Robert Silverberg - What We Learned from This Morning’s Newspaper

I wonder if something’s happening to the paper I said to my wife.

What do you mean?

Like it’s deteriorating or anyway starting to change.

Anything can happen said my wife. It’s like a dream you know and in dreams things change all the time without warning.

Wednesday November 24. I guess we just have to sweat this thing out so far the market in general isn’t doing much one way or the other. This afternoon’s Post gives the closing prices there was a rally in the morning but it all faded by the close and the Dow is down to 798.63. However my own five stocks all have had decent upward moves Tues and Wed so maybe I shouldn’t worry. I have four points profit in Bausch already two in Natomas five in Levitz two in Disney three-quarters in EG&G and even though that’s a long way from the quotations in the Dec 1 newspaper it’s better than having losses, also there’s still that “stunning two-day advance” due at the end of the month. Maybe I’m going to make out all right. Winnebago Transamerica and Xerox are also up a little bit. Market’s closed tomorrow on account of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Day. We went to the Nesbits in the afternoon. It used to be that people spent Thanksgiving with their own kin their aunts uncles grandparents cousins et cetera but you can’t do that out here in a new suburb where everybody comes from someplace far away so we eat the turkey with neighbors instead. The Nesbits invited the Fischers the Harrises the Thomasons and us with all the kids of course too. A big noisy gathering. The Fischers came very late so late that we were worried and thinking of sending someone over to find out what was the matter. It was practically time for the turkey when they showed up and Edith Fischer’s eyes were red and puffy from crying.

My God my God she said I just found out my older sister is dead.

We started to ask the usual meaningless consoling questions like was she a sick woman and where did she live and what did she die of? And Edith sobbed and said I don’t mean she’s dead yet I mean she’s going to die next Tuesday.

Next Tuesday Tammy Nesbit asked? What do you mean I don’t understand how you can know that now. And then she thought a moment and she did understand and so did all the rest of us. Oh Tammy said the newspaper.

The newspaper yes Edith said. Sobbing harder.

Edith was reading the death notices Sid Fischer explained God knows why she was bothering to look at them just curiosity I guess and all of a sudden she lets out this terrible cry and says she sees her sister’s name. Sudden passing, a heart attack.

Her heart is weak Edith told us. She’s had two or three bad attacks this year.

Lois Thomason went to Edith and put her arms around her the way Lois does so well and said there there Edith it’s a terrible shock to you naturally but you know it must have been inevitable sooner or later and at least the poor woman isn’t suffering any more.

But don’t you see Edith cried. She’s still alive right now maybe if I phone and say go to the hospital right away they can save her? They might put her under intensive care and get ready for the attack before it even comes. Only I can’t say that can I? Because what can I tell her? That I read about her death in next week’s newspaper? She’ll think I’m crazy and she’ll laugh and she won’t pay any attention to me. Or maybe she’ll get very upset and drop dead right on the spot all on account of me. What can I do oh God what can I do?

You could say it was a premonition my wife suggested. A very vivid dream that had the ring of truth to you. If your sister puts any faith at all in things like that maybe she’ll decide it can’t hurt to see her doctor and then—

No Mike Nesbit broke in you mustn’t do any such thing Edith. Because they can’t save her. No way. They didn’t save her when the time came.

The time hasn’t come yet said Edith.

So far as we’re concerned said Mike the time has already come because we have the newspapers that describe the events of November 30 in the past tense. So we know your sister is going to die and to all intents and purposes is already dead. It’s absolutely certain because it’s in the newspaper and if we accept the newspaper as authentic then it’s a record of actual events beyond any hope of changing.

But my sister Edith said.

Your sister’s name is already on the roll of the dead. If you interfere now it’ll only bring unnecessary aggravation to her family and it won’t change a thing.

How do you know it won’t Mike?

The future mustn’t be changed Mike said. For us the events of that one day in the future are as permanent as any event in the past. We don’t dare play around with changing the future not when it’s already signed sealed and delivered in that newspaper. For all we know the future’s like a house of cards. If we pull one card out say your sister’s life we might bring the whole house tumbling down. You’ve got to accept the decree of fate Edith. You’ve got to. Otherwise there’s no telling what might happen.

My sister Edith said. My sister’s going to die and you won’t let me do anything to save her.

Edith carrying on like that put a damper on the whole Thanksgiving celebration. After a while she pulled herself together more or less but she couldn’t help behaving like a woman in mourning and it was hard for us to be very jolly and thankful with her there choking back the sobs. The Fischers left right after dinner and we all hugged Edith and told her how sorry we were. Soon afterward the Thomasons and the Harrises left too.

Mike looked at my wife and me and said I hope you aren’t going to run off also.

No I said not yet there’s no hurry is there?

We sat around some while longer. Mike talked about Edith and her sister. The sister can’t be saved he kept saying. And it might be very dangerous for everybody if Edith tries to interfere with fate.

To get the subject away from Edith we started talking about the stock market. Mike said he had bought Natomas Transamerica and Electronic Data Systems which he said was due to rise from 36¾ on November 22 to 47 by the 30th. I told him I had bought Natomas too and I told him my other stocks and pretty soon he had his copy of the December 1 paper out so we could check some of the quotations. Looking over his shoulder I observed that the print was even blurrier than it had seemed to me Tuesday night which was the last occasion I had examined my paper and also the pages seemed very grey and rough.

What do you think is going on I said? The paper definitely seems to be deteriorating.

It’s entropic creep he said.

Entropic creep?

Entropy you know is the natural tendency of everything in nature to come apart at the seams as time goes along. These newspapers must be subject to unusually strong entropic strains because of their anomalous position out of their proper place in time. I’ve been noticing how the print is getting harder to read and I wouldn’t be surprised if it became completely illegible in another couple of days.

We hunted up the prices of my stocks in his paper and the first one we saw was Bausch & Lomb hitting a high of 149¾ on November 30.

Wait a second I said I’m sure the high is supposed to be 149 even.

Mike thought it might be an effect of the general blurriness but no it was still quite clear on that page of stock market quotations and it said 149¾. I looked up Natomas and the high that was listed was 56 7⁄ 8. I said I’m positive it’s 57. And so on with several other stocks. The figures didn’t jibe with what I remembered. We had a friendly little discussion about that and then it became not so friendly as Mike implied my memory was faulty and in the end I jogged down the street to my place and got my own copy of the paper. We spread them both out side by side and compared the quotes. Sure enough the two were different. Hardly any quote in his paper matched those in mine, all of them off an eighth here, a quarter there. What was even worse the figures didn’t quite match the ones I had noted down on the first day. My paper now gave the Bausch high for November 30 as 149½ and Natomas as 56½ and Disney as 117. Levitz 104, EG&G 23 5⁄ 8. Everything seemed to be sliding around.