Bears Discover Fire

by Terry Bisson

  Borogove consulted her list. “According to the two guys from the future, three of your early paintings are in the Museo de Arte Inmortal del Mundo in 2255: ‘Tres Dolores,’ ‘De Mon Mouse,’ and ‘La Rosa del Futuro.’ Those are the three they want.”

  “Let me see that list,” I said.

  “It’s just the titles. They have a catalogue with pictures of what they want, but they wouldn’t show it to me. Too much danger of Timesplits.”

  “Slips,” I said. We looked through the stacked canvases again. I am partial to portraits. “De Mon Mouse” was an oil painting of the super in my building, a rasta who always wore Mickey Mouse T-shirts. He had a collection of two.

  “Tres Dolores” was a mother, daughter, and grandmother I had known on Avenue B; it was a pose faked up from photographs—a sort of tampering with time in itself, now that I thought of it.

  But “La Rosa del Futuro”?

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  Borogove waved the list. “It’s on here. Which means it’s in their catalogue.”

  “Which means it survives the holocaust,” I said.

  “Which means they pick it up at midnight, after the opening Wednesday night,” she said.

  “Which means I must paint it between now and then.”

  “Which means you’ve got four days.”

  “This is crazy, Borogove.”

  “Call me Mimsy,” she said. “And don’t worry about it. Just get to work.”

  “There’s pickled herring in the nevera,” I said, in Spanish.

  “I thought you were Puerto Rican,” said Shorty.

  “I am, but my ex-boyfriend was Jewish, and that stuff keeps forever.”

  “I thought there were no single men in New York.”

  “Exactly the problem,” I said. “His wife was Jewish too.”

  “You’re sure I’m not keeping you from your work?” said Shorty.

  “What work?” I said forlornly. I had been staring at a blank canvas since ten P.M. “I still have one painting to finish for the show, and I haven’t even started it.”

  “Which one?”

  “La Rosa del Futuro,” I said. I had the title pinned to the top corner of the frame. Maybe that was what was blocking me. I wadded it up and threw it at the wall. It only went halfway across the room.

  “I think that’s the most famous one,” he said. “So you know it gets done. Is there a blossom—”

  “A Bud,” I said. “In the door of the fridge.”

  “Maybe what you need,” he said, with that shy, sly futuristic smile I was growing to like, “is a little rest.”

  After our little rest, which wasn’t so little, and wasn’t exactly a rest, I asked him, “Do you do this often?”

  “This?”

  “Go to bed with girls from the past. What if I’m your great-great-grandmother or something?”

  “I had it checked out,” he said. “She’s living in the Bronx.”

  “So you do! You bastard! You do this all the time.”

  “Teresa! Mi corazon! Never before. It’s strictly not allowed. I could lose my job! It’s just that when I saw those little…”

  “Those little what?”

  He blushed. “Those little hands and feet. I fell in love.”

  It was my turn to blush. He had won my heart, a guy from the future, forever.

  “So if you love me so much, why don’t you take me back to the future with you?” I asked, after another little rest.

  “Then who would paint all the paintings you are supposed to paint over the next thirty years? Teresa, you don’t understand how famous you are going to be. Even I have heard of Picasso, Michelangelo, and the great Algarin—and art is not my thing. If something happened to you, the Timeslip would throw off the whole history of art.”

  “Oh. How about that.” I couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “So why don’t you stay here with me.”

  “I’ve thought about it,” he said. “But if I stayed here, I wouldn’t be around to come back here and meet you in the first place. And if I had stayed here, we would know about it anyway, since there would be some evidence of it. See how complicated Time is? I’m just a delivery guy and it gives me a headache. I need another leaf.”

  “Bud,” I said. “You know where they are.” He went into the kitchen for a cerveza and I called out after him: “So you’re going to go back to the future and let me die in the coming holocaust?”

  “Die? Holocaust?”

  “The one you’re not allowed to tell me about. The nuclear war.”

  “Oh, that. Stretch is just trying to alarm you. It’s not a war. It’s a warehouse fire.”

  “All this mischigosch for a warehouse fire?”

  “It’s cheaper to go back and get the stuff than to avoid the fire,” he said. “It all has to do with Timeslip insurance or something.”

  The phone rang. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s two in the morning, Borogove!” I said, in ingles.

  “Please, Teresa, call me Mimsy. Is it finished?”

  “I’m working on it,” I lied. “Go to sleep.”

  “Who was that?” Shorty asked, in Spanish. “La Gordita?”

  “Don’t be cruel,” I said, pulling on my T-shirt and underpants. “You go to sleep, too. I have to get back to work.”

  “Okay, but wake me up by four. If I oversleep and get stuck here—”

  “If you had overslept we would already know about it, wouldn’t we?” I said, sarcastically. But he was already snoring.

  “I can’t put it off for a week!” said Borogove the next day at the gallery. “Everybody who’s anybody in the downtown art scene is going to be here tomorrow night.”

  “But—”

  “Teresa, I’ve already ordered the wine.”

  “But—”

  “Teresa, I’ve already ordered the cheese. Plus, remember, whatever we sell beyond the three paintings they’re coming for is gravy. Comprende?”

  “En ingles, Borogove,” I said. “But what if I don’t finish this painting in time?”

  “Teresa, I insist, you must call me Mimsy. If you weren’t going to finish it, they would have arranged a later pickup date, since they already know what will happen. For God’s sake, girl, quit worrying. Go home and get to work! You have until tomorrow night.”

  “But I don’t even know where to start!”

  “Don’t you artists have any imagination? Make something up!”

  I had never been blocked before. It’s not like constipation; when you’re constipated you can work sitting down.

  I padded and paced like a caged lion, staring at my blank canvas as if I were trying to get up the appetite to eat it.

  By eleven-thirty I had started it and painted it out six times. It just didn’t feel right.

  Just as the clock was striking midnight, a column of air near the sink began to shimmer and… but you’ve seen Star Trek. Shorty appeared by the sink, one hand behind his back.

  “Am I glad to see you!” I said. “I need a clue.”

  “A clue?”

  “This painting. ‘La Rosa del Futuro.’ Your catalogue from the future has a picture of it. Let me see it.”

  “Copy your own painting?” Shorty said. “That would cause a Timeslip for sure.”

  “I won’t copy it!” I said. “I just need a clue. I’ll just glance at it.”

  “Same thing. Besides, Stretch carries the catalogue. I’m just his helper.”

  “Okay, then just tell me what’s it a picture of.”

  “I don’t know, Teresa…”

  “How can you say you love me if you won’t even break the rules to help me?”

  “No, I mean I really don’t know. Like I said, art is not my thing. I’m just a delivery guy. Besides—” He blushed. “You know what my thing is.”

  “Well, my thing is art,” I said. “And I’m going to lose the chance of a lifetime—hell, of more than that, of artistic inmortalidad—if I don’t come up with something pretty soo
n.”

  “Teresa, quit worrying,” he said. “The painting’s so famous even I’ve heard of it. There’s no way it can not happen. Meanwhile, let’s don’t spend our last—”

  “Our what? Our last what? Why are you standing there with your hands behind your back?”

  He pulled out a rose. “Don’t you understand? This Chronolink closes forever after the pickup tonight. I don’t know where my next job will take me, but it won’t be here.”

  “So what’s the rose for?”

  “To remember our… our…” He burst into tears.

  Girls cry hard and fast and it’s over. Guys from the future are more sentimental, and Shorty cried himself to sleep.

  After comforting him as best I could, I pulled on my T-shirt and underpants and found a clean brush and started pacing again. I left him snoring on the bed, a short brown Adonis without even a fig leaf.

  “Wake me up at four,” he mumbled, then went back to sleep.

  I looked at the rosa he had brought. The roses of the future had soft thorns; that was encouraging. I laid it on the pillow next to his cheek and that was when it came to me, in the form of a whole picture, which is how it always comes to me when it finally does. (And it always does.)

  When I’m painting and it’s going well, I forget everything. It seemed like only minutes before the phone rang.

  “Well? How’s it going?”

  “Borogove, it’s almost four in the morning.”

  “No, it’s not, it’s four in the afternoon. You’ve been working all night and all day, Teresa, I can tell. But you really have to call me Mimsy.”

  “I can’t talk now,” I said. “I have a live model. Sort of.”

  “I thought you didn’t work from live models.”

  “This time I am.”

  “Whatever. Don’t let me bother you while you’re working; I can tell you’re getting somewhere. The opening is at seven. I’m sending a van for you at six.”

  “Make it a limo, Mimsy,” I said. “We’re making art history.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Borogove said, as I unveiled “La Rosa del Futuro” for her. “But who’s the model? He looks vaguely familiar.”

  “He’s been around the art world for years and years,” I said.

  The gallery was packed. The show was a huge success. “La Rosa,” “De Mon Mouse,” and “Los Tres” were already marked SOLD, and SOLD stickers went up on my other paintings at the rate of one every twenty minutes.

  Everybody wanted to meet me. I had left Shorty directions and cab fare by the bed, and at eleven-thirty he showed up wearing only my old boyfriend’s trenchcoat, saying that his shimmery suit had disappeared into thin air while he was pulling it on.

  I wasn’t surprised. We were in the middle of a Timeslip, after all.

  “Who’s the barefoot guy in the fabulous Burberry?” Borogove asked. “He looks vaguely familiar.”

  “He’s been around the art world forever and ever,” I said.

  Shorty was looking jet-lagged. He was staring dazedly at the wine and cheese and I signaled to one of the caterers to show him where the beer was kept, in the backroom.

  At eleven fifty-five, Borogove threw everybody else out and turned down the lights. At midnight, right on time, a glowing column of air appeared in the center of the room, then gradually took on the shape of… But you’ve seen Star Trek. It was Stretch, and he was alone.

  “We are—uh—a guy from the future,” Stretch said, starting in English and finishing en espanol. He was wobbling a little.

  “I could have sworn there were two of you guys,” said Borogove. “Or did I make that up?” she whispered to me, in ingles.

  “Could be a Timeslip,” said Stretch. He looked confused himself, then brightened. “No problem, though! Happens all the time. This is a light pickup. Only three paintings!”

  “We have all three right here,” said Borogove. “Teresa, why don’t you do the honors. I’ll check them off as you hand them to this guy from the future.”

  I handed him “De Mon Mouse.” Then “Los Tres Dolores.” He slipped them both through a dark slot that appeared in the air.

  “Whoops,” Stretch said, his knees wobbling. “Feel that? Slight aftershock.”

  Shorty had wandered in from the back room with a Bud in his hand. In nothing but a raincoat, he looked very disoriented.

  “This is my boyfriend, Shorty,” I said. He and Stretch stared at each other blankly and I felt the fabric of space/time tremble just for a moment. Then it was over.

  “Of course!” said Stretch. “Of course, I’d recognize you anywhere.”

  “Huh? Oh.” Shorty looked at the painting I was holding, the last of the three. “La Rosa del Futuro.” It was a full-length nude of a short brown Adonis, asleep on his back without even a fig leaf, a rose placed tenderly on the pillow by his cheek. The paint was still tacky but I suspected that by the time it arrived in the future it would be dry.

  “Reminds me of the day I met Mona Lisa,” said Stretch. “How many times have I seen this painting, and now I meet the guy! Must feel weird to have the world’s most famous, you know…” He winked toward Shorty’s crotch.

  “I don’t know about weird,” said Shorty. “Something definitely feels funny.”

  “Let’s get on with this,” I said. I handed Stretch the painting and he pushed it through the slot, and Shorty and I lived happily ever after. For a while. More or less…

  But you’ve seen I Love Lucy.

  THE TOXIC DONUT

  Hi, I’m Ron, the Host’s Chief Administrative Assistant, but you can just call me Ron. Let me begin, at the risk of seeming weird, by saying congratulations.

  Of course I know. I’ve been doing this show every year for six years; how could I not know? But look at it this way, Kim—do you mind if I call you Kim? You have been chosen to represent all humanity for one evening. All the birds and beasts too. The worms and the butterflies. The fishes of the sea. The lilies of the field. You are, for one half hour tonight, the representative of all life on the planet. Hell, all life in the Universe, as far as we know. That calls for congratulations, doesn’t it? You have a right to be proud. And your family, too.

  Did you, I mean do you have a family? How nice. Well, we all know what they’ll be watching tonight, don’t we?

  Of course, I know, everybody watches it anyway. More than watch the Academy Awards. Eight to ten points more. A point is about thirteen million people these days, did you know that?

  Okay. Anyway. Have you ever been on TV before? “Long shot at a ball game”—that’s good. I loved Bill Murray too. God rest his soul. Anyway. Okay. TV is ninety-nine percent preparation, especially live TV. So if you’ll walk over here with me, let’s take this opportunity to run through the steps for our lighting people, as well as yourself; so you will be able to concentrate on the Event itself.

  After all, it’s your night.

  Watch your step. Lots of wires.

  Okay. We call this Stage Left. At 8:59, one minute to Air-time, one of the Girls will bring you out. Over there, in the little green outfits. What? Since you’re a woman it should be guys in bikinis? I get it, a joke. You have quite a sense of humor, Kim. Do you mind if I call you Kim?

  Right, we did.

  Anyway. Okay. You’ll stand here. Toes on that mark. Don’t worry, the cameras won’t linger on you, not yet.

  You’ll just be part of the scene at the beginning. There will be one song from the International Children’s Rainbow Chorus. “Here Comes the Sun,” I think. All you have to do is stand here and look pretty. Dignified, then. Whatever.

  You’re the first woman in two years, by the way; the last two Consumers were men.

  I don’t know why, Consumers is just what we call them; I mean, call you. What would you want us to call you?

  That’s another joke, right? Whatever.

  Okay. Anyway. Song ends, it’s 9:07. Some business with the lights and the Host comes on. I don’t need to tell you there’ll be applause. He wal
ks straight up to you, and—kiss or handshake? Suit yourself. After the handshake, a little small talk. Where you’re from, job, etc. Where are you from, by the way?

  How nice. I didn’t know they spoke English, but then it was British for years, wasn’t it?

  Anyway. Okay. Don’t worry about what to say; the Host has been briefed on your background, and he’ll ask a question or two. Short and sweet, sort of like Jeopardy.

  To meet him? Well—of course—maybe—tonight right before the show, if time allows. But you have to understand, Mr. Crystal’s a very busy man, Kim. Do you mind if I call you Kim?

  Right, we did. I remember. Sorry.

  Okay. Anyway. A little ad-lib and it’s 9:10. I have it all here on my clipboard, see? To the minute. At 9:10 there’s some business with the lights, then the Girls bring out the Presidents of the Common Market, the African Federation, the Americas, Pacific Rim, etc. Five gentlemen, one of them a lady this year, I believe. There’s a brief statement; nothing elaborate. “Your great courage, protecting our way of life” sort of thing. A few words on how the Lottery works, since this was the first year people were allowed to buy tickets for others.

  I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sure voluntary would be better. But somebody must have bought you a ticket; that’s the way it works.

  Anyway. Okay. Where were we? 9:13, the Presidents. They have a plaque that goes to your family after. Don’t take it; it’s just to look at. Then a kiss; right, handshake. Sorry. I’ll make a note of it. Then they’re out of here, Stage Right. Don’t worry, the Girls manage all the traffic.

  Okay. 9:14, lights down, then up on the Native People’s presentation. You’re still standing here, Stage Left, watching them, of course. You might even like it. Three women and three men, clickers and drums and stuff. While the women dance, the men chant. “Science, once our enemy, now our brother” sort of thing. You’ll feel something on the back of your neck; that’s the wind machine. They finish at 9:17, cross to here, give you a kind of bark scroll. Take it but don’t try to unroll it. It’s 9:18 and they’re out of here, Stage Left. That’s the end of the—

  What? No, the corporations themselves don’t make a presentation. They want to keep a very low profile.