Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (9 page)

Eventually they had the cat rammed more or less inside with the door shut, although it quite filled the cage and its legs protruded angrily out in all directions. Then they removed the cover from the mechanism on the metal table, revealing an elaborate sculpture of pipes and tin cans and wiring, and placed the cage on top.

Carillon now stepped out from the group of revolutionaries and raised a megaphone to his lips. For the benefit, presumably, of those who did not know how to read, he intoned the words prominently displayed on the banner: “The destruction by nuclear holocaust of a guinea pig representing all innocent victims of capitalist oppression and nuclear death technology. We are all guinea pigs’” Through the closed window it was difficult for me to hear even his amplified voice, and I stepped closer to a window, although I kept discreetly to one side of the frame. To be perfectly honest, I wanted to see the explosion. For that matter, everyone on the lawn was watching just as intently. When you come right down to it, people of all political persuasions love an explosion. Although I, for one, found the inclusion of the cat distasteful.

“We live in a society,” Carillon continued, “driven by greed.” Apparently the slogan on the banner was only the text: we would have to listen to the entire sermon now before we could sec the fireworks. I prayed that he would hurry: the whining noise was becoming insupportable. Perhaps I should leave the building after all. “A world in which people are valued less than profits and property.”

At this point Wachs appeared, charging ludicrously across the lawn as fast as his plump legs would carry him. He seemed very angry, frenzied even. He had, I suppose, reason enough. He was headed straight for Carillon, whom he evidently held personally responsible for whatever disruption and damage was taking place. Carillon, noting in time the approach of the capitalist oppressor, cut short his address and shouted, “ZERO!”

The people on the lawn instinctively turned their heads away from the anticipated blast, raised arms, or stepped back. The demonstrators clustered around the detonator contracted inward as the igniting switch was thrown.

There came the wonderfully satisfying sound of a very large firecracker — an order of magnitude better than a cherry bomb — resounding through the trees.

But the startling thing was that the complicated device surmounted by the caged cat, on which all our gazes had been riveted, remained absolutely as it had been. It turned out to be a perfectly safe place to keep a cat. Instead, one of the cartons next to the detonator exploded dramatically. Perhaps they had mistakenly wired up some spare bomb which they were holding in reserve — I never understood precisely what their error was. But this is one of the problems with liberal arts education. These people were probably all English majors and should never be allowed to handle explosives, or do close work of any kind.

Everyone’s gaze shifted to where the explosion had actually occurred. From the blasted carton a splendid column of black smoke rose straight up almost eight feet into the air and began to spread out in the familiar mushroom form. The proportions did not seem quite right — the column was too long and slender — but on the whole, the effect really was quite impressive. Someone had put some effort into the thing, and in conception it was a definite success, even if the execution had been a bit sloppy.

All around the explosion, whether from the actual force of the blast or more likely from the surprise of having bombed themselves, the demonstrators shot out like jack-in-the-boxes in every direction. Although I couldn’t be sure, given the general confusion and prevailing dress standards, it seemed to me that one of them looked a bit ragged down one side. There was blood, and his clothing and perhaps his arm seemed to be chewed up in an ugly way.

Wachs, who had stopped in his tracks for the duration of the explosion, shrieked something I could not make out at Carillon and raged over to the device under the banner. He seized the cage containing the cat and slammed it angrily against the bomb mechanism, breaking off parts of it. Carillon, outraged in turn by this destructive attack on his unused bomb, charged over and began shouting at Wachs. Everyone on the lawn watched them in fascinated silence.

That horrible whining noise, which I thought had begun to subside, now suddenly swelled to a new level of intensity, and it seemed to me that from the direction of the building there was an eerie glow illuminating the figures on the lawn. Wachs looked up at the building and an expression of horror filled his face. It may be that in that instant he became the one person who understood — perhaps the only person who would ever understand — what was about to happen. He drew the cage back over his shoulder and, screaming at the top of his lungs, “You
asshole!”
he slammed it as hard as he could against Carillon’s head. The cage flew free of Wachs’s hand and went banging along the ground, breaking open. The cat exploded from it and set off in a frantic run toward the building. Carillon staggered back from the force of the blow. He held his hand to his face, which had been torn open by the cage and was bleeding freely. He was staring at Wachs with an expression of amazed horror. I could see his mouth forming the words: “You must be out of your fucking mind!”

The two of them were momentarily motionless as they stared at each other with aggrieved rage. The unbearable piercing noise in the background — I knew now I should have to flee the building, it was becoming so painful — subsided again slightly and then swelled once more to a new, overwhelming, mind-splitting intensity. At the same time the quality of the light shifted again, illuminating everything in an unearthly brilliant glow.

As the noise and the light incredibly elevated themselves once more, Carillon’s face and Wachs’s face suddenly contorted into final, unspeakable agony and, as if in echo, expressions of horror appeared on the faces of Anne and all the others watching in safety in the background. Then I saw — it was the last thing I saw or remember — the banner, the bomb, and the flesh of Wachs and Carillon bubble brilliantly into electric flame.

T
he morning arrived as usual. unpleasant. jesus, the sun is bright. Like being poked in the eye. Both eyes. Must have left the damn curtains open. Roll over and try to find a pillow to cover my head. Sound of sirens outside. Whole body aches. Head and eyes most of all. No pillow. Not even in my bed. I was lying on the carpet, and I realized with distaste that I had slept in my clothes. I must have passed out on the floor the night before. Have to stop drinking so much. Not worth it. These mornings. What had I done the night before? My mind was not working. Excruciating headache. Brutal sun. Not a siren: a cat howling somewhere. I tried to form in my mind a floor plan of my apartment and locate my position in it. Must be on the living room floor. Except the sun rises in the east. Who was I with last night?

Suddenly my mind filled with the final, pulsing vision of Wachs, Carillon, and the bright red banner of the Students for a Fair World all transfigured horribly into flame.

Jesus.

I was wide awake now. I cannot possibly communicate the incomprehensible horror of that moment. I could make no sense of what I saw. I was lying on my belly looking more than twenty feet straight down into a large empty pit. It was like waking up to find yourself dangling from the ledge of a third-story window. But I couldn’t see what sort of ledge I was resting on or what was preventing me from plunging to my death. Evidently not much, because even when I turned my head — ever so carefully — I couldn’t see anything supporting me at all. This heightened my terror to the point of panic. My heart was pumping like a trapped rabbit’s. I had somehow to keep control of myself, hold down the terror. I had to think out exactly what my situation was, what I should do.

First of all, I had to keep absolutely as still as possible to keep from slipping off and plummeting to the bottom. I would systematically inventory my surroundings, not letting the fear flood me. Twisting my head very slowly and only a few degrees, I surveyed the cavity over which I was somehow suspended. It seemed to have been excavated with incredible care to create a perfectly smooth round basin nearly a hundred feet across and, at the deepest point in the center, about forty feet in depth. The surface of the basin seemed to be lined with charred dirt and rocks, but it was difficult to be certain because of its extraordinary smoothness. In a band ten feet wide all around the rim of the pit, the earth had been burnt and all vegetation incinerated. But immediately behind this charred perimeter the grass grew green and the trees bloomed, untouched by whatever had happened. I was suspended — I still could not determine how — at a level slightly higher than that of the surrounding lawn and roughly halfway between the rim and the center of the pit.

Barely holding down the nausea and terror, I tried to put everything together. I knew roughly where I was. I recognized the lawn, the trees, and the drive. This had been the site of MicroMagnetics, Inc. Where the building had stood there was now nothing but a vast hole in the ground. I concluded that there had been an explosion which had left an enormous — and somehow utterly smooth — crater. The heat or radiation from the blast had evidently incinerated everything for another ten feet beyond the perimeter of the crater, to form an absolutely perfect circular band around it. As for me, I had somehow been thrown free of the blast and had landed on something. What? A tree perhaps. Like someone in a bad film who hurtles off the edge of a hopeless cliff and lands fortuitously on a lone shrub several feet below, to dangle over the abyss.

It didn’t quite make sense. Everything within the spherical range of the blast seemed to have been absolutely obliterated: there was not the slightest trace of the building or its contents. But hadn’t I been in the building? And do explosions in the real world leave perfectly round craters smooth as glass? And above all, what had I landed on, and how could I get down? Why was no one here to rescue me?

Everything seemed eerily still and deserted. There was only the unearthly, incessant wailing of a cat somewhere. But Anne and the others had been standing safely beyond the range of the explosion. There had been dozens of people. Firemen, policemen. Fire engines. Where was everyone? Why had they left me here?

I tried a cry of “Help!” But even in my state of near panic, I knew that it was a poor effort. What did it matter? If anyone were there, they would see me suspended out in the open over this vast cavity.

I would have to figure out how I was suspended, what I was perched on. I tried, without moving the rest of my body, to tuck my head down to get a look at my body and whatever it was perched on. But no matter how far down I forced my head, I couldn’t seem to get a view of myself — or anything else. Strange, because I could feel something like a carpeted floor against my face. I slid my hands carefully around until they were under my chest, as if I were about to do a push-up. Very cautiously I raised my upper body and slid my knees forward until I was on all fours. I paused to make sure my position was stable and then tilted my head down to see what I was kneeling on. I saw nothing whatever except the opposite side of the crater, and this incomprehensible visual result produced an instantaneous, dizzying wave of nausea: I felt that I was tumbling forward in a somersault through space. I think I must have shrieked and thrown my arms out in an instinctive attempt to grab hold of something. This left me grotesquely sprawled, but I saw at once that I had exactly the same view, the same position relative to the crater, as before. And I still had the tactile sensation of lying on a carpeted floor. I had in these few seconds become horribly seasick. I thought that whatever I was kneeling on was rocking unsteadily back and forth, but I couldn’t be sure, and I fixed my gaze on the edge of the crater while I tried to pick myself up. Less carefully now, but with even greater terror, I pushed myself up again onto all fours and then to a kneeling position. I kept my hands on the floor — it absolutely felt like a carpet — for extra balance.

I repeated the experiment with as much deliberate calm as I could muster: I shifted my gaze in a gradual arc from the crater rim in front of me down to my legs and whatever floor supported them. Again my gaze encountered nothing but the crater bottom far below. Again this created a sensation that I was tumbling head over heels. But this time I held myself steady until I knew I must be looking directly at my legs. No legs! Jesus! I shrieked again. It came to me instantly that both my legs must have been blown off. Jesus. I must be dying. “Help here! Jesus!”

On the other hand it also came to me that I was kneeling, or anyway it felt as if I was kneeling. I remembered reading somewhere that people who lose limbs go on having or imagining sensations in the missing limbs. But it didn’t make any sense. My mind was inundated with panic: my thoughts were colliding in total chaos. I had to get myself under control and think out my situation. I shut my eyes to gather my wits. This produced no change whatever. I could still see everything with perfect clarity, no matter how tightly I squeezed my eyelids shut. It was horrible, but nothing could have added to my sense of horror at that moment, and it produced in me a sort of grotesque amusement. People are forever having arms and legs blown off in sensational accidents, but I couldn’t recall a case of eyelids being blown off. Keeping my left hand on the ground for balance, I brought my right hand tentatively up to my face. With my fingertips I felt the area around the eyes. Eyebrows all right, not burnt away. Gently I touched the right eye with my forefinger. Definitely an eyelid. I could feel it move. I could feel the eyelashes.

There was another odd thing: I couldn’t see the finger. Or the hand. I covered both eyes with the hand. There was absolutely no change in my field of vision. The sun was higher now and I could see everything around me — trees, lawn, bright blue sky — just as clearly as ever before in my life. More clearly, perhaps. Trembling, I reached down and felt my missing legs. It seemed that they were intact and in the appropriate place. I straightened up so that my weight was on my knees, and ran my hands over my entire body. It was all there — clothed, furthermore, in the usual business suit. Still, no matter how I turned my head or focused my eyes, I could sec nothing of myself. In fact, there was nothing whatever to be seen anywhere within the spherical area of the crater. I could feel myself to be materially intact, and I was conscious and thinking after a fashion. And I was dimly aware of hearing myself whimper inarticulately. But then, I could plainly see that I was no longer material at all. I simply could not make my mind work; the situation was too terrifying and illogical. Trying to think clearly was like trying to run in waist-high water. But finally, in a flash of dreadful insight, I arrived at an explanation which covered all the facts. Evidently, I was dead.