James Gunn: Wherever you may be

Matt sighed. It was not Abbie’s fault. If it was anyones fault, it was his. Inevitably, he would pay for it. The Universe has an immutable law of action and reaction.

It was dark as Matt drove along Seventh Street. The night was warm, and the infrequent street lights were only beacons for night-flying insects. Matt turned a corner and pulled up in front of a big old house surrounded by an ornamental iron fence. The house was a two-story stucco, painted yellow — or perhaps it had once been white — and the fence sagged in places.

Most of the houses in Lawrence are old. The finest and the newest are in the west, on the ridge overlooking the Wakarusa Valley, but university professors cannot afford such sites or such houses.

Matt rang the bell. In a moment the door opened. Blinking out of the light was Professor Franklin, his faculty adviser.

"Matt!" Franklin said. "I didn’t recognize you for a second. What are you doing back so soon? I thought you were secluded in the Ozarks. Don’t tell me you have your thesis finished already?"

"No, Dr. Franklin," Matt said wearily, "but I’d like to talk to you for a moment if you can spare the time."

"Come in, come in. I’m just grading some papers." Franklin grimaced. "Freshman papers."

Franklin led the way into his book-cluttered study off the living room. His glasses were resting on top of a pile of papers. He picked them up, slipped them on, and turned to Matt. He was a tall man, a little stooped now in his sixties, with gray, unruly hair.

"Matt!" he exclaimed. "You aren’t looking well. Have you been sick?"

"In a way," Matt said, "you might call it that. How would you treat someone who believes in the reality of psychic phenomena?"

Franklin shrugged. "Lots of people believe in it and are still worthwhile, reliable members of society. Conan Doyle, for instance — "

And could prove it," Matt added.

"Hallueinations? Then it becomes more serious. I suppose psychiatric treatment would be necessary. Remember, Matt, I’m a teacher, not a practitioner. But look here, you aren’t suggesting that — ?"

Matt nodded. "I can prove it, and I don’t want to. Would it make the world any better, any happier?"

"The truth is always important — for itself if for nothing else. But you can’t be serious — "

"Dead serious." Matt shivered. "Suppose I could prove that there were actually such things as levitation, teleportation, telepathy. There isn’t any treatment, is there, Professor, when a man goes sane?"

"Matt! You are sick, aren’t you?"

"Suppose," Matt went on relentlessly, that your glasses should float over and come to rest on my nose. What would you say then?"

"I’d say you need to see a psychiatrist," Franklin said worriedly. "You do, Matt."

His glasses gently detached themselves and floated leisurely through the air and adjusted themselves on Matt’s face. Franklin stared blindly.

"Matt!" he exclaimed, groping. "That isn’t very funny."

Matt sighed and handed the glasses back. Franklin put them back on, frowning.

"Suppose," Matt said, "I should float in the air?" As he spoke, he felt himself lifting.

Franklin looked up. "Come down here!"

Matt came back into his chair.

"These tricks," Franklin said sternly, "aren’t very seemly. Go to a doctor, Matt. Don’t waste any time. And," he added, taking off his glasses and polishing them vigorously, "I think I’ll see my oculist in the morning."

Matt sighed again. "I was afraid that was the way it would be. Abbie?"

Franklin stared.

"Yes, Mr. Wright." The words, soft and gentle, came out of mid-air.

Franklin’s eyes searched the room frantically.

"Thanks," Matt said.

"Leave this house!" Franklin said, his voice trembling, "I’ve had enough of these pranks!"

Matt got up and went to the front door. "I’m afraid Dr. Franklin doesn’t believe in you. But I do. Good-by, Dr. Franklin. I don’t think a doctor would cure what I’ve got."

When he left, Franklin was searching the living room.

There was something strangely final about the drive through the campus. Along Oread Street on top of Mount Oread, overlooking the Kaw Valley on the north and the Wakarusa on the south, the university buildings stood dark and deserted. Only the Student Union was lighted and the library and an occasional bulletin board. The long arms of the administration building were gloomy, and the night surrounded thee white arches of Hoch Auditorium…

He pulled into the parking area behind the apartment building and got out and walked slowly to the entrance. He hoped that Guy wouldn’t be in.

Matt opened the door. The apartment was empty. He turned on a living room lamp. The room was in typical disarray. A sweater on the davenport, books in the chair.

In the dark, Matt went to the kitchen. He bumped into the stove and swore, and rubbed his hip. Mary had a little lamb … Somewhere around here…

Some hidden strength kept Matt from dropping in his tracks. He should have collapsed from exhaustion and hunger long ago. But soon there would be time to rest… and everywhere that Mary went … He stooped. There it was. The sugar. The sugar. He had always liked blue sugar.

He found a package of cereal and got the milk from the refrigerator. He found a sharp knife in the drawer and sliced the box in two. He dumped the contents into a bowl and poured the milk over it and sprinkled the sugar on top. The blue sugar… with fleece as white as snow … He was very sleepy.

He lifted a spoonful of the cereal to his mouth. He chewed it for a moment. He swallowed…

And it was gone.

He grabbed the knife and plunged it toward his chest.

And his hand was empty.

He was very sleepy. His head drooped. Suddenly it straightened up. The hissing had stopped. A long time ago. He turned on the light and saw that the burner was turned off, the one that never lighted from the pilot, the one he had stumbled against.

The blue insect poison had failed and the knife and the gas.

He felt a great wave of despair. It was no use. There was no way out.

He walked back to the living room, brushed the sweater off the davenport, and sat down. The last hope — beyond which there is no hope — was gone. And yet, in a way, he was glad that his tricks had not worked. Not that he was still alive but because it had been the coward’s way. All along he had been trying to dodge the only solution that faced him at every turn. He had refused to recognize it, but now there was no other choice.

It was the hard way, the bitter way. The way that was not a quick death but a slow one. But he owed it to the world to sacrifice himself on the altar he had raised, under the knife he had honed, wielded by the arm that he had given strength and skill and consciousness.

He looked up. "All right, Abbie," he sighed. "I’ll marry you."

The words hung in the air. Matt waited, filled with a fear that was half hope.

Was it too late for anything but vengeance?

But Abbie filled his arms, cuddled against him in homely blue gingham, scarcely bigger than a child but with the warmth and softness of a woman. She was more beautiful than Matt had remembered. Her arms crept around his neck.

"Will you, Mr. Wright?" she whispered. "Will you?"

A vision built itself up in his mind. The omniscient, omnipotent wife, fearsome when her powers were sheathed, terrible in anger or disappointment. No man, he thought, was ever called upon for greater sacrifice. But he was the appointed lamb.

He sighed. "God help me," he said, "I will."

He kissed her. Her lips were sweet and passionate.

Matthew Wright was lucky, of course, far luckier than he deserved to be, than any man deserves to be.

The bride was beautiful. But more important and much more significant —