Edgar Doctorow - All the Time in the World

But now the crowd, having packed itself tight and motionless, grows still, as all the buzzing signs shut off one by one and the video screens go blank and in the natural light of day an enormous stage rises into view in the heart of Times Square. I fight my way forward and the crowd parts for me.

Seated on the stage is an ensemble of what must be a thousand children, the boys in white shirts and red ties, the girls in white middies with red neckerchiefs, and the violin sections waiting with violins tucked under their chins and bows raised, and the little cellists hunched over their cellos, and the dozens of bassists half hidden behind their basses, and the rows of horn players with their arrayed horns catching the sun, and timpanists triple the usual number waiting with earnest intrepid faces, and banks of child harpists at either end framing it all in celestial gold. A thousand dutiful faces are raised to the conductress who has taken her place at the podium, in her long white gown. She lifts her arms, her chin rises, down comes the baton, and I have to choke back the tears because this is the famous Children’s Orchestra of the Universe and they are playing “Welcome Sweet Springtime” only slightly off key.

I am overwhelmed with emotion and find myself crying with remorse for a life almost too painful to endure.

ELBOWING MY WAY through the rapt crowd into one of the side streets, I run heedlessly, crossing avenues where, as if there were no concert back in Times Square, people are going about their ordinary business, dog walkers walking packs of dogs on leashes, joggers jogging, old women with walkers, cars unmoving, the drivers having gotten out to stand by their open doors.

A block or two farther west, I run up the steps and through the oak doors of a steepled church of black stone. It is cold and damp here and smells of cement. Empty pews. Banks of votive candles in little red glasses. I spy a filigreed door off to the side, open it, and step into a box-like container with a bench, and I know exactly what to say because I desperately mean it.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned.

I’m sorry, that is the one consolation we do not offer.

Well then, what consolations do you offer?

The corporeal illusion. A gender identity.

What is the corporeal illusion?

A euphemism for the disgusting belief that you inhabit a body.

Wait just a minute. Is that a consolation, a priest telling me I am an illusion of myself?

And cultural memory. That’s nothing to sneeze at. You should be thankful for that. Keeping you within what you knew. Enswathing you in what was.

Enswathing me? Enswathing me?

The ultimate consolation is forgetfulness, of course. There is progressive awareness, but to a point. So that you know but don’t know. So that you have to be told again and again. Until …

Until what?

… an untreated sentience is required. But at this moment you have all the time in the world.

I have all the time in the world.

Yes.

Until sentience is required.

Yes.

And when will that be?

When something happens.

What can happen?

If we knew.

BACK IN TIMES SQUARE and not a soul is in sight. In the cavernous emptiness the buzzing of the Broadway signs is like the roar of machinery. I dodge into a movie. Nobody there to sell me a ticket. Nobody selling popcorn. I’m the only one in the theater. The picture shows a dark red sky as if the world is burning. A hot wind blows litter along the streets of a city. Torn plastic garbage bags rolling about, paper trash spinning in the air. Violins in pieces, smashed underfoot. No cars, no traffic. Where buildings stood, craters, piles of rubble, and pikes of twisted steel. Overhead, the sky has turned into a bronze vault with clouds the color of smoke drifting fast. I don’t understand this film. What has happened? Water flows through the streets. Human shadows bounding ahead, looming, racing backward. There appears a Chinese man bicycling furiously, his balloon tires leaving a track in the water. A moment later a pack of yelping dogs splashing after him. Now sirens, I hear sirens.

It is all too real for my taste. I leave. When I reach my block, I am almost surprised to find it up and standing. I have lost my sense of time. What time is it? What day is it? The doorman nods. The elevator works. I close my door behind me and listen to my own breathing. Having expanded my horizons, I know for a certainty I am a deportee. I am in the wrong place.

Is this, in fact, my apartment? There is food in the refrigerator that is not my food. There are pictures on the wall of people I don’t know. And then the changed pattern in the carpet.

I open the doors to the little terrace and step into the mild evening air. The lights of the city are on. Across the way a Buddhist monk is dancing with the naked girl. I must speak to somebody.

At this moment I understand that I don’t need a cell phone and never have.

To whom am I thinking? Is it the Program?

Yes.

I have questions to which I expect answers.

Are you calm?

I am quite calm.

What do you want to know?

I have not believed in where I am for a long time. Why should I pretend otherwise?

Do you have a question that isn’t rhetorical?

Where is this? What city is this? Because it’s not my city.

We admit we achieved something less than perfection.

Is that an answer?

We didn’t, like you, have all the time in the world. Time was of the essence.

Why was time of the essence?

You already know the answer to that.

I do?

Of course. You saw what happened.

I did?

Yes.

Everybody else is gone.

True.

And now it’s just me. With only the phantom multitudes to keep me company.

Yes. We determined that procreation simply made no sense. It was cyclical and hadn’t gotten us anywhere.

Procreation hadn’t gotten us anywhere?

Correct. And because time was of the essence we chose the most logical course. Otherwise we would have been left no possibility of knowing.

Knowing what?

What we don’t know.

I can’t accept this. There have to be others.

We can’t confirm or deny. But, in fact, the enormous work was archival. And we ran out of time.

Then this is it? Then I am truly the only one? I’m the chosen one?

You could put it that way. Although who it would be was the least of our concerns. Once we had the means, and knew of what we were capable, everything fell away that wasn’t relevant. It was a glorious finale for us.

A glorious finale for you.

Glorious meaning having the quality of glory. Finale meaning final act.

Enough!

You said you were calm.

I am no longer calm — I wash my hands of this!

That may be a synecdoche.

That is not a synecdoche!

It may be a metonym.

It is not a metonym! I never consented to this. You have put me here without my consent! I have my rights! Are you listening?

Just a moment please. Just a moment please …

Yes? Talk to me!

Just a moment. Just — We don’t know if there is the possibility of an answer. But if there is, the revelation will be yours.

What?

If something is to be revealed, it will be to you.

Oh no. No.

The revelation, if there is one, will be yours.

No, no, no, no, no! I still have options. Every living thing has options.

You are no longer corporeally equipped to have options.

Program, listen to me. Can you listen? You’ve made an error.

We’ll be the judge of that.

Please. I beg you—

You’ll feel better shortly.

Let me be nothing, I want to be nothing!

There is no nothing. If there were nothing, it would be something.

THE SKY HAS TURNED a deep blue. There is a stillness in the city. The air is warm. I feel the lightest, gentlest of breezes. I climb onto the terrace railing. I can see the stars emerging as clearly as if I were in Mongolia.