't mean a thousand years behind."

  "Oh my God!” Benkelstein's eyes grew wide. “I just thought of something. What if the entire population of the Earth is dying out sometime in our future. What if the last few scientists still alive created this time warp as a means to bring people forward in time, beyond the year of the comet or the plague or whatever is about to kill everyone? What if the road sign was there just to let us know we've come forward eight hundred and forty years, so we won't freak out when we see all the changes?"

  "What if you keep your eyes on the road and your mind in reality?” Mrs. Benkelstein suggested. “You're scaring me."

  "If my theory's correct,” Benkelstein continued, “it would mean that the current year is actually 2846. It would mean that we have the responsibility to populate the planet, to maintain the species, so that—"

  "It would also mean that we are among the few people now on the planet,” Mrs. Benkelstein said. “Possibly the only ones.” She seemed to have given up on reading and decided to humor him.

  "Until we pass another car, I'm afraid we must assume that to be the case,” Benkelstein conceded.

  "Passing another car won't prove anything,” Mrs. Benkelstein said. “If this is the future, the driver of the other car could be one of the aliens trying to destroy all human life."

  "Aliens?” Benkelstein said. “Yes, of course. That's one possibility: an intergalactic fleet of starships has wiped out humanity. And now ground forces are no doubt driving around, looking for any survivors."

  "What kind of car would an alien drive?” Mrs. Benkelstein asked him.

  "Klingons would drive SUV's,” he replied. “And the Ferengi would drive PT Cruisers."

  "Vulcans, with their logical minds, would probably drive one of those cute hybrids,” Mrs. Benkelstein said.

  "Wrong,” Benkelstein told her. “Sports cars are the one weakness of Vulcan men. Not only would they drive Porsches, they'd be leaning out the window half the time, hooting and whistling at Vulcan babes."

  Mrs. Benkelstein laughed. “Do the Vulcan women have a weakness as well?” she asked.

  "Karaoke,” Benkelstein said.

  "I see.” She looked out the rear window. “You know, it does seem odd that we've seen no other cars."

  "Yes,” Benkelstein agreed. “Whether this is the future or the past or the time warp or even the present, you'd think someone else would find his way onto this road. Perhaps we are the only remaining—"

  "Aha!” Mrs. Benkelstein exclaimed, pointing ahead. A bus was approaching on the other side of the median. “What does that do to your theory?"

  "A bus,” h
er husband said. “Hmm. Interesting. The Borg would need a vehicle that size, in order to house their—"

  "I can see that trying to get you to drop this routine is futile,” she said as the bus went past, moving at high speed.

  "The Borg,” Benkelstein said. “They're going in the opposite direction. If this road is a time warp, they're heading for the past! Possibly for 2006! We've got to stop them!” He swung the steering wheel to the left, veering onto the median.

  "What are you doing?!!” Mrs. Benkelstein shouted. “Have you lost your mind? Stop this instant!!” The car was bumping down a grassy embankment. It reached the lowest point and started up the other side, tires spinning in the grass, Benkelstein ignoring his wife's screaming.

  Eventually Benkelstein eased the car onto the road and headed back toward Highway 70. The bus was no longer in sight.

  "This has gone too far,” Mrs. Benkelstein said. “Enough is enough."

  Benkelstein drove on, his eyes locked on the road ahead.

  "What are you trying to do, catch up with that bus?” Mrs. Benkelstein said. “That bus is long gone. And even if you're so far off the deep end that you've convinced yourself the Borg really are in that bus, what are you planning to do if you catch up to them? The Borg would absorb you so fast—"

  "Assimilate,” Benkelstein corrected her. It was the first word he'd spoken since he'd turned the car around.

  "I know what's happening here,” Mrs. Benkelstein said. “You knew we were about to reach Interstate 40. You knew we'd see the usual heavy traffic, knew we wouldn't see some fantastic futuristic world of rocket cars, or some devastated lifeless shell of a planet...."

  Benkelstein kept his eyes on the road.

  "You knew we'd find ourselves not in the year 3180, not in the year 2846, not in 840, but in good old 2006. So to save face, you turned around, on the flimsiest of excuses, just so I could never have the satisfaction of saying, ‘I told you we weren't driving down a time warp to the future.’ Well, thanks to your childishness, instead of saving ten minutes, we've lost ten minutes. Maybe twenty.” She sank back in her seat. “The Borg, riding in a bus,” she muttered. “That'll be the day. The Borg have their pride, you know."

  Benkelstein refused to waver from his mission. He pulled off at the Highway 70 exit and slowed as he approached the stop sign. Suddenly Mrs. Benkelstein popped back upright. “Quick, turn to the right,” she said. “The Borg are above us; they're trying to get us in a tractor beam!"

  Benkelstein looked at her quizzically.

  "Okay,” she said. “You would have figured it out sooner or later. I took your wife's place three months ago. I've been surgically altered to look like her. I'm Captain Janeway. Now hurry, Benkelstein!"

  Benkelstein was about to speak, but his passenger stopped him. “Focus on the road!” she said. “I'm counting on you. We all are."

  Benkelstein turned onto Highway 70 and floored the accelerator. His eyes were shifting wildly, his face taut with stress. Janeway? How could...?

  Janeway rolled down her window, stuck her head out, and looked to the sky. “They're still up there!” she said. “My God, their ship is huge!"

  "Is it cube-shaped?"

  "Of course. Drive carefully; we can't afford to call attention to ourselves."

  "Where are we going?” Benkelstein asked. He could barely breathe.

  "The Borg have set up headquarters at the Butner Psychiatric Hospital. Do you know where that is?"

  Benkelstein nodded.

  "Then get me there. Your life depends on it. All of our lives do."

  Benkelstein gripped the steering wheel tightly and flew eastward down Highway 70, his blood racing and his heart fluttering. And the slightest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  The Great Big NOTHING by Frank Haberle

  The taxi driver lights a new Pall Mall from the butt end of the old one. Sometimes you enjoy a good second-hand smoke. But not this morning.

  You roll down the window, put your head against the glass. That feels pretty good. The smoke twists away. The fresh air streams right into your lungs. The wind cuts nice little cracks into your parched lips. You almost doze. ‘That's it,’ you think. ‘That's nice. I can sleep this one off.'

  Then the cab veers onto a side street. You're stuck behind a garbage truck. The hot, reeking air wraps itself around you. You roll the window back up. You surrender to used smoke, nausea, and fear. You're on your way to the airport, to Phoenix, to Kate. You've bought your ticket. There's no turning back.

  You pass a Delta billboard. You reach into your pocket. Maybe you got the date wrong. You're shaking hard enough so you can't quite read the numbers. ‘These shakes,’ you think. You need a few beers to steady you out. But it's eight-thirty in the morning. The flight's at ten. You'll just have to wait a few hours.

  Last night's shadow descends on you. You must have said something stupid. You were out until three. You fell asleep on the subway. You woke up, as always, as the train pulled into your stop. You must have found your keys. Somehow you got your shoes off. You try to remember other details—any details—but it's not yet time for that. The remorse will sink in later. The stupid things you said usually lurk until noon, when the booze starts to wear off. Usually you postpone it by drinking again. But today, you'll be well in the air when it hits. And you never, ever drink on a plane. Drinking in the airport is no problem; four beers during your layover in Saint Louis are a lock. But drinking on the plane? Well, first of all, if you're still shaking, the stewardess might think you have a drinking problem. Stewardesses are on to that. And secondly, you'll have to get up to go to the bathroom. And if there's anything you dread about airplanes, it's airplane bathrooms.

  The cab swerves up onto the expressway. You catch the silver reflection off a plane arcing effortlessly out of LaGuardia. You have plenty of time to build toward an anxiety attack over what scares you worse than the plane: the three-day Catholic Charities Development Officers’ conference your boss signed you up for in Phoenix. You remember her telling you about it, a month ago, sitting behind her desk overlooking Park Avenue, tapping her pencil. It will be good for you to get away, she said. What do you mean, you replied. She didn't say anything. She kept tapping her pencil, smiling.

  There's a small presentation, a report. Your boss typed it for you. Where is it? You're almost sure you put it in the little suitcase you packed for the conference. What if your voice shakes when you read it? What if you leave it in your hotel? What if you have to read it in front of five hundred people? What if they start shifting awkwardly in their seats? What if you piss your pants?

  You've certainly got plenty of things to worry about, all perfectly reasonable. But you're flying out three days early for the conference. You have three days to get scared about that. And those three days are going to be spent hiking in the Grand Canyon with Kate, your long-lost sweetheart. Well, actually, to be honest, Kate's your long-lost-best-friend's long-lost sweetheart. But you're pretty sure you sent her a card, telling her you were coming to Phoenix. You're almost certain she called you three days later, and that you didn't call her, and that she wanted to take you for a little hike into a canyon somewhere, and that she'll meet you at the airport. You're pretty sure that she called and you had a really good conversation, the first time you'd spoken in a few years. You're pretty sure about most of these things, but you aren't positive about any of them. And it's this Kate thing, you think as the taxi slows to take its place in the stalled line of yellow cabs inching like lemmings toward the airport—this, more than the conference, the airplane, and the dark, troubled waters that will swirl into your brain as last night's alcohol starts to evaporate—it's this Kate thing that scares you the most.

  * * * *

  You met Kate six years ago, in the city, in the squalid walk-up you shared with Bud the dealer. It was right after you started working at Catholic Charities, doing data entry for six dollars an hour. You met her the night that you and Bud ate the batch of something laced
with something worse. Bud locked himself in a closet and wouldn't come out. You sat in the kitchen on a folding metal chair drinking scalding-hot tea you boiled up on a hot plate. Neon-colored straws burst out of the linoleum and flopped onto the floor around you. You couldn't remember if the buzzer buzzed, if you buzzed somebody in, or if you were just hearing a buzzing noise. You looked up from the damp straws spilled across the floor and there she was.

  "Hi,” she said.

  "Oh, hey!” you said.

  "I'm Kate,” she said.

  "Oh.” The straws sucked themselves back down into the linoleum.

  "What are you looking at?” she asked.

  "Nothing!"

  She glanced around the corner, into the living room. “Where's Bud?” she asked.

  You pictured Bud sitting on the floor of the closet, eyes wide open, listening. Sinister, evil bastard. “I don't know!” you answered.

  "Well, I'm going to try to find him. You doing anything? You want to come?"

  You stared at Kate's long black hair. You couldn't help it. Bushels of big black curls pulled themselves down, down onto her shoulders. Blue and silver sparks shot out from her head. You followed the sparks’ neat white tracers down the stairs and onto the street. Headlights of passing cars dug canals of white light up and down the avenue. The light show unsettled something in your memory. You started talking, trying not to talk too fast.

  "Once when I was a teenager at camp, I think, I got caught up on this mountain ridge above tree line on a camping trip in Maine, you know, before they built that real big ski mountain there, Sugarloaf or Sugarbush, when it was just dead trees and rocks and mosquitos, and you just walked up the ridge through mud and vines and logs and tangles, although you didn't actually walk through the logs, you walked over them."

  "Wow,” Kate said.

  "Yes and anyhow I'm thinking of the lightning and how the camp counselor got us lost and he was named Old Cook and it was getting dark and this huge black storm cloud came over us, just sucked us into itself like a big black mitt, and then the blasts of lightning started like they were bouncing off the ledges around us and cracking back into the sky, and it was the Bigelow Range, I think the mountains were called, or maybe they were big and low."