by Gene Brewer
“You just close your eyes and picture exactly what that moment looked like, and felt like. But remember, no one will be able to see you or hear you. You will be something like an invisible ‘spirit.’ Are you ready to try it?”
“I’m scared. I’m afraid I’ll get lost.”
“Look around you. Remember what this moment looks like. If you end up in the wrong time, just come back here. I know: I’ll put this candle right on the edge of the table. Focus on that when we’re ready to come back.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“I guess it isn’t, but it gets easier with practice. We could also ask for Walter’s help if we need it. Walter?”
There was no answer, of course, but nevertheless I said, “If we have a problem, will you find us and get us back to this moment?”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. But I’ll bet they heard me. Okay, are you ready?”
“I now pronounce you… I now pronounce you… I now pronounce you…”
I said the same thing, but silently. In a nanosecond I was standing beside the minister (Reverend Dole, his name was, and he had a big mole on his nose, and everyone called him Reverend Mole) watching Karen and I get married. “. . . man and wife,” said Rev. Mole. I looked around: Karen wasn’t there. At least I couldn’t see her. Then I remembered that maybe I wouldn’t see her even if she were there. I have never seen anyone else from the future when I’ve gone to the past; like the people who are there, maybe we can’t see other “ghosts,” either, even a traveling companion. I had thought there just weren’t many of them around, but — So maybe Karen was here somewhere, even though I couldn’t see her. Damn it, I should have asked the Bullocks about that.
Or maybe she wasn’t able to make the trip work. I decided to head right back, but I waited a few minutes to watch the kiss (I remembered it well because it lasted longer than wedding kisses usually do, and there were “ooh”s from our friends and relatives. I watched as we strode back up the aisle, everyone smiling and applauding. I wondered whether I was really there, or just remembering everything. But I didn’t have time for such musings. I needed to get back to the present to find my wife of nearly fifty years. I focused on the dining room as it was when we left (or I, at least, left), and in another nanosecond I was back. With a huge amount of relief I found Karen still there, murmuring “I now pronounce you… I now pronounce you…”
“Never mind, honey. I’m back and I guess you never made the trip.”
“You’re already back? As far as I could tell, you never left.”
“That’s how it works. Time stands still when you’re gone. Don’t ask me to explain it.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “Gene, are you sure you aren’t imagining these ‘trips’?”
“Pretty sure. I don’t see how I could have seen things so clearly otherwise. What Beethoven looked like, or Leonardo da Vinci. Their dress and mannerisms. They seemed as real as you are. And there’s the candle on the end of the table that I put there before we left, remember?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t prove you left.”
I realized she was right. There was no way to prove I had been gone, then or any other time, even though it was as real as anything I had ever experienced. “No, it doesn’t. But I think we must have done something wrong. Want to try it again? Tell you what: I’ll put the candle somewhere else and we’ll both try to go back only a few seconds to this very moment, with the candle on the edge of the table, okay?”
“Not now. Maybe after your United Nations speech. We’ll have plenty of time for games after that.”
“You won’t think it’s a game when you’ve done it.”
After lunch (vegetable soup) and a little nap, my wife woke me with, “Are you ready to rehearse your speech?”
Reluctantly I got up. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose. I hate having to do this.”
“I know, sweetheart. But it will be over soon.” She hugged and kissed me and I felt better, as always.
“Want a roll in the hay before I go?”
She laughed a little. “Later, alligator.”
“Is that a promise?”
Another kiss. “Promise.”
“I’ll be thinking of you when I give that goddamn speech.”
“I’ll be thinking of you, too.”
“See you later, kiddo.” I gave Flower a good ear scratch and left for the Nerve Center. I heard a “Good luck!” as the door was closing. The rain shower, I noticed, had stopped.
No Walter in the backyard. Maybe he had nothing more to say. After all, it was only another twenty-four hours until Message Day.
Mike was waiting for me outside the trailer, as usual. “I wanted to have a little chat before we go in,” he said.
“What about?”
“Just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Are you sleeping well? Would you like to see Dr. Schultz again before we go down to the UN?”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll be even better when this thing is over.”
“We’ll all be glad when this is over.”
“I guess that’s true. I’m so focused on my own role in this that I forget it involves a lot more people than just me.”
“In fact, it involves everyone in the world. It would be a shame to let seven billion people down.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way. Thanks, Mike. I think that will help me get through this.”
“Ready to go in?”
“Yep.”
When we arrived at the meeting room we were greeted by the President and all the others. He gave me a fist bump. “Afternoon, Dr. B. It looks like the moment of truth has finally come.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Let’s win one for the Earth,” he said.
“Not the Gipper?”
“This time it’s for all the Gippers.” I suppose that’s what separates the goats from the sheep. I almost said, “Baaaa.” “Seriously, Gene. This will be much easier than you think. Your speech is already written. It’s only sixteen minutes long. All you have to do is read it and it will all be over except for the voting. Once that’s done, your job will be finished, and we can all go home and live our lives.”
“For a year?”
He frowned. I think he didn’t much care for pessimism. “Possibly,” he replied.
“I’ll do my damndest to make it forever,” I said, almost believing it.
The frown segued into a brilliant smile. “Good. Okay, let’s get on with it, shall we? Will you take your seat, please?” He pointed in the general direction. A copy of the speech is already there.”
For the first time I noticed that all the chairs in the room had been placed in a circular arrangement resembling those occupied by the Security Council members. I had seen this setting on TV a hundred times, and chills ran up and down my spine, my whole body. Obviously this was the point: to make the setting as near as possible to what we would see in the chamber so that I would be less intimidated when the time actually arrived.
Though my legs were weak, I managed to find my seat at the round table. As I looked into the faces of those gathered, I realized again that I knew some of the most important people in the country, or at least in the federal government. The President nodded to an aide, and the room went dark. On the wall at the end of the room a video presentation showing another former Secretary of State explaining why we had to go to war in Iraq appeared. I watched, fascinated, as the camera went from the speaker to various Council members, some of whom couldn’t conceal their obvious doubt. Nevertheless, everyone listened politely, and a few even applauded at the end.
When it was over, the President said, “Any questions, Dr. B?”
“Looks like a piece of cake,” I said as confidently as I possibly could.
The President nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Showtime!”
&nbs
p; I looked at the speech, which I had already read several times in various drafts. Still, I paused for a few moments to catch my breath before I plunged. I practically had the thing memorized, so I read through the first couple of paragraphs as rapidly as I could.
“Gene?” said the President.
“Uh — yes?”
“I think the purpose of this session is to practice reading it as if we were in the Security Council chamber. You need to slow down and put a little emotion into it. As if it’s the most important speech that’s ever been given at the United Nations. Which it certainly is, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, sir, I would.”
“At the risk of sounding like a film director, please begin again, with feeling.”
I took another deep breath. As I did so I suddenly realized that I could take a break any time I wanted by merely going somewhere back in time, or even to the moon or another planet, and perhaps gather my wits so that I would be less nervous, maybe make fewer mistakes when I got back to the table. In no time at all I found myself outside of Cairo, gazing at the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was about half-finished and under active construction. When I say “active construction,” I mean the commotion was frenetic. It was like being inside a giant beehive or ant colony. I had no idea what year I was visiting, though I knew it had been finished some 4,500 years before the “present” time. I watched in wonder as hundreds of men hauled a single massive stone surely weighing several tons up perhaps a 5º incline using wooden rollers. The earthen ramps almost completely surrounded the gigantic structure, which was under construction on all sides simultaneously. There must have been tens of thousands of workers altogether — were they all slaves? There were a number of oxen and donkeys present, also, but with so much cheap human power, why waste the animals, which were better used for transporting equipment and supplies. The donkeys, apparently, were used to carry the engineers and foremen to and from wherever they went for the night. The workers presumably slept on the ground. I watched in awe as a giant cube was laid perfectly in place without the benefit of concrete or mortar of any kind. As I floated overhead I could see the burial chambers under construction inside, wooden forms outlining the walls and ceilings, and dozens of artists already painting the murals and friezes which would adorn the enclosures.
I could have stayed around another few decades to see how the burial chamber was sealed with the pharaoh inside, or perhaps hopped back and forth in time to get a time-lapse picture of the whole process, but I decided to save that for a later day, when, I hoped, Karen could enjoy it with me. (I wondered whether Walter had visited this or any of the other significant periods in human history.) And, though violent, I realized that there was so much past time that it would be a travesty to lose it all for stupid, selfish reasons, including the desire to kill someone for any motive whatever.
For a little while I had forgotten all about the speech I was reading, felt happy and relaxed, so I decided to go back, where, of course, I found myself facing the same critical bunch as before. I began to read the damn speech again, this time with all the feeling I could muster. Soon I began to hear chuckles, and I looked up to see everyone grinning, even the President. I became a trifle pissed, and I asked him, “What the hell is so funny?”
“Sorry, my friend.” It’s just that now there is too much feeling. It’s not a high school play. We just want you to read it slowly and carefully, with some emphasis on certain things, but not too melodramatically. Want to try it again?”
Somewhat peevishly I started again, but didn’t get five words spoken before I began to titter myself, which turned into a guffaw. Everyone joined in. A light bulb had gone on and I thought I knew, at last, what was required of me. When the room was quiet again I started over. This time I read the whole speech without stopping, and without interruption. When I was finished there was a heartfelt round of applause.
Then the real work began. Little by little we combed yet again through every word, every sentence, every paragraph, until every single iota was smooth as custard, and there were no foolish or redundant phrases, it was solid from beginning to end. “Let’s take a break,” said the President, and with that, assistants came roaring in with coffeemakers and cakes and other treats. Rather than head off for a relaxing visit to another time period, I stayed. I wished I hadn’t.
“It’s missing the point,” said a voice which I recognized immediately as Walter’s.
“Goddammit, Walter, what point is missing?” I asked him. Everyone else in the room was frozen in time, with mouths full of cake, and coffee being poured, the stream stuck in a perpetual rivulet of rusty steel.
“You covered all the necessary points, Gene, but you — all of you — have forgotten that you are merely Homo sapiens. When you try to convince the important people of your world not to kill anyone, you make it sound as if it’s a matter of numbers. As we have said before, the 20% figure is just a minimum, not a goal. The idea is not to kill anyone. I have studied your cultures. Only by trying for 100% will you be able to even get close to 20.”
There was a minute of silence, apparently to allow me time to digest this along with the chocolate cake. “I’ll tell them,” I said.
“Another thing. It won’t be like the people on the Eiffel Tower, who came back after the demonstration was over. If you fail to meet our demands, none of you will ever come back. You will not be allowed to live in some comfortable world where you will go on with the killing, either. Your species will simply cease to exist.”
“Will anyone be spared?”
“No. If we spared even one man and one woman they would still be human, and they would just begin again to multiply and subdue the Earth. This is your only chance.”
‘So we’ll all just disappear?”
“Something like that.”
“I’ll note that, too, Walter.”
“Your speech makes it sound as if you have a choice in this matter. Listen carefully to this: you do not. There are two possibilities: one, you survive, two, you don’t. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But you’ll be there, too, right? Why don’t you — Walter?”
The din returned, and someone was speaking to me. It was Mike. “Were you conferring with Walter?”
“Yes.”
“What does he think of the speech?”
“He thinks it sucks.”
“Let’s speak to the President.”
I didn’t want to speak to the President just then, so I made a trip to the past — a few hours past. It was a scene I had told my wife about, with the candle on the corner of the dining room table. I just wanted to see if I could do it. And there it was: she and I were talking about that scene, and how we would return to it if either of us got into any trouble finding our way back. Karen was her usual radiant self, but I couldn’t help notice that I, on the other hand, looked old, tired, beat-up. I reminded myself that this whole mess would be over in ONE MORE DAY, then I would be able to relax or even sleep 24/7 if I wanted to. I knew I wouldn’t, though. I would be visiting all the great moments of the past, re-living, in a sense, all the events that led to the present time. Unless, of course, Karen and I couldn’t figure out how to go together. Then, to hell with it.
I hated to come back to the present, but there were things to do.
The President was deep in conversation with a number of advisors, but he saw us out of the corner of his eye and wrapped it up. “Good job on the speech, Gene,” he said, shaking my hand again. “Maybe one or two more rehearsals and you’ll be ready for the big leagues.”
“There’s a little problem,” I told him. I’m sure my shoulders were sagging. “The Bullocks don’t like the tone.”
The President was never one to waste words. “Why not?”
I told him about Walter’s objections. He whacked a copy of the speech against his other hand. “All right. We’ll take care of it.” He nodded to the
head speechwriter, who didn’t even finish his coffee, but strode to a little table in the corner and got to work on it, along with a couple of his colleagues.
I took the opportunity to get some more cake while the President conferred with the writers. When he was finished, he came over to me. “Let’s sit over here,” he indicated to me and to Mike, who was never far from my side. We did so, and had a nice conversation about the events of our own individual pasts. I learned, for example, that Mike had once been a state champion high school quarterback. The President himself confided that he wasn’t sure he had wanted to run for President — some of his advisors thought he would do better at a later time. It was his wife who had talked him into it. “Wives do that,” I agreed, and so did Mike.
“Or husbands, in some cases,” the President pointed out.
After that pleasant interlude, which I shall remember as long as I live, the speechwriters came back with a revised draft, which the President read silently and carefully, pen in hand. His only comment was, “Yes,” and passed the copy to Mike, who perused it quickly and handed it to me.
“Read that through, Gene,” he said, “and then we’ll try it again.”
“Can I have a clean copy before we start?”
One of the writers said, “It’ll be ready in a moment, but we thought you might like to see the changes we penciled in first.”
I quickly read through the revisions. “Walter?” I said to myself. “What do you think?” But, of course, if they were there they ignored me. Apparently they had said all they had to say about the matter and it was up to us whether to follow his advice. “They look okay to me,” I told the committee.
As soon as they came out of the printer, the newly-revised copies were passed around. “Okay, everyone,” the President called out. “We’re ready to start again.”
I took several deep breaths and read through the latest version with as much feeling as I could muster without going overboard. When I was finished the President said, “Well done, Gene.” He looked around. “Comments?”
There were only a couple, one a grammatical mistake pointed out by an English professor I hadn’t met, but who reminded me of Jackie, another former patient. Otherwise the damn thing was apparently ready.