by A. R. Moxon
“It’s a fine thing,” came a voice from behind me. “I never miss it.”
I screamed and jumped. A miracle I didn’t go flying over the balustrade.
Behind me, previously hidden but now revealed in morning light, sat a short, round priest. Her hair, black flecked with gray, retreated with precision into a high bun. A cable-knit sweater hung around her black dress. Thick glasses clung to her nose, and her eyes smiled. Her feet rested upon the back of the pew ahead of her. At a remove from her, but in the same pew, sat a filthy man, obviously homeless.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said.
I stared at her stupidly.
“I’m Father Bernadette,” she said, “and this gent is my good friend Dave.”
“My friends call me ‘Wavy Dave,’ ” said Dave. “You can call me that.”
Then, as I continued staring, Bernadette continued: “And, unless we are experiencing an extraordinary coincidence, you have a different name…?”
“Julius,” I mumbled.
“Julius,” she said. “Welcome, Julius.”
There was a presence about her that encouraged trust. Pointing down to the mess below, I made my first confession. “I ate the communion wafers.”
She smiled, kindly. “We saw. You also drank a little bit of the wine, though you didn’t seem to like it.” When I said nothing, she continued: “They aren’t much good, though—as crackers, I mean. You must have been hungry.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I realized I still was.
“David and his companions were hungry once,” she said, as if that settled things. She stretched, and indicated the window. “You’re missing it.”
I looked back to the wondrous eye holding prophet, rock, stream, city, sky, rising sun.
master
After the shock of the first revision, you decided not to go behind the door again. Interpretation had been the main trouble. Those god-damned readers, you can’t trust them.
You stare at the newest stack, the donut-shop stack. Soon you’ll have to read. But it’s best to approach these things deliberately. You select another cigarette. The pack is nearly empty. Soon.
So the new game had begun: the game of the master, played with the same goal as the first—perfect the story—but to a different purpose. No longer sanctifying a world below to prove yourself worthy to move upward to yet another sphere, but rather sanitizing the one below, to make it a worthy enough vessel for your ascended self to live comfortably within. The first thing was to stop all this nonsense of interpretation, this silly-string movement, this horrid spooky action. You’d devote all new issues of Cat’s Crib to spell out your intentions in exact language, no drawings, just plain words on the page. Each detail described, from the path of a bird crossing the sky to exactitude of facial expression, posture, gesture, the thoughts governing each action, authorial intent conveyed with inescapable specificity, down to the mite, the mote, the minim, the indivisible particle—you knew you’d need to start from the beginning, explain the book until every reader understood how to read it properly, and to keep at it until they couldn’t read it any other way.
The first issue you wrote in this new style came in at seventy pages of text, single-spaced—clearly this wouldn’t do. You made the type smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Six-point? No. That’s not quite it yet, get it down to 24 pages…perfect, a 5.5 will do the trick. As a sop to your partners at Universe Comics and the expectation of the form, you included pictures with the text: reproductions from previous books, stylized to suggest new, better meanings. The barbarians still complained, but you’d made careful study of all contracts and agreements, remained unconcerned: You owned the rights to these characters, you’d use them as you pleased. Don’t like it? Feel free to break our contract. Which is what Universe did, citing “artistic choices purposefully designed to sabotage the viability of the work,” along with some vague threats about further legal action based on onerous fine print…your lawyer droned on and on, but it was all such a bore—They had no soul; those philistine bean-counters couldn’t understand the life of the mind. You were doing the best work of your career. Nor were the suits at Universe the only unsophisticated sensibilities; subscriptions fell to ten percent of peak. No matter, you counted the loss as gain. Those who remained were the only real readers; the ones willing to read properly. You sold original artwork to keep afloat, and explained carefully to your concerned accountants about the singularity of artistic expression.
But there was no explaining Gordy, the kid sprung up unbidden out of those first revised pages, the ones you created by disappearing Neato; no explaining the kid with sure feet and perfect spatial awareness, who could run along telephone lines, leap from ledge to ledge along the Domino City windows, who always arrived whenever the day needed saving; the kid who would, according to the final pages in the revised stack, be the one to drop the safe upon the helpless head of Morris—the same unacceptable ending. No, there was no explaining Gordy, though the lesson he provided was a recognizable one. When you had been a character within the work, you’d known Gordys, hadn’t you? Semblants who refused to fall into their places and had the power to resist the doom they’d earned for their disobedience. No, there’s no explaining a Gordy. With a Gordy, there’s only one thing to do: Get rid of him. Not the bird for Gordy, but the spade. You knew you’d have to risk the door again. You’d have to risk generating pages.
You entered, jaunted to Gordy’s first appearance, issue 27, a flashback, Gordy still just a little kid bombing down the streets of Pigeon Forge, on his way to his meeting with destiny—You sonofabitch. What you do to me, I do to you.
Hey, kid.
Gordy stopped and startled when he saw you. Unsurprising; unless you consciously exercised your authority to modify your appearance, everybody on this side gets spooked by the sight of you.
Who are you, mister?
Look out for the safe, kid.
The…safe? What sa—
Too late. It landed on him, full force, a big square gray number the size of a Buick, ending the question unasked, smashing the boy into a mush of red-bone slurry-paste.
That one, kid. That one.
So much for Gordy. You returned to the door and passed through, already anticipating the pages awaiting you. Hopefully the revision wouldn’t be too bad.
It had been worse than “too bad.” It was unfair. The new stack stood thicker, a foot high, practically the entire run of the book. Flipping to issue 27, you saw Gordy still alive, saved from the safe by a chance tumble into an open manhole. But that wasn’t all; this new recapitulation had swallowed all your meticulous 5.5. point text-work; a year’s work gone, replaced with more panel art, and…turning to the final page…No!…again, the safe about to drop on the head of poor abused Morris.
Without pause you popped back through the door—I can’t kill you? Fine, friend. I’ll bury you. You can dodge a safe, but you can’t dodge an oubliette.
CATS
Julius halts so abruptly, Gordy runs SMACK into his broad back. “Come on. We’re getting the donuts first,” Julius says. This is unusual, but Gordy meekly complies, still stunned about the lost circus, the lost chance with Jane. But…wait, Julius appears to have noticed something specific in the donut shop. He’s beelining for the place, a bloodhound with a scent.
“Quick,” Julius commands. “Before he disappears again.”
“He” who? Gordy wonders, still slightly dizzy—Somebody disappearing? I’ll sue, nobody disappears around here except me, other than (stomach rumbling) a couple of those glazed donuts, I’ll make them disappear. Donuts…or is it doughnuts—Gordy realizes that the spelling he envisions when he thinks the word is now confused—but here, above the door, in shiny mirrored letters, is the now-familiar sign: BAILEY’S DOUGHNUTS: U and G and H are there as though they’d always been. Was it not the other way?
“What’s the difference betwe
en a ‘donut’ and a ‘doughnut,’ anyway?” Gordy asks, realizing even as he says it how this sounds, then chases after Julius, who is already inside. At the counter, Julius acts as if the two of them have tacitly agreed to a secret crime. “Don’t say anything,” he whispers, side-mouth. “I’ll do the talking. I’ve dealt with him before. Just follow my lead.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t see him?” But even as Julius says this Gordy does see him, whoever he is. It’s the guy from last night. Healer of priests. Vanisher of circuses. He’s sitting in the corner booth, head wreathed in smoke. There is something about him. He’s got the powder-blue suit on still, but that isn’t it. He’s what you might consider handsome, but only blandly so; it’s gone a bit to seed. But…there is something about him. He is looking right at them both, and smiling, a smile that invites—but only so far. Offers secrets—but only to a point. He clearly has been waiting for them. There is something about him. A fellow you can’t miss for long. He is…he is…there is something about him…“Just be ready to follow me,” Julius jaw-clenches. “This guy is dangerous. He killed five cardinals without blinking.”
Gordy, appetite decamped, gets his doughnut plain. Julius gets his usual—strawberry fritter, and an extra dozen. The man makes the timeless gesture: Won’t you join me? Wordlessly, Julius and Gordy obey. Gordy sits, bites, chews, waiting for the man to say something. Julius sits glaring in a hostile posture. The man smokes, poised, as if waiting for his time to speak. “Hello, my muddlers, my meddlers,” he says at last. He speaks breezily, though to Gordy the tone seems contrived. There’s a tension in him; this is a forced conviviality. “My flies in the ointment. The wrenches the monkey swallowed. My complications. My complicators. Julius and Gordy, and me makes three. Together at last.”
“What did you do with the circus?” Gordy demands.
The man smiles, inhales, exhales smoke everywhere. “Call me…Landrude.”
“I guess ‘God’ is more the last name, then,” Julius growls, and Gordy spies a flash of annoyance; the priest’s deflation of his grand revelation didn’t sit well with this mystery man.
“I apologize for the misapprehension. I’m not God, exactly.” Landrude finishes his cigarette, lights another on the butt before stubbing it out. “That’s part of what I’m here to talk to you fellows about—that, and more practical matters. There’s danger, and it’s growing by the hour. We’re close to a great inflection. I bought us some time with the circus, but not much.”
Gordy shudders. He’s convincing, this guy. There’s something about him. He holds himself apart; his gestures slow, testing, as if feeling his way through a dim room in which objects remain indistinct, or walking through swamp, surveying the earth at every step for signs of quicksand. He’s…deliberate. That’s the word: deliberate. Each movement rigorously precise, each word exact. This makes him hard to disbelieve.*1
Julius, apparently less impressed: “We should believe you why, exactly?”
“Well, Julius. Not to brag or anything, but I did save your life.”
“You put me in a position to lose it. Sent me out to lose it again, which I nearly did.”
Landrude takes a moment; a man gathering his patience. “All right, then. Remember the rabbits, Julius? Remember ‘those darned rabbits,’ peeking from the mirrors? Remember their pink eyes?” Gordy’s baffled by this, but immediately surmises this remark was intended not for him, but for Julius. The priest is staring at Landrude in horrified wonder.
“But enough question-and-answer.” Landrude brightens again. “Let’s make ourselves a nice quiet place, shall we? What I have to tell you is information of a highly classified sort. It’s unusual for such as me to interact so directly with such as you.” At this, a silence immediately drops upon them, and Gordy realizes they are alone. Outside the windows, a pearly white indistinctness creeps, which is not quite fog, not quite smoke, not quite frost.
Gordy breaks the silence. “What just happened?” Landrude shakes his head. His demeanor is changing, becoming less cocksure. “I’m sorry, friends. I don’t want to be rude, and I’ll try not to impose more than I must. But…I’m going to need you two to not talk, just for a little while, until I say you can. Once I’ve explained, I hope you’ll understand why I have to take these measures. I’m going to have to stay longer than this when I’m done; I’ve a lot of work to do. It’s much different for me here than it is for you.”*2
Gordy shoots Julius a frightened glance, but he says nothing, and the priest says nothing to him. They don’t talk. Can they? Gordy’s not sure. It’s slippery now, the distinction between can not and do not. Meanwhile, Julius doesn’t appear even to be trying. He’s staring at the pearly gray-white nothing and looking angry—pissy, even—like a disillusioned little boy.
“First things first.” Landrude claps his hands. “We need to talk about what you need to do. However, I recognize first you’ll need convincing, so before we talk about actions, we need to talk about what you are, about your very natures and purposes. But even that won’t make any sense, unless I first explain what I am, and how I relate to you. Which means we need to begin by talking about the three big things. The three big things are space and duration and possibility, in that order. Please bear with me. I promise, this will be on the test. I’m going to tell you about everything. I’ll ease you into it—and myself too, I suppose. I find myself, strangely enough, at your mercy. Supplicant. I don’t know how you’re going to react, see, to what I’m about to say.
“The first three dimensions are composed of space, exist in space, and define space. For all practical purposes, they are space. Think of a point in the universe. Any point at all. An infinite selection. Each point as small as imagination can make it. You could fill a single neutrino with a trillion trillion points. Forget angels and their sock-hops on pinheads. Julius, Gordy, look at this: We’re at the infinite already, and we haven’t even touched a dimension yet. We’re not even at dimension one. Dimension one is nothing more or less than a connection between any two points. A line. Length has gotten involved. Does length seem simple to you? It is. There’s nowhere to go with length but forward, and, once you reach the terminus, nothing left to do but turn around and go back again. It’s the simplest possible tunnel. All of life reduced to nothing more than a movement from one dead end to another. But then again…it isn’t all that simple, is it? The points are infinite. So think of the possible connections you can make. An infinite of infinites? Yes. Ouch, says my brain. Ouch, says yours.
“Next, we have dimension two, where one length joins another length and the two of them tussle over which of them gets to be width. They weave their merry war between and betwixt, and hash things out on a plane of their conflicting desires. But finally, we are starting to see the order of specificity emerge from infinity’s chaos. What would you make of a connect-the-dots game if it were all dots and no space, a game that asked you to connect all dots to all others? You and I would refuse to play, if you and I weren’t madmen (an open question, I know.) So: This isn’t any collection of lengths, infinitely available. This is a cluster of associated lengths, located proximally. Proximity, you see, is the basis. That’s how organization comes to all this pointillistic mush. Even though any one dot or line might connect to any other, once we’ve made the beast with two dimensions, we look around to find, with blessed relief, that not all connections have been consummated. Some choices have been made. This plane is here. Therefore, definitively, it isn’t there. Thank God, says my brain. Thank God, says yours. Thus, a move into dimensional complexity, is, paradoxically, also a simplification.
“But wait. Here comes dimension three, carrying depth in its suitcases. Planes join planes, and some of them, luckily enough, will agree to become you. Third-dimensional living. A world of buildings and lobsters and galaxies and flatulence, and a few other things. You see? I don’t need to explain dimension three to you. It’s where you
keep your stuff. Length, width, and depth, nothing more, nothing less. In short, everything. And, since you’ll never guess what shape your wisest wizards of science think everything has taken, I’ll tell you: At present, the wizards believe the universe is torus-shaped. Can you believe it? The universe…is a doughnut.
“So, the first dimensional set is space. Everything. But ‘everything’ is only the beginning.
“The next dimensional set contains (and is composed of and also defines) duration and possibility. Ah, duration. Simply put: time. I think you’ll agree we are at a point in it. Yes? But now we have a problem, because I did say ‘point,’ again, didn’t I? A point in time? But how thin can you slice time? Ask Achilles and his tortoise, they’ll tell you. Slice it as thin as you like, for imagination is your knife. A trillionth of a second filleted into a quadrillion equal portions.
“The fourth dimension is a line connecting one point in the third dimension—which, let’s not forget, is everything—to another. Just another tunnel, you see, but a tunnel precisely as large as the universe. As large as the entire universe, and as small. A movement through the slices, connecting the start to the finish, for the duration of single lepton’s spin, or a fruit fly’s first wing-flicker, or from the Big Bang to the final collapse, and anything in between. Infinite possibilities of connections. But not for you. Poor fellows, you can only pass through your sadly brief section of this tunnel in one direction, and your points are chosen for you. Predetermined. Birth to death, every last one of you. Nothing before, nothing beyond. And only forward, only ever forward. But that’s a statement of how you experience time. All that time is always there all the time, whether you can see it or not.