* * *
She didn’t see it at first when she got up at three a.m. one morning to go to the toilet. She was half awake, sleepy eyed, looking toward the bathroom. But when she returned and had gotten into bed, when she rolled onto her back, there it was: directly in the air above her, an arm’s length away, was writing. Lines of words in vivid silver lettering above the bed; words written in her/his singular script. They hung there suspended, beautiful in the dark like glittering silver tinsel on a Christmas tree.
Slowly, she raised a hesitant arm and tried to touch them. Her fingers went right through the letters, but they did not disappear. She waved a hand back and forth across the words, across the sentences, across the air above her. Nothing—they did not move or go away.
What did they say? She couldn’t tell—it was a language she didn’t know or recognize. It was all eerie, frightening but also beautiful to see. Thin, silver-lettered sentences floating in the dark above in her own handwriting, his handwriting, the handwriting he had given her and she had made her own. What crossed her mind as she stared at it were the first words she’d ever written in his handwriting: played your eyes instead of plagiarize.
She reached over to a table next to the bed for the pad and pen she kept there alongside whatever book she was reading at the time. She loved copying down lines or passages that stuck out or had meaning to her. Of course she had a notebook specifically for collected quotes, now all written in her lovely new script. Propping herself up on one elbow, she copied the mysterious silver words onto the pad. She didn’t know what they meant but maybe in time she could find someone who did.
Or …
Excited by an idea, she got out of bed again and after a last glance at the words still hanging in the air, she left the room and walked a few steps over to her small study. Switching on the computer there, she waited for it to boot up. Once it did, she went to a universal language translation site, typed in the words written on the pad, told the site to “detect language” and then translate them into English.
The doorbell rang. It was three o’clock in the morning. Seconds later it rang again. Rising from the chair in front of the computer without having seen the translation, she walked to the front door, pausing only to pick up the gray aluminum baseball bat she kept leaning against a nearby wall for just such an occasion, not that she’d ever had to use it before now.
She stood up against the door, both hands on the bat, and looked through the peephole out into the hallway. Standing there, immaculately dressed in a blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, and dark tie (at three o’clock in the morning) was the lawyer, Bellport.
As if he knew exactly when she was looking, he held up a brown paper bag next to his face and said cheerily, “I brought brownies from Bouchon! I know you love ’em!”
Confused and totally hyped up by what she thought was a threat seconds ago, she leaned the bat against a wall, undid the locks, and opened the door.
“What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in? I know it’s late but we have things to discuss. If you want, we can do it out here, but—”
Hesitantly, unhappily, she stepped aside and gestured for him to enter. She pointed him down the hall toward the living room. He moved and she followed. Glancing at the baseball bat, she thought about taking it along just in case, but shook her head.
Bellport plunked down on her small couch and opened the bag. Bringing it up to his face, he inhaled deeply. He shook his head at the lusciousness of the aroma inside. Next he took out two of the obscenely expensive brownies and placed them in the center of a lime green cloth napkin, also from inside the bag. He gestured for her to have one but she said no. He shrugged and took one. Holding an open hand under his mouth to catch any crumbs, he took a big bite and closed his eyes while chewing. From the ecstatic look on his face, the man knew how to enjoy a brownie.
“Why are you here?” In spite of her uneasiness, she could feel fatigue streaming back into her like honey poured into a bowl. She needed to be sharp and alert. But for God’s sake—it was the middle of the night and the last hour had been one bizarreness after another, topped off now by this lawyer eating brownies on her couch at three a.m.
He held up a finger for her to wait a sec while he swallowed the last bite. On finishing, he shook his head at its scrumptiousness, brushed off his hands, and smiled.
“It’s part of the history of the future.”
“What is?” She sat down on the far end of the couch.
“The writing above your bed; the writing you’ve been doing in your sleep the last few months. It’s all part of the history of the human future. You couldn’t understand any of the words you’d written because none of them had happened yet. As soon as they do, you’ll recognize them. But this is not important now.”
“Are you going to eat this?” He pointed at the second brownie. She shook her head. He picked it up, smelled it, and took a bite. A few crumbs fell off his lip. He touched his mouth in embarrassment. “Sorry. But it just tastes so good.”
“I’ve been doing this for months? Writing silver words in my sleep?”
“Yes, the moment you chose to change your handwriting permanently to his. Remember when we first met I said you didn’t have to use it at all? But once you voluntarily made the change, you became a historian. It’s what happens when you choose the handwriting. This is how it works.”
“How what works?”
“The process. Mankind creates its future by its actions in the present. What you do today will usually determine what you do or what happens to you tomorrow. Think of it on a giant scale and you get an idea of the amount of data that must be recorded before the future is determined. Historians collect and record the data. You’re one of them now.”
“But I don’t do anything. My life isn’t special or interesting and I don’t even know what I’m writing in my sleep. So how does any of it help to plot the human future?” Her voice was all sarcasm.
Bellport raised his hand as if to get her full attention. “Remember when you were in school and the science teacher said humans only use a small portion of our brains to live? Well, very much simplified, what you’re writing in your sleep are the observations of all the things your brain is registering, all the time. Now multiply it by millions: Millions of historians recording what they have experienced for the past two hundred thousand years. They don’t need every person’s history—just a cross section of humanity is enough. Part of the knowledge you’ve accumulated just by living is what will happen to you in the future. Yes, somewhere in your mind you know what will happen to you tomorrow and for the rest of your life. Some of it is what you wrote tonight and why you can’t read it yet. When all of the human brain is working and producing information, it’s a wondrous machine. It knows almost no limits.”
She swallowed her incredulity and doubts for a moment and, going along with what he’d just said, asked the obvious question. “What do they do with this information we give them?”
“Sift through, refine it, and cull what they consider unnecessary things. Ultimately use what they keep to design the future of humanity. From what I understand, they put the pieces together like an ever-expanding jigsaw puzzle.”
She crossed her arms, unconvinced. “If they’re so powerful, why do we need to write it? Why can’t they just read our minds?”
“Because writing is a human invention and how we convey our experience to each other. Through writing and speaking. There are some historians—”
She cut him off. “Who probably talk in their sleep without knowing what they’re saying.”
He popped the rest of the brownie into his mouth and nodded.
“Who are they?”
If she expected him to say something stunning like God or aliens, she was disappointed. He shook his head and smiled. “I have no idea. The only thing I’ve been told is that the answer is so complex it’s like string theory multiplied by a hundred.”
She stood up, annoyed and tired and sca
red and other ugly things. Things she couldn’t put a finger on if you asked her to explain, but she didn’t like feeling them, not at all. These feelings were all roiling around inside her like ten hamsters running madly inside their wheels. “How do I know any of this is true? How do I know it’s not all bullshit?”
Bellport answered in a calm voice. “Fair question. Go back into your bedroom and take a look. I’ll wait here.”
She had never been afraid to go into her bedroom—quite the opposite. It was her sanctuary, her fortress of solitude against the world when it turned nasty on her. But she was afraid now.
The writing above the bed was still there. The beautiful silver letters spelling out some enigmatic who knows what.
No, wait, that wasn’t true.
Closer to the bed she realized she now understood several of the words she’d written there. Not many, but a few. She saw brownie and Bellport and … marriage. Reaching out to touch them, her fingers passed right through … She touched marriage, then closed her hand around it, as if trying to catch a firefly. When she opened it again, the word she had thought about and sometimes hoped for and sometimes cried about over the years sat unmoving in the middle of her hand.
“How many?”
She turned and saw Bellport standing in the doorway.
“How many what?”
“How many words do you understand there now?”
“Three.”
“It’s a beginning.”
“One of them is ‘marriage.’” She didn’t know if the word came out of her mouth surprised or shy.
“Is that good? Do you want it?” His voice was kind.
“Yes, I think so. But why am I seeing it now when, from what you say, I’ve been doing this since I changed to his handwriting?”
“Because it’s the first time you see the words. And now you recognized some of what you’ve written.”
“But I didn’t recognize any of them when I first saw them before.”
He slid his hands into his pockets. “This is why I came. Because just actually seeing them for the first time is the formal beginning of the process for you. The next question is, do you want to continue? You’re only asked once and the decision is final. So think carefully before you answer.”
“The more I do this writing for the future, will I be able to recognize more of the words? Will I be able to see more of my own future?”
“Depends on the person. Your friend was very aware of when he was going to die long before he did. He said it was one of the reasons why he broke up with you—to spare you having to be around him at the end. It’s also why he willed the handwriting to you when he did. It must be formally passed on whether it’s the handwriting or the voice.”
She couldn’t resist. “Even cavemen passed it on two hundred thousand years ago?”
Bellport smiled. “You’ve seen the cave paintings at Lascaux. Those guys were very adept at communicating. So yes, even they had their ways of passing it on.
“If you accept, you’re required to formally pass it on too, at some point. But remember, knowing your future is not always a good thing. It can stain a life. Or ruin it. Just so you know—he loved you very much. He said you were the only person he had ever completely trusted. It may sound trite, but he said very passionately he believed in you. That’s why he wanted you to have the handwriting—so you could decide if you wanted to use it. Obviously there are many other people doing this, many people contributing. But if you choose to do it too, you’ll be part of shaping humanity’s future, and that is no small thing.”
“Mr. Bellport, who are you?”
“Just the messenger. No more and no less.”
Looking at him, thinking about all of this, she remembered the first time she had written like the dead man. She tried to write the word plagiarize but instead wrote played your eyes. What did it mean? Was it a message from him in death? Or from some secret part of her own brain telling her to be careful—don’t get played. Or maybe it was saying don’t plagiarize, this is not what you should be doing. Or maybe—
She turned back to the words, so silver and beautifully written, floating in the air. Running a finger beneath one of the sentences, she knew whatever she decided now would change everything.
And then, in the midst of this mind-flurry of thoughts blowing every which way, it suddenly came and hit her hard: He had loved her. He had really loved her, and much of what he had done to drive her away was not because of cruelty but because he wanted to spare her even greater pain and loss when he grew sicker. And when he was gone there was this final gift to her, the handwriting. The astonishing gift would enable her to know her future even though he knew he would not be part of it.
It had always been such an ugly mystery to her—why he had been so awful at the end of their relationship. Now she knew why. The mystery was solved in the most beautiful, heartbreaking way possible. He had pushed her away when he needed her most. She hated him for doing it, now she knew the truth. At the same time she also loved him like she had never loved him before—for exactly the same reason. The mystery was solved, and with it came her answer.
She looked at Bellport and said, “No. I don’t want it.”
He said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
“If I know what’s going to happen to me, then there’s no mystery in life. Mystery, just in general, is one of the greatest things we’ll ever experience—having mysteries in our lives and now and then solving them. Sometimes solutions to our mysteries suck, but sometimes they’re so incredibly beautiful …
“Let someone else write our future history, Mr. Bellport. I want my life to be full of mysteries right up until the end.”
He bowed his head, smiled, and reached into a pocket for a folded piece of paper. Handing it to her, he said, “He thought you would say no. If you did, he wanted me to give you this before I left. I’ll let myself out.”
When the lawyer was gone, she unfolded the paper. On it, in that beautiful, beautiful script, were the complete lyrics to the song “On Raglan Road.” At the bottom of the paper he had written, “I knew this much about your future but no more. Travel well without knowing what’s next. I wish I had.”
About the Author
Jonathan Carroll has written twenty books including Bathing the Lion, The Woman Who Married a Cloud, and The Land Of Laughs. He lives in Vienna. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Begin Reading
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Carroll
Art copyright © 2018 by Armando Veve
Played Your Eyes Page 2