James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World

“Winnie.” He smiles cautiously. Watch it. Widow, divorcee?

She puffs along. “Oh, I keep busy. Right now I’m on a committee for part-time worker retraining. We refer older women who have to go back to work.”

“That sounds interesting,” he lies.

“Yes.” She inhales and lets it out hard. “If you want the truth, I’m an absolutely surplus human being.”

He gets out some polite objection, thinking in panic, Oh no. Not another. She’s marching determinedly, the smile firmly in place; Dann has a moment’s hope.

“In fact, I’m not sure I’m a human being.” She gives her automatic titter. But he knows he’s in for it. “I never learned how to do anything. Except raise kids and take care of my sick mother and my husband with diabetes. Poor Charlie, he passed on three years ago. My sons are in California . Their wives haven’t a use in the world for me; I don’t blame them. My younger daughter is in Yugoslavia digging up skulls. Next year she’s going to New Guinea , wherever that is. My oldest girl married a foreign service man. They—they never write. I wanted them to be, to be free—” She breaks off for a minute, stumping heavily along. “Now people think having four kids was bad. I never went anywhere or learned anything for myself. Now it’s too late.”

“Oh, no, surely—” His voice utters platitudes while his insides shrivel at the pain behind her words. Isn’t there a single normal person here? He can’t take much more.

“I’m sixty-two, Doctor Dann. I have a high school diploma and arthritis of the spine, you remember.”

Oh God, that’s right; he’d forgotten. Outpatient at the Hodgkins Clinic.

“They tell me I’ll be in a wheelchair in a couple of years. It won’t shorten my life, but it’s starting to hurt. That’s why I do all I can now.” She gives her laugh. “Oh, I can do simple work, like the committee. I can be a Grey Panther for a while— No use kidding. I missed the bus called life… Doctor, I—I’m so afraid of what’s ahead.

“I saw an old woman in a wheelchair when I was in the clinic. She was all wasted and twisted up, helpless. She kept moaning ‘No… no… no’ over and over. Nobody went near her, they’d just parked her there. She was still there when I came out— I tried to talk to her, but—Doctor Dann, I’ll be like that.”

Her face is frightening, he is sure she is going to cry, God knows what. But no; her features compose themselves, she stumps on determinedly amid her ludicrous bouncing flesh. He can say nothing, his heart is choking him.

“I would have loved it,” she says in a low, different voice. “Oh, I would have loved to have done it all differently. Really lived and been free. To know things. When you’re old and sick it really is too late, you don’t understand that when you’re young.”

The pain, the longing hurts him physically, in the way others’ pain always does, as he assumes they hurt everybody. She’s right, of course. No way out. The woman’s dilemma, an old story. Don’t think of it.

“It’s an old story, isn’t it?” Her voice is resolutely normal. “I shouldn’t have cried on your shoulder. You—we’re so glad you’re with us.”

“Not at all,” he mumbles, wondering if she’s reading his mind. Suddenly he sees relief. “Well now—look! There’s your wish.”

In the sunset light ahead of them two does are leaping leisurely across the blacktop.

“Oh-h-h!”

They watch as the creatures browse idly and then suddenly soar erratically into the woods, their white flags high. As they disappear a fawn bounds after them.

“How could anybody shoot them!” Winona exclaims.

“It doesn’t look as if anybody does.”

“Oh yes, they hunt here. Lieutenant Kirk said he was going to, even if it’s not the season.”

He sighs, refusing empathy, and they walk on.

“Doctor Dann, sometimes I think there’s two different kinds of people.” Her tone is surprisingly hard. “The ones who like to hurt things, and—”

He is tired of it all, tired of pain, tired of holding back. “A politician I used to know would agree. He used to say, there’re two kinds of people—those who think there are two kinds of people and those who have more sense.”

To his surprise she replies slowly, “You mean if I’d been brought up like Lieutenant Kirk I’d see them as something to shoot?”

“Yes. Or if you got hungry enough. Or other factors.”

“But I’m not,” she says stubbornly. “Just because something good can, can fail, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Well, well. Trapped under the blue curls is a brain, or what might have been one.

“I think you’ve just enunciated a philosophical principle I’m not equipped to deal with.”

“Oh my goodness!” The flutter is back.

Their slow progess is finally reaching the last corner. His legs are cramping with impatience.

“Do walk on, please, Doctor Dann.”

Damn, she is reading his mind. No, it must be body-signals, she’s sensitive. Effortfully he asks, “How did you get into Noah’s, ah, ark?”

“He put an ad in the Star. I’ve always known I’m psychic. But—” She frowns. “The things he wants, numbers, letters—it’s so hard. They don’t mean anything.”

“You pick up meaningful thoughts more easily?”

“Oh yes, of course. And people’s feelings. It’s so hard at the office when people are angry. People get mad with me a lot.” She giggles deprecatingly.

Remorse bites him. “Do you pick up any, ah, emanations from this place?”

“I certainly do, Doctor Dann. I’ll tell you something. This place is a portal. There’s a presence here. You felt it this afternoon, that was a projection from the spirit plane.”

The language of mysticism. He imagines her giving seances, fortune readings.

“Did you ever think of going into business as an, uh, medium?”

“Oh, I’m too erratic. You see, my gift comes and goes. And I couldn’t pretend.”

“I see.” His own gift of chemical tranquillity is going fast. Thank God they’re almost at the barracks. The roadway is empty, no cars are parked outside. Music is coming from a group sitting on the front steps: Rick’s radio.

“Thank you, Doctor Dann.” Winona reaches up and pats jerkily at his upper arm before she toddles on.

It’s Ted Yost, Costakis, and Rick on the steps. Rick turns a glum face to Dann and says listlessly, “Somebody went through our stuff.”

“What do you mean?” Dann’s hand goes involuntarily to his breast pocket, touches the kit.

“The place got searched while we were eating,” Costakis says in his sneering tone.

Dann is frantically reviewing the plausibility of the supplies in his bag. “Did they take anything? How do you know?”

“My smokes,” says Rick. “It was in my right sneaker. It moved. And I think they opened this.” He holds up the radio. “The battery case was in wrong. Clowns.”

“Checking electronics,” Costakis says wisely. Dann can’t help noticing how he is perched apart from the other two. Ever on the fringe.

Ted Yost sighs. “I think I’ll take a walk.”

The door bursts open above them and Noah charges out. “Somebody has unplugged half our equipment! Everything’s moved around,” he explodes. “Really, what extraordianary people. Chris, can you help me sort it out?”

“Check.”

Dann hurries to his room. His bag seems to be intact but his other possessions look vaguely different. Have strangers been through? He can’t be sure. Absurd.

He sits on the cot with a capsule in his hand, noticing that the forest beyond the barracks looks quite lovely in the sunset light. Like the woods of his Wisconsin boyhood. Golden spotlights are picking out the floating delicacy of birches, the shadowy oak-trunks, the ferns and moss-cushions.