John Adams - The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

Such as Suzie Breton’s eventual suicide, or the things Mr. Lucas later did to his wife, or Mr. Sullivan’s vodka binges, or the way our children seemed to lack a moral compass?

Take what happened to Donny Mueller. When he disappeared, we didn’t worry at first. He was only a sixth grader with chubby legs; how far could he have gone? We searched the schools, the library, the woods. Then we searched the homes and basements of his friends. Finally we found Donny locked up in the Durands’ garden shed, a dog collar fastened around his neck. The collar was attached to a chain, which was locked to the floor beside a bowl of water and a pile of rancid meat. The shed smelled of something burned. There were scars. Tom Durand and Donny were in the same grade. Apparently Little Tom had wanted Donny as his pet.

There are other examples, but it’s better not to go into them.

We found ourselves wondering: If the blues had never come, would we have been better people?

The river walk has lights that turn on at night to keep us safe. The lights get rid of the shadows, and they’re also solar-powered, which people seem to like these days. It shows we care about the planet’s resources. Already tourists are strolling along the river, holding hands and buying beverages from the carts, just like we predicted they would. The river walk ends at our town’s park, where there are benches under the oak trees and a rose garden and a pond. Autumn is by far the most popular time to visit. The leaves turn orange-red as if they were on fire, though they’re obviously not on fire, and after they fall we build enormous leaf piles for children to jump in. At Halloween there are pumpkin-carving contests and a costume parade. The tourists find such traditions charmingly old-fashioned.

Only the rare visitor bothers to ask about the blues. You can spot these people easily. They’re the ones walking around with their frowns and notebooks, looking for plaques or some sort of memorial fountain—anywhere they can get down on their knees and make a scene. They’re the ones who expect us to look haunted. One woman, clutching an open notebook in which she has thus far written nothing, asks, “You were a relocation site, were you not? Yet it appears you’re trying to forget this very fact!” As if forgetting were something to be ashamed of. It’s too bad that certain people can look at a town like ours, where nothing is missing anymore, and still see something missing.

When a visitor asks, we don’t deny that the blues were among us for a brief time, but there isn’t a lot more to say. That was many years ago, and most of us have moved on, because that’s what you do. There are only a few people left who’ll talk about the blues’ time here as if it were important: Mrs. Gorski, Mrs. Madden, Johnny Reynolds, Mrs. Lucas. We feel bad for them, because it means that what followed—i.e., the rest of their lives—must have been a disappointment. Mrs. Gorski will ramble on, if you let her, about what she was wearing the night they came (her fluffy red robe), and the style of her hair (in braids), and what she heard (a whistling in the air), and what she saw in the sky (a burning orb like a small, sad sun). Sure, at first it sounds like a big deal—ooh, beings from another planet, a spaceship landing—until you think about how we hadn’t asked them to come. They weren’t what we needed.

A chemical process for converting natural rubber or related polymers into more durable materials via the addition of sulfur or equivalent curatives or accelerators. These additives modify the polymer by forming cross-links (bridges) between individual polymer chains.

Another black. A mere illusion, Leopold knew, but he flinched out of the half-naked nigger’s path anyway.

Of course Marie Henriette noticed when he did so. The quick little taps of the queen’s high-heeled slippers echoed faster off the polished floor as she hastened to draw even with him. “My dearest—Sire—”

Leopold stopped, forcing his entire retinue to stop with him. “What do you wish, my wife?” He refused to turn around. Once he had done so, and had seen then no sign of the savage who’d just the moment before brushed past him—through him—with a fixed and insolent stare. Not much longer till he would be rid of his ghosts for good.

The queen reached for his sleeve but held her hand back to hover above the gold-embroidered cuff. “Are you quite sure you need to do this? Are you sufficiently well?”

He had wondered whether to tell her about his appointment with Travert. In the end he hadn’t, dreading an increase in court gossip. “The Museum of the Congo is important to my legacy. We will not be late for the dedication, Marie,” he objected in his usual mild tone. She said nothing further, and he resumed his progress down the passage to the palace’s exit.

Outside, the sky’s silver overcast was brighter than any light Leopold had experienced in more than a month. Perhaps he ought not to have confined himself so long. It didn’t seem to have decreased the apparitions. Nigger visions had plagued him night and day. Sometimes they held up their bleeding, handless arms, shaking them accusingly. Gore fountained and dripped from their wounds, yet the carpets over which they passed remained stainless. Illusion only, but it would be a relief to be done with them.

He settled himself comfortably in the royal steam barouche. Marie Henriette hesitated a moment before climbing in beside him. Her fondness for horses was well known, but Leopold had explained patiently the need to show support for the manufacture of rubber and its essential role in modern mechanization. Absently, he patted the reinforced fabric of the seat cushion: water-repellent, elastically resilient, warm to the touch as—

Involuntarily he jerked away. He met the eyes of Driessen, his personal physician, taking the opposite seat. Poorly concealed concern peered back at him. Deliberately, the king set his hand back on the spot from which he’d removed it. When he could turn his head casually, as if taking in a passing prospect, he saw nothing more than a vague cloudiness roiling the air of the steam barouche’s interior. Arriving at the site of the museum and disembarking from the machine, he left it behind.

The quiet crunch of the gravel walk comforted him. Climbing granite steps to the half-round portico where he would speak, Leopold threw back his shoulders and gave Driessen and Marie Henriette what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Approaching the podium, he pulled his memorandum pad from his military-style jacket’s inner pocket and opened it to the relevant page. He looked out at an audience abruptly filled with hundreds of weeping black faces and with a cry let it fall to the ground.

A stifled gasp came from his queen, counterpoint to the sobs only he could hear. Then the pad was set into his nerveless hand, his fingers bent to curl around and hold it. Driessen. The physician was asking him something. Leopold nodded—he hadn’t heard the question clearly, but assumed it concerned his welfare. He would go on with his speech. Noblesse oblige.

“Learned and generous contributors to our great enterprise, the enlightenment of the savage inhabitants of heathen Africa,” he began, “it is with joy I invite you today to enter with me the magnificent edifice created to shelter the fruits of our noble laboring.” Continuation became easier with every word. With his mental faculties fully exercised by the demands of his oratory, Leopold’s visions faded till they were virtually invisible. To convince himself those faint specters were truly immaterial he had only to remind himself that mere minutes remained now till the appointment.