Naomi Klein

Libre comercio y terrorismo
Naomi Klein

Thomas Friedman (columnista de The New York Times) asegura que la subcontratación de empresas extranjeras, la "deslocalización" (outsourcing), lucha contra el terrorismo: al trasladar trabajos "de baja paga y bajo prestigio" a "lugares como la India o Pakistán... no sólo creamos un mundo más próspero, sino también un mundo más seguro para nuestros jóvenes veinteañeros". Pero, ¿estos empleos -muchos de los cuales requieren que los trabajadores disimulen su nacionalidad, adopten acentos falsos del Oeste Medio y trabajen toda la noche- son los reforzadores de la autoconfianza que Friedman asegura?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN no ha estado así de exaltado respecto al libre comercio desde las protestas contra la OMC en Seattle. En aquel entonces, le dijo a los lectores de The New York Times que el ambiente de trabajo en una planta de Victoria's Secret en Sri Lanka era tan maravilloso "que en términos de las condiciones, dejaría que mis propias hijas trabajaran ahí".

Nunca actualizó a sus lectores sobre cómo las chicas disfrutaban del tiempo que dedicaron a coser ropa interior, pero Friedman ya pasó a otra cosa -ahora está en el tema de los placeres de los centros de atención telefónica en Bangalore.

Estos empleos, escribió el 29 de febrero, le dan a los jóvenes "confianza en sí mismos, dignidad y optimismo" -y eso no sólo es bueno para los indios, sino también para los estadunidenses. ¿Por qué? Porque trabajadores contentos a quienes se les paga para que ayuden a los turistas estadunidenses a localizar su equipaje perdido en vuelos de Delta son menos propensos a amarrarse dinamita y hacer explotar esos mismos aviones.

¿Confundido? Friedman explica la conexión: "Al escuchar a estos jóvenes indios tuve un déjà vu. Hace cinco meses estaba en Ramallah, en la Costa Occidental, hablando con tres jóvenes palestinos, también veinteañeros... hablaban de no tener esperanza, ni empleos, ni dignidad, y cada uno asintió cuando uno de ellos dijo que todos eran 'bombas suicidas en espera'". De ahí concluye que la subcontratación de empresas extranjeras, la "deslocalización" ( ), lucha contra el terrorismo: al trasladar trabajos "de baja paga y bajo prestigio" a "lugares como la India o Pakistán... no sólo creamos un mundo más próspero, sino también un mundo más seguro para nuestros jóvenes veinteañeros".

Ante tal argumento, ¿por dónde comenzar? India no ha estado vinculado en ningún incidente importante de terrorismo internacional desde el bombardeo de Air India en 1985 (los sospechosos de haber llevado a cabo el bombardeo son principalmente ciudadanos canadienses nacidos en India). Tampoco es, este país 81% hindú, un semillero de Al Qaeda; de hecho, India fue nombrada por la red terrorista "enemigo del Islam". Pero omitamos los detalles. En el mundo de Friedman, los centros de atención telefónica son los frentes de batalla de la Tercera Guerra Mundial: La Lucha por la Modernidad para, valientemente, mantener a los jóvenes de tez morena alejados de las garras de Hamas y Al Qaeda.

Pero, ¿estos empleos -muchos de los cuales requieren que los trabajadores disimulen su nacionalidad, adopten acentos falsos del Oeste Medio y trabajen toda la noche- son los reforzadores de la autoconfianza que Friedman asegura? No, según Lubna Baloch, una mujer paquistaní subcontratada para transcribir archivos médicos dictados por doctores en el Centro Médico de San Francisco, de la Universidad de California. El hospital le paga a los estenógrafos en Estados Unidos 18 centavos por línea, pero a Baloch sólo le pagaron una sexta parte de esa suma. De todos modos, su empleador estadunidense -un subcontratista de un subcontratista de un contratista- no logró pagar la nómina, y Baloch asegura que le deben 100 dólares en salarios atrasados.

En octubre, frustrada porque su patrón no respondía a sus correos electrónicos, Baloch se contactó con el Centro Médico UCSF y amenazó con "dar a conocer todos los archivos de voz y los expedientes de los pacientes... en el Internet". Luego se retractó de su amenaza, y explicó: "Me siento violada, desamparada... la más sin suerte de las personas en este mundo". Adiós "la confianza en sí misma, la dignidad y el optimismo" -parece ser que no todos los empleos tecnológicos "deslocalizados" son seguros contra actos de desesperación.

***

Friedman tiene razón en reconocer, finalmente, que hay una clara conexión entre luchar contra la pobreza y luchar contra el terrorismo (un paso adelante de su práctica habitual de culpar a "la locura colectiva" de las bombas suicidas). Se equivoca, claro, en argumentar que las políticas de libre comercio aliviarán esa pobreza: de hecho, son un motor altamente eficiente para la desposesión, empuja a los pequeños agricultores de sus tierras y deja sin trabajo a los trabajadores del sector público, y, por lo tanto, hace que crezca la desesperada necesidad de empleos en Victoria's Secret y los centros de atención telefónica de Delta.

Pero aunque Friedman genuinamente cree que los trabajos de exportación con bajo salario son la llave al desarrollo económico, defenderlos como la cura contra la desesperanza en Ramallah raya en lo obsceno. Todos los estudios creíbles sobre la economía en los territorios ocupados han concluido que la principal causa del desempleo palestino -ahora en 50%- es la ocupación misma. El brutal sistema israelí de bloquear a pueblos y aldeas palestinas -a través de retenes, cierres carreteros, toques de queda, vallas y ahora la vil pared de "seguridad"- "prácticamente ha destruido la economía palestina", declara un Informe de Amnistía Internacional de septiembre de 2003. "Los cierres y los toques de queda han provocado que los palestinos no puedan llegar a sus lugares de trabajo... hay fábricas y granjas que se han quedado en la bancarrota".

En otras palabras, el desarrollo económico no llegará a Palestina a través de los centros de atención telefónica sino a través de la liberación. El argumento de Friedman es igual de absurdo cuando se aplica al país en el que el terrorismo está creciendo más rápidamente: Irak. Así como en Palestina, Irak enfrenta una crisis de desempleo, alimentada por la ocupación. Y no es para sorprenderse: la primera movida de Paul Bremer como enviado principal de Estados Unidos fue despedir a 400 mil soldados y otros trabajadores del Estado. Su segunda movida fue abrir las fronteras a importaciones baratas, predeciblemente sacando del negocio a cientos de compañías locales.

Por lo general, los trabajadores despedidos que buscaban conseguir un empleo participando en la reconstrucción de su país deshecho no tuvieron suerte: La reconstrucción de Irak es un amplio programa de creación de empleos para estadunidenses, con Halliburton y los demás importando trabajadores estadunidenses, no sólo como ingenieros, sino también como choferes y estilistas. Los empleos de segunda categoría se destinan a los migrantes de Asia y los iraquíes recogen la basura. Es importante señalar que John Kerry y John Edwards, si bien condenan enérgicamente la pérdida de empleos estadunidenses por el traslado de los empleos al extranjero, no han dicho nada respecto a la masiva "deslocalización" realizada por empresas estadunidenses de empleos desesperadamente necesitados.

Sin embargo, estas políticas, quizá más que cualquier otra, han alimentado la violencia que ahora amenaza a llevar a Irak a una guerra civil. Los hombres que Bremer despidió son "el agua de la llave que mantiene a la insurgencia andando.

Es el empleo alternativo", le dijo el empresario iraquí Hussain Kubba a Asian Times. Es un punto de vista apoyado por Hassam Kadhim, un residente de 27 años de la Ciudad de Sadr, quien recientemente le dijo a The New York Times que está tan desesperado por un empleo que "si alguien llega con 50 dólares y me pide que les aviente una granada a los estadunidenses, lo haré con placer" .

La brillante idea de Friedman de luchar contra el terrorismo con empleos estadunidenses "deslocalizados" es sumamente complicado. Un mejor plan sería acabar con la ocupación y dejar de enviar trabajadores estadunidenses a robarse los empleos iraquíes.

(Traducción: Tania Molina Ramírez. Copyright 2004 Naomi Klein. Una versión de este artículo fue publicado en The Nation)

Naomi Klein es autora de "No Logo" y "Vallas y ventanas"

EL HOMBRE DE HIELO

El hombre de hielo de Haruki Murakami

Me casé con un hombre de hielo.
Encontré al hombre de hielo en el hotel de unas pistas de esquí. Es posible que aquél fuera el lugar más indicado para conocerlo. En el vestíbulo de aquel bullicioso hotel, atestado de gente joven, el hombre de hielo estaba solo, leyendo tranquilamente un libro en el rincón más alejado de la estufa. Ya casi era mediodía, pero a mí me dio la impresión de que la límpida y fría luz de la mañana todavía seguía brillando sólo a su alrededor.
—¡Mira! Aquél es el hombre de hielo —me susurró una amiga. Pero yo, entonces, no tenía la menor idea de qué era un hombre de hielo. Tampoco mi amiga lo tenía muy claro. Lo único que sabía era que se llamaba de ese modo.
—Seguro que está hecho de hielo. De ahí le debe de venir el nombre —me dijo ella con una expresión muy seria. Como si hablara de algún fantasma o de alguna víctima de una enfermedad contagiosa.
El hombre de hielo era alto y sus cabellos, a ojos vista, rígidos. De cara parecía joven, pero su pelo, tieso como el alambre, estaba entreverado de algo blanco como la nieve cuajada en el suelo. Sin embargo, dejando eso aparte, su aspecto no difería apenas del de un hombre normal. No se le podía llamar guapo, pero, según cómo te lo miraras, tenía un aire muy atractivo. Había algo punzante en él que se te clavaba muy hondo en el corazón. Y ese algo residía, especialmente, en su mirada. En sus ojos silenciosos y transparentes que centelleaban como un carámbano en una mañana de invierno. Aquellos ojos parecían poseer un destello de vida verdadera dentro de un cuerpo transitorio. Permanecí unos instantes allí de pie, contemplando desde lejos al hombre de hielo. Pero él no alzó la cabeza ni un solo instante. Siguió leyendo el libro, inmóvil, sin hacer ningún movimiento. Como si estuviera convenciéndose a sí mismo de que estaba completamente solo.
La tarde del día siguiente, el hombre de hielo se encontraba en el mismo lugar, leyendo el mismo libro. Tanto al mediodía, cuando fui al comedor a almorzar, como al atardecer, cuando volví de las pistas con mis amigos, él estaba en la misma silla del día anterior proyectando la misma mirada sobre las páginas del mismo libro. Al día siguiente, igual. Cayera la tarde, avanzara la noche, él seguía allí, solo, leyendo con una placidez semejante a la del invierno al otro lado de la ventana.
En la tarde del cuarto día, esgrimí una excusa y no subí a las pistas. Me quedé sola en el hotel y estuve vagando un rato por el vestíbulo. Todo el mundo había ido a esquiar y el vestíbulo estaba desierto como una ciudad abandonada. El aire, muy caliente y húmedo, contenía un extraño tufo melancólico. Era el olor de la nieve que la gente arrastraba, adherida a la suela de sus botas, al interior del hotel, y que en ese momento se deshacía ante la estufa sin que a nadie le importara.
Atisbé afuera por una ventana, y por otra, hojeé el periódico. Luego me acerqué al hombre de hielo dispuesta a dirigirle la palabra. Yo soy más bien tímida, no suelo abordar a desconocidos si no tengo necesidad. Pero, en aquel momento, algo me impelía a hablar, a toda costa, con el hombre de hielo. Era mi última noche en el hotel y, si perdía aquella ocasión, ya no se me volvería a presentar otra.
—¿Usted no esquía? —le pregunté intentando dar a mi voz un tono natural.
Él alzó la cabeza despacio. Con cara de estar pensando: «No sé por qué, pero me ha dado la impresión de haber oído soplar el viento a lo lejos». Me clavó aquellos ojos suyos. Luego sacudió la cabeza en silencio.
—No, yo no esquío. Me basta con estar aquí leyendo mientras contemplo la nieve. —Sus palabras formaban una blanca nube parecida al bocadillo de un manga. Yo pude ver las palabras, tal y como lo digo, con mis propios ojos. Él les quitó la escarcha frotándolas suavemente con el dedo.
Yo ya no supe qué añadir a continuación. Me ruboricé y me quedé allí plantada. El hombre de hielo me miró a los ojos. Me pareció verlo sonreír por un instante. Pero no estoy segura. ¿Había sonreído realmente? Quizá sólo me había dado esa impresión.
—¿Por qué no se sienta un momento? —me dijo el hombre de hielo—. Podemos hablar un rato si quiere. Tengo la sensación de que usted siente curiosidad por mí. Debe de querer saber cómo es un hombre de hielo, ¿verdad? —Y se rió, aunque sólo un instante—. No se preocupe. Aunque hable conmigo, no va a resfriarse.
Así que hablé con el hombre de hielo. Nos sentamos juntos en un sofá de un rincón del vestíbulo y hablamos con reserva mientras contemplábamos la nieve que danzaba al otro lado de la ventana. Yo pedí un cacao y me lo bebí. Él no tomó nada. El hombre de hielo no parecía mejor conversador que yo. A eso hay que añadir que no teníamos en común ningún tema de conversación. Primero hablamos del tiempo. Luego, de lo cómodo que era el hotel. ¿Está aquí solo?, le pregunté. Sí, me respondió. El hombre de hielo me preguntó si me gustaba esquiar. No mucho, le respondí. La verdad es que he venido porque mis amigas insistieron mucho. Pero yo apenas sé esquiar. Yo me moría de ganas de saber cómo era el hombre de hielo. Si era verdad que estaba hecho de hielo. Qué comía. Dónde vivía en verano. Si tenía familia o no... Ese tipo de cosas. Pero el hombre de hielo parecía reticente a hablar de sí mismo. Y yo no me atrevía a preguntar. Porque pensaba que, tal vez, a él no le apeteciera tocar esos temas.
En cambio, sí habló de mí. Es realmente difícil de creer, pero el hombre de hielo, fuera por la razón que fuese, me conocía a fondo. La composición de mi familia, mi edad, mis aficiones, mi estado de salud, la universidad a la que iba, los amigos con quienes salía, lo sabía absolutamente todo. Incluso conocía al dedillo cosas de un pasado lejano que yo ya había olvidado por completo.
—No lo entiendo —le dije sonrojándome—. Me da la impresión de haberme quedado desnuda delante de la gente. ¿Cómo es posible que sepas tantas cosas de
mí? —le pregunté—. ¿Puedes leer la mente de las personas?
—No, yo no puedo leer la mente de los demás. Pero lo sé. Así, sin más —dijo el hombre de hielo. Como si clavara la mirada en el interior del hielo—. Si te miro así, fijamente, puedo saberlo todo sobre ti.
—¿Ves el futuro? —le pregunté.
—El futuro no lo conozco —me dijo el hombre de hielo con semblante inexpresivo. Y sacudió la cabeza despacio—. El futuro no me interesa lo más mínimo. A decir verdad, en mí no cabe el concepto de futuro. Porque en el hielo no existe el futuro. Sólo contiene el pasado, y lo contiene cerrado de una manera hermética. Dentro de él existe la totalidad de las cosas, nítidamente selladas como si estuvieran vivas. El hielo es capaz de conservar muchas cosas de esta forma. De una manera limpia y clara. Ésta es la función del hielo, su esencia.
Nos seguimos viendo incluso después de volver a Tokio. Pronto empezamos a quedar todos los fines de semana. Pero nunca íbamos al cine, ni entrábamos en una cafetería. Tampoco comíamos juntos. Porque el hombre de hielo apenas comía. Siempre nos sentábamos en el banco de algún parque y hablábamos. Hablábamos realmente de muchas cosas. Pero, por más tiempo que pasara, el hombre de hielo no parecía decidirse a hablar de sí mismo.
—¿Por qué? —le pregunté—. ¿Por qué no hablas nunca de tus cosas? A mí me gustaría saber más cosas sobre ti. Dónde has nacido. Quiénes son tus padres. Cómo te has convertido en un hombre de hielo.
El hombre de hielo se me quedó mirando unos instantes a los ojos. Luego, sacudió la cabeza despacio.
—Es que yo no lo sé —dijo el hombre de hielo con tono calmado, pero resuelto. Y exhaló una compacta y blanca nube de aliento—. Yo no tengo pasado. Yo conozco el pasado de todas las cosas. Conservo el pasado de todas las cosas. Pero en mí no hay pasado. No sé dónde he nacido. No conozco el rostro de mis padres. Ni siquiera sé si realmente los he tenido. Ni siquiera sé cuántos años tengo. Ni siquiera sé si, en verdad, tengo edad.
El hombre de hielo estaba solo como un iceberg en medio de las tinieblas.
Y yo me enamoré profundamente del hombre de hielo. Y el hombre de hielo amaba, simplemente, a mi yo del presente, sin pasado, sin futuro. Y yo amaba al hombre de hielo del presente, sin pasado ni futuro. Era maravilloso. Incluso empezamos a hablar de casarnos. Yo acababa de cumplir veinte años. Y el hombre de hielo era el primer hombre de quien me enamoraba en serio en toda mi vida. Qué significaba amar al hombre de hielo era algo que yo, en aquellos momentos, no podía ni imaginar. Pero creo que, aunque hubiera estado enamorada de otra persona, tampoco lo hubiera sabido.
Mi madre y mi hermana mayor se opusieron de forma categórica a mi boda con el hombre de hielo. Eres demasiado joven para casarte, me decían. Ni siquiera conoces exactamente su identidad. Ni siquiera sabes dónde ha nacido, ni cuándo. ¿Cómo vamos a decirles a nuestros parientes que te casas con un tipo así? Además,
i él es de hielo! ¿Qué harías si, por casualidad, se te deshiciera?, decían ellas. Parece que no lo entiendas, pero al casarse, uno tiene que estar dispuesto a asumir una serie de responsabilidades. ¿Y cómo puede un hombre de hielo asumir sus responsabilidades como marido?
Pero esas preocupaciones eran innecesarias. En realidad, el hombre de hielo no estaba hecho de hielo. El hombre de hielo sólo era frío como el hielo. Por lo tanto, aunque estuviera en un sitio cálido, no se derretía. Su frialdad se parecía al hielo. Pero su cuerpo no se componía de hielo. Y aunque ciertamente era de una frialdad extrema, ésta no robaba la temperatura corporal de los demás.
Y nos casamos. La nuestra fue una boda sin felicitaciones. Ni mis amigos, ni mis padres, ni mis hermanas, nadie se alegró de nuestro casamiento. Ni siquiera celebramos la ceremonia nupcial. Tampoco pudimos inscribirnos en el registro civil porque él no tenía certificado de nacimiento. Simplemente, los dos decidimos que nos habíamos casado. Compramos un pequeño pastel y nos lo comimos. Ésa fue nuestra pequeña celebración. Alquilamos un pequeño apartamento y el hombre de hielo, para ganarse la vida, entró a trabajar en unos almacenes frigoríficos de carne de ternera congelada. Él resistía muy bien el frío y, por más que trabajara, no se cansaba. Apenas comía. Por lo tanto, su jefe lo tenía en gran estima. Y le pagaba un sueldo mucho más alto que a los demás empleados. Y nosotros vivíamos tranquilos y felices sin que nadie nos molestara y sin molestar a nadie.
Cuando nos abrazábamos, yo pensaba en un bloque de hielo que debía de existir, silencioso y solo, en alguna parte. Me preguntaba si el hombre de hielo conocía el lugar donde se encontraba aquel bloque. Era una roca de hielo congelada, tan dura que costaba imaginar que pudiera existir algo más duro. Era el bloque de hielo más grande del mundo. Se encontraba en algún lugar remoto. El hombre de hielo traía a este mundo el recuerdo de aquel bloque de hielo. Al principio, cuando me abrazaba, me sentía invadida por el desconcierto. Sin embargo, pronto me acostumbré. Incluso empecé a amar encontrarme entre sus brazos. Él seguía sin decir una palabra sobre sí mismo. Tampoco sobre cómo se había convertido en un hombre de hielo. Yo no le preguntaba nada. Nos abrazábamos en la oscuridad y compartíamos en silencio aquel bloque gigantesco. Dentro de ese hielo estaba encerrado con pulcritud todo el pasado del mundo a lo largo de cientos de millones de años.
En nuestro matrimonio, no existía ningún problema propiamente dicho. Nos amábamos de forma profunda el uno al otro, nadie se interponía en nuestro amor. La gente que nos rodeaba no acababa de acostumbrarse al hombre de hielo, pero, a pesar de ello y con el paso del tiempo, al menos empezaron a dirigirle la palabra. Empezaron a decir que, en fin, tampoco era tan diferente de la gente normal. Pero ellos, en el fondo de su corazón, no aceptaban al hombre de hielo ni, por supuesto, tampoco a mí por haberme casado con él. Nosotros éramos un tipo de personas distinto a ellos y, por más tiempo que pasara, esa zanja era imposible de rellenar.
Tampoco lográbamos concebir un hijo. Quizás entre un ser humano y un
hombre de hielo hubiera incompatibilidades genéticas que lo impidieran. En cualquier caso, al no tener ningún niño, a mí me sobraba el tiempo. Por la mañana arreglaba la casa en un santiamén y, luego, no tenía nada más que hacer. Carecía de amigos con quienes charlar o ir a alguna parte, tampoco conocía a nadie en el barrio. Mi madre y mis hermanas todavía estaban enfadadas conmigo por haberme casado con el hombre de hielo y no me dirigían la palabra. Para ellas yo era la oveja negra de la familia, alguien de quien se avergonzaban. Ni siquiera contaba con alguien con quien hablar por teléfono. Mientras el hombre de hielo trabajaba en el almacén frigorífico, yo permanecía siempre en casa leyendo o escuchando música. Por mi carácter, yo era una persona a quien le gustaba más estar en casa que salir, tampoco me asustaba la soledad. Sin embargo, todavía era joven y pronto me agobió esa sucesión de días idénticos sin cambio alguno. Lo que me hacía sufrir no era el aburrimiento. Lo que yo no podía soportar era la reiteración. No sé por qué, pero empecé a verme a mí misma como una sombra repetida dentro de esa reiteración.
Entonces, un día se lo propuse a mi marido. ¿Por qué no hacíamos un viaje, para cambiar de aires?
—¿Un viaje? —dijo el hombre de hielo. Me miró con los ojos entre-cerrados—. ¿Y por qué diablos quieres ir de viaje? ¿Acaso no eres feliz aquí conmigo?
—No se trata de eso —le dije—. Yo soy feliz. Entre nosotros no hay ningún problema. Pero me aburro. Quiero ir lejos y ver algo que no haya visto nunca. Respirar un aire que no haya respirado jamás. ¿Lo entiendes? Además, todavía no hemos ido de luna de miel. Tenemos dinero ahorrado, a ti te deben un montón de días de vacaciones. Creo que éste es el momento ideal para marchamos tranquilamente de viaje.
El hombre de hielo lanzó un suspiro tan profundo que casi parecía congelado. El suspiro cristalizó en el aire de una manera audible. Cruzó sobre las rodillas sus largos dedos cubiertos de escarcha.
—Bueno, pues si a ti te apetece ir de viaje, yo no tengo nada que objetar. A mí no me parece muy buena idea, la verdad. Pero, en fin, si eso te hace feliz, estoy dispuesto a marcharme, iré a donde tú quieras. En el almacén, si las pido, creo que podré tomarme unas vacaciones. Hasta ahora he trabajado muy duro. Dudo que haya algún problema. Por cierto, ¿ya has pensado adónde te gustaría ir?
—¿Qué te parece ir al Polo Sur? —le dije.
Lo elegí pensando que, haciendo tanto frío, seguro que a él le interesaría ir. Además, a decir verdad, yo siempre había querido ir al Polo Sur. Quería ver la aurora boreal y los pingüinos. Me imaginé a mí misma cubierta con un abrigo de pieles con capucha, bajo la aurora boreal, mirando jugar a los pingüinos.
Cuando lo oyó, el hombre de hielo clavó sus ojos en los míos. Fijamente, sin parpadear. Y, como un afilado carámbano de hielo, me atravesó los ojos hasta llegar al fondo de mi cerebro. Él permaneció unos instantes reflexionando en
silencio, pero al final, con voz sorda, me dijo que le parecía bien.
—De acuerdo, si tú quieres ir al Polo Sur, vayamos al Polo Sur. ¿Estás segura de que es ése el lugar al que prefieres ir?
Asentí.
—Creo que, dentro de dos semanas, podré tomarme unas vacaciones. Imagino que te dará tiempo de prepararlo todo para el viaje. ¿Estás de acuerdo? ¿Seguro?
No pude responder de inmediato. Porque notaba la cabeza fría y embotada debido a aquella mirada, tan fija, parecida a un carámbano, que me había lanzado el hombre de hielo.
Sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo empecé a arrepentirme de haberle propuesto a mi marido ir de viaje al Polo Sur. No sé por qué. Pero tenía la sensación de que, en cuanto yo acabé de pronunciar las palabras «Polo Sur», algo había cambiado en su interior. Los ojos de mi marido eran dos carámbanos mucho más agudos que antes, su aliento era mucho más blanco que antes, sobre sus dedos había mucha más escarcha que antes. Se volvió mucho más taciturno que antes, mucho más obstinado que antes. Dejó de comer por completo. Todo eso me causó una enorme inquietud. Cinco días antes de partir me decidí a pedírselo. Que abandonáramos la idea de ir al Polo Sur. Pensándolo bien, hacía demasiado frío allí y eso no sería bueno para la salud, le dije. He pensado que sería mejor que fuéramos a otro lugar más normal. Europa estaría muy bien. Podríamos ir a España, por ejemplo, a descansar. A beber vino, comer paella y ver corridas de toros. Pero mi marido hizo oídos sordos a lo que yo decía. Permaneció unos instantes con la mirada clavada a lo lejos. Luego me miró. Me miró fijamente a los ojos. Su mirada era tan profunda que sentí como si mi cuerpo fuera desapareciendo gradualmente. Yo no quiero ir a España, dijo mi marido, el hombre de hielo, con voz resuelta. Lo siento, pero en España hace demasiado calor para mí, y hay demasiado polvo. La comida es demasiado picante. Además, ya hemos adquirido los dos billetes para ir al Polo Sur. Incluso ya te has comprado un abrigo de pieles y unas botas forradas para el viaje. No podemos tirar todo eso. Ahora tenemos que ir allí.
A decir verdad, yo tenía miedo. Presentía que si íbamos al Polo Sur nos ocurriría algo irreparable. Tuve un sueño horrible, recurrente. Estoy paseando y me caigo dentro de un profundo agujero que se abre en el suelo, y allí dentro me voy congelando sola, sin que nadie me encuentre. Encerrada en el hielo, clavo la vista en el cielo. Estoy consciente. Pero no puedo mover ni un dedo. Es una sensación terriblemente extraña. Me doy cuenta de que, minuto a minuto, me voy con-virtiendo en pasado. No hay futuro en mí. Sólo un pasado que se va acumulando. Y entonces, de repente, todos me están contemplando, ellos están mirando el pasado. La visión de cómo yo voy pasando de largo mirando hacia atrás.
Luego me despierto. A mi lado, el hombre de hielo está profundamente dormido. Duerme sin un suspiro. Como algo muerto y congelado. Pero yo amo al hombre de hielo. Lloro. Mis lágrimas caen sobre su mejilla. Entonces él se
despierta y me abraza.
—He tenido una pesadilla espantosa —le digo. Él sacude la cabeza despacio en la oscuridad.
—Es sólo un sueño —me dice—. Los sueños vienen del pasado. No del futuro. Ellos no tienen que controlarte a ti. Eres tú quien debe controlarlos a ellos. ¿De acuerdo?
—Sí —le digo. Pero no estoy convencida.
Mi marido y yo cogimos el avión para el Polo Sur. No logré encontrar ningún pretexto para impedir el viaje. Tanto el piloto como las azafatas de aquel avión que se dirigía al Polo Sur eran terriblemente taciturnos. Quería contemplar la vista por la ventanilla del avión, pero unas gruesas nubes me lo impidieron. Además, las ventanillas pronto se cubrieron de una capa de hielo. Mientras, mi marido permaneció en silencio leyendo un libro. Yo no sentía ni un ápice de la excitación y alegría que suele acompañar a un viaje. Simplemente estaba haciendo algo que había decidido hacer.
Cuando bajamos la escalerilla del avión y tocamos tierra, noté cómo un gran temblor sacudía el cuerpo de mi marido. Fue más breve que un parpadeo, la mitad de un instante, y nadie se dio cuenta de ello, ni siquiera se reflejó en su rostro. Pero a mí no se me pasó por alto. Dentro del cuerpo de mi marido algo se había estremecido con gran violencia, aunque de manera secreta. Clavé la vista en su perfil. Plantado allí, contempló el cielo, se miró las manos y respiró hondo. Luego me miró y sonrió alegremente.
—¿Aquí es adónde querías venir? —me dijo.
—Sí —contesté.
Ya lo suponía hasta cierto punto, pero el Polo Sur resultó ser una tierra todavía más solitaria de lo que imaginaba. Allí no vivía casi nadie. Sólo había un pequeño pueblo anodino. En el pueblo sólo había un pequeño hotel, evidentemente, anodino. El Polo Sur no es un lugar turístico. Ni siquiera se veían pingüinos. Ni tampoco la aurora boreal. A veces me dirigía a la gente con la que me cruzaba por la calle y les preguntaba dónde podía encontrar a los pingüinos. Sin embargo, la gente se limitaba a sacudir la cabeza en silencio. Ellos no entendían mi lengua. Así que dibujé un pingüino en un papel. Con todo, ellos siguieron sacudiendo la cabeza sin decir una palabra. Yo me sentía sola. A la que dabas un paso fuera de la ciudad, ya no veías más que hielo. No había ni árboles, ni flores, ni ríos, ni lagos. Fueras a donde fueses, no encontrabas más que hielo. Una vasta superficie de hielo que se extendía hasta donde te alcanzaba la vista.
Pero mi marido, con su aliento blanco, las manos cubiertas de escarcha y aquellos ojos como carámbanos clavados en la distancia, iba todo el día de aquí para allá, incansable, lleno a rebosar de energía. Enseguida aprendió la lengua de aquella tierra y empezó a hablar con la gente de la ciudad con un tono de resonancia duro como el hielo. Hablaban durante horas, con la seriedad pintada en el rostro. Pero yo no podía entender de qué diablos hablaban tan apasionadamente.
Mi marido estaba fascinado por aquella tierra. Tenía algo que lo embelesaba. Al principio, eso me irritó. Sentía que me había dejado atrás. Me sentía traicionada, ignorada.
Pero pronto, en aquel mundo silencioso rodeado por una gruesa capa de hielo, fui perdiendo todas las fuerzas. Despacio, poco a poco. Y pronto desapareció incluso mi irritación. Parecía haber perdido en alguna parte la brújula de mis sensaciones. Perdí el sentido de la dirección, perdí la noción del tiempo, me perdí de vista a mí misma. No sé cuándo empezó, ni cuándo acabó. Pero, a la que me di cuenta, estaba encerrada sola dentro de la insensibilidad, en aquel mundo de hielo, en un invierno eterno que había perdido todos los colores. Incluso después de perder la mayoría de sensaciones, yo lo sabía. Que ese marido mío que estaba en ese momento en el Polo Sur no era mi marido de antes. No es que fuera diferente. Él seguía siendo tan atento conmigo como siempre, me hablaba con cariño. Y yo sabía muy bien que las palabras que pronunciaba eran sinceras. Pero yo lo sabía, por supuesto. Que era un hombre de hielo distinto al que yo había conocido en el hotel de las pistas de esquí. Pero no tenía a nadie a quien quejarme. Toda la gente del Polo Sur apreciaba a mi marido y no había nadie que entendiera una palabra de lo que yo les decía. Todos exhalaban un aliento blanco, tenían la cara cubierta de escarcha y bromeaban, discutían y cantaban en la sorda lengua del Polo Sur. Encerrada sola en la habitación del hotel, contemplaba aquel cielo gris sin perspectivas de que despejara a meses vista, y aprendía la terriblemente complicada (y que yo no creía poder llegar a saber jamás) gramática de la lengua del Polo Sur.
En el aeródromo ya no había ningún avión. Después de que partiera el avión que nos trajo a nosotros, ya no volvió a aterrizar ninguno más. Y la pista de aterrizaje pronto quedó enterrada bajo el duro hielo. Como mi corazón.
—¡Ha llegado el invierno! —exclamó mi marido—. Es un invierno muy largo. Los aviones ya no vendrán, ni tampoco los barcos. Todo, absolutamente todo, está congelado. Al parecer, no nos quedará más remedio que esperar hasta la primavera —dijo.
Tres meses después de llegar al Polo Sur descubrí que estaba embarazada. Y yo lo sabía. Que el niño que yo pariría sería un pequeño hombre de hielo. Mi útero se congelaría, finos trozos de hielo se mezclarían con mi líquido amniótico. Podía sentir su gelidez dentro de mi vientre. Yo lo sabía. El niño tendría la mirada de carámbano igual que su padre, y sus dedos estarían cubiertos de escarcha. Yo lo sa-bía. Que nuestra familia ya nunca más saldría del Polo Sur. El eterno pasado, con su peso desmesurado, nos aferraba los pies con fuerza. Y nosotros ya no nos podríamos soltar jamás.
A mí, ahora, apenas me queda corazón. Mi calor ya se ha esfumado en la distancia. Incluso a veces me olvido de que alguna vez lo tuve.
Pero aún puedo llorar. Estoy verdaderamente sola. En el lugar más frío y solitario del planeta. Cuando lloro, el hombre de hielo me besa la mejilla. Y mis lágrimas se convierten en hielo. Entonces, él toma en su mano mis lágrimas de
hielo y se las pone sobre la lengua. «Oye, te quiero», me dice. Y no miente. Lo sé muy bien. El hombre de hielo me ama. Pero el viento que viene soplando de alguna parte se lleva atrás, muy atrás, hacia el pasado, sus palabras convertidas en blanco hielo. Yo lloro. Continúo derramando grandes lagrimones de hielo. En una casa de hielo del Polo Sur congelada en la distancia.

AMONG THE DEAD

Among the Dead
by Edward Bryant

Mummified pine shiver in the wind. Dry branches whir a litany for the dead. The moon, silver skull with a smile, sheds no tears for a wasted earth. Below, the metaphor is bone.

Child's blocks, heavy stone joined by edges, break the mountainscape. Three tourists cling together inside a mausoleum. And around them, hundreds of silent companions wait.

On the bank of the river, beside the road no longer traveled, is a sign. Raised bronze letters: THEY SHALL LIVE AGAIN.

Shall they?


· · · · ·


Foster dreamed:

Spinal fragments of a dead lizard, fire-blackened.

The Autumn Leaf Tour and the train. The tracks lay far down the mountain and were crisscrossed by tumbled cars. Bones inside the charred engine—deadman switch that didn't work—and a graded curve taken too fast. Skeletons everywhere—the trail of bones leading up the mountain. Bones that collapsed and jumbled like pickup sticks and …

Images—how it must have been—the germ aerosols bursting high above Denver, the enormous hiss like a deodorant or insect spray, the vapor white-seeping down and becoming invisible, then killing and killing and nothing but bones—the aspen, white in the daylight, jointed, articulated, dying faster than the leaves—the Autumn Leaf Tour—and the trail up the mountain.

The girl—just as pale, never in the sun, never naked. And now, because he wanted her to, she opened her legs that he might taste, and he tasted tomato paste and liver and scallions … Sampled and ate.


· · · · ·


"This morning we finished the last of Gunderson. Gunderson, Vernon L., according to the records. Age forty-seven, race Caucasian, sex male, death from emphysema May 21, 1972. There was a Gundersen, Lillian G., but we skipped her; just left her there in the vaults. She was too damned skinny, some sort of wasting cancer. Maybe when the day comes that we polish off the last toe-joint of Zytlinsky, George M., we will be forced by necessity to thaw out dead, emaciated Gundersen, Lillian G.

"Of course by then we'll probably all be dead anyway. Our gums are bleeding and the goddamn diarrhea's getting worse. Mardin says that deficiency diseases will get the three of us long before there's any chance of starvation. But I guess the way things are now is a form of starving to death. Last night Connie dreamed about a Caesar salad, cherry tomatoes, Russian dressing, the whole works. She had to tell me about it today, in detail. I could kill her for that. I'll dream tonight about green vegetables, and I'll agonize."

Foster snapped the journal shut. God, he thought, it would make a tremendous beginning for a horror story.

"Hi," said Connie, from the doorway. "I brought you a tray. Mardin fixed it—it still isn't my turn until tomorrow. I thought maybe you didn't want to eat with Mardin tonight." Her last words almost phrased a question.

"No," said Foster. "I don't want to eat with crazy Mardin, that goddamn ghoul."

Connie's skin was delicately, almost abnormally, pale. Her face quickly betrayed the flush.

"Jesus," said Foster. "Here we are at this place and time and you can still blush at profanity. God, girl, your sensitivities are incredible."

"Sorry," she said. "I'm me." She set the tray on the desk in front of Foster, her silver charm bracelet jingling.

"No kidding." Foster slid the dull metal tray closer. With a tentative gesture he touched the hemisphere covering his supper. "So what is it tonight? Spaghetti and seasoned Italian sauce? Roast capon garnished with parsley? Idaho big-reds au gratin? How about one of Mardin's superb soufflés?" He idly traced his initials in the condensed steam that dappled the metal.

"Please," she said. "Don't. Mardin's bad enough." He saw that her hands were curled into tight fists. Foster marveled with mild pleasure that he could almost feel the pain of her nails deeply buried somewhere inside those knotted fingers.

"Sorry." But it was no real apology. Foster lifted the dome from his supper. A thin vapor rose from the platter of meat. "Smells good," Foster said pleasantly. "Pot roast tonight?"

"Rib steak," said Connie in a thin voice. She turned and started for the door.

"Don't go."

Connie hesitated, then continued to walk.

"Please." Foster deliberately inserted a mild note of pleading in his voice. The girl stopped, turned, faced him, and Foster saw she was close to crying.

"All right," she said. "But only because I don't want to be alone, and I can stand you better than Mardin." She sat down on the edge of Foster's bed. Connie was so light she barely made an impression on the bedspread.

"I think you need to eat more," said Foster with calculated malice. He picked up a linen napkin from the tray and flipped it open. Something white and ragged fluttered out and landed between his feet. Foster picked the object up and examined it—a piece of paper, torn from a sheet in the vault records. "Hamilton, Willis T.," it read. Below the printing was a line in Mardin's nearly illegible script. "With the compliments of the chef."

"Wise-ass," said Foster. He flipped the scrap to Connie, who read it and looked sick.

"Don't puke," said Foster. "Or if you do, go out in the hall."

"I won't be sick. I can't. I'd just have to get another helping of supper."

Foster ate quickly and silently while Connie stared at his face.

"I'm sorry I kept going on about that Caesar salad," she finally said.

The man smiled. "You know, you're a sweet kid."

Connie didn't hear him; her mind had skipped to something else, something more obsessive. "Foster? Someday we'll be rescued, won't we? Won't someone look for us?"

Foster shrugged. "Why should they? Other people must have had natural immunities, others must have survived. But I'm sure they're too busy keeping alive to worry about rescuing us."

"Oh," she said blankly.

All us colorless people at the end of the world, he reflected. What a goddamned anticlimax.


· · · · ·


Sunrise poured over the clouded eastern mountains like a spill of wet concrete. Both Mardin and Foster went up to the observation level to watch the morning, while Connie busied herself in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

"You know," said Mardin, resting his forearms on the chill metal rail, "I don't think I'll ever get used to the world without green."

Foster was vaguely surprised. Mardin hadn't spoken to him in six days. Sometimes he suspected Mardin didn't exist at all. "Yeah," he said, looking out over the barren Rockies. "It isn't so much the plants I miss. It's the things that move—the birds and animals and things." He considered. "I never figured I'd be lonely for a goddamn robin."

Mardin snickered. "The only reason you want a robin is to roast him on a spit."

"You're a lousy comedian," said Foster.

"No," said Mardin. "No, I'm not. I'm a bald, skinny ex-file clerk who's probably got pellagra and beri-beri and God only knows what else; and I'm standing out here under a starving sky talking about what I miss to a man who isn't my friend while a girl who also isn't my friend is down below in the kitchen frying up a fellow man I never knew, as something I'll try to imagine is Canadian bacon." Mardin's voice stopped like a mechanical toy running down. His lips quivered slightly, and Foster hoped the man wouldn't cry. Mardin had been the most unstable member of the trio from the start. Oddly, it had been he rather than Connie who had been the last to eat the meals culled from the vaults. Mardin had held back until his ribs etched tight against stretched skin while Foster and eventually the girl assuaged their hunger. Then, after days of self-denial, he had broken and gorged himself on chops and steaks and filets. But the breaking had snapped something besides Mardin's hunger, Foster thought.

Mardin gestured toward the dark river. "What started it?" he said loudly, and his voice echoed toward bare hills where nothing moved except the wind.

"Not 'what,'" said Foster. "Who." He pointed downward. "Them."

Mardin looked at him curiously.

"The dead," said Foster. "The people frozen in the vaults. The ones who didn't plan for the future—the jerks who didn't believe in birth control or who piped their sewers into the oceans. So what else could they expect, letting people breed up toward infinity in a wasted world? The birth rate went sky-high and biological pressure made the death rate compensate drastically."

"Well, we overcompensated," said Mardin.

"You have a gift for understatement." Foster chuckled. "The silent spring, sprung. Hell—once we were worried about H-bombs and nerve gas. Then they let the bio-bombs loose …"

"Okay, breakfast's ready." Connie's voice echoed up the concrete shaft to the observation level.


· · · · ·


The chill of the vault numbed Foster's fingers as he wrestled the foil-wrapped bundle from its cradle. "Hytrek, Donald M., Jr.," the file read. There was something special about this file, Foster reflected. The file matter-of-factly reported a death on September 3, 1973—an unusual cardiac arrest, but remarkable only because Hytrek had been seven years old. Tough luck, Mr. and Mrs. Hytrek, Foster thought as he carried the shapeless package up the steps of the storage chamber. What pathetic hope drove you to have your dead son quick-frozen after death and placed here in the cryogenic vault? You probably wondered if you would still be alive when the surgical techniques would be developed that could repair Donald Jr.'s damaged heart. Well, you're not. You're dead, your son's dead too, and you'll all stay that way. Sorry. But we'll live a little longer—Connie, Mardin, and me.

Foster reached the welcome warm air at the top of the steps. Clumsily holding his burden in both arms, he kicked the door shut behind him.

"Hello." It was Connie, looking fragile and wanly pretty. She glanced at the oblong parcel in its gleaming foil sheath.

"It's my turn," said Foster.


· · · · ·


"Why are you so cruel to me?" whispered Connie one night in the quiet despair of Foster's bed. The top of the girl's head was silk against his chin. Foster couldn't see her eyes in the half-light from the lunar skull squinting down the sky-shaft.

"Me, cruel?" Foster ran his fingers sleepily along Connie's flank and up across her stomach. Her ribs were painfully evident under his hand and the skin on her belly was taut, like a stretched, bloated drum-head. "I'm not cruel. I'm just—well, me. Like you said you were you the other night when you brought my supper."

"No," she said. "You're cruel when you bait me about the food. You're brutal about it and you enjoy my pain."

Foster was in an uncharacteristically good mood. "At least I'm faithful," he said. "Sorry, you'll take that as a barb." Foster shifted his body restlessly. "Do you mind? You're putting my arm to sleep."

Connie raised her head, and Foster moved his arm. Her chin tipped back and he saw a shine of tears on her cheek. The girl choked on some word, then pressed her face convulsively against Foster's chest. Foster stroked her hair mechanically, wondering when she'd ever let him sleep.

"Sorry," she finally said, voice muffled. "It's a mood. I suddenly remembered most of the things I promised myself not to think about ever again."

"Nebraska?" Foster said. "The plains and the golden wheat fields under the summer sun? Your family? Mother and father? Old boyfriends long dead now? Trees, lakes, birds, horses, planes, cities, television shows?"

"Damn you, yes!" From the short distance between them she struck out with her fist. The blow glanced lightly off his cheekbone, and Connie again began to cry. Foster continued to stroke her hair.

"I feel miserable," said Connie. "I want to leave."

"And go where?" Foster said placatingly. "Mardin and you and I might be the only people left anywhere. This may be the only shelter, and the vaults probably hold the last edible food in a hundred miles."

Her tears were wet on Foster's chest. "God!" she cried out in frustration and misery. "Why me?"

"Trite question," said Foster. "Maybe God likes you and the rest of us and that's why he picked us out to survive a while. Maybe he just overlooked us when he got the rest of the earth. Or maybe we're to provide the finale for the last great scene at the world's end."

Connie pushed away from Foster's embrace and struggled free of the tangled blankets. She stumbled into a dark corner of the bedroom beside the closet and huddled there, weeping. Foster rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

In a while the room became colder, and Connie returned to the warmth of Foster's bed.

She curled forlornly against the sleeping man. "Oh baby," she whispered, no one hearing except herself. "What's going to happen to us all?"


· · · · ·


Connie dreamed:

The day Mardin walked past her as she sunned herself by the main entrance to the cryogenic complex. The sack over his shoulder was bulky and stippled with cabbage-lumps.

"Ho ho," he laughed, macabre Saint Nick.

She looked up. "What's that?"

"Heads," he said. "Gonna dump 'em."

Mardin walked away, laughing softly, and behind him remained the stench. Thick sweetness first, then

The smell. Similar, but—

The prairie stretched away to the horizon. The sod houses, board roofs chinked with mud, were dark chocolate against the green waving grass. The people worked at indistinct tasks, their exact actions obscure.

She was inside one of the sod houses and they were there, all the men and women. She saw her grandfather and father and many more whom she didn't know. They stood around the rough wooden furniture, and their talk buzzed in currents she could not understand.

The smell. Sweeter, more cloying.

The boy and the girl were twins, perhaps five years old, blue-eyed. Both smiled as the people closed about them and began to tear bits of flesh from their bodies.

Connie ate too, and it was from love, not hunger. She had wanted to have babies, and now she ate them. And then she was younger, as young as the two children, and the people closed in around her.

The smell. She whimpered deep in her throat. The potty-smell …


· · · · ·


One morning Foster and Connie were jarred from uneasy slumber by the clang of alarm gongs and the flash of red warning lights. Foster shook his head drowsily, irritated by the clamor, and flicked the switch of the lamp by the bed. Nothing happened. Only the intermittent crimson glare from the hallway lit the room. The man staggered from the bed and picked up his robe and slippers from a chair.

He found Mardin wild-eyed with agitation, fluttering his hands in front of the access hole to the power room. Above the sealed metal port was an obtrusive sign rapidly blinking "Automatic Systems Malfunction!" A cacophony of bells was ringing. As Foster approached from the hallway, a klaxon horn began to blare and the newly flashing sign—"Danger! Radiation Hazard!"—added to the carnival aspect of the power-room door.

"Hello, Mardin. What's the problem?"

"How the hell do I know?" The ex-file clerk's bony hands sawed the air. "I just got here. Something's wrong with the nuclear plant. We're not getting any electricity."

"No power?" Connie had approached unnoticed. "What are we going to do for lights? How are we going to cook?"

"I saw some candles in a desk," said Foster. "We'll use those at night. As for cooking, it looks like we'll just have to go outside and see if those dead trees'll burn."

A siren wailed in crescendo behind the bells and klaxon. The new sign flashed "CONDITION CRITICAL—PRIORITY REPAIRS AAA-1."

"Is it going to blow up?" asked Connie.

"Beats me," said Foster. "Too bad we're all ignorant tourists instead of technicians. Maybe we ought to go outside in case it blows. Come on, Mardin."

But Mardin stayed, seemingly hypnotized by the random patterns of light and sound, while Connie and Foster retreated along the access corridor and climbed the shaft to the observation level.

After five hours, Mardin climbed from the cryogenic complex into the outer world. Humming a tuneless song, he stumbled through the dust of the leached soil and found Connie and Foster making love in the shadow beneath a stand of dead pine.

"Hey! You can come back now. I don't think anything's going to blow up. The batteries must have run down or something—the alarms stopped. But we still don't have any electricity. Looks like we're going to have to rough it."

"Okay," said Foster, disengaging himself. "You two pick up some limbs—we cook out tonight."

"I haven't cooked over an open fire since I was a little girl," said Connie. "We went camping in Yellowstone Park once." Her voice sounded happy, and Foster smiled. Mardin continued to hum his tuneless song and walk around in abstracted circles.

"Hey!" called Connie, dropping her armload of branches. "Look, Foster!" She pointed toward a streak of white vapor that bisected the dusk. "It's a jet."

Foster squinted into the sunset. "I don't think so," he finally said and felt a twinge of guilt. "We didn't hear any sound of a plane. It's just a weird cloud formation."

But the three of them stared hungrily and hopefully into the west until long after the white streak had vanished.


· · · · ·


"Uh oh," said Foster, holding his candle high.

"Something's strange," said Connie, crowding close behind him.

"It's the refrigeration units," said Mardin from the rear of the small procession. "The electricity to cool the nitrogen—it comes from the power room …"

"Came from there," corrected Foster.

The trio descended the concrete steps.

"Listen!" said Foster. He stood motionless. Out of the darkness sounded the drip-drip-drip of fluid splashing on cement. "You two light the other candles."

The interior of the cryogenic vault became visible as Foster stepped from the stairwell into the room. The reflected candle flames danced eerily on the crinkled-foil capsules containing the hundreds of guilty dead.

"They're defrosting," said Mardin. "Like a big refrigerator when you pull the cord."

"I wonder how long they'll last," mused Foster, "before they spoil. Several days, maybe?"

"At least," agreed Mardin. "My wife left a roast out once when we took off for the weekend. It was a little moldy, but the dog ate it all right after we got back Sunday night."

Foster inexplicably wanted to giggle. Instead, he said, "What if we haul some of the bodies upstairs and put them outside? It's pretty cold out there."

"The nights are chilly," said Mardin, "but the days won't be. It's late June now—we've got most of the summer ahead."

The little group stood silent, watching the cryogenic capsules flicker with silver fire.

"Well," said Foster finally. "Let's worry about tonight first." He bent over a foil-wrapped bundle and peered at the tag in the glow from his candle. "All right, Mardin. Grab Miss Kelly's feet and let's get her up to the kitchen."

Connie took the candles in her hands as the two men struggled with the rigid package. "Foster," she said in a low voice. "What are we going to do when they—when they all go bad?"

Foster smiled ambiguously. "Perhaps we'll live on love alone."


· · · · ·


Mardin dreamed:

Briefly.

A three-lobed solid with sharp corners and no straight lines. It had been a greenish yellow at the beginning, but the red crept across in bands, like a television screen when the plane flies over. It was somehow important to him, but progressively less so as it reddened. And then finally the crimson was total.


· · · · ·


One particularly lean day, Mardin attacked Connie in the kitchen. Neither Foster nor Connie ever knew Mardin's purpose—whether it was sex, food, both, or neither.

Foster was wandering the halls, leafing idly through an ancient book of Gahan Wilson cartoons he had found in the visitor's lounge. Then he heard the commotion in the kitchen. He investigated and found Connie, clothes shredded, sprawled on her back on the breakfast table while Mardin weakly battered her head against the formica surface. Foster watched for a moment, then picked up the useless electric carving knife from the counter. He slammed the heavy handle against the back of Mardin's head, stunning the ex-file clerk. Quickly, Foster wound the long vinyl electric cord around Mardin's neck and garroted him—then unwound some slack and drew the serrated blade across Mardin's jugular.

Connie moved weakly on top of the table. She gasped for air and moaned.

Foster slowly stood and put the electric carving knife in the dirty sink. He stepped to the table and looked down at the girl. Connie opened her eyes and looked back at him.


· · · · ·


The final day came when the two survivors stood apart from each other. They watched without saying, almost as a tableau. Connie was at the top of the staircase to the observation level. Behind her was the pearl gray of early morning. The light from the open door made the girl's pale skin translucent; the outline of her form glowed—the rest of her body was in shadow. But she was smiling—Foster could see that; her teeth showed white. Her hands were together in front of her, and something gleamed there—a blade perhaps; or maybe a silver bracelet.

Foster settled back in his chair, hardly breathing, and looked up the steps at Connie. On the floor beside him was the electric carving knife, within grasp-if he wanted to reach it.

"Baby, where now?" The voice whispered from above him, soft. Connie started down the stairs and the perhaps-a-knife in her hands glittered again.

"Wait," said Foster. "Listen."

The girl stopped.

"I hear something," said Foster. "Something distant and coming closer. A buzzing like maybe a rescue helicopter."

"It's a hallucination," said Connie, again starting her descent.

"Perhaps."

"Or one of your rotten jokes."

Outside the building, blackened trunks of pine shivered in the dry wind.

The End

© 1971 by Coronet Communications, Inc. Originally published in Quark. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Super 8

Super 8
by Terry Bisson

Look. We were all so pretty. And we knew it, shooting everything we did, and one another, turning our present into instant past, and future too, loaded into memory: Super 8. Cars, faces, clothing, places, mugging and vamping, boy-girl romps in dry leaves and on city streets, ripped off from A Hard Day's Night and Jules et Jim. How much we take from movies! Once, they say, it was the other way around. This first dim (poor light? cheap film?) jerky memory of us all together shows the playful ascent of a small mountain (big rock!) in Central Park, hand in hand up a steep trail. Laughing. The circle is small, only four of us so far, all boys but one. Two of us are "comic artists" (cartoonists), debuting in a new magazine put together by the scion of a well-known but never-mentioned-aloud family. There's Mason, regretting his slick-soled cowboy boots. There's John, who doesn't need boots to look cool. The scion, Si, leads the ascent. Our oldest, almost thirty, he unpacks the food, the grass, the wine, the rest of us laughing at his formal picnic basket until he laughs too, the shy, self-effacing laugh of the uncomfortably rich. No beard yet but already thinking about it. And Wendi, our one and only girl, long legs, small breasts, expensive shoes. (This is before BJ's long legs, big breasts, funny shoes.) It's cold and windy at the top, but it was cold and windy at the bottom too. It looks like late November, the leftover leaves fluttering around like ghosts, looking for a place to rest, hopefully together. Ghosts already! Each of us takes a turn with Si's Super 8. John mugs, thinking it's cute, and Mason broods, more careful of his dignity. And Wendi, our Wendi, already telling us our story. She talks into the camera as if it could be persuaded to record her words. Fast Forward to Park Avenue and the disapproving doorman and the dark apartment, as big as a small deserted city, where Si's grandfather, even then, is never home. The circle is small. Sitting on the Persian rug, reluctantly admitted to be a gift of the Shah, sharing a joint. Does Wendi know that John as well as Mason can see her panties? Expensive, like her shoes. We are surrounded by unwanted treasures. Rockwell Kent on the wall: it is said that he once sat in this chair. John tries on a fur coat from a dark, forgotten closet, and Si tries to mask his disapproval, unsuccessfully. FF to another, larger circle, a high meadow upstate. BJ bursts from a pile of leaves like Venus emerging from the sea, newborn, nude, and simply beautiful. Look how happy she seems. John must have taken this shot. But not this next one. FF, night, watchful shadows around the dome, silver in the moonlight, watching it burn—


· · · · ·


"Oh!"

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I had a dream."

Mason sat up in the bed. Through the big window, the moon looked in like a wondering face.

"A nightmare?" Constance rolled over. She looked old without her make-up. Funny. Mason remembered the days when he hadn't wanted her to wear make-up. Now he wished she did.

"More of a dream. It was a dream about—something."

"Something."

"It was about the old days, back in New York. It was weird. It was—"

"I'm sure. Can we go back to sleep?"

"It was in Super 8."

"Okay. Now can we go back to sleep?"


· · · · ·


Look! Here we are headed south, to D.C., for the big antiwar protest of '68. Si's VW bus is covered with Peter Max swirls and militant slogans. We knew how to paint it but not how to fix it, but it doesn't matter, for when we break down, a bearded VW mechanic, also headed for D.C. and the demo, pulls over and has us moving in less than twenty minutes. "These little forty-horses are hell on points." We nod as if we know what points are. Vince (his name is Vince) won't take Si's twenty, but he accepts John's fat-rolled joint with a beardy grin, and we're off again. Farewell! Where is Vince today but here, in our collective memory? Our bus is one in a caravan of crusader children, grins and peace signs in rear windows. FF to the demo itself, a swirl of pretty faces, young, angry only for show, filled with joy at our newfound power. We are the future! Tear-gassed, still laughing as we puke. Hey, hey, LBJ! When SDS runs through the crowd under red flags, we follow (who wouldn't?), whooping with happy rage. Mason, who had just last week done his first cover for Si (a Frazetta imitation), sucks on a huge joint with a huge grin. We are in free territory, among our own, for the first time. Mason passes the joint to Si, who passes it to John, who sticks his tongue out at the camera: a puppy, with all (and only) a puppy's charm. Wendi in her designer dress, spattered with mud and smelling of tear gas, passes up the camera as she takes the joint. The Super 8 with its blinking light, passed in a circle, hand to hand, is the only one of us we never see. FF and the circle grows larger, but tighter too. Now Will is one of us, face and hands, headband and all. We are standing around a small geodesic dome, all but BJ, who is in the doorway, while the flames lick at the Celotex skin, casting a yellow light on hers—


· · · · ·


"Damn."

Wendi sat up alone in her big bed. Through the window, the lights of Manhattan shone like stars, each inhabited.

"Second night in a row," she said to herself. She checked the clock: three A.M. Too early to get up, yet she didn't want to go back to sleep.

She wished there was someone she could call.

There was always Mason, but it would be midnight in California.

There was always computer solitaire.


· · · · ·


Look. Autumn in New York. You can tell by the light. You can tell by the water tanks, stalking the horizon like shy wooden beasts, that we are on the roof of the loft, in what is now Soho. Then it was just the edge of Little Italy, with live chickens for sale on the corner of Broome and West Broadway. See the neon chicken, nodding, day and night. Mason must be holding the camera, for it was he who found the loft, and the chicken is his totem. Here's Si, spreading cream cheese on a bagel (Sunday morning) while John inserts a joint into his mouth. There's Wendi, talking as usual, our Wendi, telling us a story, and we can tell what story it is, for there are five of us, not four. As the camera goes around the circle, we see an extra hand with no face to go with it. Will. No face, not yet. But there's the bandaged hand, and Fast Forward and there's Will, struggling with a posthole digger, putting in the floor of the dome. See the lordly Hudson in the distance, through the trees, like a broad steel road. FF and there's the dome, almost completed, BJ opening the triangular doorway, her perfect figure outlined by the flames—


· · · · ·


"Are you OK?"

It was the stewardess. Rather, the flight attendant. In first class they are always attentive.

"Just a bad dream," said Si. He didn't mention that he hadn't slept in three nights. They weren't paid to be that attentive.


· · · · ·


Look. Wendi is in a long silk dress ($1,400) sitting in the dusty light from West Broadway, telling us a story. The Super 8 loves her dancing, weaving hands. Wendi is a scion too. Her father was a writer for the New Yorker, and when he smoked himself to death, he left her with no money but a rich circle of connections. It's not hard to get a job at Vogue when the editor knew you as a schoolgirl. Wendi gathered stories uptown and brought them downtown to us. Listen, she says. She and Si were at a party when a well-known rock critic beckoned them into a quiet corner and asked, what do you know about the Underground Expressway? Enough, they said. It was a way out of the military for those who hated the war, and who of us didn't? Wendi scribbled an address on a matchbook (from Twenty-One, or was it The Four Seasons?), and sure enough, the next afternoon, a dark, intense, and faceless young man showed up at the door with his clothes in a paper bag, saying Si and Wendi had sent him. Mason and John took him in. No pictures of that, of course. FF, and he's one of us, walking with BJ up the hill, into the Upper Meadow, hand in hand, both nude, of course. This is our world, opening like a flower in the sun. FF and Si is handing a shovel to Wendi who doesn't want it, who angrily tosses it into the leaves drifted against the pilings of the dome, narrow locust leaves, smoldering, then bursting into flame—


· · · · ·


"You're up already?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"Again?"

"I've been having these dreams." Will didn't tell Emma that he'd had these dreams before. Years before. And found his way from them, into her arms long and small. And therewithal sweetly did me kiss …

"Why don't you stay home from work today and get some sleep?"

"Good idea. I have some calls I want to make anyway."


· · · · ·


Three, no four nights in a row. Mason thought about it all the way to work, in his new Audi A6.

Traffic on the Bay Bridge was brutal: normal, that is. He idled through the obligatory Monday morning meeting (the latest glitch in the OS), and at noon he retreated to his bright corner office, telling his "administrative assistant" (secretary) he would be meditating for an hour, and called a number that he hadn't called in so long that he almost had to look it up.


· · · · ·


"Renee, you know I don't take calls during lunch crunch."

"I told him. But he said you'd take it. Said to tell you it was Mason."

"Oh. Give it here, then. But you'll have to watch the front for me."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And quit ma'aming me. I'm not that damned old yet. Mason?"

"Wendi."

"My God. Where the hell are you?"

"At the office. San Francisco. I know you're busy, I just had to call you. I had this weird dream last night."

"I know. So did I."

"Super 8. So you're having it too."

"Four nights in a row."

"Shit."

"Weird, right? Listen, can I call you back? This is my money hour. How late can I call tonight? This coast-to-coast time thing—"

"Call tomorrow. We're going to the opera tonight. Benefit thing."

"The opera?"

"You don't want to know. Tell you what, I'll call you in the A.M. How early can I call?"

"I'm the one on the East Coast, remember?"

"I'll call you at nine. Six my time."


· · · · ·


Wendi's New Yorker Luncheonette was hardly a luncheonette, though it looked like one, until you opened the menu and saw the burger prices. Dinner, however, was easy and over by ten.

At her apartment, Wendi found a message on her machine: "I know this will come as a surprise. Or maybe not. Can you call me back tonight? We need to talk."

Will too? She wished now she had taken Mason's call. She wanted to talk with him first, before she dealt with Will. She wished she still drank. She didn't want to shut her eyes and go to sleep, but finally she did.

And wished she hadn't.


· · · · ·


Look. Our hair is longer, and here we are in Si's grandfather's big, empty Park Avenue apartment. Wendi is dressed to kill, as always; she has just come from the New Yorker Christmas party, to which she has a standing invitation. Si is cooking, as always. Mason and John are lighting a joint. The circle grows: there's Nelson, Si's brother, who is always sour but wants to be part of the gang (but isn't) and his latest, a young (eighteen, or so she said) California girl who came to New York to be a model. He continually puts her down and everybody minds but her. BJ seems eager not to notice. FF to the Persian rug, littered with money, like leaves. We have decided to buy a farm upstate. Everyone is throwing in, but of course it is Si who will actually put up the money to buy the land. His family owns land upstate, but this is to be a new start. Mason has a couple of grand from his last FlashKomix contract. Wendi tosses in her father's silver lighter, which she tells us we can sell, since it was given to him by Robert Benchley. We don't; it is still in her purse today. BJ startles us with a ten. And a shy wave. Part of our circle now, she takes up the Super 8, and we get our first look at Will's face, for which BJ is scolded, gently, and only later told why. FF to the building of the dome. There's Mason on the scaffold, clowning. BJ tosses him a hammer, and he leans out to catch it and almost falls. No sound, but we can read his laughing lips. "A brush with death." Ah, death. FF to Wendi, weeping, holding a shovel, her tears as bright as jewelry in the orange light of the flames—


· · · · ·


"God damn."

John sat up. Through the filthy window of the trailer, he could see the dome in the moonlight, like a saucer that had landed in the meadow and never taken off again.

Fire. Five nights in a row. He almost wished he had a phone.


· · · · ·


"Fuck."

Wendi couldn't go back to sleep. She pulled on a long tee shirt, one of a drawerful given to her by a liquor supplier, and padded around the apartment, not drinking, waiting for the sun to rise, always a long process in midtown Manhattan.

Having friends on the West Coast was good, at night. In the morning it was a drag. At seven-thirty it was still four-thirty out there. Wendi lay back on the couch and folded her hands over her neat, small breasts, looking straight up; closed her eyes and went to sleep, deliberately; she could do that sometimes. It was like a little, a practice death.

Not always.

The phone rang. She opened her eyes. It was eight fifty-five.

Finally! "Mason?"

But no. "Wendi. It's Will. Did you get my message?"

"Will. How many years has it been. You too, huh?"

"Super 8," he said. "Five nights in a row. So we're all having the same dream again."

"But different. It always ends with fire. It always ends with BJ."

"I'd rather not talk about all this on the phone," said Will. "Have you heard from any of the others?"

"Mason."

"And Si? Aren't you in touch with Si?"

"Of course. But he's flying to Alaska, taking pictures of the pipeline for the Times. Won't be back until the fourteenth. That's a week from yesterday."

"Must be nice being rich."

"It's a job, Will. You have a job too."

"Let's don't fight, Wendi. I'm thinking of coming down, into the city tonight. Can I meet you?"

"You know where to find me. Gotta go. I have another call."

It was gone, but she knew who it was. She dialed Mason's home number.

Big mistake. "Hello?" It was Constance. "Hello! Who is this, damn it?"

Wendi hung up without saying anything. She and Constance had never gotten along. The phone rang immediately.

"Mason?"

"Wendi? I called at six, but your line was busy."

"I was talking to Will." No need to mention Constance. "Where are you?"

"In the car, on the Bay Bridge. Will too, huh? That means we're all having the same dream again. After all these years."

"Seems so. He sounds worried."

"What else is new?"

"Tell me your not worried."

"Have you heard from Si?"

"He's in Alaska." Wendi put out her cigarette in the ashtray that had held her father's butts at the New Yorker for forty-one years. It had been given to her by Tina Brown.

"What does Will want to do? Will always has a plan."

"I don't know. He's coming down here tonight. We're meeting after work."

"Where?"

"At the restaurant, I guess, why?"

"Because I'm going to be there too."


· · · · ·


The traffic on the West Side Highway was terrible, as usual. Four-wheel drive was no help. Will got to the restaurant at nine forty-five, and saw Mason at the bar, nursing a Kirin. "Well, I'll be goddamned," he said. "Where'd you come from?"

They hugged stiffly: old friends. Old rivals. The two somehow the same.

"I flew in this afternoon," said Mason. "Jet Blue. I talked to Wendi this morning."

"Me too. You too?"

"Super 8. Four nights in a row. We're all having the same dream again."

"Nightmare," said Will.

"Well, that's the thing, isn't it? A dream brought us together. A nightmare brings us back."

Wendi approached from behind and put one hand on each.

"Just like old times," she said. "Give me another half an hour, then Renee can close. What are you drinking?"

"Kirin," said Will. "So this is your new place."

But she was gone already. He looked around at the tables, still half filled with yuppies, all in couples. All untroubled by dreams. Or nightmares.

"I hear you got married," said Mason.

"Eleven years ago next week" said Will. "Emma and I are both practicing law in Albany. Death penalty appeals."

"I heard. Good for you."

"And I hear you're a millionaire."

"Only on paper," Mason said. "One good thing about owning your own company, you can get away whenever you want to."

"Or need to," Will said as the bartender set two Kirins on the bar. "Have you talked to Si? Or John?"

"John? I haven't talked to John in years."

"Me neither," said a voice from behind. They both turned and saw a bearded man in an orange parka, out of place in the black-on-black of lower Manhattan.

"Si!" they both said at once.

"I've been having them too," Si said as the bartender brought another Kirin.

"In Alaska?"

"On the way. I caught a plane back. Just got in an hour ago. I thought I might find you all, us all, here."

"Si!" said Wendi, hugging him from behind. "Thank God. Let's get the fuck out of here. Renee can close."

She was already pulling on her coat: an oversized black motorcycle jacket. Does that mean she has a boyfriend? Mason wondered, as glad for her as he was sad for himself.


· · · · ·


They took Will's SUV uptown to 34 Park Avenue. No one had anything to say until they were upstairs and inside. The old apartment looked the same.

"Here, where it all began," said Will, while Si opened the drapes to let in the starlight from the street. But those weren't stars. They were windows, all looking out.

"This place was in the dreams," said Mason. "Broome Street too."

"It started for me here," said Will. "That night you decided to buy the Meadow, last night's dream—we all had it, right?"

They had all had it.

"That was when I realized I belonged with you guys. That I didn't have to run away to Canada after all."

"Did you ever have to do any time?" Mason asked.

"Six months' probation. And an undesirable discharge. Thanks to Jimmy Carter."

"So we needn't have worried?" Wendi asked. Trying not to sound accusatory.

"That was years later. After the war was over. At the time—"

"At the time it was all serious," said Si. He was carrying little coffee cups out of the kitchen on a silver tray. Always the host.

"Coffee?" said Wendi. "It's midnight, Si."

"Do we really want to sleep?" asked Mason, taking his cup.

"It started up on the Meadow," said Wendi, declining hers. "The dreams, anyway. They began when we started building the dome. The first night, after we put in the pilings for the floor."

"Circles," said Si. "I remember that morning. We all looked at each other, and John—it was John, I believe, who said, "Hey, am I crazy or did we all have the same dream?"

"And he wasn't crazy," said Wendi. "Not then anyway."

"I don't even remember what the dream was," said Will.

"I do," said Mason. "We all dreamed we were standing in a circle around the dome, watching it build itself."

"It was spooky," said Si. "That was where I got the idea for the hubs. Making them out of PVC pipe."

"It seems spooky now," said Wendi. "We didn't think it was spooky then."

"I did," said Will. "Still do."

"I didn't," said Mason. "I thought it was fucking wonderful."

"Magical," said Wendi. "And logical too. We were living the same dream in the day and having the same dream every night. It seemed right."

"It was right, for a while," said Si. "Until it turned into a nightmare."

"In Super 8. It brought us together, then it tore us apart," said Wendi. "Then back together again. What now?"

"To sleep, perchance to dream," said Mason.

They all fell silent. Had it really been thirty-five years?

"Maybe it was the mushrooms," said Si. "Remember Shroom, the first time he brought them up the road? We all thought he was the cops. Because we had blasted the postholes. A scare."

"Shroom," said Will. "He is a cop now, I think. John told me he was still around. The eternal townie."

"You see John?" Wendi was surprised.

"Once, a few years ago," said Will. "And the dreams were long gone. Why are they back? That's the question. Why are we all here, having the same dream again?"

"Maybe we're here to end it," said Wendi. "Besides, it wasn't the mushrooms. It was the dome. The postholes. The circle. Completing a circle."

"It's BJ," said Si. "She's in every dream."

"We're all in every dream," said Mason.

"It's not the same," said Will. "Look, we all know it's not the same. And every dream ends in fire. What's that all about?"

Wendi was pulling off her jeans. Mason was trying not to notice. "Let's don't go there," she said. "Not yet. Maybe the dreams are telling us a story."

"Anybody got any dope?" said Mason. "I came on a plane."

"Don't smoke much anymore," said Si.

It was two in the morning. They slept in a star, heads together, on the musty Persian rug in the big living room. Mason was still on West Coast time, and he stood at the window as the others went to sleep, looking down on the cabs on Park Avenue, trolling for stragglers.

Perchance to dream, he thought.

Finally, fearfully, he too lay down and closed his eyes. And wished he hadn't.


· · · · ·


Look. Here we are, where we always wanted to be, on a high meadow on the side of a mountain, overlooking the Hudson. It must have been John who shot this sequence, showing the dome going up, in stop time. First just a circular platform, then the struts, all numbered, attached with PVC hubs and strap. We were all so pretty. BJ especially. No longer looking over her shoulder, west. Here comes a Jeep, psychedelic colors. Shroom. Si is brewing tea, looking stage-evil, like a witch in Shakespeare. The dome is the center of it all. The circle. FF to BJ again, framed in light, like an angel. But no, it's fire, fire again. Her outstretched hands are black.


· · · · ·


"Shit."

"You too?"

"Of course. We all had it, the same, right?"

They were all sitting up, nodding.

"It's not going to go away," said Si. "We're being called. Summoned."

"We might as well get going," said Wendi, pulling on her jeans. She had slept in her tee shirt and underpants. Mason tried not to stare at the little white triangle, once so familiar, so dear.

Will pulled his car keys from his pocket. "I have to move it anyway," he said. "You can't park on Park after seven. And it's six thirty."

"I should call Constance."

"I have a cell phone," said Wendi. "You can call her from the highway."

"Everybody has a cell phone," said Will.


· · · · ·


The West Side Highway. The Henry Hudson. The Saw Mill, the Taconic. They were silent, more or less, until they reached the first ridge of the little mountains that marched across the Hudson from New Jersey north toward New England.

New means old, thought Mason. He leaned up over the seat and popped in a CD.

"All Along the Watchtower." Two riders were approaching …

"There's got to be a logical explanation for all this," said Will.

"Logical?" Si said. "Dreams are not logical. Neither is memory. It's memory we share. We created a group memory, and it exists independent of each of us. Even when the group is gone."

"A hive mind," said Mason.

"A what?"

"A hive mind. Made out of all of us, but independent. We off-loaded all our memories into the Super 8. And then the memories started accessing us. They only existed when we were together. And we are only together when we sleep."

"Thank you, Professor," said Will.

"What about the time zones?" asked Wendi.

"No time in dreams," said Si. "Asleep we are in the same time zone, maybe."

"Maybe," said Mason. "Anyway, it went away and now it's back. What has changed?"

The leaves had changed, or were changing. That's the only thing I miss about the East, thought Mason. That and the little triangle.

"It's calling us back," said Wendi. "It's BJ calling us back," said Wendi.

"Unlikely," said Will. He was an expert, a businesslike driver. "Let's talk about what's real."

"The dreams aren't real?" Si asked.

"What's real is that the dreams are back, after thirty-five years. What's real is that we're all having them. Again. After we thought we had managed to get rid of them."

"We couldn't get out of there fast enough," said Si.

"To get rid of them, we had to separate," said Wendi. "Go our separate ways. And it worked. At least for a while."

"Thirty years," said Mason. "That's quite a while."

"Thirty-five." Will pressed on. "Secondly, they have a theme. They all end at the same place. With fire."

"And BJ," said Wendi. "Fire and BJ."

"Third, we are all responding. Here we are. We're all here because we are scared."

"Maybe it's guilt," said Wendi. "Remember guilt?"

"Fourth, we all know what to do."

"We do?" Mason asked Will.

"We're here, on the Taconic, aren't we? Heading north. After all those thirty-five years."


· · · · ·


Will took the Route 55 exit off the Taconic.

"You remember the way," said Mason.

"I've been back, once, six or eight years ago. To check on John. To make sure he wasn't bringing the pigs down on the place. He wasn't particularly glad to see me. He was growing dope, living here alone. Looked like a mountain man."

"That was always his dream," said Wendi.

"That was then," said Si. "This is now."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean none of our dreams are our own anymore. Or haven't you noticed?"


· · · · ·


"Finally get to use this four-wheel drive," Will muttered. They were all silent as the big Pathfinder rocked and lurched up the dirt track, through the narrow gate.

Somebody, it could have been anybody, stepped out of the woods with a shotgun in his hand.

"John!" said Wendi. He looked so old. They were all as shocked as she was. He had been the youngest, the puppy.

"Welcome home," John said with a grim sort of grin.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Fire," said John, opening the shotgun to show it wasn't loaded before getting into the Pathfinder. Wendi slid over to the middle of the front seat to let him in.

"Fire?" Si asked.

"Of course," said Will. "We all saw it in the dreams, didn't we?"

"You should know better than to stick your hands into a dream," Si said to John.

"Yeah, well—"

"How'd you know we were coming?" said Wendi. "I mean, right now, up the road."

"Alarm," said John. "That box on the gate is a laser, sets off a dinger up by the trailer. But I've been expecting you all, since the dreams started up again. Or some of you. I didn't expect the whole crew. Cool. Wendi."

She accepted a kiss on the cheek. "What fire?"

Then, as the SUV pulled up the last steep stretch, through the little grove of locusts, into the clearing, she saw.

They all saw.

"My God," said Si.


· · · · ·


The dome had burned. It was a circle of charred boards with the blackened two-by-four struts still standing. The PVC had melted, but the straps still held the struts together.

They stood and looked in silence, then walked around it.

"Happened last night," said John. "Went up like a bomb. Luckily it was raining, and it didn't spread. I burned my hand trying to get stuff out."

It was starting to rain again, a little.

"Stuff," said Will, sniffing the charred wreckage. The dome was twenty feet across, ten feet high. The Celotex covering had burned away completely, and only the charred struts were left, like a dream of a dome.

A bad dream, thought Mason.

"Meth!" said Will, angrily.

"Huh?"

"A fucking meth lab. Are you crazy, John? You've gone from growing dope to cooking crystal meth? You turned the dome into a meth lab?"

"A guy's got to live," said John, heading toward his trailer, trailing his shotgun. "You guys want some coffee? I'll put a pot on."

The trailer was an ancient plywood Windwalker; it stank of mold and socks and cigarettes. They all slipped out of their shoes, even though the floor was gritty with old mud, and found places to sit while John fired up the woodstove and stirred grounds into a coffee pot.

"Cowboy coffee," said Wendi with a comic grimace.

The meth lab didn't bother her. She sipped her coffee and studied John. It was hard to believe that this narrow-eyed old man had once been the beautiful boy who had come between herself and Mason. And then herself and Will.

"Have you seen a doctor?" Si asked, taking John's arm and peeling back the bandage.

"It'll heal," John said, rewrapping it. "Besides, it was just last night."

He went from wrapping his arm to rolling a joint. John always rolled the best joints.

"I was getting out of the business anyway," he said. Nobody believed him.


· · · · ·


But it was okay. The sun had come out and the Meadow had the old magic, completing the circle. They all drifted out of the trailer into the sun.

"Hard to believe we were once so young," said Wendi. She and Mason walked up the hill to the spot where they had once planned to build their cabin.

"Maybe you're right," Mason said. "Maybe the dream is just a signal, to bring us back together one more time. A summons."

"From who? BJ?"

"That makes it a ghost story."

"Maybe it always was a ghost story, all along."

"What do you think would have happened if it hadn't been for BJ?" He reached for her hand.

She let him take it. "Do you mean, would we have all stayed here and lived happily ever after? I doubt it, Mase. But it's nice to think so, isn't it?"

"Having the same dreams."

"It wasn't so bad. It wouldn't have been so bad, would it?"

Mason sat on the grass, and Wendi lay down beside him, at ninety degrees, with her head on his lap. Just like old times. It felt weirdly, irreversibly, irretrievably right.

She closed her eyes. And wished she hadn't.


· · · · ·


Look. It's dark outside, but there's a light in the dome. One of us, it's Wendi, pulls open the heavy door, and there, in the light of three candles on the floor, is BJ, twirling slowly, hanging by the neck from a rope tied to the high center hub. How did she get it up there? Now we see the ladder, kicked over on the floor, amid the boxes and junk that fill the dome. BJ spins around and we see her face. She is mouthing words, silently, but we can all read lips, in memory at least. "Help. Help me." Then she spins away, into the gathering fire.


· · · · ·


"Whoa!"

"What's wrong?"

"I fell asleep."

"I know. Just like the old days." Mason was smiling. Wendi wasn't.

"I had the dream." She scrambled to her feet, tucking her skirt up under her knees.

"By yourself? Just now?"

"We were all in it. Let's go."

"Where?"

"Back down. To the trailer. The others."

Always the others, Mason thought, following.

They were halfway down the hill when they heard John's warning bell: ding ding ding.

Then again: ding ding ding.


· · · · ·


A Jeep Cherokee was pulling up the last part of the hill, slipping in the mud. On the side it said Orange County Deputy Sheriff. A portly man got out and started up the hill toward Si and Will. John came out of the trailer with his shotgun. Mason and Wendi joined them from the hill above.

"Shroom!" said Wendi.

"God damn, John!" said Shroom, touching the brim of his deputy hat as if for luck. "Put the fucking gun away. You're running a meth lab here? I told you, man!"

"Not loaded," said John. He opened the gun to show him then set it down beside the trailer steps. "Accidental fire."

"Bull shit," said Shroom. "Is that you, Will? I'll be damned. And Si. Remember me?"

Of course. They all shook hands.

"And Wendi too. And Mason. Man! Everybody but BJ. What ever happened to her?"

"You don't want to know," said Wendi.

"Probably not," said Shroom. "I always had a crush on her."

"You had a crush on us all," said Wendi. Our townie.

"Somebody saw the fire from the river last night," said Shroom, accepting a cup of tea brought from the trailer by Si. He took a drink then spat, politely. "I had to investigate. Now you've compromised my ass, John. A little grass is one thing, but a meth lab—"

"There's no meth lab here." John spread his hands. "Just some ashes of an old hippie dome."

"No meth lab," said Will. "Just an accidental fire. Civil stuff. No need for you to take note."

"Well, you're all full of shit, and I'm glad to see you all," said Shroom. "And believe me, I don't want trouble for anybody." As he spoke, he was unsnapping a leather case, one of several on his belt.

A gun? Wendi wondered, curious but curiously unconcerned. Whatever would be would be.

It was a roll of bright yellow tape.

"But you guys have put me in a spot. The sheriff sent me up here, and if he doesn't like my report he will come up here himself with the fire marshall. Insurance and all."

"We don't have insurance," Si pointed out.

"I have to cover my ass, just in case," said Shroom. He was wrapping a long piece of crime-scene tape around the burned dome. It took the entire roll.

"This is not a crime scene," said Will. The others were silent, letting him talk. He who had been their outlaw was now their lawyer.

"It's the only tape I have," said Shroom. "I can't help it if anybody goes in and removes any incriminating stuff, especially if I don't know about it, especially if they don't fuck with the tape. I would hate to see anybody get in trouble, but I have to cover my ass."

"Understood," said Si.

"Then we're square," said Shroom. He shook hands all around and headed back down to his Jeep. "By the way, the sheriff's an asshole," he called out the window as he backed down the hill, not bothering to turn around. "And John, you're an asshole too!"

"Well, now we know," said Mason, watching the Jeep back down the hill toward the gate, like Fate rewinding.

As if Fate could rewind.

"Know what?" Will asked. "Know John's an asshole?"

"Know why we're here. Don't you see? We have to move BJ. Before they start poking around."

"Shit," said Wendi. "That's it. He's right."


· · · · ·


"This is some spooky shit," said Mason. It was raining again outside. "Here we all are, after thirty-five years."

The rain beat on the trailer like a drum.

"BJ was calling us," said Si. "Protecting us. Warning us. She doesn't want us to get into trouble."

"Please. If she didn't want us to get into trouble, she wouldn't have killed herself," said Will.

"She wasn't thinking that far ahead," said Wendi. "She never did." She looked at John.

He stared back. "What?"

"You found her," Wendi said. "I remember the night. You were hollering from inside the dome. We all came running."

"So?"

"So. What did you find?"

"What do you mean?" John asked.

"Was she dead when you found her?"


· · · · ·


Si made tea. Coffee seemed inappropriate. John sat on the stained, the broken, the filthy couch, either trying to cry or trying not to cry. It was hard to tell.

"BJ was so crazy," he said. "She was spinning, still kicking."

"Why didn't you cut her down?" said Mason. "You had a knife. A fucking handmade knife."

Wendi had given John the knife for his twenty-first birthday.

"I still don't know why," said John, his voice small. "I just didn't."

"She was pregnant, wasn't she," said Wendi. It was a statement, not a question. None of the men would look her in the eye.

"It's too late to lay blame," said Si. He was the only one who hadn't slept with her.

"Poor BJ," said Wendi. "Poor Betty Jean." A moment of silence followed. They all knew BJ's story. Raised in a trailer park (Mission Oaks) in Riverside, her first boy friend was her uncle Roy. Her Playboy figure was her ticket out. Away. East.

"It never felt right to leave," said John.

"You did leave though," said Wendi.

"I kept coming back," said John. "Then I just sort of stayed. It was like it was my job to watch her grave."

"You even fucked that up," Will pointed out.

"Doesn't matter," said Mason. "We still have the same job, why we're here. We have to move her."


· · · · ·


As soon as the rain let up, they hauled the blackened remnants of the meth apparatus up the hill and buried it under a pile of old trash; John's trash. The dome floor was charred but not burned through. The floorboards would have to be pulled up, and it was raining again, halfheartedly. They returned to the trailer for spaghetti from cans. Si's suggestion that he drive to town for food was vetoed.

"We have until morning," Will said. "It's getting dark anyway. And are we planning to sleep?"

Nobody wanted to sleep.

"It's like we've been dreaming BJ's dreams," said Wendi.

"But BJ was in the dreams," said Will.

"So? I'm always in my own dreams."

"From the outside?"

"We've been dreaming our collective memory," said Si. "Watch out what you wish for. That was once our wish, to be as one. It was what we got."

"Only in our dreams," said John. Was it supposed to be a joke? No one could tell. He had finished crying, that was for sure.

"Except one of us is dead," said Mason.

"Murdered," said Wendi. If she wanted John to wince, and she did, she was disappointed.

"We're all murderers," said Will. "Accessories to murder."

"You made us that," said Wendi.

"We had no choice," said Will. "I wasn't just AWOL. I was a deserter. Plus, I had burned that bus. That was probably treason."

"They never got you for that anyway," said Mason.

"They had lost interest. They would have been interested if they had caught me in 1970, believe me."

"It's done," said Wendi. "We all agreed not to call the cops, or anybody. What could it have done for her anyway? We were her people. There was no one else."

"The rain," said Mason, at the window. "It's quit again."


· · · · ·


"We need a crowbar," said Will. The floorboards were charred but still intact.

"There's one in my truck," said John. He got it and pulled up the boards while the others watched. The old nails squealed. Soon the boards were laid aside. The dirt under the dome was bare and clean, as if there had been no fire, no intervening thirty-five years.

"An unmarked grave," said Wendi.

"Quite otherwise," said Si. "Marked with the dome itself. Our dreams for the future."

"Now gone," said Mason. "Give me the shovel. I'll do the honors since nobody else seems to want to."

They all stood in a circle and watched as Mason dug. The shovel cut into the damp earth like a knife into flesh, and Wendi flinched with every slice.

Mason felt it too. Careful.

Only two feet down, he hit the sleeping bag. It was gray, no longer green. He didn't want to touch it.

"Let me," said Si. He pushed the dirt back with his hands until the zipper was uncovered. It was brass, still bright. He didn't want to touch it.

"Let me," said Wendi. She knelt between the standing Mason and the kneeling Si while John and Will looked on. "Rolling away the stone," Mason said, as she pulled the zipper down.

Then wished he hadn't.

The sleeping bag was empty.


· · · · ·


"Look. She's gone," said John.

"Impossible," said Wendi. She pulled the sleeping bag out of the long, shallow hole and held it up and shook it.

"She's gone," said Mason. "Maybe that's the point."

Something lay in the bottom of the grave. "My camera," said Si. "I thought it was lost."

"I thought so too," said John.

"I put it in the sleeping bag with her," said Wendi. "I didn't put it in the grave."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Si picked it up. It was corroded into a lump of brushed aluminum, caked with mud.

"Because I knew you would want it back. I thought it would put an end to the dreams."

"Well, it didn't," said Will. "What about the film?"

"I kept the film," said Si. "All transferred to video long ago."

"Our collective memory," said Mason. "Maybe that explains the fast forward."

"Where's BJ?" Wendi asked, looking for the first time as if she were about to cry. "Poor BJ. Who called us here?"

"I say we split," said Mason. "It's not even midnight yet."

"And leave me here to deal with the sheriff alone?"

"Then come with us," said Wendi.

"You're all going to different places," said John. "Different worlds."

Wendi rolled up the sleeping bag and started back toward the trailer. "I'm cold," she said.

"This is impossible," said Will.

"Poor BJ," said Mason. "Did we dream it all?"

"Huh?"

"There's no body. She's as gone as ever. More gone. Maybe it never happened. Maybe it was like the dreams."

No one believed that. They shared a glass of tea, with whiskey from John's half-empty plastic jug of Jim Beam.

At midnight they went to sleep. All on the floor. Mason and Wendi slept side by side for the second time in thirty years. "I'll call Constance tomorrow," Mason said. "Meanwhile, it's kind of nice to all be together here. Back home."

"The crime scene, you mean," said Will.

"Our only crime," said Wendi, yawning, "was dreaming of a better world."

"And not cutting her down," amended Will. The last to close his eyes.


· · · · ·


Look. It is always sunny, Super 8. Our collective memory. Perhaps that's just because no one made films in bad weather. Or perhaps memory has become imagination. Imagine if it had all worked! Our collective mind imagines what our individual memories couldn't, didn't dare, even then. Here we are, older, wiser perhaps, walking around the ruins of the dome that was our first collective project. Our first and last. Our only. It's in ruins, but we are still standing.

There are Mason and Wendi, hand in hand, in old age. Will, free at last. Si, still holding things together, still making tea. Even John, having survived heroin and meth, abashed as always, but with a grin. With a knife and a gun and a circle of friends, his oldest unacknowledged, irretrievable, impossible dream. We all look worried, but less worried than the young, who are afraid of losing their youth, as if it is a country to which they will never return.

We got over that one.

"I thought it was dead," says John, cleaning the camera with a toothbrush. "But there's a light on the side."

"That's just the sun."

"Blinking?"

The rain is gone. We are sitting in the sun, on boards and stumps, since the inside of the trailer was cold.

"No sheriff, anyway." John seems pleased.

"It's only ten," says Will, consulting his watch. "Ten- ten."

Mason opens the door of the Pathfinder, so we can all enjoy the music floating across the long brown autumn grass. "All Along the Watchtower."

Look. Wendi is hanging the sleeping bag on a line. It looks brighter, greener in the sun than it did in a hole in the earth.

Ding ding ding.

Mason looks up. "Two riders are approaching."

Ding ding ding.

"Shit," says Will. "Shit," says John.

We all stand and peer down the road to where the sheriff's car will appear between the knotty, ash-gray locust trees.

Si and Will hurry to make sure that the crime-scene tape is still secure. The dome is a circle of ash, a pile of boards around a hole. Maybe we should have nailed the boards back. Or scattered them over the hole.

"Should've been here by now."

"Maybe he got stuck. Road's still pretty wet."

"Someone's coming." Wendi points.

Look. There is no car. A woman is walking up the road. Short gray hair, tall, wearing coveralls and funny shoes. A little boy walks beside her, holding one hand.

She waves with the other. A little shyly.

"Look, Mase." Wendi reaches for and finds his hand. It feels right in her own.

After a moment's hesitation we all wave back. And wait.

The End

© 2004 by Terry Bisson and SCIFI.COM.