Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

  I look at her and say nothing. Her face comes almost as a reminiscence. What about her touches me? I can feel some deep layer of my consciousness lifting toward the surface. What can it mean? The secret lies in distant darkness.

  “As you can see, no one visits here. No one except the Dreamreader.”

  I nod slightly, but do not take my eyes off her face. Her eyes, her lips, her broad forehead and black hair tied behind her head. The more closely I look, as if to read something, the further away retreats any overall impression. Lost, I close my eyes.

  “Excuse me, but perhaps you have mistaken this for another building? The buildings here are very similar,” she says, setting her binder down by the paperclips. “Only the Dreamreader may come here and read old dreams. This is forbidden to anyone else.”

  “I am here to read dreams,” I say, “as the Town tells me to.”

  “Forgive me, but would you please remove your glasses?”

  I take off my black glasses and face the woman, who peers into the two pale, discolored pupils that are the sign of the Dreamreader. I feel as if she is seeing into the core of my being.

  “Good. You may put your glasses on.”

  She sits across the table from me.

  “Today I am not prepared. Shall we begin tomorrow?” she says. “Is this room comfortable for you? I can unlock any of the other reading rooms if you wish.”

  “Here is fine,” I tell her. “Will you be helping me?”

  “Yes, it is my job to watch over the old dreams and to help the Dreamreader.”

  “Have I met you somewhere before?”

  She stares at me and searches her memory, but in the end shakes her head. “As you may know, in this Town, memory is unreliable and uncertain. There are things we can remember and things we cannot remember. You seem to be among the things I cannot. Please forgive me.”

  “Of course,” I say. “It was not important.”

  “Perhaps we have met before. This is a small town.”

  “I arrived only a few days ago.”

  “How many days ago?” she asks, surprised. “Then you must be thinking of someone else. I have never been out of this Town. Might it have been someone who looks like me?”

  “I suppose,” I say. “Still, I have the impression that elsewhere we may all have lived totally other lives, and that somehow we have forgotten that time. Have you ever felt that way?”

  “No,” she says. “Perhaps it is because you are a Dreamreader. The Dreamreader thinks very differently from ordinary people.”

  I cannot believe her.

  “Or do you know where this was?”

  “I wish I could remember,” I say. “There was a place, and you were there.”

  The Library has high ceilings, the room is quiet as the ocean floor. I look around vacantly, paperclips in hand. She remains seated.

  “I have no idea why I am here either,” I say.

  I gaze at the ceiling. Particles of yellow light seem to swell and contract as they fall. Is it because of my scarred pupils that I can see extraordinary things? The upright clock against the wall metes out time without sound.

  “I am here for a purpose, I am told.”

  “This is a very quiet town,” she says, “if you came seeking quiet.”

  I do not know.

  She slowly stands. “You have nothing to do here today. Your work starts tomorrow. Please go home to rest.”

  I look up at the ceiling again, then back at her. It is certain: her face bears a fatal connection to something in me. But it is too faint. I shut my eyes and search blindly. Silence falls over me like a fine dust.

  “I will return tomorrow at six o’clock in the evening,” I say.

  “Good-bye,” she says.

  On leaving the Library, I cross the Old Bridge. I lean on the handrail and listen to the River. The Town is now devoid of beasts. The Clocktower and the Wall that surrounds the Town, the buildings along the riverbank, and the sawtooth mountains to the north are all tinged with the blue-gray gloom of dusk. No sound reaches my ears except for the murmur of the water. Even the birds have taken leave.

  If you came seeking quiet—I hear her words.

  Darkness gathers all around. As the streetlights by the River blink on, I set out down the deserted streets for the Western Hill.

  5

  Tabulations, Evolution, Sex Drive

  WHILE the old man went back above ground to rectify the sound-removed state in which he’d left his granddaughter, I plugged away in silence at my tabulations.

  How long the old man was gone, I didn’t really know. I had my digital alarm clock set to an alternating one-hour–thirty-minutes-one-hour-thirty-minutes cycle by which I worked and rested, worked and rested. The clock face was covered over so I couldn’t read it. Time gets in the way of tabulations. Whatever the time was now, it had no bearing on my work. My work begins when I start tabulating and it ends when I stop. The only time I need to know about is the one-hour-thirty-minutes-one-hour-thirty-minutes cycle.

  I must have rested two or three times during the old man’s absence. During these breaks, I went to the toilet, crossed my arms and put my face down on the desk, and stretched out on the sofa. The sofa was perfect for sleeping. Not too soft, not too hard; even the cushions pillowed my head just right. Doing different tabulation jobs, I’ve slept on a lot of sofas, and let me tell you, the comfortable ones are few and far between. Typically, they’re cheap deadweight. Even the most luxurious-looking sofas are a disappointment when you actually try to sleep on them. I never understand how people can be lax about choosing sofas.

  I always say—a prejudice on my part, I’m sure—you can tell a lot about a person’s character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves. This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It’s like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That’s how it goes.

  There are people who drive luxury cars, but have only second- or third-rate sofas in their homes. I put little trust in such people. An expensive automobile may well be worth its price, but it’s only an expensive automobile. If you have the money, you can buy it, anyone can buy it. Procuring a good sofa, on the other hand, requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas.

  The sofa I presently stretched out on was first-class, no doubt about it. This, more than anything, gave me a warm feeling about the old man. Lying there on the sofa with my eyes closed, I thought about him and his quirks, his hokey accent, that outlandish laugh. And what about that sound-removal scheme of his? He had to be a top-rank scientist. Sound removal wouldn’t even occur to your ordinary researcher. And another thing—you always hear about these oddball scientificos, but what kind of eccentric or recluse would build a secret laboratory behind a subterranean waterfall just to escape inquisitive eyes? He was one strange individual.

  As a commercial product, his sound-alteration technologies would have all sorts of applications. Imagine, concert hall PA equipment obsolete—no more massive amps and speakers. Then, there was noise reduction. A sound-removal device would be ideal for people living near airports. Of course, sound-alteration would be ripe for military or criminal abuse. I could see it now: silent bombers and noiseless guns, bombs that explode at brain-crushing volumes, a whole slew of toys for destruction, ushering in a whole new generation of refinements in mass slaughter. The old man had obviously seen this too, giving him greater reason to hide his research from the world. More and more, I was coming to respect the old guy.

  I was into the fifth or sixth time around in the work cycle when the old man returned, toting a large basket.

  “Brought you fresh coffee and sandwiches,” he said. “Cucumber, ham, and cheese. Hope that’s all right.”

  “Thanks. Couldn’t ask for more,” I said.

  ?
??Want t’eat right away?”

  “No, after the next tab-cycle.”

  By the time the alarm went off, I’d finished laundering five of the seven pages of numeric data lists. One more push. I took a break, yawned, and turned my attention to food.

  There were enough sandwiches for a small crowd. I devoured more than half of them myself. Long-haul tabulations work up a mean appetite. Cucumber, ham, cheese, I tossed them down in order, washing the lot down with coffee.

  For every three I ate, the old man nibbled at one, looking like a terribly well-mannered cricket.

  “Have as many as you like,” said the old man. “When you get t’my age, your eatin’ declines. Can’t eat as much, can’t work as much. But a young person ought t’eat plenty. Eat plenty and fatten up plenty. People nowadays hate t’get fat, but if you ask me, they’re looking at fat all wrong. They say it makes you unhealthy or ugly, but it’d never happen ’tall if you fatten up the right way. You live a fuller life, have more sex drive, sharpen your wits. I was good and fat when I was young. Wouldn’t believe it t’look at me now. Ho-ho-ho.” The old man could hardly contain his laughter. “How ’bout it? Terrific sandwiches, eh?”

  “Yes, indeed. Very tasty,” I said. The sandwiches really were very tasty. And I’m as demanding a critic of sandwiches as I am of sofas.

  “My granddaughter made them. She’s the one deserves your compliments,” the old man said. “The child knows the finer points of making a sandwich.”

  “She’s definitely got it down. Chefs can’t make sandwiches this good.”

  “The child’d be overjoyed to hear that, I’m sure. We don’t get many visitors, so there’s hardly any chance t’make a meal for someone. Whenever the child cooks, it’s just me and her eatin’.”

  “You two live alone?”

  “Yessiree. Just us two loners, but I don’t think it’s so healthy for her. She’s bright, strong as can be, but doesn’t even try t’mix with the world outside. That’s no good for a young person. Got t’let your sex drive out in some constructive way. Tell me now, the child’s got womanly charms, hasn’t she?”

  “Well, er, yes, on that account,” I stammered.

  “Sex drive’s decent energy. Y’ can’t argue about that. Keep sex drive all bottled up inside and you get dull-witted. Throws your whole body out of whack. Holds the same for men and for women. But with a woman, her monthly cycle can get irregular, and when her cycle goes off, it can make her unbalanced.”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “That child ought t’have herself relations with the right type of man at the earliest opportunity. I can say that with complete conviction, both as her guardian and as a biologist,” said the old man, salting his cucumbers.

  “Did you manage with her to … uh … did you get her sound back in?” I asked. I didn’t especially feel like hearing about people’s sex drive, not while I was still in the middle of a job.

  “Oh yes, I forgot t’tell you,” said the old man. “I got her sound back t’normal, no trouble. Sure glad you thought t’remind me. No telling how many more days she would’ve had t’be without sound like that. Once I hole up down here, I don’t generally go back up for a few days. Poor child, livin’ without sound.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Like I was sayin’, the child’s almost totally out of contact with society. Shouldn’t make much difference for the most part, but if the phone were t’ring, could be trouble.”

  “She’d have a hard time shopping if she couldn’t speak.”

  “Tosh, shoppin’ wouldn’t be so bad,” said the old man. “They’ve got supermarkets out there where you can shop and not say a word. The child really likes supermarkets, she’s always going to them. Office to supermarket, supermarket to office. That’s her whole life.”

  “Doesn’t she go home?”

  “The child likes the office. It’s got a kitchen and a shower, everything she needs. At most she goes home once a week.”

  I drank my coffee.

  “But say, you managed t’talk with her all right,” the old man said. “How’d you do it? Telepathy?”

  “Lipreading. I studied it in my spare time.”

  “Lipreading, of course,” the old man said, nodding with approval. “A right effective technique. I know a bit myself. What say we try carrying on a silent conversation, the two of us?”

  “Mind if we don’t?” I hastened to reply.

  “Granted, lipreading’s an extremely primitive technique. It has shortcomings aplenty, too. Gets too dark and you can’t understand a thing. Plus you have t’keep your eyes glued to somebody’s mouth. Still, as a halfway measure, it works fine. Must say you had uncanny foresight t’learn lipreading.”

  “Halfway measure?”

  “Right-o,” said the old man with another nod. “Now listen up, son. I’m tellin’ this to you and you alone: The world ahead of us is goin’ t’be sound-free.”

  “Sound-free?” I blurted out.

  “Yessir. Completely sound-free. That’s because sound is of no use to human evolution. In fact, it gets in the way. So we’re going t’wipe sound out, morning to night.”

  “Hmph. You’re saying there’ll be no birds singing or brooks babbling. No music?”

  “ ’Course not.”

  “It’s going to be a pretty bleak world, if you ask me.”

  “Don’t blame me. That’s evolution. Evolution’s always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution,” said the old man. He stood up and walked around his desk to retrieve a pair of nail clippers from a drawer. He came back to the sofa and set at trimming all ten fingernails. “The research is under way, but I can’t give you the details. Still, the general drift of it is … well, that’s what’s comin’. You musn’t breathe a word of this to anyone. The day this reaches Semiotec ears, all pandemonium’s goin’ t’break loose.”

  “Rest easy. We Calcutecs guard our secrets well.”

  “Much relieved t’hear that,” said the old man, sweeping up his nail clippings with an index card and tossing them into the trash. Then he helped himself to another cucumber sandwich. “These sure are good, if I do say so myself.”

  “Is all her cooking this good?”

  “Mmm, not especially. It’s sandwiches where she excels. Her cooking’s not bad, mind you, but it just can’t match her sandwiches.”

  “A rare gift,” I said.

  “ ’Tis,” the old man agreed. “I must say, I do believe it takes someone like you to fully appreciate the child. I could entrust her to a young man like you and know I’d done the right thing.”

  “Me?” I started. “Just because I said I liked her sandwiches?”

  “You don’t like her sandwiches?”

  “I’m very fond of her sandwiches.”

  “The way I see it, you’ve got a certain quality. Or else, you’re missin’ something.”

  “I sometimes think so myself.”

  “We scientists see human traits as being in the process of evolution. Sooner or later you’ll see it yourself. Evolution is mighty gruelin’. What do you think the most gruelin’ thing about evolution is?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me,” I said.

  “It’s being unable to pick and choose. Nobody chooses to evolve. It’s like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know what’s happening until they hit, then it’s too late.”

  I thought about this for a bit. “This evolution,” I began, “what does it have to do with what you mentioned before? You mean to say I’m going to lose my powers of speech?”

  “Now that’s not entirely accurate. It’s not a question of speaking or not speaking. It’s just a step.”

  “I don’t understand.” In fact, I didn’t understand. On the whole, I’m a regular guy. I say I understand when I do, and I say I don’t when I don’t. I try not to mince words. It seems to me a lot of trouble in this world has its origins in vague speech. Most people, when they go around not speaking clearly, somewhere in their unconscious they’re ask
ing for trouble.

  “What say we drop the subject?” said the old man. “Too much complicated talk. It’ll spoil your tabulations. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

  No complaints from this department. Soon after, the alarm rang and I went back to work. Whereupon the old man opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like a pair of stainless-steel fire tongs. He walked over to the shelves of skulls and, like a master violinist examining his Stradivarius collection, picked up one or another of them, tapping them with the fire tongs to listen to their pitch. They gave out a range of timbre and tones, everything from the clink you might get from tapping a whiskey glass, to the dull thud from an oversized flower pot. To think that each skull once had skin and flesh and was stuffed with gray matter—in varying quantities—teeming with thoughts of food and sex and dominance. All now vanished.

  I tried to picture my own head stripped of skin and flesh, brains removed and lined up on a shelf, only to have the old guy come around and give me a rap with stainless-steel fire tongs. Wonderful. What could he possibly learn from the sound of my skull? Would he be able to read my memories? Or would he be tapping into something beyond memory?

  I wasn’t particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don’t have to die the next. All quite simple, if you want to look at it that way. Life’s no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe’s my own to fool with. Hence I can live with it. But after I’m dead, can’t I just lie in peace? Those Egyptian pharoahs had a point, wanting to shut themselves up inside pyramids.

  Several hours later, the laundry was finally done. I couldn’t say how many hours it had taken, but from the state of my fatigue I would guess a good eight or nine hours. I got up from the sofa and stretched my stressed muscles. The Calcutec manual includes how-to illustrations for limbering up a total of twenty-six muscle groups. Mental wear-and-tear takes care of itself if you relieve these stress points after a tab-session, and the working life of your Calcutec is extended that much longer.

  It’s been less than ten years since the whole Calcutec profession began, so nobody really knows what that life expectancy ought to be. Some say ten years, others twenty; either way you keep at it until the day you die. Did I really want to know how long? If it’s only a matter of time before you burn yourself out, all I can do is keep my muscles loose and my fingers crossed.