David Ambrose: Superstition

“Try me.”

There was a leather chair by the wall, its back and arms forming a single curve. Sam sat in it, taking a deep breath as he did so. Then he rested his forearms on his knees and turned his gaze upward on Ralph.

“I'm not going to offer any explanations for what I tell you. Not because there aren't any-there are too many, and none of them mean a damn thing. Beyond a certain point explanations are just new ways of asking the same question-they don't explain anything.”

“Okay,” Ralph said, folding his arms, “that's the preamble, now give me the speech.”

Sam looked down at the carpet, deciding where to begin. Then he sat back, spreading his arms along the arms of the chair.

“About a year ago, a group of us-including Joanna, the Joanna who was here last night-invented a ghost called Adam Wyatt. It was an experiment in psychokinesis-mind over matter. We made him up, his whole life story. We went through every record book imaginable to make sure that he didn't exist historically, and we found no trace of him. The point of the experiment was to see if we could create something that would, in one way or another, communicate with us.”

He paused, not taking his eyes off Ralph, who himself didn't move a muscle.

“Well, we succeeded beyond, you might say, our wildest dreams. Adam Wyatt didn't exist…but he began to communicate with us. And now, it seems, he does exist-or did. And that fact has had several remarkable consequences. You, for example. You wouldn't exist if Adam Wyatt hadn't lived. You're his direct descendant.”

Ralph was staring at Sam. He began to unfold his arms-very, very slowly. The movement reflected an awestruck utter disbelief in what he was being told.

“What in the name of all hell are you handing me here…?”

Sam held up a hand to forestall his protest. “I warned you that none of this would make sense.”

“Are you saying you made me up…?”

Sam made a loose gesture, part apologetic, part just conveying that he had no comment to make.

“And my parents,” Ralph continued, his voice rising with incredulity, “and their parents, and right on back to…?”

“I know,” Sam said. “I know how it must sound.”

“That's as crazy as the idea that God made the world yesterday, and hid the fossils in it to fool us!”

“Another of the consequences of Adam's coming into being,” Sam said, ignoring the other man's indignant astonishment, “is that those of us who created him…are ceasing to exist.”

Ralph snapped back his head as though injury had been added to the insult already on offer. “What the hell is that supposed to mean-ceasing to exist?”

“So far all the members of the original group who created Adam have died. With the exception of myself, and Joanna-the Joanna you met last night. And God alone knows what's happened to her.”

Ralph made an involuntary half-turn and looked back into the bathroom. From where he stood he could see “Help Me” scratched onto the mirror in reverse.

“I'm not insane, Ralph,” Sam said. “I know I'm not. Just as you know that you're not a figment of my imagination. The fact is that we're both of us stuck with-perhaps more accurately in-a very singular situation.”

Ralph looked at him and began to shake his head, slowly at first, then faster. “No…no, no, no, no no…this is nuts…this is just impossible…!”

Sam felt a profound sympathy for him at that moment, understanding how every fiber of his conscious being must be putting up a fight to reject what he was being told.

“The most frightening thing is,” Sam said quietly, leaning forward again, “is that anything's possible. When I tip over a bottle of ink, it's not impossible that all the molecules will get back together and retrace their path out of the tablecloth and back into the bottle. It's not impossible, just highly unlikely. It's probable that if you toss a coin a hundred times it'll come down fifty-fifty heads and tails, but it's also possible it could come down a hundred either way. Things are governed less by rules than gambler's odds.”

Ralph leaned toward him, like a stag locking horns. “I'm no scientist, but I know that Einstein said, ‘God does not play dice with the universe.’ Are you saying he was wrong?”

“That was a statement of faith, not science. Every time it's been tested by experiment, the dice theory has come out ahead. Which means we can't pretend that something isn't happening just by saying it's impossible. Because nothing's impossible!”

Sam's words hung in the air a moment, then Ralph crossed his arms at the wrist and flung them apart. It was the gesture of a man breaking invisible chains.

“No! I don't buy this! I just don't buy it! There has to be some proof, some evidence-at least other people, people I can talk to, somebody else who knew about this so-called experiment.”

Sam's voice was calm and level. “There is no proof, and no evidence. All the people who knew about the experiment, colleagues of mine who weren't involved in it but discussed it with me at the time, now remember nothing. Every trace of it has disappeared. It never happened.”

“So you're telling me there's only your word to support this whole story…?”

“My word-and the fact that someone vanished in this house last night. Someone you saw, spoke to, someone who even brushed past you as she came in the door. You're not going to pretend now that all that never happened, are you?”

Ralph opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to lose heart and instead just sank slowly down onto the edge of the bed, and buried his head in his hands.

“You know something really weird? It's crazy, but it's been bothering me ever since…” He lifted his head to look at Sam, his eyes reddened and pulled down by his fingertips.

“Last night, just for a second when I opened the door to her, that woman, I thought I knew her. It was that sense of deja vu-the way it happens, inexplicably. Something in me said, I know this woman from somewhere. Then I told myself I was imagining it-obviously because I'd heard about her from you, and then that phone call from Joanna's father.”

He paused, his eyebrows knitting in a frown. “I couldn't have seen her before, could I? How would it be possible?”

Sam debated whether to say what was in his mind. He decided they had now gone too far for him not to.

“Joanna- my Joanna-claims to have met you. It sounded pretty much like your meeting with your Joanna-horseback riding, the churchyard, Adam's grave. Except in her case it was three days ago-four now. And in your case it was a year ago.” He paused, then added, “And there didn't seem much chance that you'd be getting married.”

He had leaned forward again as he spoke. Now he sat back.

“That's it, Ralph. The best I can do. What you make of it is up to you.”

Ralph didn't move for some moments, just sat hunched where he was on the edge of his and his wife's untidy, slept-in bed, his hands pressed together and touching his mouth. Eventually he rose very slowly to his feet.

“Where do we go from here?” he said, his voice unsteady.

“I think you should go back to your wife. Be with her.”

“She asked me to bring you over. I said I would. She wants to know what you think about all this.”

Sam got to his feet. “I'll be glad to come with you.”

The other man shot him a hard look. “You stay away from her.”

Sam shrugged. “As you wish. But she's going to wonder why I won't talk to her. Or why you won't let me. And if she doesn't like your story, there's nothing to stop her from calling me. Then what will I say?”

Ralph thought this over. It was true: his wife wasn't the type to be easily fobbed off with excuses.

“Listen to me, Towne…” he began.