Connie Willis - Passage

“Can you be more specific?”

Joanna grinned. “It—I could move in a normal way. There was no floating or moving swiftly through the tunnel like some of my subjects have described, and there were no dreamlike discontinuities or incongruities. It felt like it was really happening.”

“And you said you sensed the presence of someone in the light.”

She nodded. “I thought I could see someone, but the light was too bright.”

“The sensation of a presence is a temporal-lobe effect, too,” he said. “I’d been assuming the light and peaceful feeling were endorphin-generated, but maybe it’s the temporal lobe that’s causing… I want to look at your scans.”

Joanna nodded and started to get down off the examining table. “Wait,” Richard said. “We’re not done yet. You still haven’t answered the big question.”

“The big question?” Joanna asked. “Do you mean, was what I saw real? Was it heaven? Or the doorway to the Other Side?”

“No. The big question,” he said, and grinned. “You said you heard a sound. Well? Was it a ringing or a buzzing?”

“It…” she said, and stopped, bewildered. “I have no idea. I know I heard it. I was in the tunnel…”

“Was it loud or soft?”

Loud, she thought. She had heard it quite clearly. But, trying to remember it now, she found she couldn’t reconstruct it at all, or even identify the type of noise it had been. A ringing? A buzzing? A horrible crash, like a whole stack of canned goods crashing down, as Mr. Steinhorst had described it?

“Has the memory of it faded?” Richard asked.

She considered that. It must have, because she couldn’t recall it, but the rest of the NDE was as crystal-clear as when she was having it, and she remembered thinking she had heard the sound and turning in its direction to identify it. So she hadn’t known what it was even during the NDE.

“Joanna?” Richard prompted.

“No, it’s not that I’ve forgotten it, I don’t think. I can’t remember it. No, that’s not right either. I’m sorry,” she said, defeated. “I’m no better than Mr. Sage.”

“Are you kidding?” Richard said. “You’re wonderful. I should have sent you under to begin with and to hell with the other subjects. You’ve given me more detail than all of them put together, and this is just the first time. I want to send you under again as soon as possible, which means as soon as the dithetamine’s out of your system. It takes about twelve hours. How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“Great,” Joanna said. “I can’t wait.”

And it was true. She wanted nothing more than to go back there and figure out what the sound was, where the place was. There hadn’t been anything dangerous or frightening about it at all. So why, when Richard asked her, had she felt a sudden sense of dread?

And had Amelia Tanaka had it, too? Was that why she had quit?

“It’s a residual effect of the dithetamine,” Richard said when Joanna told him about the dread she felt.

“Or a warning that something bad’s going to happen if you go under again,” Vielle said when she came over for Dish Night.

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Joanna said, taking a packet of popcorn out of the box. “Look at me. I’m fine. My body didn’t get confused when it saw the tunnel and the light and trigger some dying process. They didn’t have trouble bringing me out of it. Nothing happened.”

“So you did see a tunnel and a light?” Vielle asked curiously. “Was Mandrake there?”

“No,” Joanna said, laughing. “No, no Mr. Mandrake and no Angel of Light.” She told Vielle about the passage and the light coming from behind the door. “I didn’t have an out-of-body experience either, or a life review, at least not this time.” She opened the refrigerator. “What do you want to drink? I’ve got Coke, ginger ale, and… ginger ale.”

“Coke,” Vielle said. “What do you mean, ‘this time’? You’re not going under again, are you?”

“Of course,” Joanna said, reaching into the refrigerator for two Cokes.

“But what about this feeling of dread you had? What if it was trying to tell you there’s something terrible waiting behind that door?”

“I didn’t have the feeling when I looked at the door,” Joanna said, handing Vielle her Coke. “I didn’t have it during the NDE at all, not until nearly an hour afterward.”

“When Dr. Right asked you to go under again.”

“Yes, but only for a few seconds, and I didn’t have it when he set up a time for the session,” Joanna said. “Richard showed me the cortisol in my readouts. The levels were definitely elevated, and cortisol frequently remains in the system after a return to the waking state. It’s what causes that frightened feeling you can’t shake after a nightmare.”

“But what if the cortisol’s elevated because of what you saw? You said the tunnel looked familiar. What if the dread comes from your recognizing it? What if it comes from your knowing what’s waiting behind that door?”

The microwave beeped. Saved by the bell, Joanna thought, and took her time tearing the bag open, finding a bowl, pouring the popcorn in.

“What if—?” Vielle said.

“Rule Number One,” Joanna said. She took the popcorn into the living room. “What movies did you bring?”

“Flatliners,” Vielle said. “It’s about a bunch of medical students who mess with near-death experiences with tragic results. They think they’re going to see angels, but they start having terrible—”

“I know what it’s about,” Joanna said. “I can’t believe you—”

“Julia Roberts is in it,” Vielle said innocently. “Dr. Right said he liked Julia Roberts. Or is the ban on dying still on?”

Joanna ignored that. “Richard isn’t coming,” she said. “He’s meeting with Dr. Jamison.”

Vielle’s eyes narrowed. “Dr. Jamison? Male or female?”

“Female. She’s an expert on neurotransmitters.”

“I’ll bet,” Vielle said. “And I’ll bet they had to meet at night. Where? At Happy Hour? Honestly, first Tish and now this. If you don’t take an option on him soon, Dr. Right is going to be Dr. Out of Circulation.”

“Yes, Mother,” Joanna said. She picked up the other video. What else had Vielle brought? Altered States?

“It’s The Pelican Brief,” Vielle said, taking it away from her and sticking it in the VCR. “Also with Julia Roberts. You should have told me Dr. Right wasn’t coming. At least it’s got Denzel Washington in it.” She hit “play.”

At least it wasn’t Flatliners.

“Have you seen it?” Vielle said, settling down on the couch. “It’s about a young woman who gets in over her head because she doesn’t pay attention to the warning signals.”

“I only had the feeling of dread once, for about ten seconds,” Joanna said. “I haven’t had it since.”

And she didn’t have it again, not even when she lay down on the table the next afternoon and Tish began putting the electrodes on her, not even when Richard said, “All ready?” All she felt was eagerness. She was determined to identify the sound this time, and to see what was behind the door. And to figure out what the place was and why it looked so familiar. Not familiar, that was the wrong word, and not déjà—

There was a sound, and Joanna was back in the passage. In the same place, Joanna thought, even though it was pitch-black, and saw the light. It was still blinding, but instead of a radiating blur, it was a narrow band of gold along the side and underneath the door.