Stopgap

by Liam Card

  In the face of change, the functions of our government and our markets will remain operational. Life will go on. We will continue to conduct business and go about our lives. And as it seems, for now we may be able go about our lives more safely and happily than ever before.

  God bless America.

  13

  I asked Safia for her take on the presidential address, and she sent me the image of a Do Not Disturb sign, a calculator, and a brain. So I did just that — I left her alone while she figured out her thoughts. Diana, now quite frustrated, repeatedly pressed the emergency button in hopes that a nurse might come to give James a bath. She debated pulling the fire alarm just to set off the sprinkler system. At least that would provide him with a shower, she thought.

  Safia vibrated, and it shook the hospital room. The tongue depressors rattled together in their glass housing.

  “This is fascinating,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I pulled the thought projections from everyone who just watched that presidential address.”

  “And …”

  “Thirty-five percent thought he was sincere and telling the truth. Sixty-five percent thought he was lying and knew more than he let on. Seventy percent thought the events were by the hand of God, and I can show you the breakdown with respect to specific faiths if you want. Of the Christian group, forty-one percent saw it as the Second Coming of Christ. That is to be expected. But this is really something: twenty percent of total viewers chalked the events up to aliens, and of that group, two percent thought the president to be an alien himself.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What are we supposed to do with that data?”

  “Not much, but it did surface something that shocked me,” she said, forwarding me the results page. “Not a single person thought that it might be the work of a ghost.”

  14

  After a month, Operation Stopgap had slowed acts of violence to nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Zero. Zero violent crimes in the world.

  As the president had suggested in his now-famous address, the world entered what many were calling the Age of Peace. Behavioural shifts were taking place. People were doing things they would never have done a month ago. They walked and jogged through parks at night, without a friend or can of mace for protection. People took to back alleys as shortcuts or went down formerly suspicious streets. In every dangerous slum, ghetto, and neighbourhood around the world, guns and knives were left at home. Rival gangs met and shook hands. People spoke their minds to partners, family members, and strangers, without the fear of physical harm or death for doing so. Women in suppressive or violent marriages walked out the front door, eager to start new lives. People married whom they wished. Parents stopped dropping their kids off at school if they were old enough to walk there and back.

  Parks and playgrounds saw children playing unsupervised. Hitchhiking came back into fashion. People had begun to carry on conversations in subways, on trains and buses, and in the streets with complete strangers.

  People were happy.

  People were friendly.

  People were more eager to help a stranger without the fear of being dismembered in their basement.

  Religious debate was at an all-time high, but disagreements and heated arguments led to nothing more than continued discourse and sharper rhetoric. Without the threat of violence, the art of debate had improved globally. Logic, intellect, and the proper crafting of an argument became the new weapons of choice.

  The only weapons of choice.

  What good were fighter jets but for air shows? What good were tanks but for parades? What good were M16s, grenades, and missiles but for museums?

  Scrap metal.

  The entire war machine was nothing more than that, and shares of weapons manufacturers plummeted worldwide.

  “We’re not panicking yet,” said the CEO of America’s largest weapons manufacturer. “No one can be sure how long this divine intervention will protect the people of the world, and when things return to normal, we will hire back the hard-working citizens we have been forced to lay off. Full production will commence once again.”

  “Do you really believe that day will come?” asked the network interviewer.

  “We certainly hope so.”

  “I just want to be clear,” she said. “You certainly hope that the protection lifts and people can go back to killing each other with your weapons?”

  The CEO was left with his mouth hanging open while the little mouse on the wheel in his mind worked overtime to come up with something appropriate to say. All the while it looked as though the well-groomed CEO might suffer a stroke or some sort of palsy.

  Eventually, his mouth closed and he began spinning his wedding ring around his ring finger.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five times around went the ring.

  Finally, this is what he came up with:

  “Thanks for having me on today, Samantha. You’re a real pleasure.”

  And the whole segment went viral.

  • • •

  Safia called me, and we met on the granite forehead of George Washington at Mount Rushmore. There she offered me a leave from my duties.

  “That is until your services are required in the future,” she said. “Then I will come calling.”

  “I hope you come calling before that,” I said. “It gets lonely with no one to talk to.”

  “We did a great thing, Luke.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Look at the world,” she said. “People are finally living.”

  “The world is certainly a different place.”

  “It’s a better place,” she said.

  “Time will tell, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she said and sent over a requisition for further explanation.

  “You may have changed people’s actions, but you haven’t really changed people,” I said. “Violent crimes have ceased because the punishment is both severe and unavoidable.”

  “Your point?”

  “My point is that you’ve created a better system of policing. That’s it. Yes, people have stopped harming one another, but it’s simply because they can’t get away with it. Humanity hasn’t changed. Not from within. Not as it was intended, through experience and understanding over time. When your spirit lease is up, what then, Safia? Who’s the police force then? After you’re gone, how long until an individual has a knee-jerk, animal reaction to a situation and harms or kills someone? What then? News would spread like wildfire that the divine intervention, that the miraculous protection and the Age of Peace was over. Play that through for a second. What happens next? Does the world devolve back to a state of violent crime?” I said and sent her the definition of a rhetorical question. She crumpled the definition and sent it back on fire.

  “Why would anyone lose sight of the punishment?”

  “Because they are mammals! They are mammals armed with abstract thought and the ability to make decisions, but they are mammals, and mammals can be unpredictable. Mammals can get sick. What about those with mental illness? That’s not going away any time soon, if ever. You’ll be in What’s Next, and some mentally ill person will get it in their head that they are communication with God and will be protected when they go on a killing spree. What happens when you are gone and that killing spree actually takes place?”

  “It won’t happen,” she said.

  I sent her a worn T-shirt with “Wishful Thinking” written in calligraphy. Behind the words were a gorgeous beach and sunset and a sign hanging from a palm tree that read, “Monday Morning.” On the arm of a reclining beach chair rested a margarita.

  “I have done good work! I have saved lives! The world is a better place!” she s
aid.

  I sent her a picture of the world with a Band-Aid wrapped around it. But the Band-Aid was soaking through, and a giant drop of blood was about to drop into space.

  “That’s all you’ve done, Safia,” I said. “And just like Band-Aids invariably do, the corners are going to lose their stick. Then lift a little. Then it’s just a matter of time before the whole thing flakes off.” Before this, I had never seen Safia struggle so vigorously with a point of logic. Reviewing the history of all conversations with her, she had always produced a solid counter-argument, on average, within three Earth seconds. I sent her this data along with a running chronograph that was now at thirty-seven seconds.

  She sent me back that Do Not Disturb sign.

  I sent her back the video clip of an anaconda battling a giant crocodile. This was a popular video when I was alive on Earth. It had something like twenty million views. Except I tweaked it so that “My Point” was embossed on the anaconda, and “Safia” was embossed on the struggling crocodile.

  She vibrated tremendously — one of the really scary category-two earthquake kind she could do so well.

  Then she left.

  15

  After the argument with Safia, I checked in on my mother, who was gardening at the time. She thought she might purchase designer sunglasses like her fashionable neighbour Sue Dillon had from that discount website. She debated where to plant the sunflowers that she had purchased from the local garden centre and spent two hours picking the right spot. When trowel hit soil, the decision had been reached, given the variables of overall garden esthetics and total hours of sun exposure. That was her task for the day, and she had accomplished it. Post-planting, she sat in the tickle of freshly cut grass and moved her toes among the blades. She thought that she might go ahead with the bunion surgery after all and imagined herself crossing the line in next year’s Oakville 5k Race to Cure Breast Cancer. Five kilometres of running, with no sections of walking, and raising a thousand dollars for every kilometre run. All of it in memory of her friend Betty Levinson, who had died a week ago. This was her new goal. She said a prayer to Betty and apologized for not attending the funeral. She hoped Betty would understand that she’d been to too many funerals lately and just wanted to garden and keep her thoughts clean and hands dirty. Then she swore at Betty for not returning her sewing machine, and how the hell was she going to get that damn thing back now?

  Mom was doing just fine.

  I checked in on Diana, who was helping James into a steaming bath she had drawn for him. She wondered if she would ever get sick of drawing him a bath and concluded she wouldn’t. After being gifted a longer life, she thought she could spend all day and night looking after her husband and child if need be, certain that she’d never be bored again. Ever. Diana squeezed the sponge over James’s head and forgot whether or not the babysitter she had booked for next week had her first aid and CPR certifications. She made a mental note to ask. She considered getting back into the classroom sooner rather than later, since she desperately missed her students. She weighed the cost of daycare and decided it was worth it. Once James was healthy and back to work, she would get back to living her dream.

  Diana was doing just fine.

  I checked in on my sister Brooke and her husband Taitt — the poor guy who had suffered that horrendous nervous breakdown at my funeral. Taitt had left the investment business completely and was at home, working away on his animated children’s book, Snee the Sea Snake. He fantasized about how many thousands of copies he might sell but concluded that reading the finished product to his forthcoming child would be reward enough. He wondered when he might read the story aloud to Brooke, since it was only moments away from being completed. No time was as good as the present, so he lit a fire, made a pot of mint tea, and asked Brooke to snuggle up with him on the couch.

  There he pulled out the six pages of manuscript, stapled in the top left corner, and began to read aloud.

  Brooke and Taitt were doing just fine.

  I dropped in on Alice, who was now living with my best friend, Geoff Black. They sat together at the dinner table. Geoff thought her lasagna was a science experiment gone wrong. Something that might come to life in his gut hours later and eat him from the inside out. Alice wondered when they might try for a child. She asked Geoff when the time might be right for such an attempt. Geoff choked on a section of burnt cheese and coughed out, “Didn’t I mention that I hate kids?”

  “That you hate them?”

  “I went too far there. Let me dial it back a little. I can’t stand them. I’ve mentioned that in the past. Haven’t I?”

  “No, you failed to mention that part.”

  “Is that a deal-breaker?” he said. “I hope not. Because I sure as hell can’t go back to Annabelle at this point.”

  Alice threw her side plate at him, along with a string of expletives trailing closely behind.

  Geoff and Alice were not doing fine.

  I dropped in on Don and Nancy Greene. They were also having dinner. Don had ordered Nancy’s favourite Thai delivery for the occasion. The occasion was this: Don was about to tell Nancy that he had met a most excellent, strapping man, that they were in love, and that he was leaving. He wondered when the timing might be right for the announcement, and if he should leave out the part where the guy was ten years his junior. Nancy, deep in the process of devouring the green curry chicken, hadn’t stopped talking about their upcoming annual summer barbecue. A dash of “who had been invited this year” and a main course of “who hadn’t.” With great delight, she revelled in the pros and cons of each decision, the importance of each name on that list, and the local societal ramifications of those who had been left off it. This went on until the Thai dinner was completely gone.

  “You should add one more to the list for the party,” said Don.

  “Not a chance. We’re full and can’t handle one more. Not one.”

  “His name is George, and we’ve been intimate for the last three weeks. I think he should be invited, if I’m paying for the barbecue. Don’t you?”

  Don was doing just fine.

  Nancy, not so much.

  I dropped in on Reverend Rundle as he surfed the web for images of “women’s feet,” “pics of pedicured toes,” and “breastfeeding movie video instructional.” There weren’t many thought projections to follow in this case. He was pretty much dialled in on the task at hand.

  As far as he was concerned, he was doing just fine.

  I dropped in on Bob the Bully as he sat in the doctor’s office taking in the news that the melanoma had reached his lymphatic system, and more invasive surgery was now required. Bob wondered why they couldn’t just grow more skin for him.

  “Why not just grow me some new skin?” he said.

  “We can’t do that,” said the specialist. “And that’s really not the concern here. The concern is with your lymphatic system.”

  “You can clone a goddamn sheep, and you’re telling me you can’t grow me back some new skin? I’ll sue everyone in this damn place if you don’t at least try. I swear.”

  Bob the Bully wasn’t doing so great.

  I hovered over Uncle Phil as he wrote in his diary behind bars. He imagined a dozen different ways he could have sold that last kilo of marijuana without getting caught. He wondered why he had ever agreed to deliver the small amount of cocaine as well. He tore out the page he was writing, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it to join the fraternity of a dozen or so crumpled paper balls on the floor. He wiped a tear from his eyes and wrote this at the top of a fresh page: I’m not even upset with myself for what I did. I’m just furious with myself that I got caught. That is the truth. I broke the law. I deserve to serve. I can only improve on myself from here. Tomorrow is a new day.

  He set down the pen and stared at those words for a long while.

  Uncle Phil was doing just fine.

  Final
ly, I dropped in on Cathy Anne Frank. She was combing the long, glistening hair of her daughter. The daughter sat cross-legged on the living room floor reading a story aloud from a magazine. Cathy Anne paid no attention to the words, let alone the story. She just focused on combing that hair to perfection, as she had promised she would do back in that shed where she was all tied up. She wondered why a couple of exploratory teenagers had broken into that shed and found her. Why that particular shed? she thought. She wondered why the teenage girl with the scraggly red hair and pimply face had demanded to check her pulse, especially given that the teenage boy had promised she was dead, and that they should run. She thought that it didn’t matter much now. She was alive for a reason, and at that moment, the reason was to do nothing more than run the teeth of the brush north to south, north to south, creating perfect, vertical lines in her daughter’s silken hair.

  “Isn’t that amazing?” said the daughter. “Can’t you just picture it?”

  “It’s amazing, sweetie.”

  Cathy Anne was doing just fine.

  • • •

  After my visit with Cathy Anne, I called for my mentor Rob Sutherland to meet me on top of the Hoover Dam, and he showed up only a few seconds later.

  “Kiddo!” he said. “Been a while.”

  “Been a while, indeed.”

  “Can you believe all of this action? Pretty wild, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Quite a time to be a ghost,” he said, and uploaded to me all of the executions he had witnessed. I ran through all of them in short order.