Nonentity (10 page)

“We don’t aim to beat the Regime. It’s about freedom of association. Are you aware …”

Sneering, Rev said, “Save it for somebody who gives a shit. I’m just trying to make a dishonest buck.” He peered over my shoulder distractedly. “Ah hell, what’s that broad doing now? Is there a goddamn one of you radicals she ain’t stalking?”

I turned and spotted Victoria Mason peeking at Rev and me from the side of a nearby building. She ran away.

I said, “Just ignore her. That’s what I do.”

“That’s no easy task. She pops up everywhere. I don’t exactly mind looking at her. You can’t imagine the things I’d like to do to that woman.”

“I prefer not to imagine such things. I’ll probably spend the next hour trying to forget you said that. Never mind. Just get me what I want and collect a few more dishonest bucks.”

“I’ll find something.”

****

I stared at an empty fish tank on a dresser by a window in Lorna’s living room. Aside from the aquarium and two obscure paintings, the other notable item was a faded pink couch. That sofa must have been forty years old. I sank deep into its cushions.

“You know,” I called out to Lorna, who was in the kitchen fetching us tea, “a couple of fish in that tank by the window might really spruce this place up.”

“What?” she said, out of sight.

“Fish. They go well with an aquarium. They’re low-maintenance too.”

“Aren’t they better off in their natural environments? Besides, an empty tank leaves possibilities open. It’s like a pre-developed world.”

I shook my head.

She entered and sat next to me, handing me my tea. “Emptiness is underrated.”

“I suppose it allows freer rein for the imagination.”

“Something to that effect,” she said. “I could put water in that tank and maybe add some of your precious fish. Then the water would get dirty and require cleaning. Unnecessary labor. And why? Because I tampered with things that didn’t need tampering. The fish didn’t need tampering. Neither did the tank. Neither did I.”

“You see, that’s why I appreciate you. So practical. You keep things simple.”

“Things are never as simple as I wish.”

I melted in her eyes. I wanted to grab her, kiss her, press flesh upon flesh, deflower her. My desires shamed me. She was removed from such pedestrian cravings. What if I had known then that her evaporation was a month away? Would I have been more or less likely to pursue my lust for her? Probably less.

Glancing down, I spotted a large stack of papers by my feet, sticking out from under the couch. I picked up the sheets. On the top page was a title:
Otherworldly Love
.

Lorna snatched the papers from my hands. “Don’t look at those.”

“Why not?”

“Because I threw them under the couch for a reason. They’re not for anyone to read.”

“What are they, something you wrote?”

She looked away.

“Hold on,” I said, pausing. “You’re writing a book, aren’t you?”

She gritted her teeth. “Maybe.”

“That’s no answer. You either are or you aren’t. I believe that you are. Like father like daughter. Just admit it.”

“Fine. I’m writing a book. So what?”

“That’s great. You have a good title. It makes me want to know more.”

“Well, you’re not going to know more,” she said.

“Oh, come on. What am I going to do, trash your idea and mock your ambitions? I wouldn’t do that. Even if I did, how could that discourage you? A person like you should be immune to negativity from the peanut gallery.”

Lorna considered my comment. “You’re not the peanut gallery.”

“That’s true. Unlike those vultures, I’m already prejudiced in your favor. I wouldn’t shoot down what you’re writing. Tell me about it.”

She sighed. “Alright. Damn you. Since you won’t mind your own business, it’s just a little fantasy piece I put together. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You’ve got a decent number of pages there.”

“The story’s incomplete. And the part that is complete, well, it’s a mess. I’m not as good at arranging my thoughts as my father.”

“You’re kidding, right? Have you seen
Extracurricular Explorations
? That thing hardly has any discernible arrangement.”

“That’s only its surface appearance,” she said. “His books make sense on a separate plane of existence. I’m trying to write on that plane as well. I don’t catch as many glimpses of it as he does. That’s why my book’s such a mess.”

“Separate plane of existence? You lost me. What’s your book about?”

“It’s a story of a man and a woman who have powerful feelings for each other. Due to their imperfect world, they never fully explore those feelings. They have to travel to a different realm to do that; that’s the separate plane of existence. My father writes about it. It’s the territory that Lukas Lambert investigates. That’s why I go to him.”

I said, “You lost me again. It’s about a man and a woman who explore their feelings for one another in a different realm. What realm?”

“I’m not sure. The whole book is probably crazy. You said, ‘Like father like daughter.’ I get premonitions similar to his. He spills them onto the page. He accepts his confusion, aware that there’s a place where it all makes sense. I should do the same. It’s hard, you know. The desire to comprehend the incomprehensible gets in my way.”

“So much for keeping things as simple as you wish.”

“Right. I get ideas and feelings impossible to explain. There’s a lot of static in them. My father claims that the static is where the truest revelations reside.”

I laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone down this line of questioning. Give me a copy of what you’ve written and let me make my own heads and tails of it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you read any of it, the story might not unfold as written.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let me read the damn thing.”

“No. You’ll have to wait to see how things turn out.”

“How things turn out? Does this book contain predictions about me?”

“I can’t say anything more about it. Sorry. Let it drop.”

I shrugged in frustration. I thought about secretly taking the book without her permission. Too sneaky.

A couple weeks later, I ran into an acquaintance of hers, Cranston Gage. I had only spoken with Cranston twice before. We were not yet friends. Still, he realized that I was close to Lorna and cared deeply for her.

“You don’t know that woman as well as you think,” said Cranston. “She’s mixed up in some shit that would appall you.”

“What are you talking about? I know she has some off-beat philosophies.”

“That’s an understatement. Her off-beat philosophies have turned reckless.”

I was irked. “What the hell is this about? She’s fine.”

“That’s what she wants you to believe. Lorna’s deceptive. She’s not a radical. She has no ties to the underground. I doubt she’s ever had a code name. She comes off as more bohemian than subversive. But she is a subversive. She’s the ultimate subversive.”

“Get to the point.”

“Are you familiar with The Abandoned Youths Reeducation Program?” he said.

“Not especially.”

“It’s one of the Regime’s most aggressive operations. Of course, ‘abandoned youths’ is a misnomer. The parents didn’t abandon these poor children; the parents were evaporated. They weren’t good citizens. They didn’t raise their kids to be good citizens either. The Abandoned Youths Reeducation Program attempts to remedy that. The offspring of the evaporated are assigned to special camps of ramped-up brainwashing. It’s far harsher conditioning than what typical children endure.”

“Par for the course,” I said. “What does it have to do with Lorna?”

“Such a program was bound to provoke countermeasures. Certain people – either supremely courageous or insanely suicidal, depending on your outlook – well, they hatched a scheme to get the targeted children out of harm’s way. They started illegally relocating the children before the Regime could get its filthy hands on them. To one degree or another, it’s worked. I mean, it’s ridiculously dangerous and arguably jeopardizes the children even more than they would otherwise be, but hey, it hasn’t been unsuccessful.”

“What are you saying? Is Lorna involved in these illegal activities?”

“Not just involved. She’s the main organizer. I know someone on the inside who claims the Regime has been tracking her for over a year now. The jackals hoped she would slip up and lead them to fellow conspirators. She hasn’t given them what they wanted and she’s been too effective for them to continue tolerating. She’s as good as gone. It’ll happen soon. I tell you this so that you won’t be taken by surprise.”

I did not want to believe Cranston. I tried to persuade myself that he was mistaken, or even bullshitting me. I went to Lorna’s home a day later to confront her.

“What’s up with you? It doesn’t look like you’re doing so well,” she said, the two of us standing on the tiny porch outside her flat.

It was pleasant outside, ideal brightness and temperature. I stared off into a little garden in front of Lorna’s complex. Rodents had burrowed into the parcel and eaten through several of the plants. That spoilage matched my feelings more accurately than the weather.

I said, “Forget about me. I’m concerned that you may be in serious danger.”

She laughed. “Really? How exciting. What mishap do you expect?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have reason to think that you may be in serious danger. You …”

“You already said that. I don’t get this. What …”

“Do you know anything about The Abandoned Youths Reeducation Program?”

“What?”

“The Abandoned Youths Reeducation Program. What can you tell me about that?”

Lorna looked away, tipping me off. She said, “That’s, uh, that’s not something I care to discuss. Please stay out of it.”

“Hell no I won’t stay out of it! Are you engaged in criminal activities?”

“Whether certain activities are criminal is not always black-and-white. I do not consider my activities criminal. A system that produces brute cruelty necessitates disobedience. One must act with compassion toward the innocent victims of that cruelty. I believe …”

“Hey, save the rally-the-troops speech for someone who sympathizes with it. We live in a society of laws. A person who violates any of those laws is a criminal. Are you a criminal?”

She paused and smiled. “Yes.”

“Oh no. Lorna – what are you doing? Think of the consequences. Have you no regard for your own wellbeing?”

“My wellbeing demands that I look out for the wellbeing of others, particularly those incapable of defending themselves. Under the rule of tyranny, all virtues become crimes. That’s the only consequence that interests me.”

“Horseshit. If you end up evaporated, all your virtues will amount to nothing.”

“It’s a necessary risk.”

“You’re hopeless then. Think of those who care about you. What about your friends? What about your father? What about …”

“What about you?” she said, placing her hands on my face. “How will you handle it if something awful happens to me?”

“Well, uh, that’s a good question. I definitely appreciate you too much to let it happen without trying to talk some sense into you.”

“But it goes beyond mere appreciation, doesn’t it?”

“What are you getting at?”

Pulling me in closer, Lorna said, “Let’s drop the pretense. Stop acting like a character in some book, dramatically avoiding the obvious. This moment might be the last one we ever share in this realm. Make this movie real while you still can.”

“Uh, what do you want me to say?”

“That you’re in love with me. You’ve been in love with me since the beginning. That is good and noble and beautiful. I can’t express how grateful I am to possess a love as strong as yours. Yet, that love is not for this place and time. It belongs to something elsewhere.”

“What the hell are you talking about? This is …”

She stopped me in mid-sentence with a kiss that warmed the chill in my veins. All discontent flowed out of me. The kiss lasted several minutes.

When it ended, she stepped back from me. She looked me squarely in the eyes. “I love you too, Sebastian. This is not a goodbye. Consider it a ‘to be continued.’”

Then she was gone.

Nine days later I learned that Lorna would face evaporation. I could not contact her. First came shock. Then anguish, protracted and draining. Those sensations ripened into bitterness, thrusting me onto a perilous path.

Death to the Permanent Regime! I had finally chosen my own reality.

On the third anniversary of Lorna’s evaporation, another spell dislodged me:

I saw a blue blotch. Gregorian psychedelia rose to a clamor. Flames exploded through a door in a night sky. Through that door I fell.

I landed in a field stretching beyond sight. The sun above ceded to absolute dark. Thunder and lightning thrashed. Copious rain pelted me. The downfall was cleansing. I closed my eyes and felt release.

Opening my eyes, I spotted an immense, glowing bubble floating out of the vast black toward me. A blurry figure stood inside the bubble. The orb neared, revealing its occupant: Lorna. Her white gown seemed afire. The bubble halted a few feet in front of me. Lorna raised her arms skyward – extinguishing the rain, thunder, and lightning.

Within her sphere she stared at me, swirling green eyes hypnotic. “Sebastian, why are you here?”

I was too dumbfounded to respond.

“What is this,” she said, “a dream, a delusion, a glimpse into another world?”

“I, uh, haven’t a clue.”

She laughed. “Naturally. You’ve transcended the material universe.”

“That’s unbelievable. Am I losing my mind?”

“You’re losing your restricted mind for one without boundaries. Search beneath the illusory surface to discover what the new mind can fathom.”

“The illusory surface is all that there is,” I said.

“In your world, yes, but perception is exclusively king where I linger. The will alone determines truth and falsehood. This experience is real or unreal according to what you desire. What is your wish?”

“I want it be real, but it can’t be; you are dead.”

Lorna said, “I have completed the life cycle in a literal sense, yet I no longer operate within literal ramifications. Care to join me beyond those ramifications?”

“Perhaps you might offer me some assistance.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Can I touch you? Physical contact might erase the boundaries.”

“Not yet,” she said, gently waving a hand. “The restricted mind still blocks you from advancing to my realm. Do not despair. I know someone who can bridge the gap.”

“Who?”

“You met him once already. You dismissed him as ‘a bunko artist completely enthralled with his own pseudo-science.’ Return to him with a more open mind.”

“Oh no. You mean Lukas Lambert, don’t you? Damn. It was bad enough that you were so taken with him while you were alive.”

She raised her arms to the sky. Thunder and lightning erupted. Heavy rain resumed, splashing upon me more violently than before.

“What the hell is this?” I said. “Can you dictate the weather?”

“I can dictate anything that strikes my fancy. I can vanish if I prefer.”

“Please stay.”

“Go to Lukas, Sebastian. He is expecting you.”

Fierce winds blew. A punishing hailstorm broke out. Lorna’s bubble dimmed. She faded into nothingness.

I screamed, “I’ll do what you ask. I will return to the parallel universalist.”

Too late. The bubble was gone. Lorna was dead again. The blue blotch recaptured my vision, casting me out of this latest hallucination:

I awoke in a chair in my dreary apartment. Deflated, it took me a few seconds to notice that I was soaking wet. Had my hallucination ended? Nothing aside from my drenched state was askew. My barely functional television sat across from me. The walls remained an uninspiring beige. The carpet sported its usual stains. My chair still had a hole in one of its arms. I was ensconced in dreadful realism. But I dripped from head to toe.

A knock came to my front door. Answering it, I was astonished to see the short, nameless driver of the unregistered cab in which Lorna and I had twice traveled together.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“Mr. Flemming,” said the cabbie, “you have an appointment. We must go immediately.”

“Wait a minute. What are you talking about? I haven’t set anything up.”

“This was prearranged.”

“Prearranged? By whom?”

The man glared at me. “That’s not important. I am to take you to Mr. Lukas Lambert. Please get ready.”

I capitulated. The unexpected visitor was perhaps a sequel to my hallucination in the rain. I threw on some wrinkled clothes and departed.

We arrived at Lukas’s barn/workplace to find the premises more horrid than before. There were large holes in the structure’s roof. Cracks ran all along the walls. Piles of trash littered the front yard. In place of the half-burned mailbox was a sawed-off post.

I exited the vehicle and traversed the stone walkway leading to the doorknob-less door. Gigantic chunks of concrete were missing from the path. I knocked on the door.

“Ah hell,” called Lukas from inside. “Stop pestering me. I am not home.”

I said, “It sounds like your voice is home.”

“Do not trust your ears. In fact, this is only a recording. This is only a recording. Please evacuate. I repeat: This is only a recording. This is …”

“As convincing as that is, I’ll call your bluff anyway. Not for me, mind you. I’m doing this for Lorna.”

“Lorna? Oh goodness. You’re breaking my heart. How I miss her smile and gracious aura. A terrible thing that happened to that girl. Terrible thing.”

I said, “I couldn’t agree more, sir. That’s why I’m here. She appeared to me in a whacked-out vision and urged me to see you again.”

“A vision, eh? Funny you should mention that. She appeared to me as well. I must have forgotten. Thanks for jogging my memory. Sebastian, right?”

“Yes. Will you please open the door?”

“Uh, sure. My manners remain deficient. Allow me to compensate.”

Lukas opened the door. Much of his hair stood on end as if electrocuted, but his bangs were long, limp, and bleached. Cracked lenses obscured the dazed blue eyes behind his bent glasses. His necktie was neon pink and nearly frayed out of existence. He fashioned two shirts – one gray, the other red – awkwardly patched together. A three-inch hole by the crotch maximized the hideousness of his pea green pants. I looked away.

Putting a hand on my shoulder, Lukas said, “You consider me a circus act.”

“Oh no. Of course not,” I said.

“Don’t bullshit me, Sebastian. No sense pretending you don’t view me as a member of the freak show.”

“You just have a unique style, that’s all. Nothing wrong with that. The clothes do not necessarily make the man.”

“Damn that’s good! Preoccupation with dress clouds judgment. That’s what really makes the man: judgment.”

I said, “Judgment also makes the woman. Lorna, in this case.”

“Yes. She gets around a lot for a dead person. She wants me to conduct another session with you. Are you ready?”

“I guess.”

“You should never guess unless you fully understand the question,” Lukas said.

“Well, there’s a lot I don’t understand. Like my vision of Lorna. Perhaps you can enlighten me about it. You see, I …”

“Say no more. It was raining, she appeared, you conversed with her, the vision ended, and you were soaking wet after it was over. You’d like to know if it really happened.”

I nodded, amazed by his knowledge.

He said, “I can’t answer that. Do you wish that it happened?”

“Definitely.”

“Then voila – it happened. Congratulations.”

“Just like that? I’m sorry, but that’s flimsy.”

He threw up his hands. “Okay. Then it didn’t happen. Satisfied?”

“No. Shit. I’m trying to get a handle on this. I don’t know how it could have been more than a fantasy. The one factor that lends it truth is how drenched I was afterwards.”

“Then focus on that factor and ignore all else. I had my vision of her as well. I never doubted its truth. Fantasies don’t bring people like you and me together.”

“Fair enough. Shall we get on with this?”

Lukas led me down the foyer to the door of his office. The door still had the personalized nameplate (Lukas Lambert, Parallel Universalist), along with the hourglass featuring a blue circle on its bottom half.

We entered his office. I was stunned. Everything was in neat shape. All the junk that once cluttered the room was gone. There were no scattered papers, moth-infested clothing, and half-eaten plates of food. The desk, two chairs, and file cabinet remained. The place smelled of roses, a happy substitute for the dead animal odor I remembered.

“What the hell happened in here?” I said.

“Oh yeah. I made some changes.”

“No kidding. This is hardly the same room. What did you do with all that stuff?”

“I threw it out,” he said. “I tried to convince myself that some undiscovered jewel was hiding in all that garbage, you know, the ultimate formula that encapsulates everything. Hogwash. All that trash was an impediment to intellectual refinement.”

“Well, it’s a hell of an improvement.”

“Thanks. Please have a seat in the chair in front of the desk.”

I did so. Lukas went to the file cabinet, opened the top drawer, and retrieved his prized red headpiece. He grabbed the chair behind the desk and rolled it to a position facing me. He dimmed the room’s lights with a remote and sat down a couple feet across from me.

“Remember this nifty gadget?” he said, waving the headpiece before my eyes.

“The SRF-3.”

“Your powers of recall are substantial, my friend. Then again, how could anybody forget such a stupendous device?”

He activated the sound system in the room. That haunting mixture of Gregorian chant and psychedelia pierced my ears. Lukas slipped the SRF-3 over his head. The skinny red lenses of the headpiece rotated, unleashing tiny blue laser beams that overwhelmed my sight. I sensed a gigantic flame bursting toward me and singeing my skin.

“Get me away from here! I don’t want to be burned,” I yelled. As before, the words I spoke were beyond my control (which would persist throughout the session).

Lukas’s voice commanded composure: “The fire cannot harm you.”

I fell into a trance of blue. Peace overcame me. I felt safe, unassuming, open to new experience, free. The blue blotch melted and a door in a night sky became visible.

With a disorienting echo effect Lukas said, “Sebastian, what are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I said robotically.

“Have you been waiting for me?”

“I don’t believe so. I have anticipated traveling to another place.”

“You are in that place now, correct? It is uncharted.”

“That’s not right,” said I, my words incomprehensible. “I have been here before, possibly in another state of consciousness.”

“Or maybe in the unconscious or the subconscious. Maybe it isn’t a place you’ve been so much as a leap forward or backward in time. Might you have gone off the clock? Could the future be present, the past yet to occur?”

“Huh? What?”

“Sebastian, are you falling?”

His question sent me tumbling downward. I thudded onto the floor inside an elevator. The elevator doors shut. Blueness absorbed my sight. I felt myself getting sucked violently through a wind tunnel.

“These upheavals notwithstanding, you are fine, Sebastian. You’re being pulled into a future paradoxically behind you. Do not resist the scrambling of time.”

“I, uh, I may get sick.”

“Then embrace the leap forward, which is actually backward.”

I said, “Where am I?”

“Not where – when.”

“Okay. When am I?”

“Not when – if.”

“Damn it, Lukas. This is confusing.”

With a muffled laugh he said, “Elevator going up!”

My vision’s blueness dissolved. I remained in the elevator, which shot upwards at frightening speed. Eyeing the floor listing within the lift, I read the top level’s designation: INFINITY IN REVERSE. The blue blotch recaptured my sight.

“You are not yet ready for the highest floor,” said Lukas.

“But am I ready for a leap forward or backward in time? How are such leaps possible?”

“I have no use for the possible. You won’t either eventually. Only the impossible can enable you to go back and bypass the suffering associated with your mother.”

“How do you know about my mother?”

“I survey your entire life from where I sit. Your pain is vast, but it does not aid you. You must let go.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” I said.

“You must face what genuinely haunts you. Who or what is your enemy?”

“My enemy?”

“Yes, your enemy,” Lukas said. “What threatens you the most?”

“I suppose the Permanent Regime. Like anyone who dares to be his own person, I am vulnerable to totalitarians. The Regime will likely destroy me.”

“Except that you will have already destroyed yourself.”