Escape Velocity: The Anthology (30 page)

      
The child sat next to him contentedly, pretending to read the book, and creating a world that Shakespeare would never have dreamed possible. Milo would remain forever unaware of the weight his grandfather carried in his soul, unaware that the old man beside him wondered every day if he had, indeed, made the right choice.

      
The burden of leadership, at least, was no longer his own. Hawthorne had passed it along the very day after April’s death. However, he could never free himself of the responsibility for what he had done. Its enormity would forever live within him.

      
The child eventually wandered off, leaving his grandfather to his thoughts.

      
Hawthorne knew that there was not much time left to him, and realized he should enjoy re-reading his beloved leather-bound copy of 
Wuthering Heights
, happy in the safety of his colony and even more content because his fetish for outdated printed books had at least allowed him to save a small section of human culture for the generations to come.

      
Death should find him content, safe in the knowledge that he had accomplished the objective for which he had been trained since the first day of officer school, and forever cheated the Andreans out of their final prize.

      
Somehow, true peace of mind continued to elude him.

My thoughts as I watch the descending ball of flame coming ever nearer is that I truly desire that it be a star and simply erases me from the face of the planet with its falling.

      
As it approaches, I can tell that it is correcting its course to bear directly at me and correcting once more. I can no longer pretend that it is a star.

      
I am alone, my people scattered like dust, yet it is for them that I worry. I am old and have little to lose, but they shall witness the truth of our legends as spoken by Hawk Thorn and the elders who followed him.

      
I can now marvel at my own arrogance. How many times had I scoffed at a legend, berating the theorist as a superstitious fool? Yet, in my mind, I can no more deny the fact of the star machine than I can of my own existence. 

      
I have no evidence that it is a machine built to bridge the gulf between the stars. Yet I know it somehow. Despite my foreboding I will stand fast and greet whatever emerges, nobly representing The People and bringing understanding and peace. God willing it will be so.

      
Nevertheless, as I stand here resolute on this monumental occasion, I imagine the voices of the spirits in my mind, making an astonishing and disconcerting noise.

      
A noise much like laughter.

The Inn Between

Michael Anderson

He would sit for long periods and visualize distant memories in his mind’s eye. The details were clear as a mountain lake in summertime. Sometimes he tried to organize his recollections, making a conscious effort to begin with the earliest ones and working forward to the most recent. He did this mainly to pass the time.

      
Time had no meaning here.

      
He did not eat or drink. There was neither food nor water in this place, anyway.

      
It was important to ignore the unrealities of the situation and remain sane.

      
My memories tell me I am real. I must be alive. If I were dead, there would be more to this experience-or nothing at all.

      
After a time he got to his feet and stretched until his bones cracked.  
I never noticed that before. My body makes sounds. I can hear them. It is another piece of evidence saying I exist, that I must still be alive somehow.

For lack of a better name, he called the place Limbo
.
It was a nothingness stretching to forever in all directions like a vast billiard table running to an invisible horizon. The physical surface was impossibly smooth, without visible depth and difficult to identify. It felt like cold plastic. The sky was a dull grey and cast a diffused light. It was neither day nor night, only
now
, and the now never changed.

      
He had no clear memory of his arrival. He had simply awakened to find himself lying on the cold surface and staring at a formless sky of grey shadows and soft light.

      
Fear and panic had flooded his mind in a rush. He had run, shouted and screamed for help until he could run no more. He had pounded his fist upon the smooth surface in an effort to discover the limits of his prison. He had cried and pleaded for God to help him.

      
If God had heard his pleadings, He did not answer.

      
He tried little experiments to test his senses. He pinched his own arm. It hurt. He scratched himself on the leg with a sharp fingernail. Blood oozed from the scratch. However, when he looked back at his leg a moment later, the scratch was gone.

      
When he closed his eyes and sought sleep, he did not find real slumber. In his pseudo-dreams, he would sometimes hear a voice and awaken with a pounding heart to search for the source of the voice, to no avail.

      
He wore not a stitch of clothing as well.

Time for my morning constitutional to nowhere
.

      
He walked toward the horizon for the hundredth time since he had come to the place. After a few steps, he stopped cold. An idea popped into his mind. He remembered something from the old fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. Hansel had left a trail of white pebbles to help find the way home.

      
I have no pebbles
, he thought wryly.
Hair. I can leave my own hair to mark the trail.
He wound his fingers around a clump of hair and jerked it free. He stared at the bit of hair for a few moments.

      
I’ll need more than this.
He continued yanking out small strands of hair until he had a good-sized handful, and then started to walk toward the horizon.

      
Every twenty meters he stopped and carefully lay a bit of hair on the ground. After some time, he looked back to see the previous piece he had laid down.

      
It was gone.

      
He touched his head and realized his missing hair had been restored. He had been quite careful to walk in a straight line. He backtracked for a while, but found no trace of his Hansel-trail.

      
I haven’t gone far. I should have seen something, at least a few pieces.

      
Not everything here is real.

       “
What the hell is this?” He drove his fists upward in righteous anger and indignation. “I was a good man! I don’t deserve this!”

      
The exertion from shouting left him panting for breath.

      
Depression washed over him like an ocean wave hitting the beach. His shoulders shook as he sobbed quietly. He caught a few of his own tears in his hand and tasted them. They were salty and warm.

He awoke after another sleep-not-sleep and rubbed his eyes.
I think I know what is happening,
. In his latest dream, he had remembered something important.

      
I was in an accident. Yes. I remember it now.

      
My name is Mitchell Gavin. I live in Mansfield, Ohio. I was working on a demolition project with a labor crew, and the wall collapsed. Yes. I remember someone shouting at me and I remember seeing the wall falling on top of me. I don’t remember being struck, though.

      
So I’m either dead...or in a coma.

      
Mitchell Gavin smiled for the first time and sighed in relief.
Yes, that’s it. I’m not crazy, and this isn’t some kind of cosmic joke. I’m either dead or in a hospital somewhere. What other explanation is there?

      
He racked his brain for a solution to the problem.
If I am in a coma, is there a way out
?

      
I know I cannot walk out of here. I have to think my way out.

      
He decided to walk again, but only to pass the time. He started toward the horizon at a relaxed pace.

      
I wish I had some clothes. At least I could put my hands in my pockets while I walk.

      
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than clothes magically appeared on his body. He found himself wearing his old work boots, pants, shirt, even his hardhat.

      
I thought about it and it happened. I wished for it and it came true.

       “
I want to go home! I want to wake up now!” He shouted at the sky.

      
Nothing happened.

He walked for a very long time. The horizon drew no closer. The surface was cold, smooth, and endless. Gavin placed his hands on his temples and tried to imagine his bed at home.

      
The bed appeared, then the bedroom. He ran to the window and watched in awe as his entire neighborhood began forming out of nothing and spreading across the landscape. It undulated in brilliant colors and snapped into reality. The sun, sky, and clouds appeared.

      
He saw a young woman with brunette hair pushing a baby carriage down the sidewalk outside his house. He dashed to the front door and threw it open.
I must not scare her
, he thought, slowing a bit. Crossing the well-trimmed lawn, he called out to her in a polite voice, “Ma’am? May I speak to you for a moment?”

      
The young lady turned and smiled. “Yes, sir?”

       “
Do you know where we are? What is this place?”

       “
You must be new here,” she replied. “You’re in Mansfield, of course.” She turned away and pushed the carriage up the sidewalk.

      
Gavin ran into the street and toward the center of town.

He awoke to find himself lying flat on the smooth surface again, without clothes, house, or a woman with a baby carriage.

      
Okay, it was all my imagination. How about giving me my clothes back?

      
The clothes returned to his body.

      
He projected a more powerful thought to see the results.

      
I want to live in my old house with all the comforts of home.

      
His house came into focus. He was standing at the door. He reached for the knob and entered.

      
I don’t know what is going on, but this is better than the other place.

      
I’m home.

He would rise late in the morning and cook a leisurely breakfast. He always followed this with a hot shower and a walk around the block. He was completely alone. Cars were parked in front of silent houses on quiet streets. He would spend the remainder of the day watching television. The shows were always reruns, and strangely, he could never find a single channel broadcasting the local news.

      
Maybe I’ve been kidnapped by aliens and this is an experiment
. This thought brought a rare smile to his face.

      
He made marks on the bedroom wall to record the passing of days, since the sun now rose and set for him. When he awoke in the morning the mark from the previous day was always gone. After a few attempts, he gave up the project.

      
For a while, he tried different experiments to stretch the limits of what was possible. He wished for a gun and it appeared. When he fired the pistol into the wall, it made a loud noise and left a hole in the wall. When he tried to fire the gun into his leg, it always misfired.

      
The bullet hole in the wall was gone in the morning.

      
He tried imagining anything and everything, no matter how ridiculous. He wished for a television that would show him the ‘outside world.’ A television appeared with a picture of the Earth as seen from space. He tried changing the channel and the television vanished.

      
He imagined he was an astronaut going to Mars and suddenly found himself aboard a spacecraft on its way to the Red Planet. He realized the spacecraft was all wrong, something he had once seen in an old film. He closed his eyes and wished himself home at once.

      
These things are created from my memories
,
not from reality itself.
 

      
He went on different adventures for a long time, searching out possible answers to his imprisonment.

      
He climbed Mount Everest without oxygen in an hour.

      
He walked the deepest trenches of the Pacific Ocean and marveled at the strange life living under such enormous pressures.

      
He prayed to God to help him understand.

      
The answers he sought did not come.

      
He finally abandoned his imaginary travels and settled down at home.