Just a Couple of Days

by Tony Vigorito

  “I have a pen.” I pulled it out of my pocket and held it up. “But I don’t have any paper.”

  “Can you remember all that and write it down letter?” Blip asked, then looked confused. “Letter? Later, I meant to say. Can you write it down later.” He shook his head. “Do you suppose it’s starting?”

  “I’ll write it down,” I promised. After a moment’s hesitation, I meekly added, “Do you understand the situation I’m in?”

  “Don’t worry.” Blip waved me off. “I got myself into this.”

  “I appreciate that.” I paused, feeling like crying again. “I guess the road to hell is paved with good intentions, huh?”

  “I suppose. But then the road to heaven must be paved with bad intentions.”

  He could not have been more correct.

  PART TWO:

  THE KALEIDOSCOPE COLLAPSES

  65 What responsibility awaits, fellow human, upon your deathbed! Consider: Out of all the phrases you have ever uttered, the one remark those close to you will remember with verbatim precision is your last words. Be prepared! Lest you get caught with nothing to say, or worse, with some knuckleheaded assertion echoing in your wake, have your words of wisdom or witticism at hand. Think it through. It is your final oration, your ultimate declaration. The Buddha, for instance, left his disciples with the following phrase to mull over: “That which causes life, causes also decay and death.” Certainly a more impressive note to end on than that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose dying insight was “I have a terrific headache.”

  On the other hand, perhaps all social obligation becomes incredibly dumb when death decides to tap you out of this marathon round of Duck Duck Goose. Indeed, the very notion of language may seem bizarre and old-fashioned at that point. For example, when Karl Marx’s housekeeper pressed him for his last words, he reportedly muttered, just before expiring, “Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”

  Dr. Blip Korterly did not feel he had said enough, although I do not wish to give the impression that he was therefore a fool. Blip was not dying, but having been recently informed that he was soon approaching the end of his ability to communicate, he was understandably anxious to say something meaningful, if not clever.

  “Last words, man.” Blip was pacing around his chair. “I have to come up with something good.”

  “What were you saying about the collective death wish?” I asked, trying to be helpful.

  He stopped a moment, considering. “No, doesn’t count. It’s not my . . .” He paused, confused. “What? What’s the word? It’s right on the tip of my tongue.” He licked his lips and turned to me. “What was I just saying?”

  “You were talking about society,” I lied, trying to redirect his thoughts in a more productive direction. “Something about a collective death wish.”

  “Right!” He clapped his palms together and sat down. “See, the thing is this. History has taught us that every society that has ever existed has failed in the end. Eventually, no matter how great the civilization, every one of them has crumbled. But we moderns think we’re somehow different, that our slick technology will save us or that our knowledge base is too great to succumb to catastrophe. We forget that we live in a historical moment. Consequently, you hear all this talk about progress and building a global society. All that crap.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Well, progress. Progress! Progress toward what? What’s our goal? When do we get to dust off our hands and say, ‘Okay, done. That’ll do for now. Let’s kick back, pass a pipe, celebrate, and get down to living our lives the way they were intended to be lived?’ What’s progress if we can’t define the goddamn goal? We aren’t progressing toward paradise, that’s for fucking certain. So what’s the point then? The rat race is on a treadmill, and the axle’s about to bust. Would you run a race if you didn’t know how long it would be? Well, don’t look now, bro, but that’s what we’re doing, and though we all want it to end we’re too afraid of what would happen. Desperate, impatient lives make a desperate, impatient society, eager for the future and our own demise. Chasing eternity, man. We’re like dogs who do nothing but chase their own tail, and we wonder why we’re unhappy or why we feel sick, and we despair over all the things we’re missing. Isn’t it hilarious? No, it isn’t. It sucks, and it makes me want to cry. We’re making fools of ourselves. Let’s admit it, let’s all just get together and pause for one goddamn minute, everyone everywhere at the same time, and look around. We’re doing something wrong here. We’re missing the bigger picture while we fret about what to wear. Let’s give it up already, you know? It’s okay, man, it’s nothing to worry or be embarrassed about. Every society fails eventually. No big deal. It’s like worrying about death. Change is the only constant in the universe. It’ll happen. Enjoy the ride in the meantime, be nice, and be prepared. When it does happen, rejoice! Something new. Excitement. Novelty. All societies fail, and we’re attempting to create a worldwide society. We’re setting ourselves up for ultimate disaster. The harder they are, the bigger they fall.”

  “You mean the bigger they are, the harder they fall?”

  “What did I say?”

  “You said, ‘The harder they are, the bigger they fall.’”

  “The harder they are, the bigger they fall?” He shook his head in animated amazement. “What on Earth can that possibly mean?”

  I shrugged. “So finish what you were saying.”

  “Crisis, man! It’s arrived. The lawn mower’s here, see? Our anthill’s being decapitated while we pretend everything’s buttery. We’re sewing ourselves into a corner, you know what I’m saying? Doom is on the loom, man, knock on wood.” He rapped the side of his metal chair.

  “Doom is on the loom?”

  “Yes sir.” Blip nodded emphatically. “Worlds without awareness soon end in all fairness.”

  66 Those were not, I should emphasize, the last words of Dr. Blip Korterly. Be that as it may, the introduction of the topic of last words places me in a precarious position vis-à-vis the reader, for where our respective moments meet, you the reader possess the awesome ability to divine what my last words will be, while I the writer am pathetically clueless in this regard.

  Consider: As I record these thoughts and events, I know not where, nor how, it may end, if at all. You who are reading these lines, on the other hand, are an entirely different person than I, and you may, with or without my permission, casually flip to the end to sneak a peek at the last paragraph. For what it’s worth, you do not have my consent, though this is surely an unenforceable request. Indeed, by writing this, it occurs to me, I may have done little else but draw your attention to something you may not have considered previously, like a chest that reads do not open. But, in the terrible tradition of Pandora’s box, this is a risk I have to take. For when Pandora (who bears a striking mythological resemblance to the Biblical Eve) opened her box (or ate her apple, as the case may be) and unleashed every affliction and imperfection upon humankind, hope drifted out along with them, to play either the cruelest joke ever perpetrated or to offer us a memory of our inevitable destiny, the faintest whiff of which will arouse an indefatigable desire to continue, to persevere in the journey, to keep the faith alive.

  And so I hope that I may finish this manuscript, for what started as a favor to a friend has become the only point of my continued existence. I also hope that you, oh righteous reader, will honor my wishes and read in the order I have written. If you are reading this (itself an improbability given the manner in which my situation has developed), it is likely that I have finished it. However, as I write this, you must understand, I am living with the anxiety of not surviving (or perhaps not retaining the ability to craft such words) to see the completion of my work. Thus, I implore you to exist with me, here, in my temporal dimension, and resist the temptation to take liberties with your free will. Patience. Everything in time. Remember, after all, that taking liberties with free will is what got us kicked out of the Garden in
the first place.

  If I have created more curiosity than necessary here, it is only so that you may feel the pleasure of being trustworthy. To be worthy of the trust of a total stranger is a trait all too rare in the recent history of our species. And I am a stranger to you. Perhaps I am the asshole who, during the sour years of my life, blared my horn at you when you moved too slowly in traffic. Or, I could be someone you shared a smile with as we passed in the rain without umbrellas. I may be no more than a gravestone in a spooky cemetery you fearfully pedaled past on your way to school as a child, and now we interact across pages and lifetimes, and isn’t it marvelous to think that I might be dead, and yet still you honor this silly request?

  And doesn’t it feel nice to be trustworthy?

  67 Blip trusted me, as did Sophia, though I’ve no idea why. It has become clear to me in my present loneliness that I was on the pompous side of conceit when we met. Over time, my toplofty attitude softened to a cordial arrogance, but in all our years of friendship, I never abandoned a sense of my own self-importance and superiority around them. They were far too playful for me to take any of their ideas seriously. I found them amusing, like children, but as I sat across from Blip, divided by a wall of glass, I realized which one of us was the child. I was a surly fool whose presence they welcomed nonetheless, and they were as patient and persistent as the Earth’s erosion, mellowing me out, bit by bit, like drops of water smoothing a jagged rock.

  These are the thoughts that occurred to me as Blip stood pacing and panting, raving and ranting before me. “Society is like a fire, see? We sparked it from the friction of rubbing our minds together. It’s what we all sit around, what we have in common. It brings us together in a circle. We gaze upon it. We chatter. It’s endlessly useful. It comforts us, it assists us, it enables us to survive at all. It’s an indispensable tool, but we must always remember that it is a powerful gift.” He smiled. “It’s a power tool.” He laughed at his own weak joke. “The gift of Prometheus can so easily get out of our control, choking us, consuming us, killing us. We must remain its master, or be ordered around by our own tool. Imagine that, becoming tools of tools, slaves to our selves, deluded fools allowing our own fire to destroy us. We must recognize what the fire is, learn how to channel it in appropriate directions. If we can dictate how the tool is used, rather than allowing the tool to dictate how we are used, then we can build the best of all possible worlds.”

  A masculine voice interrupted us over the intercom, commanding Blip to return to his fellow inmates. Though it sounded familiar, I did not recognize whose voice it was. “Inmate 104, return to the primary observation area, Inmate 104.” Voice spoke with the pleasantly lifeless tone of a hospital page.

  Inmate 104 was momentarily rattled by the order. “Tell Sophia,” he said. “Um . . .”

  “Inmate 104, please return to the primary observation area, Inmate 104.” Voice’s demeanor remained persistently vapid and professional.

  “Tell my wife.” Inmate 104 stood up, struggling with his thoughts and trying to maintain his composure despite the hyperactive spasms bouncing around his features. “How do you say it?”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Inmate 104, your presence is required in the primary observation area, Inmate 104.”

  “Please,” Inmate 104 said, perhaps meaning thank you. He scratched his head in puzzlement and departed through the door on his side. As soon as his door shut, the door on my side opened.

  “Fountain, get out here, on the double!” General Kiljoy barked at me. “Time to go to work. You’re here to observe the subjects.”

  I obediently exited the confessional. My head, however, was not awash with spiritual catharsis, but throbbing with clanging pangs of guilt. Wincing, I joined Tynee and Miss Mary in the viewing area. They were too engrossed with what was occurring on the other side of the mirror to acknowledge my presence.

  “Paid in full!” Brother Zebediah was standing in front of Manny Malarkey, preaching like a televangelist on fast-forward. Manny Malarkey was laughing hysterically; indeed, it seemed like he was on fast-forward as well. “Paid in full, Jeyzus thought in excitement as the last drop of love dripped down that old rugged cross at Calvary! ‘For ye are bought with a price,’6 heathen! Receive Him today, sinner!”

  Blip wandered into the cell aimlessly and eventually took his chair at the table. “Receive who today?” he asked, as the door through which he had entered shut automatically.

  “Doc!” Manny managed to suppress his belly laughter just long enough to squeeze out a question. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Hell is where he came from and hell is where he’s going!”

  “You missed it.” Manny caught his breath. “Zachariah here farted, and he’s been hellfire ever since.”

  “He’s a demon on the prowl!” Brother Zebediah continued working himself into a brimstone ecstasy, oblivious to everyone but himself.

  Manny pointed to Brother Zebediah’s chair. “Sat right there on that metal chair and farted like a highway rumble strip. Vibrated the whole goddamn table, too.” He barely finished his sentence before wild chuckles once again overwhelmed him.

  “Lucifer begone!” Brother Zebediah cried out.

  “Who are you talking about?” Blip asked, an ample smile beginning to stretch the corners of his mouth.

  “Good heavens!” Brother Zebediah roared. “Are you a simpleton and a heretic? I’m talking about you!” Manny pounded the table in maniacal mirth, laughing with his head resting in his other hand.

  “Me?” Blip asked incredulously. “You want Manny to receive me today?”

  Brother Zebediah, looking like a child who can’t figure out that his pointing classmates are trying to tell him his fly is open, stumbled back a step, as if trying to avoid the whirling slingshot of confusion whistling dangerously close to his noggin. Manny’s laughter fizzled out with an extended, high-pitched sigh. The three of them looked at one another in mutual bewilderment, goofy grins playing upon their lips and simpering smiles prancing around the crow’s feet of their eyes, cavorting upon the muscle spasms in their foreheads. Before they had time to wonder why they were smiling like idiots, the grin-jaw rollicking all over their countenances frolicked into their mouths, declared their entire bodies a playground, and, with a salute and a somersault, let the three of them know who was now in charge.

  68 Anthropologists have observed that laughter is humankind’s most distinctive emotional expression. We share anger, fear, loyalty, grief, and myriad other states of mind with other creatures, but laughter is an emotional delicacy only humans can taste. Chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives, will pant and puff if tickled, but that’s as close as it comes. Other animals become overjoyed, certainly—witness a dog wagging its tail—but the expression of that affective state in laughter is ours alone. (And never mind hyenas, by the way. Hyenas do not laugh. That’s just the sound they make.) Joyous vibrations barge in unannounced and bring nothing but breathless bellyaches and wailing convulsions to our sentimental potluck. If we’re lucky, chuckles very quickly take over the entire affair, and paroxysms and conniptions seize hold of our musculature and shake us free of obligation like a dog shaking out of a leash. We hyperventilate until we’re wailing like a madman in a marathon. We snort like swine at a trough of corn husks in honey. Tears run down cramped faces, we roll, we holler, we beg each other for mercy. It is brutal joy, as if a benevolent faerie has grabbed us by the heels and given us a few snaps, shaking dust off a doormat too many people have wiped their feet upon.

  Sometimes, however, the merriment is interrupted by a faraway shriek, sounding asinine and absurd, and we realize the hideous sounds are our own. What must others be thinking? Good god, get control of yourself! Self-consciousness lashes out at the faerie, stinging her tickling fingers, forcing her to cast the rug aside in pity and love, and leaving a crumpled but exuberant heap of gladness behind.

  Such was not the fate of Blip, Brother Zebediah, and Manny. From the moment
they simultaneously erupted into roaring guffaws, swells of laughter gushed forth one on top of the next, a gleeful volcano of hilarity, dormant far too long. Brother Zebediah was particularly explosive. For the faerie, he was an especially dusty rug, perhaps owing to a lifetime of holding back nearly unbearable church pew snickers. The seismic stresses along the stern and rigid lines of his face (the San Anxiety Fault) were colossal, and when they broke, brand-new canals and topographical features were etched into his American Gothic physiognomy. Fresh, cocky skid marks strutted their stuff in front of the well-worn treads, the times they are a-changin’.

  The three of them were, to be sure, laughing their asses off, and their amplified amusement showed no sign of letting up. The faerie wasn’t letting go of these welcome mats. In the observation lounge, we spectators of this chorus of thunderous tantrums were not without our titters and tee-hees. Glass wall or not, laughter has an infectious quality that’s difficult to resist. Compared to their jocularity, however, our gaiety had the canned quality of a studio audience.

  “Fantastic, eh?” General Kiljoy slapped my knee, as if turning the APPLAUSE sign on. I was, for the moment, speechless. If I could have spoken, I might have remarked that if this was indeed the Pied Piper syndrome, then never was a disease so mercilessly kind to its host. Instead, I exhaled the best assessment I could manage.

  “Heh.”

  69 General Kiljoy hit the mute button, abruptly ending the supernatural ruckus as if it were music in a game of musical chairs. Tynee was left without a seat, caught holding a comment, the bozo at the party who alone is shouting his conversation when the tunes are cut off. His assertion at the moment of silence, intended only for Miss Mary’s ears, was “I’ll bet the professor loses it first.”