Fear of Dying Alone - 1/3
Cameron Dixon
FEAR OF DYING ALONE (Part 1 of 3)
by Cameron Dixon
* * * * * *
Have you ever wanted to die?
I mean--have you ever *really* wanted to die? Wanted it so bad you can
taste it, smell it, feel death in every meal you eat, every breath you
take, every footstep? Have you known grief on a first-name basis, shaken
its hand and called it friend because it's the only friend you have?
Have you stared off the edge of a pier, a hollow transparent glaze of a
self staring back at you from the surface of the water, and wondered what
it would be like to step off and end it once and for all? Watched the
rain streaking the windows of your conapt with God's tears, lying in bed
for hours on end because you can't think of one single reason to get up,
while the noises of other lives filter through the walls, muffled and dis-
tant like things long dead themselves?
Look the mirror in the eyes and you'll see your own soul. A holograph of
Alice is propped up on the table, years past, her eyes so alive, hair free
in the wind. A thin reflection of my own face is framed in the projector
as I look, a ghost superimposed over her smile. I blink. She doesn't.
The rain is trickling down my face, but it can't be the rain because the
window is closed. Outside, I hear the ethereal yet animal howl of emer-
gency vehicles, not yet here but getting closer. I wipe the tears from my
face and stand up. My new friend stands behind me, waiting for me to
finish so I can get on with what I have to do.
My apologies; I should introduce myself. My name is Frank Kelner, and I'm
going to kill a man called the Doctor.
* * * * *
First time.
He's there. In my sights. In the centre of the world. Targeting con-
firms a lock. My gaze is straight, my finger rests lightly on the trig-
ger, my eyes are as steady as rocks in my head.
Someone once said that to die would be the greatest adventure of them all.
I can't remember who. I wonder if it was him.
I wonder what he's thinking. I wonder if he knows.
Some would wait until they saw his eyes. They'd want him to know death
was approaching, to watch the bullet coming nearer, to savour the last
few seconds of knowing there's nothing he can do to stop it. They'd want
to prolong the torture. They'd want to prolong the fear.
Not me. I've been told all about him; I know him like I know myself.
He's curious, curious to the core, insatiably, ineffably curious. Every-
thing I've learned about him leads to that inescapable conclusion. He'd
want to know. Even if he couldn't stop it, he'd want to know that he was
going to die. He'd want to know why. The greatest torture I could inflict
upon him would be to let him die in ignorance.
Let the question remain unanswered.
He will die without expecting it, without predicting it, without knowing
it, without ever understanding what is happening, *why* it is happening.
That will be more than he could take. That will be all that he deserves.
He's like a child. I remember watching him at the demonstration, not
hearing what he was saying, considering somehow inveigling my way up behind
him as he spoke and pushing him into the open mouth of the cyclotron. The
only thing that stopped me was the lack of certainty; I simply didn't know
what would happen to him in there. Would he in fact die if his body was
completely disintegrated? Or would he remain conscious through death,
having an exciting adventure with the quarks and tau mesons that dance
about his discorporate soul?
Peter Pan. That's who said it.
She'd have known that.
My finger tightens on the trigger.
The Doctor is in my sights.
* * * * *
"If I told you I knew who was responsible...what would you do?"
* * * * *
Alice is laughing. She's always laughing except when she's trying to stop
smoking. I long ago stopped trying to stop her from trying to stop, and
we've both been much happier.
We pause in front of a window display, admiring the fashions for a few
minutes before moving on. A taxicraft spins by on the street, the breeze
from its poorly maintained airjets whipping leaves, discarded papers and
cigarette butts about our feet. There are still six minutes left.
"Those are going to kill you," I remind her as she lights up again. (Did
I say I'd stopped trying? I'm sorry, that was a bit of a lie. Forgive me;
I do that sometimes.)
"Not likely." She grins, holds up a hand--her perfect hand--and counts off
the dangers on her fingers, one by one. "Cancer. Emphysema..."
"Somebody walking up to you in the middle of the street, taking the cigar-
ette out of your mouth and punching you in the face..."
She waves her hand, unconcerned. "I'll never live that long." She grins,
her eyes hidden behind sunshades. "Don't worry about it, Frank. Live
fast, die young, borrow lots of money before you do."
I smile back at her. I can't help it. "Don't mind me. I second-hand-
smoke a couple of packs per day myself."
It's an old joke. She laughs anyway. Ahead of us, a tall thin man sticks
up his hand, hailing a passing taxicraft. The sun is shining above us,
and there's a slight chill in the air as winter approaches. And, although
I won't know it for another five minutes, there are only five minutes left.
* * * * *
My gaze is straight. My eyes are steady and unblurred. My grip on the
rifle is unshaken. The Doctor is in my sights.
The Doctor is sipping from a cup of coffee. I can see his face, his eyes
hidden by the brim of his hat. Is he looking at the street? Watching the
people going by? Wondering who will be next to fall in his game?
He looks very calm for a destroyer of lives.
I pull the trigger.
I miss.
* * * * *
"And if I told you where you could find this person..."
* * * * *
Did I say my grip on the rifle was firm? Did I say my eyes were steady
and unblurred? I'm sorry, that was a bit of a lie. Forgive me; I do that
sometimes.
* * * * *
I'm sitting on the sidewalk. I'm looking at the display on the building
across the street. I'm looking at the billboard. It's about three times
as tall as a man, it's about three times as wide as it is tall. The holo-
graph within its surface sparkles thinly in the sunlight, the recreative
light matrix poorly maintained. It's a public service announcement, con-
cerning the safety of the citizens of this metropolis. Small wonder that
nobody's bothered to fix it.
People are screaming behind me.
I wonder who designed the poster, who took on the assignment. I really
don't know much about the world of advertising. It's all a distant, dis-
connected blur of clients, deals, sales pitches, and people in suits.
Alice tried to explain it all to me once, but I couldn't follow it and
fell asleep halfway through, and that led to our first real argument. I
don't really blame her. I didn't really blame her.
People are screaming behind me.
The billboard is cycling back to the beginning of a thirty-second adspot,
set on constant recycle with a two-second deadzone between each replay.
That's one of the things I do remember. It takes two seconds to reboot to
the beginning of the spot, or was it to reload? Something about a cache
phase, or did she say "catchphrase"? I should ask her. I should have
asked her.
People are screaming behind me.
The ad starts with a woman and a man walking down a city street, hand in
hand. They're very much in love; you can tell that even without the
sound. The picture shifts to the Leung Memorial Park, and the trees and
sculpted landscape, leaves waving in a gentle breeze. But the gentle
breeze whips into a storm, bulldozers rezz out of the air and tear up the
ground, green becomes brown, brown becomes white, marble and glass and
concrete and plastisteel are laid in place in and on top of and around
each other, and molemachines burrow beneath the surface of the earth.
It's violent, intrusive, wrong. The building left behind by the process
sits dully in the fading sunlight like a block of marble excreted by the
earth-moving machines. And a cutaway display shows the molemachines con-
tinuing their work under the city, micromechanics shoring up the tunnels
they leave behind them, digging deep enough to avoid the subways, sewage
and cable lines which are already polluting the underground. No more
trees, no more flowers, no more plant life, yet another block of the city-
scape where a park used to be.
People are screaming behind me.
But it isn't too late! The vision hovering before me zooms in on the
clock in the centre of the new quad, and a placard appears, superimposed
on top of Time itself. Don't let this happen. There's time for you to
stop the rape of our city. The hands of the clock hesitate, then reverse
themselves and accelerate backwards. Time is unravelled. The building
unknits itself back into the parkland. All is well again. The woman
smiles at the man and they hold hands. They're very much in love. The
picture freezes, and goes black, and goes back to the beginning.
People have stopped screaming behind me, or was it the sirens all along?
It's all a low mutter now, a low, distant mutter that has nothing to do
with me. There are footsteps now, approaching. Somebody says something.
A hand touches my shoulder.
I wonder who designed the poster.
It's very pretty.
* * * * *
My hands are shaking. My eyes blur with tears. My grip on the rifle is
unsteady and my hands slick with sweat. There's a roaring sound in my
ears. The Doctor wavers in and out of my sights.
The Doctor is sipping from a cup of coffee. I can see his face, his eyes
hidden by the brim of his hat. Is he looking at the street? Watching the
people going by? Wondering who will be next to fall in his game?
I pull the trigger.
I miss.
The cup leaps out of the Doctor's hands, shards of ceramic and coffee
exploding across the sidewalk. Somebody on the other side of the quad
claps their hands, once, as if ironically applauding my effort; it takes
a moment for me to realize that it's the echo. The Doctor doesn't waste
time; he's already under the table, using it as a shield, and I can't see
him any more.
People are scattering in all directions, screaming.
People are screaming in front of me.
Not my fault.
I shoot the table three more times, just in case, and then I drop the
rifle and run.
He isn't going to be pleased about this at *all*.
* * * * *
"Now if you're going to be like that, I'll just have to leave, won't I, Mr
Kelner? And then you'll never know."
* * * * *
This is where he said the Doctor would be, and this is where the Doctor
is, so he must have been speaking the truth. The Doctor is at the centre
of attention, gesturing at the new complex. I'm not listening to him.
It's not my job to listen; it's my job to look at him. He's a short man,
shorter than I was expecting, and the words scattered on the wind and
smothered by the crowd noise sound vaguely Scottish. He's wearing a thick
brown overcoat over a vest, and long, unruly grey-black hair tangles down
the back of his neck like a nest of unwashed snakes. Cyclotron, he's say-
ing. Research facility. For the importance of. Life. At the children.
Just words. Nothing important.
I look at his face. He's very passionate about whatever he's talking
about. I have to remember what he looks like, so I can shoot him later.
A gaggle of scientists are walking out of the building now, accompanied by
security guards, who grab the Doctor and hustle him out of the way. The
crowd boos and hisses. One of the scientists steps up to the podium where
the Doctor was discoursing and makes calming gestures with his hands. I
recognize him right away from Alice's notes; this is Matthew Palnu, the
genius behind the Sepran-Palnu accelerator project, and he's still alive.
I wonder if I should hate him for that.
I wonder why the Doctor didn't kill him.
Nobody's listening to Palnu now. Those who aren't staying to shout him
down have left in disgust. I stay for a while, looking at the complex.
She was wrong about it. It isn't ugly at all. It sits there where a park
used to be, where a mini-mall used to be, where a parking lot used to be,
where a farm used to be, where a forest used to be, where an ocean used to
be. The sunlight glints off the windows and is refracted through a series
of artistically placed prisms, so that the quad is bathed in rainbows.
I wonder who designed the cyclotron.
It's very pretty.
* * * * *
We did everything together, except once. It's part of her job to study
new technologies and apply them to her campaigns, while I'm taking care
of the kids--that was the agreement, at least, if ever we had kids. We
were hoping for a girl. I was hoping she'd have Alice's eyes and not my
nose. She would have been named Talicja; I would have preferred Naomi, a
nice traditional name, but I knew Alice would end up getting her way.
I tried to share her interests, really I did, but technology just leaves
me cold. So I walked on a few steps ahead while she looked in the window,
admiring the VRX-3980 module. I remember the serial number. I can't even
remember my own blood type but I know that it was a VRX-3980 virtual real-
ity simulation module which she was looking at while I walked on ahead
towards the hot-dog stand and the airpipes of the taxi blew out and it
mounted the sidewalk doing 60 in a 35-zone and knocked her through the
plastiglass window headfirst into the display case at fifty-seven kilo-
metres per hour.
I remember its name and serial number but I have no idea what it was sup-
posed to do or what she would have wanted it for.
People started screaming. I just looked for a while. There was a VR
billboard on the building across the street. I had to sit down for a
while so I could watch it properly.
* * * * *
Three months later, I'd gone through the last paycheque and what was left
of the insurance money. The conapt supe was sympathetic but living space
is at a premium, and I simply couldn't pay any more. She was the one with
the job. Eviction notices had arrived in the mail. I had four days to
get out...until the day after they opened the cyclotron, in fact.
The ads didn't convince enough people. Or even if they did, the contrac-
tors had too many councillors in their pocket--is that how it works? Or
were the councillors in their corner, or did they put the councillors into
the corner pocket, or...I don't know. I don't care. The cyclotron is
going to open and the ads which Alice designed didn't work.
I'd forgotten it was her work. Should have known. She was always the
best at everything she did. I have to believe that. I'd die if I didn't
believe it.
Or maybe I'm dead already.
That's my cheerful state of mind when I get up from the chair in which
I've been sitting all day, and maybe for the last three days or four, if I
can remember. I don't remember why I got up any more. I think I had to
go to the bathroom. All I remember is that when I got back there was
someone else sitting there, in my place.
I looked at him for a while. Looking back, I think I wasn't surprised to
see him. Three months, and I can't even muster enough emotion to be sur-
prised when a stranger enters my conapt without knocking. Knocking? It
must have been my state of mind, but I couldn't even remember hearing the
door open.
"It was no accident," he says. No first words, no hello, no how are you
doing, no I've come a long way to visit you, and by the way, where's the
bathroom? Straight to the point.
"Accident," I repeat, or, perhaps, respond.
"What if I were to tell you your wife was murdered, Mr Kelner?"
I start to shake, very slowly.
The stranger leans forward in my chair. He looks like the Devil, or like
I've always imagined the Devil to look. Very polite, very clean-cut, very
tall and thin with the fingers of a concert pianist and sympathetic blue
eyes, a sorrowful mouth framed by a thin black moustache and goatee. It's
the face of someone who understands. They're the eyes of someone who
understands.
His eyes...
"If I told you I knew who was responsible...what would you do?"
* * * * *
[to be continued]
--
== Cameron "The Lemming" Dixon ====================== bx...@torfree.net ==
== "I used to think I was indecisive, but now, I'm not so sure..." ==
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