Boundaries

by Wright, T. M.

  He sang along with whatever was on the radio as he drove. It was a habit, and he was seldom aware of it, especially now, with his mind on other things—on his sister, on Brian Fisher, on questions of life and death, rebirth and retribution.

  David had a small, black steel case in the car with him. It was about the size of a cash box, and it had a three-position combination lock built into it. The case contained several doses of A2d-40, a drug in testing at Laude Pharmaceuticals in Batavia, where David had worked for ten years as a pharmacological researcher. A2d-40 was designed to lower body temperature and metabolism during surgery, and inhibit blood flow. It had been in testing and development at Laude Pharmaceuticals for five years and there were problems with it. Its side effects were minimal—possible memory loss, possible clotting factor difficulties in older patients—but the tolerance level of individual patients to the drug varied widely. A few cc’s might produce the desired effects of lowered body temperature and metabolism in some patients, while other patients might experience coma. These results had been demonstrated only in animal testing. The drug had yet to be tested on a human being.

  ~ * ~

  In the room, a man wept. His weeping was soft and unself-conscious. While he wept he also smiled. Eventually, his smile changed to laughter and his weeping grew more intense, so he was laughing and crying at the same time.

  The man was new to this place. He had come into the house, and into the room, because it was familiar, as were weeping and laughter, and he desperately needed the familiar.

  ~ * ~

  Ninety miles east of Batavia, David stopped at a roadside restaurant to have coffee. He spent a quarter of an hour chatting with the waitress because he was her only customer and she seemed to need to chat. Then he got back into his Subaru and continued driving. He realized before long that he was hungry. It was not an overwhelming hunger, not something he couldn’t ignore. So he did ignore it.

  ~ * ~

  The house was empty.

  Darkness came.

  The creatures that lived in the cellar moved gracefully, like water, up the stairs and across the floors, through the doorways and over the windowsills, out into the fields of clover.

  Nothing moved in these fields. So the creatures returned to the cellar.

  Light came.

  ~ * ~

  Twenty miles west of Oneida Lake, the Subaru backfired, coughed, and its engine shut down. David pulled the car to the shoulder, got out and opened the hood. He was miserably incompetent with engines—he could, he realized, have just as easily been looking into the guts of a refrigerator. He took the air cleaner off, peered into the carburetor, watched tendrils of light gray smoke rise out of it. This was okay, he decided; carburetors were where the gasoline and air mixture ignited, so of course there was smoke. He put the air cleaner back, checked the oil. The crankcase was full.

  He told himself that he was in no hurry. But that, he knew, was a lie. He closed the hood, got back into the car, tried to start the engine. It turned over, backfired, then died. He waited a few moments, then tried it again. This time the car started and he pulled onto the road and continued his trip.

  He thought, not for the first time, that he had not been able to say goodbye to Anne. It was the kind of mistake that God made from time to time—fashioning a death without the chance for good-byes. It was cruel and unfair, and for most people there was no chance to rectify it.

  There had been no explanations, either. No answers. Only an aching point of emptiness. One moment she was alive. And then she was dead. As if she had rounded a hill in a car and had collided head-on with a truck. No time for explanations. No time for answers. Merely an instant of violence, followed by a lifetime of separation.

  It was warm in the car. He reached over and covered the black steel case on the seat next to him with his white jacket. The drug inside the case was susceptible to light and to temperature extremes. It also kept poorly. At Laude Pharmaceuticals, it had a shelf life of three days.

  David passed over a long bridge and turned on the radio; a Beatles tune came on. He listened to it a few moments, switched channels, got a Simon and Garfunkel song, and turned the radio off.

  He found that he was weeping softly and he realized that he had been weeping for some time as thoughts of Anne had come to him. Weeping for her pain, for the abrupt change in her existence, for the end of a routine she had grown comfortable with—like the trauma a fetus experiences when it is thrust out of the soft and warm world of the womb and into a world of cold, and of hard edges.

  Death, he thought, is the end of our comfortable routines.

  He slowed the car and made a sharp right onto Route 12. Oneida Lake was fifteen miles west. He’d be at the cabin within twenty minutes.

  ~ * ~

  It was daylight in the room and nothing moved, except the dust. It covered everything. It moved as if from the force of wind, though there was no wind. It rose and scattered and collected itself, it wafted into the space of the room, settled, and collected.

  The dust was dark. Like the earth.

  It was made of earth.

  FIVE

  THE FOLLOWING DAY

  Christian Grieg angrily put the phone down and looked at Karen Duffy, seated on a white loveseat nearby. He snapped, "David took some damned drug. He’s in a hospital in Syracuse."

  Karen looked at him a moment, then asked, incredulous, "Suicide?"

  Christian answered, "I don’t know." He paused. "He admitted himself to the hospital, but it sure sounds like suicide, doesn’t it? It sure as hell sounds like it!" He crossed the room to the closet, got his coat. Karen stood. He said to her, "You’re coming with me, right?"

  "To Syracuse?"

  "Yes."

  She nodded. "I’d like to."

  He gestured at her short brown coat on the back of the loveseat. "Good. Then get your coat, and we’ll leave."

  ~ * ~

  In the five days since Anne’s death, a patina of dust had collected in her big house.

  A window in a first floor room had been left open and two martins had come in through it. They had flown happily about in the cavernous first floor, then had flown up to the second floor. Now, they couldn’t find their way back to the open window. But they weren’t hungry. Small insects had flown in through the same window.

  Spiders lived in the house; too, especially in the third floor ballroom, whose door was open. Eventually, the martins would find their way to the ballroom.

  At the kitchen sink, water dripped. It was a small and slow drip. It hit the side of the drain, slid over the edge and went down almost soundlessly.

  In a second floor bedroom, a nerve plant drooped from thirst.

  In the parlor, a weight-driven wall clock stopped.

  Flies had begun to dehydrate on windowsills.

  ~ * ~

  The doctor at Syracuse General said to Christian Grieg and Karen Duffy, "He’s recovering. It looks good. The prognosis is good." The doctor was a chunky man with a round, red face and small gray eyes. He paused, then went on, "The drug he took was unknown to us, so we were uncertain how to deal with it, as you can imagine, but the prognosis is good for a quick recovery. Thank goodness he admitted himself, otherwise . . .” They were standing outside David’s room. They had yet to go in. The door was partway open and Karen could see that David was awake, with his gaze on the ceiling. She said, "Then he really did try to kill himself?"

  The doctor nodded at once. "It bears all the earmarks of a suicide attempt, yes. He told us he had made a mistake. That was the word he used. ‘Mistake.’ He denies that he was attempting suicide. He denies it quite vehemently, in fact."

  "Of course he does," Christian whispered; then, louder, "May we see him now?"

  "For a few minutes," the doctor answered. "He’s weak, as you can imagine, so please don’t tax him unduly."

  "We won’t," Christian said. He took hold of Karen’s arm and they went into David’s room.

  ~ * ~

  Dav
id was remembering that there had been no light at the end of the tunnel, that there had been darkness, as if night had fallen, and a sky filled with . . . what? Not stars. Not the Big Dipper here, Orion there, Cassiopea, the Pleides. Not stars, but patterns of energy, as if he were looking through a dark blanket at the rising sun.

  And the sounds all around him had been at once familiar and unfamiliar, like a recording of night sounds played backward at slow speed.

  "What?" he’d whispered. And he’d heard himself, though his voice had sounded distant, as if he were being whispered to.

  He’d been lying on his left side with his right arm down so his hand was on his upper thigh and his left arm was up, as if he were reaching.

  He had felt no pressure beneath him, no tug of gravity. He had, oddly, felt pressure from above.

  Then, in an instant, he was in the tunnel again, and its mouth was receding, and he had felt as if he were falling.

  And he had felt very, very afraid. Consciousness had seemed like a reprieve.

  ~ * ~

  "Look at us," he heard. It was Christian’s voice; he knew that Christian was in the room, and that Karen was with him, but he did not turn to look.

  "Please," said Karen.

  "No," David said.

  A few moments of silence followed, then Christian said, "Why did you do it?"

  David said nothing.

  Karen said, "Tell us why you did it, David. We need to know."

  David said, his gaze still on the ceiling, "I didn’t do what you believe I did. I couldn’t do that."

  Christian said at once, "You took some damned drug, right? Tell us what we’re supposed to believe."

  David said nothing. He wanted to tell them to leave; he didn’t need their criticism, their pity, or even their understanding, now.

  Christian repeated, "You took some damned drug," paused, then added, with emphasis, "right?"

  David nodded a little.

  "Then it’s self-explanatory."

  Karen admonished, "This is not the time to be judgmental—"

  "The hell it isn’t," Christian cut in. "This is exactly the time. What better time is there, Karen? This is my friend, here, and for some damned stupid reason, he—"

  "I went over," David cut in. He did not turn his head to look at them. "I went over to the other side." He looked at Christian, saw that the muscles of the man’s square face were rigid, as if in anger, and that his large gray eyes were wide with disbelief.

  "I’m not going to listen to it," Christian managed, as if preparatory to leaving the room. But he stayed where he was.

  Karen said, her voice low, clearly embarrassed, "I’m sure you believe that, David—"

  "I don’t believe it, I know it." He waited a moment for his sudden anger to subside. He looked away again, at the ceiling. "I’m sorry," he whispered. "But it’s simply not a matter this time of belief or disbelief. I went over to the other side, again, and it . . . scared the hell out of me."

  Christian said, "They’re probably going to charge you. Attempting suicide is illegal—"

  Karen admonished, "Please, Christian."

  "No," David said. "Let him talk. I know this confuses him. Of course it confuses him." He looked at Christian. "Forgive me," he said.

  Christian said, still angry, "It’s weak, it’s a weak thing you did. Weak and selfish." He paused. "And damned unnatural, too."

  David gave him a quick, puzzled look. "You don’t understand. I went looking for Anne. And for him, too. For Brian Fisher. I must find them, I have to find them."

  "Why?" Karen asked.

  David looked earnestly at her. "Karen, it’s clear, isn’t it? I need to know why she died. I have to know the reason for it. I need to know if she’s happy, now." He looked away. His eyes misted over. "And I need to find him, too!"

  "Him?" Karen asked.

  "Brian Fisher. My sister’s murderer. He thinks he’s gotten away with something. But he hasn’t. He probably thinks that he’s punished himself for my sister’s murder—but it’s not good enough, it’s not nearly good enough!"

  "Goddammit!" Christian whispered.

  SIX

  In the room the days came and went like leaves turning over in a wind. Time was not measured well by them; the days measured only the passing of events—snow fell and covered the house to a depth of several inches, then was gone; a breeze passed through the house, pushed the dust about, and when it dissipated, the dust collected itself again.

  The dust was sturdy and flesh-colored. It sat up a little as it collected itself, then it lay down again.

  In the cellar, during the passage of darkness, the things that lived there slithered up the stairs, out the doors and over the windowsills, and found the fields of clover empty.

  They went back to their cellar.

  And they waited.

  ~ * ~

  Christian Grieg said, "I’ve told you this before, David—I think you sound flaky when you talk about going over to the other side."

  David was surprised. "You never told me that," he said. It was the morning after Christian and Karen’s first visit, and he was sitting up in his hospital bed and thinking that he felt good. "You said you believed me," he went on.

  "No, David. I never believed you. And if I haven’t told you before that you sounded flaky, then I meant to."

  Karen said, trying to be the peacemaker, "This is getting nowhere."

  "We’ve nowhere at all to go," Christian snapped. "This is a dead end. We’re visiting our friend who’s crazy, our friend who tried to kill himself." He shook his head. "There’s nothing to discuss, there’s nowhere to go, Karen."

  David said, "I’ve never heard you sound like this before, Christian."

  Christian smiled. It was as quick as a pulse beat, and as tiny as the smile of a baby that has burped, but David saw it and wondered about it. Christian hurried on, his mouth set and serious, "I don’t understand you, David. I don’t think I’ve ever understood you. And it doesn’t make me feel good. You’re my friend, and I think I’m supposed to understand you. But here’s the thing; if I don’t understand you, then how can I understand anyone?"

  David said, "What is there to understand? There is this world. And there is another. And, regardless of what you believe or understand, I went from here to there." He looked apologetically at Karen. "It’s true, Karen. Everything I’ve told you and Christian is true."

  "Yes," she said, "I know that, I understand that." But she was clearly at sea. She shook her head a little, gave him a small, nervous grin, looked at Christian, who was stone-faced, then back at David. "I believe that you believe it, David. That’s important, I think."

  He sighed. "Yes, well thank you for that," he said. "Now, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you both to leave. They’re coming to give me some damned shot in a couple of minutes, and I’d like some privacy."

  "Of course," Karen said, and got her coat from the back of a chair nearby.

  Christian said, still stone-faced, his voice crisp and knowing, "You’ll have to talk to us sooner or later, David. We’re your friends. You can turn your back on us, but we’ll still be here."

  David gave him a long, studied look. He saw the man smile once more, the same kind of smile he’d seen on him a few minutes earlier, and again he wondered about it. He decided that it was not a nervous smile—the kind that one friend gives another when he doesn’t know what to say, or what to think. It was the kind of smile that has guilt and satisfaction in it. And secrecy. The kind that is little more than a twitch. He said, "Yes, Christian, I’ll talk to you. I’ll have a lot to say, in fact."

  "Good," Christian said. "It’s best for everyone. Come to grips with it David. This is a heinous thing you’ve done. It’s a crime against yourself. It’s appalling and unnatural."

  David said nothing. He had never before seen Christian so archly judgmental and he wasn’t sure how to react to it.

  "Good," Christian repeated, and a moment later he and Karen left the room.
>
  ~ * ~

  The martins that had gotten closed up in Anne Case’s empty house had found their way to the third floor ballroom and were going after the spiders that lived there. There were audacious jumping spiders, daddy longlegs, a brown recluse; and there were far more spiders than the martins could eat in a day. Most of the audacious jumping spiders—whose eyes were much better than the eyes of other spiders—had seen the martins and were busy finding hiding places.

  There were many places for the spiders to hide. There was a set of tall cupboards in four of the room’s six corners. These cupboards were for towels or clothes or dancing shoes, all of which were items that, at one time or another in the house’s one hundred-year history, had been in use in the room. There were also built-in bookcases whose shelves did not all fit flush with the wall, and some of the spiders hid on the back edges of these shelves. A half dozen of the spiders also hid in the tall lace curtains at the bay windows, although the martins spotted two of these spiders easily and made quick work of them.

  The martins called to each other as they flew about the room. Their song was high-pitched, but musical, and the martins liked the way it echoed from the walls of the huge room; in fact, the younger of the two birds was convinced for a moment that there were other birds in the room.

  In the basement of the house, there was a tiny gas leak. It was not a potentially explosive leak, but on still days, when a breeze could not push through the cold air vents and into the basement, the leak built up and smelled bad. Creatures that lived in the basement had died because of the leak. The newborns of a dormouse, which had made its nest in a corner of the basement near the leak, were now struggling mightily to stay alive while their mother rushed frantically about, with no idea what was happening. Eventually, using an instinct that was far more useful to it than naked intelligence, it would relocate the nest, and its children would survive.