Microcosmic God

by Theodore Sturgeon

  When the magic flame sprang up between them, Gabe’s first reaction after being shocked into immobility was to leap to his feet and fight the menace. He leapt, but found himself standing rather foolishly beside the booth with no apparent menace to fight. He turned to Chloe, a newly-arrived waiter at each shoulder. He put out his hand and said, “Are you hurt?” and Chloe looked right past him. That stunned him a little, and then he reflected that she was probably upset by the flash. He was edged out by the waiters, who were busily engaged in their mercenary solicitude. He shook his head to clear it and pushed forward again. Chloe had just sent the waiters off on some errand.

  “I don’t like it here,” said Gabe, a little plaintively. “Let’s go home.”

  And to his utter surprise, Chloe turned viciously to him, snapped, “How dare you! Leave me alone!” He fell back, feeling like a kicked dog, and then was utterly astounded to realize that she was loudly demanding that he be hunted down. He pressed forward as she headed for the door, touched her arm once and was brushed off like a beetle, and listened in to her conversation with Romany Joe. When he tried to speak to her again she turned on him with such a blast of invective that he had to retreat in self-defense. He couldn’t understand it—any of it. He had a strange idea that maybe he was invisible, but he could see that people casually made way for him as anyone will for anyone else. He walked right past the cashier and she never noticed him. He had far too much on his mind to think of stopping. He went right on out into the night, agonized, bruised through and through by Chloe’s treatment of him. What had he done to deserve that strange, harsh treatment? What did Chloe mean by ignoring him so, addressing him as if he were a total stranger, and a masher at that? What was the idea of demanding that a search be instituted for him when he was standing right beside her all the time? Why wouldn’t she give him a chance to explain himself? It wasn’t fair and it couldn’t be understood, and the only thing that seemed at all clear was that he had lost his beloved Chloe for ever and ever.

  He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and then remembered that he had left them on the table at Romany Joe’s. He paused a moment, tempted to go back for them. Maybe he’d run into Chloe and she’d let him take her home at least. But then suppose she acted the same way? He couldn’t stand any more of it; he hadn’t done anything. Through his trampled affections began to show a dim ray of resentment. Heck with her. She could go her way, he’d go his. That’s the way she wanted it, apparently. And that’s the way it would be.

  For tonight anyway. Maybe tomorrow it would be different …

  Gabe didn’t know quite what to do with himself. He didn’t want to go home and go to bed, just to lie awake and brood all night. Neither did he want to walk around the streets this way. He squared his shoulders and marched into an all-night drugstore. He needed cigarettes anyway. What did the guys in the movies do when they had had a soul-shattering blow? Well, they paid attention to the little details of living, and shook it off that way. All right, he would. Until morning anyway. He’d go in there and buy cigarettes just as if nothing had happened.

  The sleepy clerk slid his pack across the counter and took the half-dollar Gabe handed him. He punched up fifteen cents on the cash register and gave Gabe a dime. Gabe was almost to the door when he realized that the man had given him change for a quarter, not a half. He turned back to the counter, congratulating himself on his attention to detail in the face of this overwhelming series of events.

  “Hey, doc—you short-changed me a little,” he said, not at all offensively.

  The clerk blinked at him. “Huh?”

  “I gave you a half for that pack of cigarettes,” Gabe explained, “Not a quarter.”

  “When?” asked the clerk, eyeing Gabe suspiciously.

  “Just now!” said Gabe, surprised. “My God, man, I didn’t even walk out of the place!”

  “Yeah?” said the clerk. “Better beat it, bud. I had that worked on me before. You watch some guy come in an’ buy something, an’ then when he’s gone you come in and say you been short-changed. Me, I never forget a face. Far as I know, I never seen you before in my life.”

  “You never—listen, you can’t get away with that! Look, pal, I don’t want to start any trouble. Here’s the cigarettes. Didn’t you just sell a pack of this brand, three minutes ago?”

  “Yep. That don’t mean I sold ’em to you. You might have got them any place around here.”

  Gabe heaved a sigh, and said patiently, “Do you, by any chance, know how many half-dollars you have in the register now?”

  “Yeah, sure. My relief gets here in a few minutes; I just counted up.” He pulled a ruled slip from behind the register. There’s—lessee—eight halves in the drawer.”

  “Okay—now look in and count ’em.”

  “You better hope you’re right,” said the clerk pugnaciously. He turned to the cash register, poked the “No Sale,” and scooped up his halves. “Two—four—five—seven—eight.” He swung to Gabe. “Eight, see, wise-guy? Now get the hell—”

  “Hold on, fella,” said Gabe evenly. “Look in the quarter compartment.”

  The clerk slung the halves back into their compartment and ran his fingers around the inside of the quarter section. “You’re a lot of trouble, bud. I oughta—I’ll be damned! You’re right—there is a half-dollar in with the quarters!”

  “Satisfied?” asked Gabe gently.

  “Okay—okay. Here. But get this. I don’t know how you found about this two bits, but you did. Lucky guess. If it made any difference to me, I’d never let you walk out of here with it. Hear?”

  Gabe pocketed the quarter. “I’ll guarantee that I’ll never walk in here again,” he snapped, and ignoring the clerk’s “Suits me!”, he left the store. He would have been interested in the clerk’s account of the incident as told to his relief, a few minutes later. It wound up, “—you wanna watch for that bird, Charley.”

  “What’s he look like?” asked Charley, slipping into a white coat.

  “Oh, he’s a guy about five foot—uh … his hair is—Damn it, Charley, I don’t remember what he looked like!”

  Gabe stood on the corner outside for a moment, fuming at the sleepy stupidity of the clerk, and then hailed a taxi. He sat back in the seat and reminded himself of Chloe by firmly thinking of other things. And when the cab stopped at his address, and the driver flipped up the flag on the meter and opened the door, Gabe was startled to hear the man say, “Hey! What happened to that other guy?”

  “What other guy?”

  “The one who got in on Pleasant View and Thirteenth.”

  “That was me!”

  “Yeah? Well I—I dunno. I coulda swore it was some other guy. Well—thanks mister. ‘Night.”

  “ ‘Night.” Gabe stood for a moment on the curb, watching the cab whirl away altogether too fast. “Guy’s seeing things,” he grinned, and went up the steps.

  Gabe lived in a very comfortable and very modern little light-housekeeping bachelor digs. He had a large room and kitchenette up on the seventh floor. Sometimes he used to wonder if Chloe would be able to keep house as efficiently as the maid that cleaned up so precisely every day. He thought of that now, and ached a little inside. Oh well—

  The elevator operator said “Floor?” and closed the doors, looking at him inquiringly. Gabe stared back. “Always kidding, hey, Joe?”

  “Suh?”

  “You’ve been ferrying me up to the seventh floor for two years now, every single night. ‘Smatter, boy; don’t you recognize me?” Gabe asked flippantly. The boy shook his head slowly, his large ivory eyes fixed on Gabe’s face, giving the impression that they were fastened to something invisible in front of him.

  “I’m Jarret—Gabe Jarret!” said that irritated gentleman.

  “Mist’ Jarret? Wal, I swan, I do! I never rec’nize you!”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with everybody tonight,” said Gabe worriedly as he got off at the seventh. The doors closed behind him; a thought stru
ck him and he pushed the elevator button. The doors slid open and Joe peered owlishly out.

  “Er—Joe, don’t call me in the morning, hey? I’m going to take the day off.”

  “Yassuh. Whut’s that room number again, suh?”

  “What?”

  “Ain’t you that new feller moved in yestiddy?”

  “Joe! For the second time in half a minute, I’m Gabe Jarret! Room 7C! What the devil’s the matter with you?”

  Joe scratched his head and looked sheepish. “ ‘Deed, Mist’ Jarret, I dunno. Guess I better have my eyes examined or somp’n. Okay, I don’t ring your room in th’ mornin’. ‘N-night, suh.” He retreated into his cage, and Gabe strode fuming down the corridor. “Must be an epidemic,” he muttered under his breath as he let himself into his room. “Everyone in the city turned moron overnight.” He snapped on the lights, walked over and stood in front of the full-length mirror on his closet door. “Couldn’t be me,” he said positively. He fingered his necktie and scowled. “Or—could it?”

  He was changed, certainly. His decisive, handsome features were indescribably, subtly changed. His nose, though still essentially the same shape, was not distinctly Roman. As a matter of fact, it was not distinctly anything. It was just a nose. His eyes—weren’t they as deeply set? Or had they moved closer together? Or—farther apart? Or was there a difference at all? And the line of his jaw—let’s see; it used to go straight back to there and then turn up a little, didn’t it? Or did it? Gabe shook his head. “I’m having a nervous breakdown,” he said, and undressed and washed and went to bed.

  Not to sleep, though, for a long while. He talked quietly to himself about it.

  “I used to have a face, damn it. I used to stop traffic. My God—not one woman gave me the eye all evening, ever since that—that explosion at Joe’s. That was a funny thing. Wonder what—Chloe sure raised hell. Shouldn’t have left her alone there, but—I dunno. It’s up to me to give her what she wants, and she sure didn’t want me around. Lord, what a tongue that girl has! Imagine living with—what was that flash, anyway? Lessee—the old woman had just told Chloe’s fortune. Gave her a wish. Well, she didn’t wish anything. Funny if there was something in all this mumbo jumbo. Suppose she had a chance to wish for something that would come true.… I wonder what Chloe wants, anyhow? She’s a funny kid. Everything I did or said was wrong, and I found that such a change—so damn original, that I fell for her. Suppose she had a chance to make a wish come true; would she wish for money? We have enough, between us; don’t know what she’d do with any more. Would she wish for more looks? Hell, she’s all right. Love? She’s got me; Lord knows I showed her how much I loved her.” Gabe heaved himself up on his elbow, staring off into the dark. “How much difference did that make to her? Every other woman I ever met seemed to want her innings, but then Chloe is different from any other woman I ever met. Maybe she didn’t care after all.” Overwhelmed by the alien thought, Gabe gave himself up to his misery for a long moment. Then, “Holy Pete, this is a mess. I took an awful lot from her and as far as she knew I liked it. I—didn’t.” It was the first time he had admitted that to himself. “Imagine her calling me down like that in public. What was that crack she made—something about me setting an age limit, when I accidentally looked at that old woman? You know, that was raw. And telling me I was conceited, and that I had lousy taste in clothes, and—Yeah, that was strong—’I wish to God you had the most ordinary-looking mug on earth!’ Yeah—me too. I have, judging from the way she acted toward me after that explosion. Yeah, Chloe and the cashier and the clerk in the drugstore and Joe the elevator boy. Heh! They look at my face once, and when they see it again, they don’t recognize it. ‘I wish to God you had the—’ Heh! That was a wish! Hell of a thing to come true. Why, a man with that kind of a face would really be behind the eight-ball. Anyone who saw him would never remember him the next time. Just like Joe, in the elevator. I guess he was just sleepy; didn’t take notice. Like the guy in the store—My God!” Gabe rolled out of bed and sat on the edge of it. “That was a wish! And it was the first wish she made after the old woman told her that her wish would come true!”

  He stood up, sat down, stood up and began to pace the room.

  “That’s a fairy story. It just couldn’t be! Wishes coming true.… Me, without a face?” He ran to the wall switch and flipped it, turned up the table and bed lamps, and stood in a blaze of light before the mirror.

  “It’s—it’s amazing,” he said aloud. His face was blurred—just the slightest bit indistinct, like a molded jelly that has been standing in a warm room. It was a perfectly normal, unfrightening face. It was the face of the Great Average—the consolidated features of a mob. It was the face of the man who shines your shoes on a ferryboat, as remembered two months later. It was the face of a fellow called Charley something, who was in your Latin class in your first year in high school. Gabriel Jarret, glamor-boy, was now—the Anonymous!

  “What am I going to do?” he breathed, turning away and back to the mirror, away and back. It was a terrible thing, a horrifying, morbidly fascinating thing. What could he do? He was a salesman; his living depended on his ability to put up a memorable front. Why, they wouldn’t even know him at the office. He’d have to introduce himself in the morning and every day when he came in from his calls! What about his regular customers, and—omigosh—his prospects? Suppose he entertained a buyer, and left him for a moment during the evening; the man wouldn’t know him when he got back! He was through—washed up—ruined. How could he even get a job now, let alone keep the one he had?

  He turned out half the lights and threw himself into an easy chair to think it over. What would life be like for an anonymous man? No more heads turning when he came into a restaurant or night-club or office. No more women on his doorstep, on his mind, in his hair. Say, that wouldn’t be bad, at that. He had spent twenty-eight years in being admired, and he was as sick of it as is a man with a purple birthmark with his particular flaw. It was a flaw, you see, as anything must be when carried to an extreme. Good diction is an asset; perfect diction is annoying and affected. Pleasing features are helpful to their possessor; perfect ones are a damn nuisance, to quote the late Valentino, who early learned that the art of un-wenching is a far more difficult one than that of amorous conquest. And Gabe had been the extreme, the outside edge of hyper-superlativity.

  He grinned excitedly. He could actually walk into a whole roomful of high school girls and walk out again without having one of them gasp and flutter! Why, he could have a life of his own, unmarked, unremarkable!

  And so it was that Gabe smacked his palm with his fist, laughed aloud, turned out the lights and dove into bed, a happy man. Of all men in the world, only he could have been delighted with such an affliction; of all lovers in the world, only he was foolish enough to believe that his precious Chloe would be happy to find him as he was now. Hadn’t she persistently accused him of being too handsome? Hadn’t she fervently wished that he had the most ordinary-looking mug on earth? Ah, now she was his; now he was all she could have wanted him to be.

  That’s what he thought.

  He woke early the next morning, and like a kid running for his Christmas tree, he ran for the mirror. It was true—it was true!

  “Hot damn,” he grinned. “No glamour!”

  He dressed carefully and sat down to write a few notes. One to his bank, informing them that hereafter he would deal with them by mail. One to his landlord, giving him notice. A few to various debtors, enclosing checks. One to his employers, a resignation. And one to Chloe, and that was the strangest:

  “Darling:

  “Forgive me for the way I acted last night; something has happened to me that I can’t understand, but which has made me very happy. That explosion in our booth last night changed me into what you have said you wanted me to be. I want you to see it too. Please, beloved, meet me as usual at lunch. Same place, same time. And be prepared for a surprise!”

  He marked it for a special mes
senger, took the sheaf of envelopes out and mailed them, and then headed for a restaurant. He ordered a substantial breakfast, thinking amusedly that if he ordered and then moved to another table, the waiter would never find him. He ate leisurely, picked up his check and reached in his pocket for a dime to leave on the table.

  He’d forgotten to bring any money.

  He said, “Damn!” and wondered whether to try explaining it to the cashier, or to—he ate here often; she’d know him. It would be no trouble.

  Approaching the cashier’s desk, he remembered that she wouldn’t remember him at that. He paused again, rubbed the side of his cheek in perplexity, and then squared his shoulders, tossed the check on the desk, said, “Good Morning!” and sauntered out the door.

  “Hey, mister!” called the cashier, a pert young blonde. “Hey—you didn’t pay! Jim—catch that guy!”

  A brawny gentleman dropped his mop and trotted after Gabe. Gabe, by this time, was twenty feet away from the door and still moving. The waiter’s heavy hand fell on his shoulder; he stopped, turned, looked surprisedly up at the duty-bound face.

  “You can’t get away with that, bud,” said the mopster.

  “With what?” asked Gabe innocently.

  “Come back in here and ask the cashier with what,” said the man, pushing Gabe in that direction.

  Gabe went, protesting. Once inside the restaurant, the man said,

  “I’ve got ‘im, Molly.”

  The girl threw up her hands. “Jimmy, you’re a double-barreled half-wit! You’ve got the wrong guy!”

  The man loosed Gabe and shuffled uneasily. “You sure, Molly?”

  “Sure I’m sure, you—you ox!” she snapped, and said to Gabe, “Gee, I’m sorry, mister. I wouldn’t have had that happen for—”

  “Skip it,” grinned Gabe. “As for you, Muscles, watch your step. You can get into trouble doing things like that.” The lug retreated; Gabe smiled at the girl and walked out like an honest citizen. And after that he didn’t bother going home for his money. He didn’t need money.