Damon Knight - Orbit 18

The park looked peaceful. The children who frequented it at lunchtime were back in their classes now. It might feel good to rest there quietly for a while. But as she turned to cross the street she felt afraid. Of what? Madness? Merely because of a sudden, vivid memory earlier in the day? The light changed, but she didn’t cross. Even from here she could see the leaves twirling in the breeze. Once as children she and some friends had gathered them all together with only their hands to use as rakes. And when the pile was huge, they had each jumped in. Madness, it occurred to her, might be a giving in to one’s irrational feelings.

Even so, on her way to the footbridge she was careful not to look at the colors. It felt good to sit down. The day had been trying and she was more tired than she had guessed. She stared absently at the falls. A breeze blew up from the water, gradually coating her glasses with mist. It didn’t really matter; she would wipe them when she was ready to leave. Her thoughts moved idly and scattered. The roar of the falls, a slow beat of waves, Paul called her out where it was deep, Mae printed large letters in the sand, she tried to see the word, the letters blurred, were shapeless colors, her head fell forward, “Ocean?” and she awoke. This time it didn’t surprise her to discover that no one was there. It had been an oddly characterless voice, not really a sound at all. Undoubtedly a dream. But even unemployed she was a teacher, and something in her wanted to respond to a question. Curiosity, the most precious of human assets, must be preserved. She smiled at herself and got up to leave.

“Ocean?” and a feeling without a word.

She froze, trying desperately to think of a reason. A trick? Slowly she turned her head. No, no one was anywhere nearby. And then again she felt without a word, but this time she realized what it should be and whispered, “Please.”

“Ocean? Please. Ocean?”

She ran. Unable to help herself. Stumbling and getting up again. She ran.

“What happened?”

Margaret sat down at the table, her hands were still trembling. “Something startled me in the park.”

“You’re cut.” Emma ran a washcloth under the tap. “What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

Emma started to wash her knee, but Margaret took the cloth from her and did it herself.

“I mean, what startled you?”

“Maybe I was dreaming.” The soapy water stung.

Margaret lay in bed and read as long as she could. Finally, reluctantly, she closed the book and turned out the light.

Toward morning, she dreamed that she was walking by the abandoned factory near the falls. As she passed a window some movement caught her eye and she paused. There was the dull, mechanical throb of machinery muffled by thick walls. It was difficult to see past her reflection but there seemed to be men inside, moving within the rhythm of their machines. They must be renting the old fabrics factory again. Someone came closer to the window and smiled, waving for her to come in. But she must be mistaken because she couldn’t possibly know anyone here. He disappeared again, back into the gloom. Perhaps upon a closer look he had realized that she was no one he knew. Yet there had been something familiar about him. If she could cup her hands around her eyes and lean against the glass, she might be able to block out her reflection. But a cement trench filled with dye blackened water separated her from the window. Then she remembered a door along the side of the building. Once, as children, she and Paul had peeked in on their way down the path that led to the falls. Had the man in the window resembled Paul?

It was difficult to find the path but finally she saw it, a thin line almost entirely overgrown. From here she could hear the distant roar of the falls. The door was unlocked but heavy, so much heavier than it used to be. As she got it open a crack, it seemed to her that someone was calling her name. But the voice was drowned by the deep, vibrating beat of machinery. As the door opened wider, the sound became deafening and then abruptly ceased.

A shaft of sunlight from the door lost itself somewhere within the dust-laden darkness. She must have been mistaken. The place was empty. Or was he in another room? She thought of going in, but hesitated, listening to the silence.

“Teacher.”

Mae stood a little way down the path toward the falls. There was a notebook in her hands and she was smiling.

Margaret closed the door and started down the path.

Emma had the coffee perking. “Up so early?” She knew that it was Margaret’s habit to sleep late when she wasn’t working.

“I have to go downtown.”

“I thought yesterday was your last day.”

“This has nothing to do with the Board of Education,” and then, knowing that Emma would never let it rest there, she added, "I just thought I’d do a little shopping.”

Emma smiled. “You’ll get over it.”

“What?”

“The restlessness. You’ll come to like retirement. What you need is a hobby.”

But she had tried retirement at sixty-five, losing her tenure only to find that for her nothing came even close to the pleasure of teaching. “It’s not as if you needed the money,” Reese had said. “After all, you have your pension.”

It was a cloudy day with a sharp, chilling wind. There was no rainbow at the falls, but the shifting colors were still there. She crossed the bridge and sat down at the same bench. Her heart was beating rapidly and she wondered if she was putting too much of a strain on it. The small park was deserted. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to relax her muscles. Then she closed her eyes and whispered, “Who are you?”

There was no reply. Here in the park she could smell the sweet scent of decaying leaves.

“Who are you?”

As she concentrated on listening, the roar of the falls seemed to grow louder.

“Who are you?”

She felt inside herself for a sense of an answer, but there was nothing there that she couldn’t identify as her own. She began to feel both relieved and disappointed. The monster was being exorcised, but so was something else.

“Where are you?”

Her hands were wet from the mist and getting cold. It was silly to stay. As she got up it occurred to her that students usually learned best when the new information was integrated with what they had learned before. She decided to try “Ocean.”

And was startled. Something. Not a word so much as a feeling of recognition. A feeling from outside herself.

"Where are you?” she asked again, but this time she tried to picture as well as speak the idea, and decided immediately that it would have been better to choose something more concrete. But before she could think of what to use, there was a reply.

“Ocean? Please. Where are you?”

Images accompanied the voiceless words. Images that were her own and yet somehow, now, no longer her own. Ocean was a complex set of sense impressions involving herself and Paul at Asbury Park, but seemed to lack any other meaning. “Please” was a need to know. And “Where are you?” was two children following a river.

She sensed without seeing—the infant colors shifting restlessly, eagerly, somewhere beneath the mist.

Margaret sat down again. A gust of wind rained leaves around her bench. Autumn, as every teacher knew, was a time for beginning.

Ain’t got nothing to do

But sing me the blues—

Hey, don’t God live out this far.

It figures, just as sure as shift-start, that on our big day there’d be trouble. It’s a law of physics, the one miners know best: things tend to fuck up.

I woke first out of the last of several nervous catnaps, and wandered down to the hotel bar to get something a little less heavyweight than the White Brother for my nerves. On one level I was calm as could be, but on another I was feeling a bit shaky (Shaky Barnes, that’s me). Now, we drank the Brother during performances back on the rocks, of course, between sets sitting at the tables, or during the last songs when someone offered it; and Hook would make his announcement, “We never know if this’ll make us play better or worse, but it sure is fun finding out,” and then pass it around. Which was the point; we had to play good this day, so I wanted something soothing, with a little less pop to it than the White Brother we’d brought with us, which amplifies your every feeling, including fear.