Thanks, Mary. Maybe. “Yes, I do in fact. Old friend, Mary Swinhart. I'll give her a call and thank her."
My mention of the name seemed to make him stand up straighter. “Mary Swinhart?"
There was a cold chill. Dear God, I was so tired of cold chills. “That's what I said. Why?"
He shook his head. “We had a Mary Swinhart brought in last night about ten pea-em; I was on duty in Emergency. Heart failure, secondary to chemotherapy. I'm sorry, she died just after...four ay-em."
Fuck.
"We have to keep you for observation for twenty-four hours. Policy. Then you can go home and either be more careful or more thorough. Anyone you want to contact? Would you like to speak to a pastoral counselor?"
"No, thanks. I speak directly to God."
"I see. What's His take on things?"
"He just keeps refusing to answer.” Looking at the doc, I realized that I wasn't fooling him at all. I can live with someone who sees reality and doesn't flinch the way I seem to.
I went home Wednesday. As far as I could tell, all that had been accomplished was the creation of another annoying pile of Explanation of Benefits forms from the insurance company. Although considering what I had cost them the past couple of years, maybe it was even.
* * * *
Larry?
Uh? That you, Peter?
It was the morning after Mary's memorial service, standing on a highland overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Dick was there, and a kid named Will; Jesus, not more than sixteen. Chara was listening. There were others. Who else? Holding down the fort here. Cool, bit of fog in from the Channel.
I was holding Mary's ashes, Dick was holding Alf's. It's a beautiful day, I told everyone. Sun bright, big breakers down below, good offshore breeze. Anybody want to say anything?
I heard some good-byes and farewells and what I'm sure was an ave atque vale from a voice I didn't recognize. Dick and I looked at each other, then we each took off the lids and without hesitation gave it the best heave we could. The ashes were caught in twin helical swirls carried toward the sea, heavier grains falling to the beach below. I inverted the can and tapped out a few last bits that I scuffed into the ground cover and held the now empty container toward Dick. “What should we do with these?"
He took it from me. “I'll find a way to recycle them. They both would have liked that.” He took the handles of Will's wheelchair. “How you doing down there?” Will let his head fall back and smiled, made a weak wiggle with his fingers. Dick gave him the cans to hold.
We walked back toward the parking lot. Slowly. You gents all right? Peter asked.
Yes, Dick said. Will gave a silent assent that everyone picked up.
Yes. Listen— I paused, continued. I want to apologize to all of you for being such an ass last week. I don't know what got into me.
A couple of dozen tabs of morphine sulphate, as I recall, Peter tossed in, and there was a rise of laughter.
Very funny. But I felt an infectious chuckle.
In any event, Peter continued, Mary told me that she left some belongings to you.
Me? Really?
Not much. She was divesting herself for the last year. But she said she'd like you to pick up her notes at the flat.
Notes?
Things she had jotted down during our members’ leavings the past few months. We're trying to assemble things and keep passing them on as possible. We're just not very good at it.
Dick put his hand on my shoulder. “Y'see, Larry, we're pretty much convinced all that moving toward the light stuff people report as near-death experiences is a quick look at what we slow diers seem to experience as a loosening of time. No, I didn't believe it, either. But at some point I have to stop believing it's all a coincidence."
"I thought the light thing was oxygen deprivation in the visual lobes."
"Oh. Not the light. Seeing people and things. It seems to make some sense."
"Like Mary knowing she was going to die on Monday."
"Yeah,” Will piped up. I'm heading out a week from Thursday. He seemed excited at the prospect. Considering his condition, he wasn't being morbid.
"Really? What if I just pushed your chair over the cliff right now and killed you this instant?"
He nodded. Cool experiment. Maybe time would change. Want to give it a shot?
"No. And I don't want to know about myself, thank you."
We had reached the car in the parking lot. I paused to catch my breath before helping Dick get Will into the back seat. “Wait a minute."
"What is it, Larry?"
"Just before I decided to get blotto, Mary told me she was going to die on Monday."
Indeed? We all knew that.
"But the point is, she didn't die on Monday. She died early Tuesday morning."
Ah, well, allow a little windage.
"No, no. What if she was wrong?"
Eh?
"Everyone has decided we're seeing the future as we die?"
Or the past.
"But what if we see a future? What if there is more than one?"
Hm. I suppose that actually makes more sense than an immutable timeline. Less chance for a paradox or two, I'd say. In your face, Calvin. For a used car dealer, Dick was pretty sharp.
Will got himself settled in the back seat. I got in the passenger side, since I no longer felt safe driving. Taking painkillers more or less constantly, it made me feel more socially responsible. “I asked her to hang in there. I remember that. What if she tried to hang in a bit longer than she otherwise would have?"
Don't quite see where you're heading, Larry, Peter said.
What if we can influence the future? I mean, I know some of us can put ideas in other people's heads.
Oh dear. Did you try the loo thing? I swear, everyone tries that.
Yes, I did. It seemed to work.
Time is all, another voice said.
Chara? Is that you? I apologize, I didn't know you could speak English.
Alf teach me. I get better.
Blast. I never could learn another language. I thought about it. This is frustrating. We have this ability and don't seem to have the time to do anything with it.
Bit of a bummer, isn't it? Peter said. But, I suggest you head over to Mary's place and pick up anything useful. The key is on top of the—what do you Yanks call it?—the porch light.
I looked over at Dick. “Got it,” he said.
* * * *
Mary's studio apartment was neat and spare. It reminded me of my mother's place, at the end. There was a single dinner setting in the kitchen cabinet. One frying pan, one small pot with a lid. Maybe a week's worth of food in the refrigerator, divided up into single-meal containers. She had known even before Alf's prediction, I think.
The corners were spotless. Like Mom, a crazy-clean.
There was a slim album of pictures. I didn't know she had two daughters. Why she had never mentioned them, I didn't know. Estranged? Dead? Each picture was neatly labeled, person and year. Without any other information the pictures just hung there, isolated in the pelagic sea of time. What do you do with a memory book when the memory is gone?
I found her notes, under the handkerchiefs in the top dresser drawer. After a moment I put them in a bag Dick had in the car, afraid I might be in them. I decided to pass them on to Dick, who seemed a bit healthier than I was.
There was nothing else of interest, save a small bag of knitting, next to the recliner. I picked it up and looked inside. There was a bundle that turned out to be a scarf, a basic, pretty thing with a note pinned to it.
Larry,
Enjoy the scarf. It's knitted from qiviut, so if you wash it just squeeze some mild soap in cold water through the material and let it dry flat, or else it will felt up and you will have a longish potholder.
Love,
Mary
I picked up the scarf and realized I could barely feel it in my hand, it was so light and soft. I unpinned the note and wrapped the scarf around my neck. The warmt
h felt like Mary's voice, the weight like her soul.
* * * *
In the middle of the night my mind woke me up. I listened to the murmur for a little while. Chara?
$%&^%$ Larry?
Did I bother you?
No, Larry. Please talk. Bad night.
Are you being helped?
Shaman bring me herbs, Chara said. Add ocks—ocks—codeine and is better.
Oxycodone. Also ask for morphine.
Thanks to you. Morphine is good?
For me, yes. Alf liked marijuana.
Alf good man.
Very good man. Chara, ask you a question?
Riddle?
Um, no. Can you explain—tell—me something?
I try.
You said Alf teach you English.
He do. Alf friend. Good people.
I tried to phrase my next question carefully. When did he teach you English?
He teach me. Time is all. I tell you that.
By this time you would think I'd be weirded out yet again. Chara. Is Alf teaching you English now?
I caught the feeling of pleasure in shared knowledge. Alf teach me each night. Every? Every.
But Chara.... Alf is dead.
There was serenity in her reply. Old Alf dead, Larry. Young Alf not. You ask him?
I felt cold, hot, I don't know. I will try.
You funny, Larry. You visit me, we have good time.
I...uh...can't do that anymore, Chara. But thank you.
You? Oh, funny! You come, see my land. You land tall and cool and green. My land flat and warm and green. How Alf say, we compare notes?
* * * *
"Okay, okay!” I yelled. “The meeting will come to order! Order!"
Chips, please. Dash of vinegar.
"Thank you, Peter.” I stubbed out a cigarette and took a sip of sherry. What, the butts were going to kill me? “As near as I can learn, this has been going on for about two years now. So far, everyone has been supporting each other and making some scattered notes on those we lose.” I found that speaking and headtalking at the same time gave me a bit more volume.
Ja, a newer voice, Werner, in Hamburg, piped up.
"For what? So far it's all very nice and really cool, but no one has tried to make much of it; just a long chorus of Auld Lang Syne."
What do you suggest, Larry? Dick asked.
"I suggest we try to actually investigate what's going on. Not to mention something new that may be starting. Chara—"
Hi-lo, Larry!
"—has been headtalking with Alf."
That got their attention. The murmur died down.
Laura Singer, a Wiccan in New York, broke in. Chara? Is it true?
Oh, is true. Alf teach me English.
"And I remembered something else, something Mary said to me the weekend before she died. We were talking on the phone, I hung up, and she continued with headtalk. She said, speaking of her death, ‘It just hasn't happened for you yet.’ I thought she was talking about my own death. Now I wonder if she was talking about hers. From the future."
There was the mental equivalent of nodding all around. Well, it seems that Mary chose wisely, Peter said.
"Huh?"
We've needed someone like you, old chap. Someone who could get our arses in gear and make something out of all this. Hell of a waste, otherwise. That's why she recruited you.
Recruited me?
Recruited you.
Have you ever heard from Ed? Dick broke in.
Ed? At the center? No, now that you mention it.
You know how you can make suggestions to people? To do something?
Yeah, I said.
You can also make suggestions to people not to do something.
I...see.
As a club we do have some standards, after all.
* * * *
I got everyone into the act. Those who seemed to have any pre-death, as opposed to peri-death, premonitions, those who felt any hint of communication with others out of real time. We established an encyrpted file set on a server where everything could be deposited. Those who seemed unable to probe space or time became bookkeepers and data analysts. Laura turned out to be a former database manager and assumed overall responsibility for care and feeding of the computer material, with two backups. Just in case, although she said that her own premonition was that she had at least eight months left.
We divvied up responsibilities for those passing. Instead of everyone trying to catch everything, there were assignments to individuals with strengths in particular areas; aural, visual, emotional. Instead of trying to write, I had everyone just dictate in real time and transcribe later. Like a space program, we agreed that every probe couldn't tell us everything.
It was decided to (carefully!) begin experimenting with headtalk to healthy individuals, just as we had been working on not allowing the wrong kind of people to develop their abilities in the first place. Will, before he died, suggested those with the ability to subliminally influence the healthy attempt to influence them into thinking about telepathy. “I know it's probably kinda unethical,” he had told us, “I mean, what if we end up making everyone telepathic? On the other hand, maybe something is coming for everyone and we're just the first. Shouldn't we try to, I don't know, guide it, somehow?"
Will was a great kid. Wish I'd known him longer.
Maybe. Mom's old phrase, “You never know,” might be in for a change.
Whether or not anything would come of it, I felt much better doing something; I was dying, but aren't we all? At least I had something to live for until then. There was less need for painkillers, although I did find myself getting at least lightly buzzed almost every evening with a glass or two of sherry, and after some acclimation, a hit of grass. Flower power. Even as my health declined the club grew, and knowing there was someone I could talk to anytime of the day or night made it better. And I could talk to others as well, lending support and understanding up to the end. Auf wiedersehen, Chara.
* * * *
Nothing hurts, the morphine is working. Dozens of people are around, hundreds, in my head or wherever, telling me I'm doing fine. Things are shutting down, I can feel it, it's okay, it's time for the next thing. Not really quite me anymore, still wonder if I'm fooling myself, but that's okay, too.
Feels like yesterday, like tomorrow, maybe the next day, some next day anyhow. Working on it. Ask people if they want a piece of me, if they want to come along, sing Auld Lang Syne, Guy Lombardo, the happy, it's time, some time....
No room anymore no bed just me confusing not bad I try to reach out there's Mary gone back listen everyone I see
oh man Alf was right
I never thought we would—
[Back to Table of Contents]
Short Story: Brothers of the River by Rick Norwood
Rick Norwood is a mathematician who moonlights reviewing movies and television for www.Sf Site.com and editing classic comic strips (including Flash Gordon by Harry Harrison) for Comics Revue magazine. This story is his first for F&SF.
Many thousands of years before the flood, in a small fishing village by the sea, there lived two brothers, twins, Tiger and Shallow by name, and they were as different as night and day. Tiger was dark and wild, with curly black hair and a kind heart. Even as a small child, if he had two honeycakes, he would give them both away to a stranger. But if someone did him a wrong, he would lash out in a blind rage, and sometimes cause more harm than he intended. Shallow was pale and humorless, with long blond hair and cold, blue eyes. He always demanded his due and was a shrewd trader. But he was also a hard worker and he always kept his word.
From the time they were old enough to wrestle, rolling on the floor as naked babes, the two brothers fought. Older, they spent many hours seeing who could run the fastest or climb the highest or catch the biggest fish.
Their father was a fisherman, like his father's fathers before him, but both Tiger and Shallow hungered for the old strong magic and the favor of th
e gods. When they were young men, Tiger set sail for the deepest sea, where the water was so dark a blue that it did not reflect the sun. There he cast a net, the strongest net ever made by man, and drew up from the depths of Ocean the oldest, wisest fish that swims, a fish that had traveled the length of Ocean seven times, and seven times returned. This fish was as large as a man, and its name was Silver. Tiger drew Silver into the undecked boat and wrestled it to the bottom and pinned it there. “If you share your wisdom, I will set you free,” Tiger said, and Silver told Tiger the secrets of the old strong magic.
Shallow also set sail in a boat, and crossed the seas to the Cinnamon Isles, where he sat by the nest of the young Phoenix. He sat so long and so quietly and patiently that after much time had passed Phoenix asked him what he wanted and Shallow said, “Teach me the old strong magic.” And Phoenix did.
After they returned home, Tiger and Shallow no longer had to fish or to hunt, for they knew the words to call up fish from the sea and to call birds down from the sky, but they were still rivals in all things. Thanks to Tiger's generosity, the little fishing village never went hungry and thanks to Shallow's sharp trading, it became rich.
One bright morning, when the red sun rippled the air above the tall yellow grass, Tiger said to Shallow, “Brother, have you ever tasted snow?"
"I have heard tell of snow, but never have I tasted it,” Shallow answered.
"Brother, my far seeing has seen snow, white on the mountains to the north. Will you race me there? The winner will be whoever first tastes snow."
"I will race you, brother, under one condition,” said Shallow. “From sunup to sundown we race. But when night falls, we stop, and see what ease is to be had in whatever place we find ourselves."
"Done,” said Tiger. And without another word the two brothers left behind the village of their father's fathers, left behind their wives and children, and began to run. At first they ran along animal trails, where the tall grass was broken down, running side by side in the glory of the morning. Then Tiger pulled ahead, and left Shallow far behind. Shallow let him. He knew that his brother would tire in the heat of the day. Besides, Shallow had in mind a trick.
At noon, the sweat glistening on his dark skin, Tiger was still running without pause, when an antelope bounded past him through the tall grass. With his inner eye, Tiger saw at once that the antelope was Shallow, and transformed himself into an antelope. But Shallow now had the lead, and still held the lead when night fell.
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