“My wife. I see my wife.”
“In your beer.”
“Ale. It must be clear, pale ale, not too much foam on top.”
Sam, who dislikes patrons that criticize his way of drawing beer, lets go of the tap.
“Please.” This word is said with no inflection, no emotion, and Sam finds himself filling the mug and knifing the top to stave off the foam, twice.
“And that’s why you drain so many pints.” He intended to make it sarcastic, but it came out sympathetic.
“Every night, yes. I hope she will forgive me and come back to me. She can do it. I know she can.”
“Sure. She must be. . . er. . . waiting for the right moment.”
The traveler scratches the grey stub on one cheek, eyebrows knitted together.
Pushing the mug toward the old drunk, Sam glimpses some kind of whirling at the bottom.
He rubs his eyes with two knuckles. Too much smoke. He doesn’t approve of the owner’s habit of letting the last patrons burn a cigarette before close. Even with the door wide open, it makes your eyes sting.
Despite the tears, he sees. Full lips curled into a smile, and dimples on either side, before the foam erases them like footprints crumpling in wet sand.
“I am sorry,” the old man says. “I should have tried harder. Come back.”
Doorways In Time
by Edward J. McFadden III
Incidents and fragments continued—
The feeling that I had been here before swamped me like rain on tissue paper. The old Fred Cassidy had done this thing so many times the sun and moon were bored looking down on it. Above, around where the belt that drove the world skipped and looped, a tower with the Earth resting atop its massive frame dominated the horizon.
I gaped at the size and power of Nikola Tesla’s creation.
The red brick walls of Tesla’s lab still smelled of concrete, and the Wardenclyffe Tower rose into the sky like a metal nightmare, many of the welds on the superstructure still warm. In times of worry he who carries the most burdens will eventually crumble and fall, just as some are crushed by the enormity of a situation, or an object. I was thusly awed. Even Speicus marveled at the towers size, its cross-section of steel and wood a maze of symmetry and strength. Atop the tower a half-circle of wire and metal waited to fill the air with electricity, its core dull and silent.
I can see why Tweedledee and Tweetledum’s boss wants this candle lit, said Speicus from his office inside my brain. Tesla lit a series of street lights at a great distance by transmitting electricity through the air like a radio wave. At least that’s what I recalled from my ancient history.
The ground around the lab had been cleared, and the patches of green grass and dirt were marred only by a thin road that led to the lab’s entrance. I didn’t remember walking from the cover of the woods to my current position on the southern side of Tesla’s lab. What if I was discovered by security? Would I be shot on site? Tesla had been obsessed with project secrecy, which was born from the fact that some of his ideas had been stolen.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, Speicus said.
A gentle breeze pushed the grass, and somewhere a piece of metal tapped against wood. I realized it was the flag lead-line banging against the flagpole in front of the lab, which was nothing more than a rectangle of brick.
“Speicus, any idea what we should do? Go knock on the door? And say what? ‘Hi, I have no idea how I came to be here but can we have some tea and chat? I need to tell you something.’ I’ll be shot!”
You know what you need to do. Do you need me to actually rattle your damn noddle? Speicus said.
I walked, and when I came around the corner of the lab there was a man standing before the tower, gazing up at it with a grim expression on his lean face. He wore a grey tailored suite, and a thin dark tie.
“May I help you?” the man asked.
“You are Tesla?” I said.
The man’s face twisted like I’d asked him if the Earth was round. “Yes. How did you get in here?”
I didn’t know really, but…
“If you cut the fence I’ll whip your ass myself! What paper are you with?”
Telsa came at me, and I put my hands up. “I’m just here to talk to you. I’m no reporter.” Whether it was my clothes, or the way my voice sounded, or one of the other hundred things that marked me as alien to his time, Tesla’s face softened.
“Why do I believe you?” Tesla said. He squinted, and his mouth fell open a crack, as if he didn’t trust his own words.
On the periphery of my vision a white cat hid behind a large pipe, its keen eyes studying me. The universe chirped, and everything jumped for an instant. I staggered, and Tesla stepped forward and steadied me.
“You must speak with Westinghouse right away,” my mouth blurted. “Tell him of your plan to transmit not only communications via your towers, but electricity as well,” I finished, but it was really Speicus. He could take over pretty much whenever he wanted.
Tesla looked hard at me, his eyes tiny black marbles. He was weighing me, trying to hide his surprise. “How did you know that? There is no way you could know that,” he said, stepping back as I got my legs back under me.
As things swirl I hang on to my sanity as best I can, everything that came before revealed to me in an instant. My time is running short. Where was Dennis Wexroth when you needed him? The persistent little turd.
Oh, I get it. Speicus slapped me mentally.
I said, “That is why I’m here. You must tell Westinghouse. Your future depends on it.” The lie flowed so easily from my mouth I shivered. I knew, as did the powers that guided me, that telling Westinghouse would lead to him asking Tesla how he was going to charge people for the electricity running through the air. When Telsa answered he couldn’t, Westinghouse would kill the project, thus avoiding the events Speicus and I had seen through the doorway in the woods. The fact that this change would start a spiral that would leave one of mankind’s greatest scientists destitute didn’t seem to matter. The needs of the many and all that rot.
Knowing there was no possible way anyone could have known his real plan for the tower, Tesla said, “I will.”
And he did.
A door closes in the depths of my mind, and I wonder if Speicus has literally slammed the door in my face. Then I’m standing on a beach, the star filled sky rolling before me. The north shore of Long Island has a quiet grace, and The Sound itself defies definition by making very little of it. The gentle lapping of the clear water eases what’s left of my mind, and suddenly the beach was full of doorways, and I thought of ladies, tigers, cell phones, TV dinners, purple shoes, ships, sealing wax and other lurkers on the threshold. Soon, soon, soon…
*
Incidents and fragments—
Even though the forest was nothing more than scrub pine, it was still pleasant compared to the buildings and smog of the city. But I think that’s what I miss most, the tall buildings, the freedom I felt when swinging high above the fray, like an eagle soaring in the clouds.
Speicus had grounded that bird.
My make-believe wings fluttered, the path before me unclear, and my knees had come unhinged, when the doorway appeared in the trees above. Saintly and majestic it descended through the scrub pine as if held in place by an unseen god or force. The doorway stood before me, like a giant accusing mouth telling me to do my duty or let a more competent team take over.
Through the doorway a circle of blinding light released shards of static electricity that lit the air on fire. The metal fillings in my teeth sizzled. I fought to stay in control, pushing back the constant voice of Speicus. I would decide. Me. Fred, or whatever was left of me.
Lightning scorched the sky, fanning out over the world like spider’s legs. The bolts holding together the dimensions came loose and time jolted. Speicus was aware of it. Through the electric haze the doorway showed the cracking of the Earth, a slow butterfly effect that
eventually reached the planet’s core, and rattled it apart.
I stood on a broken plain, shards of rock protruding from the ground. The piece of earth I stood upon floated amidst other parts of the planet, and then it collided with a bigger piece and was crushed to dust. My heart wavered, and on some level a piece of me died.
A head popped into the open doorway, then a second. Both men wore bowler hats and were dressed in black. One man seemed bald; the other had long grey greasy strands hanging below his hat. “Don’t forget about us asshole. Remember me? I’m Rathford, and this is Sunn. And we’re about to crush your world, seeeeee.”
I hear the tinkle of Speicus’ laughter.
The doorway is closing.
It’s over.
A white cat walks across my path, pausing to look up at me as if to say, “I’m a Whillowhim agent, and I can do all kinds of shit in this dimension.”
I blink, and the doorway is gone.
Rays of fading sunlight stream into the forest, and I walk on, carrying those burdens, not missing a step. Crystal clear are the rivers of my thoughts, cold water drenching the innards of long forgotten ethics, and what it meant to be real. I was part of something now. I had a responsibility to Speicus, to the people of Earth who I now protected.
The woods ended abruptly, and dirt and grass filled the open field separating me from a large brick building at the clearings center. I felt maggots crawling across my brain, and for an instant it’s as though each little bug is taking a piece, feasting on the white matter that now only serves as a backdrop for what I’ve become. What Speicus and I have become.
Lost in the bleakness of time, I wonder how long I have to complete my mission. To stop the events I saw through the doorway from happening. Does it really matter? Green faces sprout roots and fill my mind with a tangle of dreams, ideas, and thoughts that make me want to cry. I see children dying, the end of it all. Maybe there would be peace then, when all the humans were gone, our aggressive, virus-like behavior lost amidst the dark matter.
Oh, buck up, said Speicus.
Spinning through time.
Time spinning. I’m lost. Even though I was found, I was lost. I felt so tired, all my life sucked through the tiny hole in my heart, and I remember my old partner Ralph Warp. Crafts? What in all of hell that is holy was I thinking? I hadn’t done much thinking back then, with the exception of trying to figure out ways to stay in school and collect my money.
Pain lashes my mind, and everything I see starts to fade. Then the buildings and trees sprout legs and run away.
*
Bits and Pieces—
Nothingness transposed on colorless paper, invisible fish jumping in rhythm with my heart, and a sea of rolling heads knocking and slamming into each other as the ooze of civilization seeps through the pores of a broken world dreamt by a broken mind. Each second is a lifetime and nothing at all. A loss of everything that never was, and never would be, buried beneath inverted black stars looking out on the brightness of the realization that it’s over.
Gone.
Kaput.
Then I remember where I am. Cartoon gangster one, Rathford, and cartoon gangster two, Sunn, are holding me captive, but help was on the way. I had seen it lurking in the tall grass beside the path. I laughed, a loud throaty sound that made Sunn reach for his weapon. The tinkling sound of Speicus’ laughter haunts me, then I was falling, the pit of my stomach nose-diving through a reality that left me paralyzed.
Charv, the tips of the kangaroo ears on his suite bobbing and swaying, watches Ragma as he runs forward. Neither tweedledee nor tweedledum saw Ragma coming, and in that moment I felt Speicus sitting on the edge of his mental imbalance, pushing me forward into the abyss, where he would leave me for dead and take my body as his own. I shook my head.
You’re an asshole, said Speicus.
Ragma, disguised as a dog, leapt through the air, jaws open, sharp teeth exposed, and Rathford didn’t have time to respond before Ragma latched onto the wannabe gangster and snuffed out his flame. Rathford’s eyes bulged, and he stared at me, as if to say, “We had an understanding.” Ragma released him, and the corpse fell to the forest floor with a thud.
Charv strolled through the tall grass into the clearing, and laughed when Ragma turned his attention to Sunn. The large bald man pointed his tiny weapon at Ragma, who paused and snarled. Blood pooled around Rathford, and Ragma was careful to step around it.
“Stay back,” said Sunn. He pressed his weapon’s activation button.
Ragma disappeared, and then reappeared. He had moved ten feet to the right in a flash of an instant. In the periphery of my vision I caught sight of a white cat as it disappeared into the grass. It looked back at me, its eyes gleaming like opals, and I thought I saw a smile beneath the creature’s whiskers.
Sunn reeled back, and lifted his weapon. That moment was all Ragma needed. The black dog coiled its legs and leapt, hitting Sunn’s chest with such force the weapon flew from his hand and the breath rushed from his lungs.
When Ragma was done, two bloodied corpses lay before me. “Thanks,” I said.
“You just can’t stay out of it, can you?” asked Charv, as he released me from my bonds.
I had forgotten how odd it was to talk to someone wearing a giant kangaroo costume. “My job now, you know that.” Charv turned to look at Ragma, who still stood over the two dead bodies.
“Let’s go. You have the world to save,” said Charv, as he turned and walked through the woods.
I followed, my reality becoming clearer, but still nothing more than a giant blotch of color and blood, mixing with an ethereal light that brought neither illumination nor warmth. The stand of scrub pine thickened, and Speicus said, Long Island was covered in these trees. In our time not one can be found.
Change. It came whether you wanted it or not.
A breeze blew as the sun continued it’s decent to the horizon, and I breathed deep and felt Speicus relish the sensation. I closed my eyes and thought of climbing tall buildings, of dangling atop the city like an overgrown bat. It was there I had been most at home. My head in the clouds. My entire world rushing by in a blur below me. The clouds overhead swirled, and when I turned to find Charv and Ragma, they were gone.
*
Incidents and fragments, bits-and-pieces time.
Like—
“Hands up,” said Rathford.
I sighed.
Speicus whispered, Already, Fred? We just got here.
“I don’t think…” I began.
“You feel that?” said the man behind me, who had me by the neck, and was pushing his gun into my ribs.
“Is that a gun or are you just happy to see me?” I asked, and the man brought the gun up, and then brought it down on my head. The last thing I heard before the blackness took me was the tingling of Speicus’ laughter.
Candy dreams laced with the horror of reality painted on a dirty canvas crawling with spiders and flies. The scent of roses mixed with shit filled my head, and I thought of my old roommate Hal Sidmore, and how he used to peel the paint from the walls in our bathroom with his high octane craps, only to attempt to mask the stench with rose air freshener. The same kind my crazy mother had used. I’m sinking in mud, dirt filling my eyes.
An epiphany in blood, entrails, and gumdrops.
When I came awake I was tied to a tree, and two large men sat before me. My first thought was that they looked like cartoon characters. All dark black, big, with hats like they used to wear in the old days. That snapped my head around. Speicus and I weren’t in Kansas anymore.
“You are?” I asked the men, and one of them chuckled.
“You could say we’re friends of Morton and Jamie, though we didn’t know them. I’m Rathford and he’s Sunn. Not that it matters,” said the short man. “But we’re asking the questions, here, seeeeee.”
If he’s trying to do James Cagne he was way off, and a couple of decades to early, muttered Speicus.
“Are you trying to be a
gangster?” I asked, the old mocking Fred breaking through.
“What? And you’re an expert on 1906 Long Island?” asked the one who called himself Sunn. His voice was high and squeaky, which made me smile.
“That where we are?” I asked.
Yes, answered Speicus.
“Don’t play stupid. We know you’re here to talk with Tesla,” said Rathford. “Boss wants this reality gone—everything and everyone in it. So he said to make you gone.”
With wit like that it’s hard to see how he ended up a low life.
“Gone,” I sputtered. Then I realized the doorway must have brought me here for a reason. I was a U.S. legation of the United Nations, and therefore had a responsibility to do… to do what? Certainly not what these two wanted. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The name Telsa sparked something buried deep within my mind. He had been a man of great importance back in the early days of modern science. What was it…
“Really, wise guy. Then I guess I’ll need to fill you full of lead,” said Rathford. He drew out a small weapon that looked a little like a gun.
Sunn looked at Rathford, and said, “Lead? It’s a blaster.”
“Oh, shut up!” snapped Rathford.
“You two girls mind telling me what you think I’m up to?” I had learned that trick watching old cartoons and reading police procedural novels.
“You’re not going to talk to Tesla. When he lights up his candle at full strength to transmit power, and it works, it will set him on our course. The boss can’t let you change that.” That wasn’t much of an answer, but that’s all there was.
Ask him if he knows of a good donut shop around here.
“We don’t know exactly what you’re gonna say to him that changes things. So, you aint gonna to talk to him at all, seeeeee.”
Everything faded as he spoke, the world’s colors dripping into brown mush. Trees melted, leaving only scarred ground and blackened sticks protruding from dead soil like dark teeth in a lifeless mouth. Bodies of people and animals alike littered the ground, their charred flesh still smoldering. The sun was falling, and butterflies danced with golden parachutes as they floated listlessly through the blood stained clouds, the path leading to the woods obscured from view.
Shadows & Reflections: A Roger Zelazny Tribute Anthology Page 11