Sam Weller - Shadow Show

He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath, but when he breathed again, the sick feeling went away. His skin tingled as the spaceship hurtled through space, and he uncrossed his arms and saw the stars again. Inside the capsule, the five astronauts floated weightlessly and joked with one another. One woman was eating dried cherries, and she tossed one toward the open mouth of one of the men, but the cherry flew in impossibly slow motion, and the woman and the man both laughed and discussed their pea-plant experiment until the fruit finally reached the man, and he bit it out of the air. As a child, MacGregor had tried to eat like an astronaut—powdered drinks and vacuum-sealed protein bars. Now he tasted the sweet sourness of that dried cherry!

When MacGregor returned to the bedroom, he found Silvie dressed and packing her overnight bag with the few things she kept at his house.

“No, Silvie. I love you. You’re the most important person in my life.”

“I love you, too, Gerald. It’s your choice.” She finally looked at him.

“See, Silvie, the rocket landed safely on a new planet,” he said, and pointed to his chest. “It’s Mars. Look, four of the astronauts are getting out. Everything’s going to be okay this time.”

“They all have guns,” Silvie said anxiously.

“For protection, or in case of wild animals. Silvie, look at the planet. The sky is red! Can you smell it? The dust smells of flowers and vanilla. Everyone is safe.” To his joy, he found he really could smell the dust. He felt the hot breeze on his skin.

“They’re not safe, Gerald. They’re probably bringing germs that will infect everyone on the new planet. Or else they’ll try to take away the Martian riches, and a war will break out. I’ve seen these stories too many times. I can’t take any more.”

“But look. The astronauts have met a Martian family, a couple and two children. They’re all conversing. Everything is friendly. You can tell by their hand gestures.” MacGregor noted the hands of the Martians, their fingers long and elegant compared with the stubby mitts of the Earthlings. The sky behind them glowed the rich orange-red of campfire coals. MacGregor imagined the Martians and Earthlings sitting around a fire, and soon enough they were indeed sitting around a fire, conversing telepathically, cooking Martian fish and giant mushrooms they grew in their basements.

“What about that fifth astronaut lurking in the background?” Silvie said.

“He stayed at the rocket.”

“He’s right there now, drinking whiskey from a bottle. I can hear him cursing.”

“No,” MacGregor said, but he knew she was right. The man seemed unlike the others. He was suspicious and angry. And now he was drunk and armed.

“Somebody’s going to die,” Silvie said. She looked away from him and stuffed her slippers and bathrobe into her bag. “Eventually somebody’s going to die. Don’t deny it.”

“Eventually we all die, honey.”

“Well, I can’t face it.”

“Just look at the light reflecting off the Martian canals as evening falls. It reminds me of your eyes, Silvie.” He closed his eyes to imagine the story more vividly, and he heard the door shut. He wanted to run after her, but he needed to see the story through. As Silvie said, most of the stories ended with trouble, just as marriages ended in death or divorce. He thought he might work at keeping a story alive longer, putting off disaster, just as he might convince Silvie to give him one more chance. It occurred to him that he should run after her and beg for another chance. And yet, readers and watchers and listeners needed a story to end sometime.

MacGregor and Silvie’s separation was as amicable as MacGregor could have hoped. He arranged an emergency meeting of the board of directors, and they agreed with him that Silvie should become acting president, while MacGregor would retain his majority stake in the company but return to being an engineer. He felt relieved to move his things from his father’s office back to his old desk in the fabrication shop. At the beginning of August, Silvie drove to his house in a new electric car she’d bought, in order to pick up some winter clothes she’d stored in his attic. She stepped out into the gravel driveway, wearing a trim-fitting pants suit in charcoal gray. She wore high-heeled shoes that barely covered her pretty toes. Her heels sank through the gravel and into the earth.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us,” Silvie said. “I guess we’re another one of your tragic stories.”

MacGregor put the last box of clothes into the trunk of her car and invited her to stay and have some coffee. When she declined, he took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. When he put them back on, Silvie was shaking her head at him and smiling as she might at a child. When she backed into the street, MacGregor walked out to the end of his driveway to watch the silver electric car, as sleek as a rocket ship, head down the road, and that’s when he saw the billboard for the county fair, August 4–9. He was surprised to realize that the fair was opening that day. His skin began to tingle, and his heart began to flutter crazily. Was it possible that the Illuminated Woman would be there? He’d seen her in his stories and dreams, but he hadn’t considered seeking her out. He could hope that Madame Needles had failed in the last year to find her daughter a husband. Of course she had failed, for the girl knew her own mind! MacGregor wanted to see her, to lose himself in her brilliant visions, to listen to her voice sing, to look into the eyes behind her dark-rimmed glasses. He had been ashamed to think of her this way when he was engaged to Silvie, but now there was nothing to keep him from visiting her and trying to know her better. And maybe now that he had his own stories, she might want to see him, too.

My idea in writing “The Tattoo” was to get up close and personal with an illustrated man. For a long time I’d suspected that such ink was not just skin deep, and now I’ve confirmed it. Writing this piece gave me a chance to study the ways stories move across a person’s body. Ray Bradbury is one of America’s most important philosophers, and he’s inspired me since I was a kid. What a great honor it is to be part of this anthology. I thank Heidi Bell for helping me with this story.

Helene stood at the front railing on the upper deck in the dark, watching as the ship maneuvered at a funny angle too close to a low stone bridge. A few people stood near her, all watching quietly as the crew worked on the deck below them. The band was playing Ellington at the other end of the ship; couples would be dancing neatly, persistently. In the cabins below, most of the passengers were asleep.

Helene’s father, Lewis, had been sleeping when she left their cabin, his face collapsed without the dentures, his mouth open, snoring. In sleep he frightened her. Let him wake up tomorrow, she prayed every night, though she was not religious. Don’t take him from me yet.

The Persephone wasn’t very large for a cruise ship. There were 300 passengers and 150 crew members. Helene had never been on a cruise before and had braced herself for bingo, seasickness, and enforced camaraderie, though her father kept assuring her it wasn’t that kind of cruise. “It’s low-key, mostly excursions to churches and lectures on Matisse. You’ve never been to Rome or Barcelona; you’ll love it. The Mediterranean is very calm in June. Don’t worry so much, Sweet Pea.” She had nodded and smiled. Of course she would love it; he wanted her to love it.