by Rick Lenz
I look over my shoulder. “Am I on Totally Hidden Video or something?”
“This is very difficult.” She seems hurt. “I believe absolutely in what I’m saying.” Behind her, the professor is still frozen on the screen midlecture. “I’m trying to give you some context to help you understand my work and the reason I’ve asked you here … Mr. Cade?”
“You want to send me back in …” She opens her mouth to speak, but I find my voice again. “You’re a psychophysicist?” This has come out of me piercingly, nearly at the top of my voice.
She blinks, startled. “Yes. I am. Actually, ours is a subspecies of the psychophysics that was coined by Gustav Fechner in the middle of the eighteenth century.”
“What are you talking about?” I stare at her stupidly. “Have I been hypnotized again? Is this a follow-up to that … to that earlier thing?”
She shakes her head, then blinks again. “Okay, yes, it is hypnosis in a way.”
“What do you mean ‘in a way’? I’m either under hypnosis or I’m not. Those people that other time apparently thought I was a good candidate for it.”
She’s watching me steadily. “All right, yes. You’re hypnotized. You have no choice but to do what I tell you to.”
I manage to stand up.
“That’s what you think. I’m sorry for whatever’s wrong with you, but I have to go now.”
3
I stumble, then regain my footing and weave toward the passageway.
Either through stunning determination or exceptional agility, or both, Partridge stands between me and the way out.
“Dear God, hear me out, please. I beg you!”
There is such utter desperation on her face, it feels as if it would be the cruelest thing I’ve ever done if I don’t hear the rest of what she has to say. I suppose I can put up with her psychosis for a few more minutes. I summon all my resolve, turn around, make it back to where I was, and sit again.
“I don’t blame you for thinking … whatever you’re thinking.” She gathers herself, breathing deeply again. “We’ve been working on Einstein’s theories for a relative nanosecond. The Kaluza-Klein theory unified the forces of gravity and electromagnetism, explaining both in terms of curved space-time, even though serious doubts were raised … You have a question?”
“If there’s such a thing as time travel, why haven’t I ever met a time traveler?”
“Good. You’ve nicely rephrased Stephen Hawking’s question, ‘Why haven’t we been overrun by tourists from the future?’ But who says we haven’t? Maybe there’s a reason we haven’t. It’s easy to postulate a dozen. For example, aren’t we likely to think of those who tell us they’ve traveled to us from the future as psychotic?”
“But how can there be time travel if the … way to do it hasn’t been discovered before now?”
“Wonderful question.”
My God, she’s sucking me in again.
“It’s called a Cauchy horizon, named after a nineteenth-century French mathematician. The Cauchy horizon separates regions of time that are not available for time travel. Such regions are like the inside of an hourglass—there’s no way to get to them.” She holds up a hand. “But then, in 1976, a researcher named Frank Tipler studied Cauchy horizons under the theoretical conditions of zero mass energy density, suggesting that occurrences of Cauchy horizons might alter, depending on energy fields. Recent hypothetical experiments have connected that concept with dreamtime theory.”
The words squirt out. “I’m no more hypnotized than you are.”
She holds up a hand and seems to consider this. “It’s all right for you to believe either way. All I’m saying is that if you hear the case I’m making for exactly what it is, you will understand more, and it’ll work better.”
“I’ll tell you what I think will work better: I think this will all make more sense if we both agree that you’re an escaped mental patient.”
She smiles. Smiles!
As I think of getting up and heading for the door again, I remember the thought I had—not much over an hour ago—of going to sleep and never waking up. I don’t move.
“Think about this,” she says. “Max Planck, the father of quantum physics, said, ‘Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature, and that’s because we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery we are trying to solve.’ But Planck’s further inference was—given the nature and breadth of his own work—that we can realize incredible scientific achievements simply by believing we can.”
“If you build it, they will come?”
She laughs. “Oh, yes. They’ll come. Please listen.” She seems so sure of herself. She points at the television set, takes another deep breath, and switches it on again.
Robert Hinkle continues where he left off. “The surprising but not surprising aspect of all this,” he says, “is that no one has yet demonstrated publicly what has already been verified privately.” There is a murmur from the audience. “Exactly. People don’t elect politicians these days who vote for expensive avant-garde programs. As a result, some experimental projects are operated in a completely classified manner.” He spreads his arms, his palms turned upward. “Which means nobody knows about them but the people involved.”
Partridge turns off the VCR. “Assume for the moment that I am crazy. What have you got to lose?”
I realize I’ve been giggling. “No. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think you’re crazy. I’m positive now; it’s not you. It’s me. I don’t know exactly when it happened or what caused it, but for some reason I’m not computing properly. I seem to be in a dreamtime of my own.”
“Which brings me back to why I contacted you.”
“Am I dreaming you? Am I dreaming all this? The reason I ask is that I’ve been here before—in this house, in this room, in a nightmare. Do you know anything about that?”
“It’s your unconscious confirming exactly what I’m telling you.”
I get up, walk to the front window, and look out at my Jaguar in front of the house and the double row of blue agaves next to the driveway. The smell of sage has filtered into the room from the Valley outside, acrid like the pain of loneliness.
I turn back toward her. “Let me tell you some private thoughts I’m having. I don’t know you, so I shouldn’t care what you think of me.” I realize my eyes haven’t adjusted from looking out into the bright sunlight and I can’t make out her face. I can’t seem to remember it either, even though I’m still talking to her.
I cross back to her and feel a rush of relief that I recognize her. “I’ve just lived through the most bewildering twenty-four hours of my life. And now I’m out in the middle of the desert, listening to a perfectly reasonable-sounding woman suggest I do some time traveling like she was outlining an investment plan or something. I don’t suppose you know why my wife has left me, do you?”
She frowns and looks at me with what seems to be genuine sympathy. “Sorry, love.”
I extend my right hand to her. “Do you know how I came to have this ring?”
“I beg your pardon?” She looks at the alexandrite, obviously puzzled.
“Whoever orchestrated this little fantasy knows something about show business. You seem well cast.” I look back at the television set. “You know, what that man said was all just … Greek to me. I’d have been more convinced if you’d told me you were going to shoot me back to a previous incarnation by magic.”
“But I am—if everything goes right.”
“Pardon?” I watch her lips move, but I’m not sure I’m hearing all her words.
“What is real magic but the bending of natural law past where we’d heretofore thought it could bend? Jesus walked on water. But maybe he just understood how to use the laws of a category of physics we haven’t yet become aware of. We all have perceptual filters,” she says. “It’s a commonly ignored fact of life. Certain things we pay attention to; others, we have zero patience for. For example, if I were to ask you to fall to your kne
es and repent your original sin, you would probably get up and tell me you had an appointment right now, yes?”
“Yes.”
“There are trigger words and phrases—trigger thoughts in our culture—that we tune out because we perceive that they’re saying something crazy, or at least something that distinctly repels us.” She claps her hands together, creating a pistol shot effect. “I’m saying the ramifications of becoming aware of that fact are earthshaking. My work is based on the premise that our perceptual filters shroud almost entirely an incalculable mass of what in plain speak we would otherwise call miracles.”
I consider the possibility that a part of me may not be in this room with my body. I’m pretty sure she just used the word “miracle.”
“If I were to take you to a ‘psychic,’ and if that someone were able to tell you things about your life that he had absolutely no way of knowing—and this sort of thing does happen, whatever the cynics may tell you—a rational reaction on your part might be, ‘Well, that is indeed spooky.’ And you’d tell the story of that experience for the rest of your life. But you probably wouldn’t make any more out of it than that. Well, what I and some of my colleagues are saying is that there is a growing mass of real evidence by those who study time, space, and the human mind’s ‘extrasensory’ potential, that clearly indicates we are not dealing in this regard with—as most of the world thinks of it—supernatural phenomena; that our theories are in fact not supernatural at all, but lie entirely within the confines of natural law. We just haven’t been able to communicate it yet. And the reason we haven’t is people—their limitations, their selective perceptual filters.”
I feel myself grinning shark-faced at her, like Jack Nicholson having just heard a clever double entendre. “Well, okay. Cool. I’m hooked.”
Partridge frowns.
“I don’t have any plans today. So I’ll just see if I can’t suspend my perceptual filters for a teensy bit. Do you know why I really got fired from Hamlet?” I giggle again and scratch at my face like I’m on methamphetamines. “Never mind. What time in old Richard Blake’s life would I go back to?”
She clears her throat. “It would be a time, we believe, when something memorable was taking place. A person remembers smelling a flower, receiving a raise at work, getting married. There’s no way to predict.”
I’m amazed at the matter-of-factness with which I react to all of this. I know now that I’m out of my mind, yet I’m listening to her time-travel prospectus (and her scientist on tape) for the most part politely. It’s as if I’ve watched too many absurdist comedies in a row and my frame of reference has gotten bent around to the point that everything seems preposterous and nothing provokes surprise.
“What happens if I don’t come back—can’t find the right wormhole or whatever?”
“Don’t worry, love. You’ll come back.”
“How do you know? I mean, couldn’t I just get … stuck in Richard Blake’s life?”
“No, that couldn’t happen.”
“Why not? It would save my wife the trouble of divorcing me.”
She waves that off. “You have to live your own life. Jack Cade’s life can’t just end arbitrarily because of a psychogenic experiment. Everything that happened in the past and everything that will happen in the future is all happening right now. Your life has to continue as it would have.”
“This does bring up another minor issue that I wouldn’t ordinarily expect to be discussing with a physicist—not that I talk to that many physicists. Do physical scientists dabble in reincarnation these days? Because, unless I’m hallucinating, you did say you think I used to be this Richard Blake. Didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“So then …?”
“I told you, I’m a psychophysicist. And I do indeed dabble in … such things. Physics and metaphysics haven’t traditionally mixed, but who says they shouldn’t? They’re not mutually exclusive. Great breakthroughs usually happen when someone realizes that two things thought to be incompatible turn out to be profoundly harmonious.” She takes in the expression on my face. “Look, there was no scientific knowledge that recommended going out into a developing rainstorm, as Ben Franklin did, and flying a kite with a key at the end of the string.” Seeing the expression on my face, she interrupts herself. “All right, maybe that story’s apocryphal, but you take my point. A huge number of the most important scientific discoveries are generated outside normal scientific guidelines.”
She studies me and steeples her fingers to her lips. “Maybe the way you’re seeing it is useful.” She spreads her arms. “Okay. You’re temporarily deranged. I’m a master magician, and the only thing left is for you to put yourself completely in my hands and you’ll be safe. Magician’s ethics, okay?”
Feeling like a hunter stalking something that’s actually over my shoulder, in the shadows, watching me, I show her what is no doubt a goofy smile. Then, abruptly, for no reason, I feel resigned to whatever awaits me. And again, I’m giggling.
“Well, what the hell. My wife’s left me. I can’t get a job. There’s nothing else happening on the crumbling back roads of my life. When would we begin?”
“Anything wrong with now?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not? How long would it take?”
“Not long. Minutes, I think.” She’s telling me I’ll be back from this acid trip, from this gig as a magician’s subject, in time for my dinner date with my mother.
“I just have one question before we do this.”
She nods.
“Who the hell is Richard Blake?”
“A gemologist,” says Dr. Partridge.
“What?”
“A gemologist.”
“I heard you.” My voice sounds as if I’m underwater. “You’re kidding.”
“Why would I be?”
“You know as well as I do that this whole thing is someone’s elaborate put-on.” I try to recall how I could have accidentally taken that acid. I feel as if I’m being carried along like a cork in the white torrents above a waterfall. “Was Richard Blake married?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you going to give me the rest of this character’s bio?”
“I don’t know much more than that. But I’m not sure I should tell you, anyway.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to send you back there with any preformed opinion from me.”
“All right, I think you’ve laid it out clearly enough. So since I’m obviously already in ‘dreamtime’ and none of this is actually happening—at least the way it feels like it is—why don’t you just go ahead? What do you do, wave a watch fob or a coin at me? I don’t have to ingest anything, do I? I’ll be honest, the part of me that thinks I’m really doing this is doing it despite the fact I don’t think I should be making any decisions today.” I hear Sophie’s voice in my head: “Is this an emerald?” I stare into the probing eyes of Dr. Partridge. “The thing is, I sort of have to take any challenge that sets itself up for me now. If I don’t, I’m just … nothing.” I wipe at my cheek and am surprised to realize my hand is wet. “How do you plan to … get me back there?”
Without a word, she reaches into a leather Coach bag and pulls out a shiny ebony music box about seven or eight inches square. It looks like some mystical article stumbled on in the attic of a gypsy fortuneteller. Strains of a generic early rock and roll song—not tinny-sounding as I would have expected, but a gentle, haunting replication of rock and roll as if played by miniature guitars and basses—flow from it as she removes a front plate and reveals a tiny enamel painting of deep space, black with tiny white specks: stars.
“Perfect.” Even though I know none of this is real, chills surge up and down my spine again. “And when does this thing you’re going to do to me start to work?”
“It already is.”
4
It’s like being a missile in one of the early video games that goes off the right side of the screen and immediately reappears on the left.
I’m driving a big car through partially irrigated terrain. Or it seems as if I am. Chills come in waves now, down then up my spine and down again and up and across the top of my head. I’m rolling through what looks like the San Fernando Valley, except that there are citrus groves in every direction and the whole region looks more rural. My first emotion: desolation. The word “marooned” pops into my head, and I know what it’s like to be alone in the world. These feelings hit me all at once, like snapping out of a daydream to realize you’ve wandered away from familiar paths onto a dark, forbidding landscape.
Only I’m still dreaming. I have to be. None of this is possible. My problem is that no matter how hard I concentrate on waking up, I can’t do it.
I pull off the road at a Dairy Queen and, startled by the odd sound of my own voice, order a cone from a pretty brown-haired teenage girl dressed in a pink angora sweater and black skirt under a blue-checked apron.
She smiles brightly at me. “That’ll be twelve cents, sir.”
Behind her, on the wall, is a calendar. I can’t make out the day or month but as I fish into the pockets of the baggy seersucker suit I’m wearing, I see that the year in this dream is 1956. I guess it’s spring—according to the feel of it—although it’s hard to tell in Southern California. If it is Southern California.
“Pardon me. Can you tell me the name of this area?”
Her smile remains bright. “Sure. The town right over there—well, kind of a town—is La Vieja.” She points behind her.
I pull a quarter out of my pocket and hand it to her as she gives me my cone. “That’s a lot of Dairy Queen for the money,” I say.
She looks doubtful. “You think so? They raised the price last month from ten cents. My mother won’t come here anymore.”
I use a world-weary smile and join her on the other side of the issue. “Yeah, a buck doesn’t go very far these days.”
She serves up a little hum of agreement with my vanilla cone and thirteen cents change. “There you are, sir. Thank you. Come again.”
It crosses my mind to grab her by the shoulders, shake her firmly and say, “What the hell kind of a dream is this?” But she is so young and sweet, and I don’t want to alarm her.