Now I have satisfied my quests, met God, seen the future, and am seeking the past. Given my situation, I am no longer certain that you, my long lost friends, will read this last installment. If all goes well, we may meet up again in another universe, a universe where all live happily ever after, unlike that universe in which I now find myself. If the above sounds somewhat cryptic, the fault is mine. I find it difficult to put it all down on paper, not knowing who will read this. I write merely for posterity. If you find yourself reading this, it means that I have succeeded in my last, final, quest, and have come back with the tale. That quest was not one of the three given to me by the King Fish, but rather one forced on me by circumstance. But allow me to tell the tale in a fashion that seems to make the most sense. I hesitate to use the term “chronological”, but that is probably the best one to use from my own point of view. You will soon see what I mean.
When last I brought you up to speed, I was on my way to
rescue my precious eye of sturgeon from its place of hiding in
As I sat back in my seat for the long flight across the Pacific,
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been
living at a breathtaking pace for so long.
Life had been so uncertain. I
felt more confident than I had for a long time.
My researches on Elasmosaurus had yielded instant results. As if the hand of God had pointed the way, I
had immediately stumbled upon the
During the flight, I occupied myself inventing my next cover
identity. I was now Edward Cope,
professor of Paleontology at the
Allow me a brief diversion from my story to introduce you to
Elasmosaurus. This creature lived in the
Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, and died out with the last of the
dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago.
Elasmosaurus was not a true dinosaur, but rather was a sea-going reptile. Imagine the Loch
I felt my cover identity was a fine joke. The original Edward Cope was the
paleontologist who first introduced Elasmosaurus to the scientific world back
in 1876. Reconstructing a fossil
skeleton found in
And now back to the tale at hand. My flight was delayed by rumors of some sort
of nuclear missile mishap in the North Pacific.
You and I know that it was just a dud, but you and I also know how the
news services like to milk a story for all it is worth. In six hours, the story was out on all the
news wires and the politicians were busy denying, denouncing, deploring, and
defending. All of the countries of the
Pacific complained heartily to the
I left the high prices of the airport, grabbed a cab, and
found a more suitable spot to indulge myself.
The cabbie recommended the Astor Inn as the best joint in
My meditations were interrupted by a voice beside me. I opened one eye. A guy beside me was chatting up a chick next to him. He had a booming voice, and was talking so loud he could easily be heard over the music. The guy was like in his forties, at least, and the bored girl next to him no more than twenty-two. The guy ought to have been ashamed of himself, really, thinking he could get anywhere with this girl young enough to be his daughter. As I studied her, I envisioned Ryan Stiles reaching for a rope and hanging himself. She looked that bored. The guy could certainly talk, I’ll give him that. He just wouldn’t shut up. He had the most irritating voice. Not only that, but he wouldn’t give her a chance to say anything, if only just to tell him to dream on, old man. I tried to ignore him, but my peace of mind was shattered. I downed the last of my drink and started looking around for a table, someplace away from this travesty happening before my eyes. This kind of thing just gave older people a bad name everywhere.
The guy finally stopped talking as the chick got up and left without saying a word. I breathed a sigh of relief, and started settling my breathing, ready to descend back down to my deep spiritual state.
“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say”, I heard him say. It sounded like it was directed to me. I opened one eye again. He was looking right at me. He was a balding red-head. He had a middle aged paunch, and I could see he was on the short side of 5 feet 8. His face had that bloated, tired look that men start to get past the age of forty, some more than others. He was wearing a wrinkled Hawaiian shirt, with the top buttons opened to reveal a few red chest hairs and a chain necklace with a shark’s tooth decoration. He wore a pair of non-descript dress trousers, covering heavy-set short legs. His loafered feet were hooked over the foot rest of his stool, and they were bouncing a mile-a-minute to the beat of the music.
“The name’s Eddie”, he said, extending his hand in my direction.
I resignedly sat up, and returned the handshake. “I’m, uh…, Joe.” It took me a moment while I debated whether
to use my cover. I decided to save it
for later, and reverted to my prior identity, the diesel salesman from
“Like I said, it was worth a try”, Eddie said. “Can’t compete with a guy like that, I guess.”
“I guess not”, I replied. “You might want to set your sights a bit on the older side. You might have more luck.”
“Used to be I could get women like that, no problem”, he said, his eyes prowling around the bar nervously. His feet were still tapping sixteenth notes to the beat. “Those were the days. I had a different date every night of the week. I was swimming in dough, too. Nowadays, all the broads want is your money. Yep, I was a real lady-killer in my day.”
Looking at him, I found that hard to believe. He struck me as one of those guys who spent his life pursuing women with no luck. Their gaze would pass right over him, right through him. You know the kind of guy I’m talking about. Pure schmuck. They think they’re God’s gift to women, except that there was no evidence whatsoever to support that notion. I always wondered how guys like that just kept on going.
“I mean, I’m an easy-going guy”, he droned on. “I get along with everybody. My friends call me Easy Eddie. On account of I’m so easy going. I can make friends with anybody, anytime. Say, whatcha drinking, there, Joe?” He snapped his fingers at the barkeeper, who came over with an irritated look on his face.
Well, I figured my meditations were through for the night. I might as well get drunk with Easy Eddie. “I’ll have another rum-and-coke”, I told the barkeep.
“And put it on my tab, Tommy”, said Eddie. So much the better. Cash was getting a little tight, despite all the money I had made in Kazahstan.
“Eddie, it’s cash only, tonight” said Tommy the barkeep. “You ain’t paid your tab from last night. And the night before.”
“No problem, my brother, just keep ‘em coming” said Eddie. He snapped his fingers again, opened his hand, and deposited a wad of cash on the bar.
Nice trick, I thought. I wished I could snap up cash that easily. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier.
“Good band, tonight”, said Eddie. “They’re cooking. I play a fairly mean trumpet myself. Maybe they’ll let me sit in later on tonight. You play, Joe?”
“I dabble around on the guitar”, I answered. “I’m no match for those cats, though. Can’t sing worth a damn either. There’s nothing more worthless than a guitarist who can’t sing.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Look at Eric Clapton. He couldn’t sing worth a damn, either, but he managed to learn. Of course, it helped that he started out as God on guitar.” He let out a strange little laugh at that.
Our conversation went on to other things. He was a life insurance salesman from
Witchita. He asked me if my life plans
were up to date. I assured him that I
had my life fully in control, and I managed to say it with a straight
face. He moved on. He was in
I revised my opinion of him.
There were worse ways to spend a few hours in
The band took a break. The crowd thinned. We had more drinks, and Eddie kept talking. I went to the men’s room, and when I came back, Eddie was talking with one of the band members. After a few moments, he came back and joined me, and continued his last story where he had left off. The band came back.
“We got a treat for you folks, tonight”, announced the keyboardist
and lead singer in the band. “We got a
special guest sitting in with us tonight.
Coming all the way from
There were a few isolated claps. Eddie had a self-deprecating smile on his face, put his hands up in a “Who, me?” kind of way, and reached down and picked up a trumpet case sitting beside his chair. I could swear I had not seen that case there earlier, back when I had first noticed his nervous, jumpy feet. But there it was. He must’ve gone out to his car and gotten it while I was in the men’s room. I clapped also, just to give him a little encouragement. He nodded to me, got up and went to the bandstand. He pulled out his instrument and gave it a few warm-up puffs. They discussed what they were going to play. I figured they’d just do something simple, some twelve-bar blues that they could just jam to.
Boy was I wrong. They immediately started into some complicated stuff, some Dixieland jazz that went all over the place and Eddie was wailing. Man, he could blow that trumpet. He would play along with the beat, snapping his fingers in between little trills. Then, he would jump into a solo. You could hear every note he played, crystal clear, even though he was slapping too many notes to count in each beat. The other guys, they were good, no doubt about it, but you could tell when their times came to solo, they’d reel off long practiced, pre-rehearsed runs. When Eddie soloed, it was like he was inventing an entirely new melody to go along with the song, in real time. I have never heard someone play like that. Well, not live, at any rate. The old masters could play like that, but not somebody you just met in a low rent bar.
They did a long set, and the place was rocking by the time they were done. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I was also thoroughly sloshed, by this point. The band finished up, the last call of the night came, and the band started packing up as the few remaining customers drifted out. I settled up with the barkeep, giving him a good tip, and turned to see Eddie come my way, with that beautiful twenty-two year old girl on his arm. I sat there, flabbergasted. I didn’t think he had it in him, that sly dog. I have to admit, I was jealous. But I guess good things come your way when you play the horn that good.
“So, Joe, I guess I’ll call it a night”, he said. “It was nice meeting you and talking with you. You take care, okay?”
With that, he turned and walked away, with his arm wrapped around the girl and massaging her butt. Just before they left, he turned to me with a smile and winked at me.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your sea monster.”
They walked out of the bar, both of them laughing.
“What?” I said to the empty bar. Did he just say what I thought he said? I thought back on the things we had talked about tonight. It took me a while, given the drunken state I was in. No, I was absolutely sure I had said nothing whatsoever tonight about the Quest. My ears were still ringing a little from the music; maybe I had misunderstood what he had said. Yes, that had to be it. There was no other logical explanation.
“Let’s go, mack, I gotta close up”, said Tommy.
I jumped a little, and turned to look at him behind the bar. “Oh yes, sorry, I’ll see you. Thanks.” I got up and staggered my way outside, got a cab, and returned to the airport just as the sun rose. I slept on one of those airport chairs, with my head on one armrest, my legs draped over the other and my feet in the next seat beside me, oblivious to the hurried chaos around me.
I awoke to a throbbing headache. Now I remembered why I didn’t get drunk that often. The morning after was just too difficult to take. My body was stiff from sleeping in such an unnatural position. I lay there with my eyes closed, unwilling to open them to the blinding light I knew lay behind my sore eyelids. I would have to open them eventually, if only to go down the concourse and try to find some Tylenol. Some extra-strength Tylenol. With codeine. I tried to remember if I needed a prescription for codeine, but my brain was shut down for the day, staying home from work with a hangover. I would also have to get something for my stomach; it felt like I had eaten flaming Drano last night. Maybe the first stop might have to be the men’s room. I had to pee, take a shit, and vomit, and hopefully it would not all happen at once. Still I lay there with my eyes closed. I could just not summon up the energy to move.
I listened to the bustling airport sounds around me. The flight announcements; in English, Spanish, and Hawaiian. The warning horns of the electric carts carrying old folks down the endless concourse, trying to get people to move out of the way. The occasional shriek of the departing jets. The endless tide of humanity. The wailing kids. The frustrated parents. I heard a familiar voice nearby.
“I can get along with anybody. People just seem to open up to me. It’s my nature. Some friends I know say it’s my eyes. They say I have friendly eyes.”
My eyes popped wide open. I carefully turned my head, striving to keep my liquefied brain from draining out my ears. There, sitting on the seat across the aisle from me, was Eddie. Next to him was a *very* young woman. A teenager, in fact, if I wasn’t mistaken. What was with this guy? He glanced at me and nodded, and then turned back to her and continued his pickup line. He started whispering things in her ear.
She finally got fed up with him. She got up very quickly, looking at him as she backed off, glaring as if to say to him one wrong move and she’d scream. She walked quickly down the hallway toward the women’s room. He turned back to me with a smile on his face.
“How ya doing, Joe?” he
asked. “On your way to
I just buried my face in my hands, unable to stand the pain of it all. He came over and sat in the seat by my head. “Whew, you look as bad as I feel. We tied one on last night, didn’t we, old buddy?” He snapped his fingers. “Here, I’ve got just the thing. Tylenol with codeine. Here, open your mouth and stick out your tongue.”
I lay there with my eyes closed and let Eddie feed me the pill. He snapped his fingers again, and the sound reverberated through the tattered and shredded fibers of my mind. “Here’s some water to wash that down with.”
“Will you stop with the finger snapping?” I burst out angrily. I grabbed the bottle of water out of his hands and sat up groggily. “It’s killing me.”
“Sorry, nervous habit”, he said. “Say, you know what we need? Some food to settle our stomachs. Let’s go see if we can’t rustle up some breakfast. We’ve still got a couple of hours before our flight. Maybe even a little bit of the old hair of the dog that bit us last night, huh, Joe?”
The thought of more booze made me more nauseous than I
already was. But the thought of food was
appealing. I tried to remember the last
time I had eaten something besides complimentary peanuts. I think it might have been sometime in
So, we settled down to breakfast at the nearest coffee shop. By this time, the T and C was kicking in, and my head started feeling a lot better. I had a single piece of un-buttered toast and a glass of water. I wasn’t sure my stomach could take much more. Eddie, on the other hand, had eggs over easy on toast, with greasy bacon and hash browns, and he washed it down with coffee. Oh, and he had a beer on the side. We ate in silence. The coffee shop was almost empty, except for a couple of elderly gray-haired women a couple of tables down sipping coffee and smoking.
“Ah, that hit the spot”, he said as he finished his meal and took a few gulps of beer. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette, and leaned over to the ladies next to us. “Say, could I trouble you lovely ladies for a light?” They giggled like schoolgirls, and passed over a lighter. He lit his smoke and passed back the lighter. “Would you care to join us?”
“Oh, we’d love to, but our flight will be boarding soon. Thank you so much for the invitation. Have a good flight, gentlemen.” With that, they got up and left, still giggling and casting glances back toward him. I daresay he had made their day. The man was incorrigible. We sat in silence for a moment as he savored his smoke.
“Well, looks like today is not my day”, he said, shrugging his shoulders and mashing out his cigarette.
“I’d certainly have to say that last night was your lucky night”, I said.
“It was indeed”, he said, with an evanescent look on his face as he thought about it. He became serious. “So, I guess you’ve got some questions.”
“I want to know everything you know about me. Now.”
“Well, that’s certainly to the point. I’ll answer your question, but first there’s
something you need to know about me.”
As he spoke, he pulled another cigarette out of his pocket.
“I think I learned everything I need to know about you last night”, I said. “You certainly enjoy talking about yourself.”
“I’m going to go ahead and get this right out. You see, I am God.” He snapped his finger, and his cigarette lit itself as it dangled from his lips. He took a long draw on it as he watched my reaction.
I revealed nothing. If there was anything I’d learned over the past few months, it was how to keep a straight face. I pondered what to say to a claim like that. I refused to consider what he had done with his cigarette. My brain just wouldn’t go there.
“So, of course, you see that I know *everything* about you. I know about your Quest. I know about your past Quests. I know about your infatuation with that lovely Greenpeace lady. I know how you made what you call a little white lie on your taxes this year. Shame on you.” He was smiling as he said it, with perhaps the slightest hint of mockery.
“Shouldn’t you be, like, up in heaven somewhere, making thunder and running things and all?” It was the best I could come up with at the spur of the moment, given the revelations he had just handed down to me.
“But I much prefer it down here. This is where the action is.”
“So, let me see if I understand correctly. You, God, the creator of the universe, the master of all, the Lord who art in Heaven, hallowed be his name, would rather be down here chasing women and drinking and carousing and stuffing yourself?
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” He drank the last of his beer, snapped his fingers, and a fresh ice cold mug appeared before him. “Oh, I’m sorry. Would you like one?”
I shook my head no thanks. “I mean, wasn’t that pork you just ate? Aren’t you the one who said that’s a sin?”
“Well, strictly speaking, it was Moses who laid down that law. He did have such a tendency to embellish.”
I stared at him in silence. I could think of nothing to say. My headache had started to come back.
He reached out his hand, and there was another Tylenol with Codeine. “Here, there’s no sense in you suffering. Please, it will do you good. Don’t worry, it’s a therapeutic dose. Five hundred milligrams total. Come on, do you think that I’m going to let you overdose?”
“Couldn’t you just wave your hand and heal me?” I asked as I swallowed the pill, and washed it down with the last few sips from my water glass. He waved his hand and it was full again.
“How do you know that I’m not?”
“Would you please just stop doing that?" I looked around the shop in exasperation. It was getting warm in here. I was getting frustrated. “Okay, just answer me this. Why are you here? I mean, right here, this moment, sitting at a table with me?”
“Because I enjoy your company, Joe. As you have certainly noticed, I enjoy talking, and I find you an excellent listener. That’s an important quality to have. Don’t ever stop. We would not enjoy each other’s company nearly as much if you were as much of a talker as I am. Opposites attract, my friend. A greater truism was never spoken. Oh, are you afraid I’m here to escort you up to heaven or something? Are you afraid it’s your time to go? Perish the thought. I’m just here having a good time. A little music, a little drink, and a little companionship. That’s all.”
I could tell he was desperate for me to believe him. But I held back. Acceptance of God was just not in me at this time in my life, no matter how many parlor tricks he played. I figured I would just humor him.
He watched appreciatively as a buxom young airline attendant entered the shop and ordered some coffee. She turned and stared back at him as she waited; no look of invitation in her face whatsoever. She had probably just come off a twelve hour flight across the Pacific, and was in no mood for unwelcome advances from middle-aged insurance salesmen. The look on her face said she just dared anybody to try to come on to her. He saw that as well. He sighed, and turned back to face me.
“I’m God, and I can’t even get laid today. Man, is that depressing, or what?”
“Okay, god damn it, stop messing with me”, I said, getting a little pissed. “Why are you really here? So you say you’re God? Why aren’t you running the universe? Aren’t things bad enough for you? If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of messed up shit happening down here lately. Where have you been? Why aren’t you busy fixing things?”
He didn’t answer. I could tell my questions had affected him. He sat in thoughtful silence. It took a lot to quiet Easy Eddie, that was for sure. I thought maybe I had offended him or something. I began to regret my outburst. You just didn’t speak to God like that. Not that I believed that he was God. Not truly. Yeah, there was something extraordinary about him, with his magic tricks and his musical ability. But God? Come on, God wouldn’t be five feet eight inches tall. He wouldn’t have thinning red hair. God wouldn’t wear loafers, for Christ sake
Finally, he spoke. “I wish I could be upstairs fixing things. I sincerely wish I could. But I cannot.”
“Of course you can”, I said in an irritated tone. “You’re omniscient. You’re all-powerful. You can do anything you want.”
“That’s not quite true.”
“Then you’re not God. Not my God, anyway.”
“Look, you’ve been raised with certain preconceptions. That’s understandable. There are a lot of myths and superstitions about me. But I’m not omniscient. Maybe back in the beginning, back when I created this whole mess. But that was then. It was marvelous back then, when it was so new and beautiful. I started with bold strokes, and then just put in detail after detail. As I created, I would add a dash of electrons here, a smattering of anti-protons there. I was looking for a certain effect. I mixed and matched and a lot of it was trial and error. I knew what I wanted in the universe, but I didn’t know how to make it the way I wanted. So I experimented a lot.”
“You mean the universe is nothing but a…a patchwork quilt? A pot-roast?”
“In a way, yes. But I prefer to think of it as a musical composition, or a work of art. Something that has a life of its own, beyond the Creator’s own life. Something that can stand even after the Creator is gone. I think I’ve succeeded quite well in that regard.”
“So why can’t you fix it? Even if just to touch it up here and there.”
“I’m afraid it’s gone beyond my abilities at tinkering. The world is quite out of my control now. It had to be. That’s what I wanted. Anybody can create something and control it. I wanted to build something beyond that. And I did! I created something beyond my wildest dreams. I created beauty. I created life. I created pleasure, and passion, and wonder. I created man and woman. I created children! Children are the most remarkable things.” His eyes misted as he said this.
“Doesn’t it bother you that there are people in the world who cut other people’s heads off for the simple reason that they happen to believe in the wrong god?”
“Yes, it does. I’ve tried to make things right, I swear!” He cast his eyes down at the floor when he answered.
“Doesn’t it bother you that the world is hurtling its way toward a final confrontation between people who essentially believe in and want the same things, but kill each other over a few inconsequential details?”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right. But it’s so hard…” This he said in a quiet voice.
“Doesn’t it bother you that…”
“Yes! Alright!” His voice rose in fury. “It bothers the shit out of me! You should never have been born! This world should never have been created! I realize that now. I made a mistake! I fucked up royally! I’m sorry! Alright? Are you happy?” With that, he put his head down into his hands and sobbed.
Oh shit, I thought. I had just made God cry. I thought quickly. How was I to undo the damage I had done? How could I make him feel better about himself?
“I am such a loser”, he cried into his hands.
“Listen, Eddie, it’s not your fault. How could you know how things would turn out?”
His sobs increased in volume. He raised his head. “I should have known!” he said, his voice almost inaudible through the crying. “I was careless! I left religion alone; I was flattered by the praise. I should have just crushed it. I let you invent automobiles, and radios, and Speak N Spells. I should have suppressed it all! I let wars rage, just so I could see who was more deserving of my favors. Of course it’s my fault! I’m a failure.” He lay his head down on the table on his arms and wept.
“Look, Eddie, get yourself together. Take a deep breath. You created the universe. You can fix it. You know you can. All you’ve got to do is believe in yourself.”
“You think so?” he said, still sniffling noisily as he raised his head.
“Of course you can. Just keep telling yourself – I believe in myself. I am capable. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”
“You know, I think you’re right. Gee, thanks Joe”, he said, with a smile creeping on his face. “I think I see what you mean.”
“Of course you do, Eddie. Sometimes all it takes is to just unload to someone. Bare your soul. You’ve got a lot on your mind.”
“I’m carrying a heavy load, Joe.”
“That you are. Now. The best thing you can do is to just take a break. Get away from it all. Don’t think about your problems for a while. The world can wait. Play some more music. I must say, Eddie, you have a lot of talent. You should develop it. Then, when you are nice and rested, you can face the world again. You’ll be amazed at how easy it will all be, once you’ve adjusted your attitude.”
Now there was a huge smile on his face. “You are absolutely right, Joe.”
Just then, the P.A. announced boarding for our flight to
“No, Joe, I think I’m going to hang in
We said our farewells, and I left him in that coffee shop in
A rude voice interrupted my slumber and spoke out in a harsh, heavy accent. “All right, nobody move. This plane is hijacked!”
As I shrugged off my sleepiness, several things happened at once. A man with a shroud around his face, carrying an AK-47, strolled down the aisle and started beating on the door into the cockpit. Another terrorist with a gun stopped in the first class cabin and started spouting incomprehensible gibberish, of which the only words I recognized were “Allah Akhbar”. God is Great. Yes indeed, and He was pretty good on the trumpet as well. The first one pulled out a hand grenade and pulled its pin. I wondered briefly how these guys got away with bringing automatic assault rifles and hand grenades onboard as carry-ons. They should have at least been checked as luggage. Several passengers jumped out of their seats, disarmed the one terrorist, and started beating him bloody with his own gun. It was then that the grenade went off, taking out the other terrorist and the vigilante passengers, blowing the cockpit door into the cockpit and through the windshield, and knocking everybody in first class senseless. The plane took a steep bank to the right. Another grenade went off in business class, blew a hole in the hull, and a wild torrent of air started carrying papers, plastic cups, toupees, eyeglasses, and other junk aft. The guy in the seat next to me was killed instantly as a flying bag of complimentary peanuts penetrated his forehead. The captain of the flight went flying past, followed by the co-pilot.
I was still bucked in and thus was not sucked through the big hole in the first class cabin hatch, nor blown by the hurricane into business class. Most of the other first class passengers were not so lucky. I had the place to myself. The unbearably loud engines screamed through the hole. I struggled to see around me as the wind tore at my face. I looked through the open door to the empty cockpit, and saw lights in the control panel flashing like a Christmas tree. Two of them in particular caught my attention. They flashed the legend “Check Engine”. Geez, you would think that a jet aircraft would have something a little more sophisticated and informative. A recorded woman’s voice was repeating in a calm voice: “pull up, pull up”. I would have obliged; it’s not that hard. You just pull back on the yoke to go up, forward to go down. Even I knew that much. But the torrent had me anchored to my seat. All I could do was sit and watch.
The plane had seemed to be flying level, up until this point. All of a sudden, the nose pointed straight down. I saw the black ocean still far below through the cracked windshield. The wings separated from the fuselage, carrying the screaming engines with them, and all of a sudden there was relative quiet; just the whine of the wind. Ah, that was more like it. I relaxed a little. I had nothing to fear. It was just another plunge into the cold depths. I was used to this by now. It would be unpleasant for a few moments, and then all would be well. I closed my eyes and composed myself as we continued our dive. Might as well get some rest while I waited.
I didn’t even feel the impact. We plunged into the ocean at 400 miles per hour, and the aircraft disintegrated into atoms in mere micro-seconds. One second I was seated peacefully, and the next everything went black and I ceased to be.
Just as quickly, it seemed, I resumed existence. I opened my eyes. I was in a room, a pleasant spacious room with walls that swirled in greens and blues. There was sumptuous furniture tastefully arranged around the room. It was quiet and peaceful. I tried to turn my head to see more, but my head would not move. I felt an odd lack of sensation in my body, as if I couldn’t move a muscle. A terrifying thought came to me. Had I been paralyzed in the crash?
“He is awake, My Lady”, said a man’s voice out of sight. Someone came into my field of view and sat on the divan in front of me. I struggled to focus. I was having trouble with my eyes. Finally, I saw her. She was a vision of beauty. She was brunette, with medium length hair under a tiara of some kind. She was wearing tight fitting clothing, made of some strange material that had a faintly luminescent quality. The clothes accentuated her slim body. She had bracelets over her bare arms, and rings on every finger. My eyes traveled to her face. Such an exquisite sight. She was the very ideal of beauty. I had dreamed of this woman’s face. Somewhere, sometime. I couldn’t say where, except that I had the strong feeling that I had never seen such a face in real life. Such a stunning visage was impossible in real life.
“Welcome to my house, my beauty”, her voice purred into my skull. “I am the First Matriarch of the Third Rank of the Third Millennium Amazons, Miranda of Orleanda. You may refer to me as ‘My Lady’ or as ‘Your Loveliness’. I understand that your name was Joseph.”
“Well, My Lady, it is actually James, but that is not important. I would like to know where I am, and I seem to have trouble moving. Did I have some serious injuries from the crash?”
She smiled a radiant smile. “The better question might be when, rather than where. This is not going to be easy, James, so I’ll just come right out with it. You died over one thousand years ago.”
I filed that one away for future reference. Right now, it just didn’t compute.
She continued. “We
recently resurrected your genetic material from some remains we found buried
ten thousand feet below the Juan De Fuca
glacier. Why don’t you explain,
A man’s voice spoke up, that of the one I had heard earlier. “You are an archeological treasure to us, James. Long have we sought suitable genetic material from your era. We have many samples, from many ages, but none until now have proven workable. A fortuitous combination of minerals at your site preserved a large portion of your DNA, and afforded us a sufficient sample for cloning. This does not happen often. The only other viable sample we have found is an individual from what you would refer to as the medieval period. We found it rather difficult to communicate with this individual. We are hopeful that you will prove vastly more informative.”
I struggled to turn my head toward him, but could not. “I would feel much more communicative, and comfortable, if you released me from my restraints. Please, I am no threat to anyone.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand, James” said the man’s voice.
The woman got up from her couch. “I think it’s time he got a look at himself,
don’t you,
He strolled over into my field of vision as he replied. “I suppose so, My Lady.” He was tall and thin, as she was. He was dressed in the same style. He had long, straight brown hair and a beardless face. His face had its own beauty. It was almost feminine in its stunning elegance.
She came up to me, and reached out her lovely, slim arms to my face. I felt her caress my temples. I gazed into her eyes. I didn’t want her to move from my vision, ever again.
“Such a lovely specimen”, she said. “You have done well,
I didn’t like being referred to as a specimen, but after one thousand years, I supposed common courtesy might have undergone a few changes. I was a little taken aback by what she had said; that it was time to get a look at myself. What had a millennium done to me?
She reached to the side, out of my sight, and brought back an ordinary object. A hand mirror. She gazed into it, with a loving look on her face, and touched her lips. She smiled at her reflection. “Are you ready, James?” she asked, still looking at herself.
She didn’t wait for my reply. She turned the mirror, so that I could see my reflection. I stared at it a moment, not understanding what I was seeing. I saw my face, still covered by my beard. It was not as grey as I remembered but otherwise completely familiar to me. I saw my hair, no longer grey but its long lost brownish-blond. I saw my familiar green eyes. But then my gaze traveled down, where my neck ended in a complicated collar of rubbery material. And there I ended. Below my neck was nothing but a grey box, a box which was the source of the hum I now noticed for the first time. A hum, and a slight gurgle of fluids. As I stared into the mirror, I saw my face transform as a look of horror came over it. Where was the rest of me?
“I’m nothing but…nothing but a head!” I exclaimed. “Where’s my body?”
“It’s for the best, James. Really, it is. Nobody gets a body until they achieve Tenth Rank. It’s a matter of efficiency. Bodies are such a bother, to feed, to clothe, to take care of. You’re really much better off without one.”
“Where the *hell* is my body? You can’t just take someone’s body!” I was so upset I couldn’t think straight. A purple haze appeared in my vision, obscuring the terrible sight in the mirror.
“He’s starting to overheat”, said
“Oh, but we didn’t take your body, James”, said Miranda in a reasonable voice. “You had no body when we found you. You were just a few petrified cells in suspension in the ice. We didn’t take it, we just neglected to grow you a new one. You can’t really expect us to grow you a body, without your having proven yourself, now can you? Perhaps, in time, you can attain Tenth Rank and we’ll revisit the question at that time.”
“What rank am I now?” I asked miserably.
My moan of misery filled the room.
“Perhaps we ought to turn him off for now”, said Miranda. “He’s had quite a shock.”
“Yes, we had better”, agreed
She turned back to me. “James, I assure you, you shall receive the best of training. If you do well, I see no reason why we can’t get you up to Tenth Rank in no time at all. Pierre himself did it in only ten years. In the meantime, just relax and learn. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
As my next moan reverberated across the room, she reached to the box below my head and flicked a switch. Things went dark, and I was plunged into non-existence once more.
And so began my tutelage in the Thirty First Century. They supplied me with a cart, a kind of motorized Radio Flyer wagon that they set my head upon along with its life support box. I soon learned that I could control it with suitably directed mental commands. This I used to travel to and from the various classes they made me take. I felt like I was back in high school again. It was my worst nightmare. I was back in high school, only instead of running around naked, I was a head with no body, cruising around in a Little Red Wagon. My only consolation was that the other students were only heads, as well.
I had missed a lot of history in my thousand years beneath
the ice, and I found I had a lot to catch up on. Humanity had indeed succeeded in not
destroying itself or the Earth in the Twenty First Century, but only at a
horrible price. A Matriarchal society
had developed, one which was strictly delineated into a hierarchy; the
Ranks. Your Rank told you how far below
the apex of society you were. A 200th
Rank Male, such as myself, was the lowliest of the
low. 200th Rank Females were
just one step above us, and each female Rank was referred to as “Dominant” to
their corresponding male Rank.
The Second Rank consisted of those Matriarchs who had embarked for the stars, intending to establish colonies light years away. The majority of those expeditions were still in transit and would be for centuries. A few expeditions, those bound for the nearest stars, had reached their destinations. They had set up their protein factories as soon as they had arrived, and their compatriots on Earth had commenced beaming the electromagnetized life patterns of an entire population of workers in microwaves out to them. Once this was received, the recipients could begin growing their army of colonists and making over their new world. This technique was deemed far more efficient than actually physically sending out thousands of colonists in star ships. If there was one thing this Brave New World valued, it was efficiency. The general estimate was that the human race would complete their colonization of the galaxy in just under ten thousand years. In the absence of the Second Rank, day to day operations of the solar system had passed on to the Third Rank.
The First Rank consisted of one mysterious individual, The First Entity. The First Entity was in charge of the most important enterprise of the human race – The Next Level Project. This project had as its goal the consolidation of all of life into a single higher level life form. Just as a human body is composed of billions of individual cells, each living its own life according to its own laws, the Meta-Being was conceived as a conglomeration of humans as its cells. The Next Level Project was currently being constructed far out beyond the orbit of the planet Pluto. New human material was being beamed out to the site continuously. It was theorized that once the Meta-Being acquired a sufficient number of cells, it would assume a life and intelligence all its own. The intelligence to be embodied in the Meta-Being was unimaginable, far greater than the difference between a human and a bacterium. The Meta-Being was considered the future Zero’th Rank of the human race, and was thus accorded the utmost priority among all human endeavors. At my school, it was a high honor among the students to be chosen as a participant in the Next Level Project. Once accorded such a privilege, the lucky honoree’s brain state would be reduced to a holographic electromagnetic pattern, beamed to the Next Level site, and there re-assembled into the cellular matrix of the Meta-Being. I was evaluated, but was considered sub-standard material and was therefore not one of the chosen few.
Among those relegated to stay on Earth, the general ambition was to be promoted to the next Rank. If you were judged by your Rank Superiors to be of sufficient quality, you were promoted. Strive hard, and you might be promoted to Tenth Rank and receive your body. Those that were not might remain disembodied for the rest of their lives. The most common fate of permanent low Ranks was to serve as cells in the Neural Matrix, the Thirty-First century’s equivalent of computers. Some might be chosen to be beamed to the colony on Alpha Centauri. The least worthy were chosen as fertilizer for the organic farms.
My Rank Superior was none other than Miranda, the First Matriarch of the Third Rank. She developed a fondness for me, and hence I advanced in the Ranks far more quickly than my fellow students. I soon learned the reason for her favors.
“
One of Miranda’s primary duties was seeing to the health of the human gene pool. The three Matriarchs of the Third Rank oversaw all reproductive gene mixes. No new human could be grown without their express approval. The process of propagation of the species was considered far too important to be left to the vagaries of randomness. I expressed my disapproval in no uncertain terms.
“What of love?” I asked her. “What of romance? Have those concepts been lost to humanity forever?” I thought of my long lost love, Cindy Somerset. I had never made it to Sedona. Sedona no longer existed; it was buried beneath the waves of the North American Inland Sea. Cindy no longer existed; she was a thousand years gone. But then I looked at Miranda, and I forgot all about Cindy.
“Not at all”, she said. “They have their places. People fall in love all of the time. They are just not allowed to consummate that love in sexual union. Reproduction is considered far too important. What if the wrong people mated, and produced substandard offspring? I cannot allow that. By the time you attain Tenth Rank, you will understand and appreciate the importance of this.”
On the night I graduated to 20th Rank, Miranda took me aside and told me it would soon be time to start contributing my genes to the greater good. I was eager with anticipation. I had spent two years reaching this point, and had advanced through the Ranks at a record pace. I harbored no illusions. There were plenty of my peers who were far more deserving than me. I just happened to have a friend in high places. There were some things that remained constant in human nature.
Finally, the big day came. I had graduated to Tenth Rank. Miranda and Pierre gazed at me lovingly, before they turned me off for my surgery. I woke up with a brand new body. We had a party, and all of the high Ranks came to appraise me. They presented me with gifts, one of which was a mirror, and I couldn’t stop looking at myself. My body was youthful and strong. There was no clumsiness, no adjustment, no growing pains. My body felt like it was made for me; I fit right in to it. I felt whole again, after three long years as a head. The party went long into the night, and I danced, and cavorted, and leapt into the air as I had not done in a long, long time, but finally it was over. The guests departed. The house fell quiet.
“And now, James, it is time”, said Miranda as she caressed my smooth skin. She led me into her boudoir. She laid me down on her bed, and stripped me of my clothes. I had anticipated this moment for so long. I was trembling with excitement. She was so beautiful. She pulled straps from the side of the bed and bound my arms and legs.
“Oooh, kinky”, I murmured luxuriantly as I lay there. “Please be gentle with me.” I closed my eyes in expectation.
But I soon opened them as I heard a hum of machinery. A tube descended from the ceiling, and its funnel shaped mouth settled over my genitals. More machinery descended, and covered every square inch of my new body. I squirmed in the straps, but could not free myself. Finally, a helmet came down over my face, and I was plunged into darkness. Then, it began. I cannot begin to describe the pleasures I experienced. It was beyond imagining. It was beyond my wildest dreams. My entire body was set afire. The realities of mere coupling seemed a pale imitation of the ecstasies I felt under the machine’s relentless care. It seemed to go on forever, but it finally ended as I ejaculated my seed into the machine’s eager mouth. I lay spent. The machinery withdrew and the darkness withdrew. I felt Miranda’s gentle touch on my face.
“Congratulations, darling”, she cooed. “Welcome to the Tenth Rank. How do you like my Gene Machine?”
I was too exhausted to reply.
Our first duty the next morning, as Matriarch and Consort,
was to see to
I took over
I no longer felt that the King Fish held sway over my fate,
but I thought that I should finish what I had started. And so, I had the Elasmosaurus boxed up and
sent to the former location of
I returned to my Miranda. She informed me that there was one chore remaining before we could truly begin our time as Matriarch and Consort. I must travel to the outer solar system to the Next Level project site, and there submit to the First Entity’s inspection. Hopefully our union would be approved. We were to beam out the very next morning. I sensed some apprehension in her as she caressed me that night, just before calling down the Gene Machine. This process was evidently not a slam dunk. There was no guarantee that the First Entity would approve of me. Again, that vague sense of unease came over me, but then the Gene Machine came down and I forgot everything.
We beamed out to the Next Level together. She told me not to worry, even though the process of beaming out caused your body to be destroyed, only to be reassembled at its destination. As I stood in the beam-out chamber and felt the first touch of the X-Rays on me, I thought I felt a slight burning sensation. But then it was all over and I was standing in the Next Level beam chamber at the edge of the Solar System, my nerves tingling but otherwise feeling intact. We walked across the vast habitat to the palace grounds, and entered the waiting room of the office of the First Entity. We waited an hour, and the robotic receptionist kept apologizing for the delay, as the First Entity was running late. I was extremely nervous, and I paced back and forth until Miranda asked me to stop. The doors to the office finally opened and we entered. I stared in shock. There, sitting at a huge oak desk, with his feet propped up, was Easy Eddie.
“Welcome, Joe”, he said, with that friendly smile on his face I remembered so well. “It’s good to see you again. Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“You are the First Entity?” I asked incredulously.
“Afraid so. Although among friends, I still prefer to be called Eddie.”
“You two know each other?” asked Miranda in amazement.
“We’ve met before”, I answered, still too shocked to say much more.
His gaze passed up and down over Miranda, and then turned back to me. “Well, Joe, you’ve done quite well for yourself, I must say. I am impressed.” He gave Miranda a quick wink, and I thought maybe I saw a blush in her face before she turned her head away.
“When I last saw you, you were a mess”, I told him. “I was convinced that you would drop the God act. What happened to the trumpet?”
“Well, I still pick it up every now and then and jam with some guys I know. But it’s hard to find the time nowadays. After you left on that ill-fated jet (which I had no inkling about, by the way), I thought a lot about what you had to say. You were right. I had created an utter cluster-fuck. I absolutely had to fix things. The trick was to figure out how.”
“So you created…this?” I asked sarcastically, holding my arms out to indicate the world around me.
“It was the perfect solution”, he replied. “It hit me one day during a break at rehearsal. Turn the world over to women. That was what was going to save us all. Women wouldn’t wage war. They wouldn’t burn, pillage, and rape. They would nurture and nurse the world back to health. They would take the savagery out of human reproduction. Women are very good at that sort of thing, much better than men.” He glanced appreciatively at Miranda. She gave that blush once again. “It was so simple. All I had to do was make sure that Hillary Clinton became president. That changed everything.”
“But what you have created now is even worse!” I interjected. “There is no love anymore. There is no sex, just machines that suck the fluids out of your body!”
“Oh, I assure you, there is sex in this world”, he said, but he was looking at Miranda as he said it. “But you don’t get any until you reach 6th Rank. Once that happens, you’re set for life!” Miranda gave him a coquettish smile.
“But what about love?” I asked uneasily, knowing I had already lost this argument, and probably my consort as well.
“8th Rank, Joe. Before then, you’re just not ready for it. Let’s face it, if it hadn’t been for women, the world would be dead by now.”
I ran out of objections. He was right in a strange, perverted kind of way. The world was much safer now. No Jihads, no hijackings, no crime, no gangs, no drugs. It was difficult to do any of those things when you were only a head. It was the perfect solution. I didn’t like it at all, but I had to admit it was effective.
“I did it, Joe”, he exclaimed exultantly. “I fixed the world! And I have you to thank for it all.”
This was the unkindest cut of all. It was all of my doing. If I had just left him alone that day in his depression, all of this would never have come to pass. I hung my head in defeat.
“Well, now, on to the matter at hand”, Eddie said. “After due consideration, Joe, I find you unfit to serve as consort to the First Matriarch of the Third Rank. I understand you have made a contribution of your genetic material, and we appreciate that. That is all we can offer you, however.”
What the hell? What was this bastard up to?
“Furthermore, I now proclaim, in my official capacity as First Entity, that Miranda Orleanda is now promoted to Second Rank, and she shall be assigned the duty of assisting me here at the Next Level facility. I further declare that I will take her as my own consort.”
Miranda had an exhilarated expression on her face. She rushed over to him and gave him a hug. She had achieved a goal she had never thought possible, elevation to Second Rank. He was giving her something I could never equal. She was jumping at it. I couldn’t blame her. Still, he was taking my woman from me. I stared at him in amazement, my blood was boiling over, and that purple film started obscuring my vision once again. “You son-of-a-bitch!” I exclaimed.
“Calm down, Joe”, said Eddie. “You don’t belong here in this age, and you know it. You’re an anachronism. I believe I’m at least partially responsible for your predicament. I believe I have a solution for you.”
I was still too pissed to hear him. He was getting more and more purple in my eyes.
“Joe, wouldn’t you like to get back with that cute Greenpeace lady?”
That got my attention. “You can do that?”
“Have you ever heard of the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum physics?” he asked.
“Of course I have”, I replied. “That’s the theory that there are an infinite number of universes, representing all possible outcomes of every possible sequence of events. It’s a controversial idea. I’ve never really put much store in it.”
“Joe, you forget who you’re talking to”, replied Eddie. “It is more than a theory. What would you say if I told you that there is a universe, not very far away from our own, practically right next door, where I could place you back into your familiar world. What would you say to that?”
“Eddie, that would be marvelous”, I said, brushing a tear from my eye.
“It’s a wonderful universe”, he said. “It was designed by a good friend of mine, Josie’s her name. She has a much better sense of design than I do. She used to make the most remarkable web sites. She’s maybe not as imaginative as I am, but then again she tells me I am a little too wild in my ideas. Of course, her world is not nearly as screwed up as mine was.”
It made perfect sense to me. There was a different God for every universe. “I’m ready to go”, I said immediately. “How do I get there?”
“Well, let’s just head back over to the beam-out chamber. I’ll tell them to start setting it up.”
And so we made our way back across the Next Level habitat. Eddie and Miranda walked arm in arm. I walked ahead, eager for the new adventure to begin. We arrived at the chamber, and we stood around in awkward silence as they got the chamber ready.
“Well, Joe, this is it. Please say hello to Josie when you get there, will you?”
I nodded, and stepped into the chamber.
“Oh, by the way, if you ever run into a sax player named Leroy, please give him $60.00, would you? I’ll pay you back someday. I’d do it myself, but I expect I’ll be a little busy. There’s always something occupying my attention. Why, it’s a mere 7 millennia until Boolux returns, and I want things to be ship-shape when that happens.”
As the X-rays illuminated me and my atoms started disintegrating, I saw him turn to Miranda. I heard him start with one of his choice pickup lines, just before I ceased to exist.
I was standing on the
“Geez, are you okay, mister?” she said as she approached me. “That was quite a fall. Oh, it’s you.”
It was the twenty-two year old from the Astor Inn back in
“Thank you for having me”, I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get out of these wet clothes.”
“No problem”, she said. “Let’s get you up to the ambulance.”
“Then I’d like to go home and see my family. Can I catch a ride with you? I seem to have…lost my car.”
“Sure, I’ll take you anywhere you need to go.”
“Oh, and by the way, is Sedona in the same place in this universe as it was in mine?”
“It sure is.”
“Well, that is the best news I’ve heard in a long time.” I thought I could be happy in Sedona. It was quiet and peaceful. My beautiful Cindy was there waiting for me. And, best of all, it was in the middle of the desert, far, far away from any water.
The End.