Parallelities (19 page)

He was alive again—but in what para?

There was no sign of the old ghost, or the commiserating couples, or the bemused aliens. When a chill ran down his back, he looked around sharply, half expecting to see a transcendent, spectral figure making its way inland. But it was only the sea wind evaporating water from his saturated shirt.

They were still around, he knew. Not necessarily the diverse group of revenants he had conversed with, but others. They had always been there, always would be there. He had learned a great truth about the afterlife by momentarily becoming a part of it.

Not that anyone would believe him if he chose to try and share it in an article, of course. He, who had written story after story making fun of and debunking earnest believers in the hereafter, and in the existence of spectral beings, did not have the kind of byline that would engender respect for such subject matter. Having temporarily, or temporally, been one such phantom himself, he would no longer be able to write about such matters with quite the same skeptical, jaundiced eye.

In fact, he reflected, the dead were very much like me and thee, except that they did not take up space in lines waiting to get into the latest movie, or appear on TV talk shows to discuss their predicament, or vote in annual elections—except in Alabama. No, the deceased were regular folks whose company, based on what he had seen, was in many ways preferable to that of the living.

A second chill sparked a response in his lungs, and then in his sinuses, disclosing itself by means of a loud, sharp sneeze.
If I don’t get out of these wet clothes
, he thought,
I’m liable to take a real, good, old-fashioned, unpleasant cold.
Then pneumonia might set in, he reflected, and he would die. Again.

Climbing to his feet, he turned and started off in the direction of his apartment building. Providentially, his wallet
and keys were still in their respective pockets. Like many of his friends, he wore tight pants not only for appearance’s sake but because it made life more difficult for the professional pickpockets who often infested the coastal beach communities on warm, crowded days such as this. Everything important in his wallet was either plastic or laminated, and he never carried much cash, so his temporary saltwater bath should not have done him any great harm. His only concern was that the car and apartment keys might corrode.

The joy and delight of finding himself among the living was tempered by the realization that, while his immediate situation had changed for the better, his own personal reality was in all likelihood still in a state of unpredictable flux. Unless something concrete proved the contrary, he was compelled to believe that he was still under the influence of the Boles Effect and thus still subject to its whims. The field continued to be a gigantic, imperceptible monkey on his back.

How could he plan for any kind of tomorrow, much less just live, without any way of knowing what tomorrow was going to be like? Certain paras were more or less similar and familiar, but others, such as the ones in which he found himself among visiting aliens, or walking the surface of a devastated planet, or conversing with the dead, left him feeling unsettled mentally as well as physically.

In many ways the near identical paras were even more disturbing than the radically different. Easy enough to know that the field was still operative and his life still in uncontrollable
flux when the world was full of Elder Gods or utopian Eloi-like teens. Much harder when the only difference might lie in the design of a ketchup bottle or the subtle rearrangement of an unfamiliar constellation, or the water in the toilet flowing counterclockwise. If the latter, how could he tell for certain if he was in yet another para, or just in Perth?

As he left the dry, hot sand for the parking lot that separated Appian Way from the beach, he found himself watching the too-rapid passage of a heavy delivery truck with morbid interest. How easy it would be to step in front of the next oversized vehicle that came barreling along, its driver intent on his schedule and distracted by the beauty of sea and sky. An instant of disorientation, a few seconds of shocking pain, and it would all be over: no more soul-shattering confrontations to deal with, no more trying to figure out if he was back in his world or in some subtly different doppelgänger, no more having to deal with cultures that he would never have the opportunity to interact with for more than a day or two.

Of course, he might return for an indeterminate period of time as a ghost, but at least he would know that he was haunting the right world, his world. All it would take to put an end to his wanderings was a single step, a final closing of the eyes, one brief moment of sickening impact…

Unless he didn’t die, but instead suffered only painful, crippling injuries. That would not be a way to ride out the rest of existence in his own world, much less while jumping between unpredictable multiples. But the temptation to give up,
to throw in the towel, to bite the bullet, to rid himself of the ongoing cliché of a thoroughly unpredictable future, was tempting. Except…

He had never been a quitter. When his high-school English teacher had told him his spelling and grammar bordered on the atrocious, he had persevered. When his university professors insisted repeatedly that he had no talent for writing whatsoever, he had persevered. When interviewer after interviewer had told him that his work was colorful and catchy but had nothing to say, he had persevered.

No wonder he had been able to land a plum job at a nationally distributed tabloid.

He straightened a little. If he could handle being dead, he could survive anything. Already he had dealt with maleficent Elder Gods and enigmatic aliens.
Let
the Boles Effect continue to make origami of his reality. He would cope with whatever resulted.

People always needed, always wanted, to know what was happening around them. That had been a constant in every para he had visited. Wherever he was, there would be a market for his reportorial talents. He would make a life for himself even if that life changed without warning every day, or week, or month. A stable existence it might not be, possibly the most unstable in the entire history of humankind, but he would press on. After all, where there was life, there was hope, and in his case, perhaps an infinite number of hopes.

He would not give in. If Barrington Boles would continue to work on the problem, so would Max. Perhaps in another para, he thought optimistically, Boles had already solved the problem. Even now, a hundred para Maxes might be returning home from the inventor’s hilltop lab secure in the knowledge that they would no more be roaming the prairies of parallelity.

Unless his Barrington Boles was the only one, out of all those millions of para Boleses, who had actually succeeded in making his device work. In which case it was up to Max to wait until he was certain he was back in that same world before he again confronted the inventor.

Reaching the far side of the parking lot, he climbed the short concrete stairway and paused on the sidewalk up top. Paused and waited, until there was no traffic in sight. Then he crossed carefully, fumbling in his sodden pocket for his slick, cold keys.

When they fit the lock to his building, and neither building nor lock metamorphosed into something unimaginable, he felt, however falsely, much encouraged.

It was a sensation that another long, hot shower greatly intensified. Amazing, he thought, what effect a simple civilized luxury like a hot shower can have on someone’s emotions. As he showered, he forced himself to relax. The soap did not turn into something alive that scampered out of his hand, the water did not turn to acid, or tomato juice, and the fresh towel with which he dried himself retained the weft and
softness of which its manufacturer boasted in an exclusive, overpriced mail-order catalog.

Making himself forget about work, he determined to spend the rest of the day puttering about the apartment performing relentlessly simple domestic tasks. Not even Boles knew what affected the Boles Effect. Who knew—perhaps a little positive mental reinforcement might have a dampening effect on its propensity to toss one around parallel worlds at random. With this in mind he climbed into a pair of shorts, a favorite old shirt, and considered how best to submerge himself for the rest of the day in the remorselessly commonplace.

With some trepidation, he shoved a frozen lasagna into the microwave and set temperature and time. Fifteen minutes later it was done: crisp, cheesy, and moist, without a suggestion of wriggling cilia or latent greenness. No gourmet meal was more enjoyed than the simple, weighty contents of that thin plastic pan. The beer that accompanied it stayed cold and the bubbles rose to the surface instead of descending or complaining out loud about their status as a transitory accessory to degustationic enjoyment.

Popcorn popped instead of turning into tiny flowers or brown pebbles or something equally unenticing. It accompanied an evening of TV-watching that was balm in its banality. He purposely chose to watch the most insipid programs available, each one reassuring in its inanity. He found comfort with Gilligan, surcease with the Skipper. Quiz shows, talk television, reruns of ancient situation comedies—all served to half
convince him that the field with which he had become burdened at Boles’s mansion had finally worn off.

But he remained cautious. He had been disappointed before, and he intended to be as prepared as possible should the stereo suddenly begin playing music by berserk lutists or if the furniture independently elected to rearrange itself. It was not easy. The comforting familiarity of his surroundings, the undisturbed deployment of personal effects within the apartment, the soothing stupidity of prime-time television, all combined to relax and encourage him.

Was he truly back home, in his achingly personal reality, instead of in some subversive para that was only waiting for him to relent mentally before it sprang some surreal, Lewis Carrollish ambush-in-waiting on him? For the thousandth time he remembered Boles describing how the Effect might dissipate of its own accord, without warning or sign. Was that what had happened? And if so, how could he be sure? He dared not let his guard down completely.

Morning might provide confirmation. Until then he could only live as if his life had never been turned upside down, as if the cosmos were still ruled by laws fixed and immutable. Only two men knew better: himself, and the brilliant but erratic Barrington Boles. Next time, he thought decisively, Boles could demonstrate his device while standing under the field-generating arch himself. Max would be happy to sit off to one side and throw the necessary switches.

Bed felt like a bower descended from Olympus. Naked, he
slid between the sheets and died. Figuratively, of course; but so rapidly and deeply did he fall into a state of motionless sleep than an unknowing onlooker might well have taken him for one of the deceased. It would not have fooled the deceased themselves, though. As he knew better than anyone, they were much more active than he was at the moment, and did not sleep.

H
e awoke greatly refreshed in mind and spirit, threw an English muffin into the toaster oven, and showered with more pleasure than he had done anything in days. Toweling off, he sauntered into the kitchen and let his eyes drink in the simple view of other apartment buildings, the pier, and the Pacific beyond. It looked like another typical, fine Southern California day. He was anxious to get to the office. Cognizant of the peccadilloes of his chronologically challenged staff, Kryzewski made grudging allowances for habitual tardiness, but that did not mean a reporter could take days off without so much as calling in, much less filing a story or two.

Well, that would all be fixed by this evening, Max knew. He would catch up on back work and missed meetings to everyone’s satisfaction. The toaster oven dinged, indicating
that his muffin was ready. Removing it, he yawned and went to check the refrigerator to find some jam. Blackberry this morning, he decided. The fridge door opened easily.

And he fell in.

The polar bear rose with a startled snort as Max tumbled down its back. Behind him, a handful of startled Inuit shouted warnings. Cold shot through him like one of their barbed harpoons.

Struggling to his feet as soon as he hit the snow, he sized up the situation in an instant. The Inuit hunters had killed a walrus, which lay dead on the white field of the earth not ten feet from where he now stood. Its deep red blood stained a trail in the snow. The bear had caught the scent and, roaring and bellowing, had shown up to claim the booty. This forced the hunters to retreat until they could unpack a couple of rifles from the packs on the backs of their two sleds, rifles not being of much use in hunting walrus. Barely kept in restraint by their anxious owners, teams of sled dogs barked madly at the intruding bear.

Out of nowhere, Max had appeared, landing hard on the bear’s back and rolling off. He now found himself, stark naked and beginning to feel the first effects of freezing, shivering between the agitated hunters and the monstrous ursine. The Inuit continued to shout loudly at him, and to beckon. He could not understand a word they were saying, but their expressions and gestures were unmistakable. What they were
saying in Inuit was “Get the hell out of there, you dumb naked white man!”

Outraged at the interruption, not to mention the unbridled temerity of the intrusive human, the bear reached down and grabbed Max before he could turn to run. He felt the unlimited strength of massive forelegs as he was raised off the ground by a pair of paws, each of which was larger than his head. Shifting his gaze, he saw yellowed teeth set in a black mouth, all framed by white fur that blended seamlessly into white sky and white ground. The teeth were several inches long and doubtless could penetrate the bone of his skull with very little effort. He screamed.

And sucked in a mouthful of water. Fresh, not salt. Not that it much mattered under the present circumstances. He could not breathe either one.

Kicking and gasping, he fought his way toward the light, his head coming up beneath an overhanging circular green mass that was floating on the surface. Wiping at his eyes to clear them, he peered cautiously at his surroundings and saw that he was treading water in some kind of lake or swamp. The water in which he found himself was tepid as an old bath, and the ambient air temperature anything but arctic. Though perfectly breathable, the air around his head seemed incapable of holding any additional moisture. Humidity bordered on a hundred percent.

Strange cries and bellowings came from the surrounding
forest. Something immense went stomping through the trees off to his left. It looked, in its immense brown passing, like a brontosaurus.
No, that’s not right
, he told himself. Indifferent paleontologists had gone and changed the name. But irregardless of nomenclature, it was certainly a dinosaur, and a sizable one at that.

Enormous batlike specters soared silently through the humid air, while vast groanings and sputterings echoed through the trees. He felt the water ripple behind him and turned sharply, but it was only a frog. If he had been sufficiently sensible, he would have laughed. Amidst the giants of a bygone age, the frog looked so homey and normal as it arranged itself on the huge lily pad beneath which Max had surfaced that he wanted to kiss it.

He did not. Not out of worry of contracting some mysterious amphibian poison but for fear it might turn into a prince, or princess, or God knew what. Tired of treading water, he headed for the shore opposite the one occupied by the foraging brontosaur. Undoubtedly there were dinosaurs there as well, perhaps even some of the famously carnivorous variety, but he could not hover next to the lily pad forever. His legs were beginning to ache.

The frog watched him go and said, clearly and in an appropriately deep and reverberant voice, “Good luck, Max.”

It wasn’t so much that the frog spoke perfect English as the fact that it knew his name. A para wherein frogs vocalized
was one thing, personal contact another. He spun around in the water to confront bulbous eyes and warty face.

“How did you know my name?”

“Looked it up in the computer.” Having no shoulders, the frog could not shrug, but it managed to convey the feeling nonetheless.

“Computer? What computer?” Since none of the conversation made any sense, Max felt perfectly at ease going with the same unbroken flow of intoxicated disbelief.

“Mine.” So saying, the frog reached back under the brilliant white flower of the lily and removed a miniature laptop. This it proceeded to display to Max while tapping on the tiny keys with dark green, thickly webbed toes. “Yarp, you’re Max, all right. Maxwell Parker, of Los Angeles. You work for a slimy tabloid—and I know my slime—called the
Investigator
, you spend more than you make, and you lust after a certain peroxided blonde name of Lisa Sanchez who works in the advertising department.”

“How do you know all this?” A safe distance behind Max, something massive and toothy stalked the shoreline, growling under its breath like the mother of all pit bulls. Tired legs or no, he wisely elected to remain out in the deep water.

“Easy. It’s all right here.” Turning the tiny laptop so that Max could see better, the frog showed him the active-matrix screen. Squinting, he moved nearer for a closer look and quickly discovered just how active its matrix was.

Like the refrigerator, he fell into it.

It sucked him right in. Drifting aimlessly and beginning to lament the absence of clothes, he discovered that he was surrounded by a sea of tiny, sparkling crystals. They crowded close, pressing firmly against him, and he began kicking and shoving them aside. They resisted, though not painfully.

Pixels
, he thought wildly. I am
in the screen, so these must be pixels
. Even as he scrutinized the notion and tried to rein in the thought, sure enough, the pixels turned into pixies. Perfect little folk fluttering like hummingbirds on wings of diaphanous luminescence, they swarmed about him, studying his helpless form intently, gesturing at various body parts and giggling uncontrollably.

“Get away, that’s enough!” He swung wildly, but they were far too agile for his clumsy great arms and avoided his mad flailings easily.

For the second time in too short a while, he found himself surrounded by cold and wet. Looking up, he saw the prow of a boat bearing down on him. The pixies scattered, chittering nervously to themselves, as he found himself once more afloat. This time the water was salty, and much colder than the Jurassic swamp where he had encountered the frog. He tried to thrust his torso as far up out of the water as possible as he waved and shouted.

“Hey! Hey, over here!”

Someone on board must have heard, because the boat slowed and angled to miss him. Imagining sharks, he fought
the periodic swells and the current as the sturdy craft slowed its approach. A flurry of hands reached over the gunwale to help him up. Acutely conscious of his nakedness, he allowed himself to be half helped, half hauled up onto the deck.

Wiry, well-dressed crewmen gaped at him and whispered among themselves as they regarded the eccentric castaway in their midst. No one offered him a towel or a blanket. He heard someone murmur, “Make way for the captain.”

The seamen stepped aside to make room for a gnarly, weather-beaten individual not much older than Max himself and slightly shorter. Clad in basic, no-nonsense sailor’s attire and cap, the captain had the most enormous forelegs and forearms Max had ever seen on a human being, yet his biceps though not his thighs were oddly emaciated by comparison. Nevertheless, he looked every inch the stalwart officer in command, and the respect in which the crew held him was evident in their expressions. A corncob pipe jutted like a permanent appendage from the left side of his mouth, while his jaw and left eye were locked in a permanent squint.

“Well now,” the swarthy seadog muttered, “what have we got here?”

One of the crew spoke up. “He was just floatin’ in the water off to starboard, Cap’n. Stark naked and yellin’ fit to beat the band. We hove to and fished him out.”

The captain came closer, studying Max intently with his one good eye. There wasn’t a hint of malevolence in that gaze, and a shivering Max began to relax a little.

“Is that a fact? You don’t look none too well, matey. Better get some food into you. Not to mention something to wear. I hopes you don’t mind sailors’ cotton. This ain’t no floatin’ Lord and Taylor.” He smiled so engagingly that the last of Max’s uncertainty vanished. Despite the immutable squint it was a smile that demanded one in return.

Turning toward the main above-decks cabin, the captain called out loudly. “Hey, Olive! We gots us a castaway up here! Put on some of that bonito we broughts in yesterday, and don’t forgets the spinach!” He laughed then, a most exceptional and peculiar sort of high-pitched chuckle.

Max did not wait for him to introduce himself. The nature of the strangely uniform waves on which the uncomplicated boat rode; the oddly flat, threatening sky; the highly animated crew; it all struck him simultaneously. With a wild, despairing, maddened cry, he threw himself back over the side, much to the astonishment and dismay of the solicitous captain and crew.

Only to wake up sputtering, water running down his face and into the sheets. In his nightmare flailing he’d knocked over the glass of water he always kept on the end table next to the bed. The contents had landed on his face and spilled down his body. The empty glass lay on the sheets nearby.

He was in his apartment. It was morning again.

Breathing hard, he checked the clock radio on the table. The water had missed it, landing instead on him and in the bed. It was 7:20 A.M. on Wednesday morning. Date and month
checked out. So did the landscape of his bedroom, and the pale blue sky outside the window, and the lightly tanned hue of his fingers and legs. He was neither hot nor cold and the air was neither freezing nor humid.

Throwing off the sodden sheets and blanket, he rushed into the den, only to find everything normal and as it should be. The view out the kitchen window revealed buildings, beach, ocean, wandering human figures: everything routine and ordinary.

Trying to slow his breathing, he slumped down on the den couch. Falling asleep in bed, he had dreamed of awakening and preparing breakfast. That much was more or less typical, but the other dreams had been something else. Several something elses. He had not just been dreaming, but para dreaming. When he was asleep, the Boles Effect had carried him into another, perhaps several other worlds. In these paras he had lain unconscious, dreaming away the same night. Reflecting his physical condition and locale, he had experienced a series of para dreams.

And what of the inhabitants of his dreams? Were they themselves paras acquired from someone else’s dreams? If so, had he temporarily existed as a dream in someone else’s sleep? In that event, it meant that not only was the cosmos composed of para realities, it was rife with para unrealities as well.

He had to believe he was sane, because it was the only option left to him.

Everything was as he had left it the night before. The
recyclable remnants of his lasagna still reposed exactly as he had deposited them in the bag reserved for plastic scraps. His empty beer bottle rested atop the rest of the glass in its bag. A check of the television in the bedroom revealed that it was still tuned to the same channel he had been watching before he had drifted off to sleep. His bath towel was where he had hung it, and his toothbrush still waited on the side of the sink to be put back in its holder.

He had enjoyed a conventional evening, fallen asleep, sped through a succession of para dreams, only to awaken once more in his own world. There were other possible explanations for what he had experienced, but that was the one that suited him, and since no one materialized to dispute it, he clung to it as tightly as a young orangutan holds to its mother.

Work, he reminded himself. He was going to go in to the office and catch up on work. And he would shock everyone by arriving early. As he readied himself, he reveled in the ordinariness of his actions and surroundings, everything from shaving to preparing and consuming the English muffin he had dreamed about. There was one bad moment when he had to open the refrigerator to find his blackberry jam, but the interior of the appliance held nothing more exotic than familiar food and drink. Now that he was awake, it was no longer a portal to preposterous polar dreams.