Spaceland (9 page)
Authors: Rudy Rucker
A bit later, Dad dropped Dawna off at the hot dog stand and ambled home, pausing on the way to vomit the digested remnants of his meal into a special public trough at the side of a building. In this flat world, people didn't have full digestive tracts. Dad bumped into a friend at the trough. I touched my finger to their plane in the shadow of the trough so I could pick up their sound vibrations.
“Howdy, big gaaah,” said Dad's friend, another cowboy-type character. He, too, was squeezing out the waste from his belly. “Nothin' like emptyin' yore gut before dinner, hey Ed?”
“Urp, yep,” said Dad. “After some lovin' it's pretty good too, Jed.”
“You devil,” cackled Jed. “I noticed you slippin' outta town with that little Dawna from Zeke's. I guess you been too busy plowin' to hyar the big news.”
“What all's that?”
“Some kind o' weird cult killin'. Custer. He was butchered like a flat pig. His waaf Mindy found him, she said they was things like hands rootin' around in his bloody guts. Spirit hands without no body.”
“Mercy me,” said Dad. And then, without missing a beat, he began wondering aloud how this might affect Mindy's sexual availability. “Widders gets lonely pretty fast, I hear.” Same old Dad.
I followed Dad to his humble homeâwhich turned out to be a Flatland version of the house I'd grown up in. What a pang it gave me to see it, flat and open as the back of a dollhouse. Inside were
Mom and my sister Sue, a loudmouth with a lot of attitude. Seeing Sue and her ponytails, I suddenly realized that she was the girl who'd seen Dad and Dawna. And, yes, her flat dog was with her, fuzzed with orange and white hair just like my boyhood dog Arf. Mom looked angry; her motions were jerky and angular. Sue had already spilled the beans.
Mom and my sister Sue, a loudmouth with a lot of attitude. Seeing Sue and her ponytails, I suddenly realized that she was the girl who'd seen Dad and Dawna. And, yes, her flat dog was with her, fuzzed with orange and white hair just like my boyhood dog Arf. Mom looked angry; her motions were jerky and angular. Sue had already spilled the beans.
I had a sinister feeling of things coming together. My dream was turning into the day when my mother had stabbed my father in his stomach. The worst day of my life. Maybe this time I could do something to keep it from happening. I touched a finger to the corner of the room beneath the couch and listened to them.
As soon as he came in, Dad started telling Mom about Custer's killing. “Seems Mindy found Custer all hacked up, with his innards all over the room!” he exclaimed. “People are gittin' nastier all the time. Mindy's about off her nut; she's sayin' she seen hands crawlin' around inside the remains. Hands without nothin' attached to 'em, all wobbly and changin' their shapes like clouds.”
Mom wasn't going to be distracted. “I suppose you'll be slippin' around to comfort Mindy next,” she snapped. “Too bad them crawlin' hands didn't git her too.” Mom knew her husband. “You and your tramps,” she yelled. “Your sluts! I know what you got up to this afternoon with Dawna!”
“Why do you have to run around with other women all the time, Dad?” said Sue in a shaky voice. “It's ruining my life. People tease me about you at school.”
“Some day you'll know the score,” answered Dad in his slow, Western drawl. “A fella's got his needs.” The maddening thing about my father had been that he never seemed to feel guilty. He was like Arf: one whiff of an available female and he was gone, not a thought in his head but burying his bone.
“Oh, let him be, Sue,” said Mom, suddenly turning listless. “It don't matter none.” She'd often gotten like that towards the end of
the marriageâtoo sad and crushed to make a fuss. Deflated. But I knew how much rage was inside her. I knew she was about to snap.
the marriageâtoo sad and crushed to make a fuss. Deflated. But I knew how much rage was inside her. I knew she was about to snap.
I had to do something to stop the disaster. I stuck my hand further into the film of Mom and Dad's living room. As before, the space gave like the surface of a pond, easily letting me poke through. I moved my hand and waggled my fingers, moving them around in the air above their floor.
Seeing the little pink circles where my fingers crossed their space, the three flat people jerked in surprise. Inside their bodies, their two-dimensional Valentine hearts pulsed faster. Mom screamed, “It's them hands!” She darted into the kitchen next door, dragging Sue by the hand. She hooked the flap of the kitchen door behind her; the barking dog was with her too.
I hacked Dad against the other wall, herding him with my fingers. Once or twice I bumped him. He was lighter than the thinnest scrap of paper; my slightest touch sent him flying. When he stopped trying to escape, I lowered my head sideways down into the space and talked to him.
“Don't be afraid, Dad. I'm Joe. Your son.”
“Git!” said Dad. “Don't touch me!”
“I'm from Spaceland,” I said. “The land of three dimensions.”
“What that crap supposed to be?”
“Spaceland has up, down, East and West like your Flatland,” I said. “But we have North and South, too.”
“That don't mean a thing. North. Where's it at?”
“It's the other direction of your body. Not up or down, not left or rightâit's what you might call back and front.”
“Back and front ain't words neither. You gonna tear me apart like you did Custer?”
“That was an accident,” I said. “I only want you to understand me. I'm your Spaceland son. Maybe if you understand me, then I can understand the fourth dimension.”
“You not my son,” said Dad. squeezing shut his eyes. “I'm not seein' you a'tall.”
“I'm real,” I insisted, with a catch in my voice. “Look at me.”
I was weightless; I could fly in any direction I liked. I floated through the house's living room front-on, making a cross section that was first the oval of my stomach, then a two-dimensional outline of my arms, legs and head, then the rounds of my butt, and then nothing. Dad didn't say anything.
I turned and drifted through Dad's space again, this time feet first, like Momo had done. plane intersected my legs in a pair of circles. The circles grew and joined to make a cross section of my waist, accompanied by the cross sections of my arms. The arm circles merged with my body circle, and shrank down to my neck.
And then I showed Dad some outlines of my head. Still no reaction.
And then I showed Dad some outlines of my head. Still no reaction.
I turned my head at an angle, holding it so that both my eye and my mouth were in Dad's space again. The cross section I made was an irregular blob.
“You a freak,” said Dad. “A space monster. You kilt Custer.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “But Mom's about to knife you.”
“Say what?”
“I remember, Dad,” I told him. “I've been through all this before. Here, let me help you. I'll augment you.”
In my dream I knew I had to make my father wet and then shock him. It seemed I was holding something like a cattle prod, and now, to wet him down, I found myself peeing onto him. My urine spurted into Dad's space from the third dimension, dousing
him all over. I touched the electrode of the prod to the center of his brain andâlo and beholdâa stalk grew up with a bright black eye at its tip. I ran the prod around the edges of his body and his skin writhed and then spread across his exposed surfaces, a higher skin closing off his exposure to the third dimension.
him all over. I touched the electrode of the prod to the center of his brain andâlo and beholdâa stalk grew up with a bright black eye at its tip. I ran the prod around the edges of his body and his skin writhed and then spread across his exposed surfaces, a higher skin closing off his exposure to the third dimension.
And then I pulled myself out of their space and watched, with a listening finger resting behind the couch. After a minute, Mom reappeared from the kitchen. Sue and the dog had escaped out the back door.
“Are you all right, Ed?” said Mom uneasily. “Where'd them devil hands go? Did someone put a hex on you and Mindy?”
“IâI can see over your skin,” said Dad, staring down at her with his third eye. He could indeed see over her skin and into her guts.
“I can see inside you, Mary. I see your blood and your crap. You as dirty inside as me.”
“I can see inside you, Mary. I see your blood and your crap. You as dirty inside as me.”
“Oh, I hate you so much!” cried Mom. “You make my life filthy!” She ran into the kitchen and grabbed a long sharp triangle. The carving knife. She stabbed at Dad, but Dad instinctively humped up the middle of his body, making a little arch that the knife could stick through without actually touching him.
From Mom's point of view it was as if Dad's middle had disappeared. She screamed and ran out of the room. Dad's stomach sank back into his flat space.
“You still hangin' around, Space Joe?” he asked. “How in tarnation did I disappear my stomach like that?”
“You lifted it towards the front side of your body,” I said. “Into the third dimension. Would you like ro see what it's like up here?”
“Okey-doke,” said Dad. “And when we done, you set me down somewhere's far away.”
After the way I'd torn Custer's skin right off his body, I was a little nervous about lifting up my flat Dad. But he'd been augmented now; his front and back were covered with skin. I took a delicate hold of his leg and jiggled it. It lifted up fineâthough his sock and his shoe stayed behind.
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