by Tim Pratt
"I couldn't believe that no one had ever made the discovery. And then it hit me--no one was supposed to make the discovery! The Heidelberg Cylinder is meant to be invented again and again in its different guises and then put into the workings of whatever new different machines we dream up in the future.
"Because do you know what the Cylinder really is? The concrete proof of our immortality. The result of the human mind and spirit working as one to solve problems and overcome them. Any problems. Physical proof of the fact we can do anything we want, even live forever if we choose, if we set our minds to it."
I looked at it and rubbed my mouth. "That thing?"
"Yes, that thing."
I picked it up, turned it over. It was black and there was nothing written on it. Definitely not any "Heidelberg Cylinder."
"How come it's black and there's no writing on it?"
"Because once you realize what it is, it changes into something else. Something someone else will need to discover its importance. For me it was the brass object I described. For the person who had it before you it turned into a sixteenth-century Persian lock. For you it became a baseball bat."
"Then what is it now?"
"I don't know. Probably something from the future."
Reaching out to pick it up, I stopped when he said that. "But I didn't discover anything with the baseball bat. Definitely not any of that stuff you were saying about man's immortality: I just brained the caveman with it."
"Yes, but that's because I've chosen to intervene. There simply isn't enough time for it to happen in the slow and proper way it should. Mankind is in jeopardy and we must work quickly to avoid a catastrophe. I'll tell you the end of my story briefly and you will understand.
"When I grasped the extraordinary importance of the Heidelberg Cylinder, I became obsessed with my search and found it again and again the further I looked. But what was I to do with my discovery? Who should I tell and in what context?"
I had to interrupt. "When did you turn into, uh, what you are?"
"Once we've learned about the Cylinder, all of us change eventually."
That made me stand up. "What do you mean? Change how?"
"It varies from person to person. I can't say how it will affect you."
I was getting nervous again. "But what about Brooks and Zin Zan? They're both normal. They're weird but they're normal."
"For now, because both of them are new to the group. But sooner or later they will change and take on new forms. We call it 'hatching.' As I said, I can't tell you what forms either of them will take, but they will definitely metamorphose into something entirely different."
"Do they know that? Do they know they're going to change?"
"Of course Mr. Gallatin, and they welcome it."
"So does that mean now that I know, I'm going to change too?"
"Yes."
"But I don't want to change! I like my life."
"I'm afraid we need you more than you need your life. I want to show you something."
Before I had a chance to protest, everything changed. In an instant, a blink, half a breath, we went from jungle to paradise.
I'd heard it before but now I know it's true: paradise is what you want it to be. If you imagine angels with wings and harps sitting on gold clouds, that's what you'll see. Perfect gardens where lions dance the cha-cha while beautiful women serve you ice-cold rum? Then that's what it will be. I didn't know my paradise until I saw it. The moment I did, I knew this was it--nothing could be better.
An outdoor restaurant in the middle of the countryside somewhere. A few metal tables were set up under four big chestnut trees. The wind was blowing, tossing up the corners of the white tablecloths. The sun shone down through the leaves, flickering beautiful yellow, green and white light across everything.
A bunch of people were sitting at one of the tables having the best time laughing, eating and talking. A black guy was sitting at one end of the table playing a Gibson Hummingbird guitar softly but really well. A woman nearby kept jumping up from her place, hugging him and then sitting back down again.
The different colors and variety of food spread out for them across the table was amazing. All kinds of meats and salads, vegetables piled high, soups, cakes and pies. The breads alone would have kept you busy for days making sandwiches. Once you saw it you couldn't take your eyes off this--plenty. My mouth started watering. I knew it had to be the greatest food that ever was and to taste any bit of it would bring you to tears.
"Hey Bill, why're you standing over there like you're hypnotized? Get your ass over here and say hello." The man who spoke didn't just look like my father, it was him. He'd been dead eleven years.
I didn't move but just assumed Beeflow was nearby so I asked out loud, "Is it real? Is that really my Dad?"
"Yes. Look around the table. You know everyone there."
It was true. A girl I'd known and liked who'd died in a water skiing accident, my uncle Birmy next to my father, others. I did know everyone at that table. Some better than others but I had known them all--when they were alive. When my father called out my name they looked over and smiled like seeing me was the best thing that had happened to them all day. It made me feel good and gave me the damned creeps at the same time.
"Welcome to Hell, Mr. Gallatin," Beeflow said.
Why did I already know that? How did I know that's what he was going to say and it wouldn't surprise me?
"It's the most wonderful place in the world because it's your most wonderful place. Everything is familiar here, you know everyone, the food is gorgeous--"
He was interrupted by the sound of the drowned girl laughing. It was the most beautiful, innocent, sexy laugh I'd ever heard. Her head was thrown back and she was laughing and all I could focus on was her long slim neck. Like everything else there, it was almost too much to take. Since when could the sight of a woman's bare neck send me over the moon?
"You see, it's already beginning to affect you. That's what is so splendid about it. Because everything here is yours, it would be so easy to slide right into this world and never want to go home."
"It really is Hell? This is where you go when you've been bad?"
"Yes. That's what Mel Shaveetz was saying to you and why the dog started growling at him. If people knew how marvelous this is, do you think they'd work hard at living? Or at being good, achieving something, working for one another? Too many of them would throw up their hands and just wait to die. Or they would kill themselves for the stupidest reasons just so they could come here earlier than planned."
"Everyone's Hell is this good?"
"Yes it is."
"Then what's Heaven like?"
"Infinitely better. But it is extremely hard to get into Heaven, Mr. Gallatin. It is almost impossible."
"But a person wins either way: Hell is great and Heaven is better."
"That should make no difference to you when you're alive. There is a purpose to living that is far more important than ending up comfortably dead."
"So what is the purpose of living?"
The people at the table seemed to have forgotten I was standing there and had gone back to enjoying their party. Some of them were singing now. The black guy was playing the Lovin' Spoonful song "Coconut Grove." Others were eating big fat chicken legs or steaks, slices of pie a la mode. More than anything I wanted to go over and join them. Like a hungry kid, I was itching to be at the table.
"Pay attention, Gallatin! Stop drooling over hamburgers. What I'm telling you is vitally important. People are alive because they have jobs to do. They are meant to improve and broaden the human experience as best they can. The Cylinder is concrete proof of that. After death, mankind comes here if they failed, or to Heaven if they succeeded. But if they knew about this, it would change everything.
"Dangerously few people would work hard, or dream, or love well and with all their hearts. Because no matter how they lived, they get this in the end.
"Mankind's progress has been slow but
steady. But now Satan is attempting to change that. He says there is no more room in Hell and has begun moving the dead back to Earth in greater and greater numbers. Those who have already been sent were told the move wouldn't be permanent. Life on Earth is made as pleasant as possible for them by allowing them to create their environment.
"God cannot reason with Satan about this, but we know that is nothing new. This forced relocation has been going on for centuries, but until now God overlooked it because the few that were sent back to Earth were regarded by the living as lunatics and ignored. Not anymore."
"Why? Why is it happening?"
"Because Mankind no longer accepts the idea of Damnation. He no longer feels he deserves eternal suffering for what he did or did not do on Earth. Guilt has grown obsolete. In the past, people were so afraid of what would happen to them in the afterlife that they created the most frightening scenarios possible. So when they did die, naturally those things happened to them. They brought their worse nightmares along and they came true.
"No longer. For the common man today, a fire-and-brimstone Hell has become an old-fashioned idea, and Heaven is a child's dream."
"Because we live happier lives, we get to be happier dead?"
"Exactly, and Satan absolutely hates that. When suffering prevailed in Hell, he was satisfied. But since people create their own Hell from what they knew in life, in recent decades it has generally become a rather nice place. He cannot abide that. So he has changed the rules. He is sending the dead back to Earth en masse. And it is clear what effect that will have on things there."
"Why doesn't God stop him?"
"Because God wants us to stop him. It is part of our ongoing task."
"How? How are we supposed to stop the Devil?"
"We must come up with a plan. Perhaps many plans before one works effectively. Obviously some will work, others won't."
"Jeez, Bill, are we going to have to drag you over to the table with a rope? We even got your favorite over there--potato salad with extra horseradish in the sauce." My father was suddenly in front of me smiling that great old smile that had always made me want to climb in his lap and stay there forever.
"Dad, where's mom? Is she here?"
He smiled and threw a thumb over his shoulder for me to look there. Coming out of the restaurant was my mother. A cry rose up in my throat that I was just barely able to hold onto before it spilled out. There she was, looking like she did before the cancer ate her body. There she was in that red-and-white striped dress, all her black hair long and curly again. Best of all she was chubby like before--"pleasantly plump" as she called herself. Not the hairless stick-thin woman who turned to the wall one day while lying in her bed and never really turned back, choosing instead to disappear into her sickness and never come out again.
In her hands she held a whipped cream cake. Sort of pale pink on the sides, black bittersweet chocolate on the top. It was my favorite. She had always made it on special occasions. The last time I ever had it was on our wedding day. Rae got the recipe from her but was never able to make it right. All Moms have one secret recipe that can't be copied and this was hers. A whipped cream cake.
She went to the table and put it down in front of an empty seat. Reaching over, she arranged the silverware there. I knew she was setting it up for me. Come over and cut your cake, she was saying. Sit with your father and me and tell us what your life has been since we left. Tell us about Rae who we always liked and your job and how you've filled your days. Because we love you and want to hear everything. How many people on this Earth want to hear everything about you? How many people--
"They're dead, Mr. Gallatin."
I blinked, looking from my mother to my father. I was in a trance. My mother, my father, her cake, this place--
"They're dead, and you have things to do."
Beeflow's words struck my head like a hammer. They hurt that much. I didn't want to hear them. I didn't want this picture of my good parents to go away just because they were dead.
"What do you want from me? It's my parents! I haven't seen them--Can't I have five minutes together with my parents?"
"You're finding reasons to stay here. And the longer you stay, the more reasons you'll fine. It's very tricky that way. Very seductive. But everything here is from your life, Gallatin, it is from life, do you understand? How lucky you've been to amass all these fine memories? How good life has been to you? It's been a good friend. Don't you owe it something?"
Furious, I turned toward his voice without thinking. And when I saw him, when I saw what he was I began to cry. Because he'd told the truth--he was everything I didn't want to know about myself. He had no special shape or size. You couldn't say it's a man or a monster or a Devil or whatever. He was just it, them, all those things you try to ignore or cover up or argue against or justify or put up a million defenses against just to keep from saying there I am, that is part of me.
But then something amazing happened and I don't even know if I can take credit for it. I turned away. I turned away from Mr. Beeflow and looked back at that table, my parents, and the things that made my life big rather than small and shitty. I saw the good people, the good stuff on the table, the trees blowing in the wind and the smell of spring and food and life. Despite having "seen" Beeflow, I still had managed to survive and bring all of these beautiful things along to the death that would someday be mine. I was grateful. And I knew he was right--painful as it was, I had to give all this up for now and go back to do what I could to try and keep life as it had always been for everybody.
"Son?" Dad's voice.
I closed my eyes. "All right, Mr. Beeflow, I understand. Take me back."
Immediately something warm and familiar licked my hand. This time I didn't open my eyes. Whatever it was took the hand and pulled it gently to the left. Blind, I walked a few steps, trusting it, knowing that it was Cyrus. It made so much sense--once you made your mind up to go, only your own soul could lead you back to where you began.
"Not so fast, Monsieur. Who's going to pay for this meal, Bill? The bill, Bill. When you eat at my table, you pay for my cooking."
The Devil wore a chef's cap. One of those stupid high white ones that look like something put on the end of a lamb chop at a ritzy restaurant. He wore that white hat and all the rest of his clothes were white too. His face was nothing special--just a face surrounded by lots of white. No, that's not true--there was one strange-looking thing about him--he had two moustaches. Slim little things, they sat one right under the other like lines on paper.
"I see by your admiring eye that you're looking at my moustaches. Is this going to be the new trend or what?"
"It looks stupid if you ask me. Plus people can't grow two moustaches."
He shrugged and played with both of them. Top one, then the bottom. "But they can grow one really thick one and cut a space in the middle, making levels."
"It's still stupid."
"Every fool's entitled to his opinion. But let's get back to the facts--how do you plan on paying for this meal? P.S. I don't take Visa or Mastercard." He laughed and it sounded like someone unscrewing a tight plastic-on-plastic cap. I squinted at the sound but didn't look away. I guess my face said I was confused, so he took my arm. I tried to pull away but he wouldn't let me.
"You chose to come here, Bill boy, and now you want to leave, which, however, is a human no-no. Any person who sees this and wants to go back has to pay."
"Pay with what?"
"Something you love. I'll let you go back but the price for this meal, this little view you just had, is something you love in life. If you stay here you get to keep all this. But if you go back you've got to give me something from your life you never thought you could live without."
"Mr. Beeflow, are you there? Is this true?"
"Forget it, he can't help you. Anyway you saw what he looked like."
"You made Beeflow do this too?"
"Yup. He gave up his body. He was a handsome man. A very vain one too. Nothi
ng he liked more than looking at himself in a mirror and admiring the view. I never thought he would do it but sometimes people surprise me."
Suddenly I remembered Cyrus and looked down at the hand he had been holding. No Cyrus--nothing was there. Only the ground. The ground in that beautiful Hell. Gathering myself together, gathering words in my mouth to make a sentence I never thought I would say in a million years, I took a deep breath and said, "Rae, take my love for Rae."
He didn't react immediately. He looked at me hard, like I was trying to trick him. But we both knew there was no way I could trick him.
"I thought you'd say something like that but it's not enough, Bill. Try again."
"I don't know anything else. That's about as bad as I can imagine. Not loving my wife anymore? What could be worse than not loving Rae?"
I climbed through the window of Eric Dickey's house back out into my world and my life. The first thing I smelled there was big thick smoke. It took only a second to remember I'd gone in there in the first place to save Eric and his wife from burning up in the caveman's fire. Jumping off the porch, I ran around to the back of the house. There was a high pile of wood and other things burning in the middle of their yard. Firemen had a hose turned on it, trying to get it under control. Both of the Dickeys were off to one side on their knees, taking oxygen. There was so much tussle and turmoil out there--people running around, fire being fought, police, firemen and the like. No one noticed me standing there. I couldn't help thinking that there had been absolutely no reason for me to go into that house because the fire had all been out here. But then if I hadn't gone in--