** 154/07/05/1977**ACCESS **
** SUBJECT%#HU$MAN**NAME%#ADAM@LAMB**99684^B8[9F **
** BEGIN TRANSMISSION **
"Certainly, sir. Would you like a bag?" She was already opening one up. Pure Streisand.
"No thanks," I said, and she tried not to look disappointed for the bag, which was still hanging there, its Yankee Doodle destiny unfulfilled. I noticed that. I notice a lot of things. So I snatched the silly thing up and gave a calming smile as I did. It's always easier, you know, to calm others down when you're not feeling so calm yourself. I think they call it empathy. The smile was wide. Lots of teeth. It said everything but eternal damnation. I returned to the sea.
The whole lot of them were moving slower now. The sun was low in the sky and would be setting soon - some of the shopkeepers had already shut down their tents, a crushing loss to those desperately seeking tiny heart-shaped sunglasses and plastic ninja accessory sets. I've been lucky in life, like I say, but it'd been a right Nixon of a day and I didn't feel too bad to see signs it would soon be over. Unfortunately, the ever-thinning crowds also meant I'd soon be easy prey for my newfound friend.
"Hello, Mr. Lamb," he said. I jumped. He'd been right behind me.
"You!" I yelled for no particular reason, whirling around to face him, man to man or whatever he thought he was.
"Yes, me. You must realize one cannot escape one's destiny."
"Stop talking like that! What the hell do you want?"
He wiped his face with his hand. "You're spitting as you talk, Mr. Lamb. It's unpleasant." He was right. I'd been trying to control that. "As for what I want, well, I want you." I bit my lip. "You've no choice in the matter either, your number's up and your stock's run down ... so to speak."
"You mean you're ..." Was he serious?
"Yes."
"And I'm ..." He couldn't be serious.
"Yes."
"But how did ..." He was serious.
"A bad batch of corndogs. I expect I'd be making more off today but those things just don't sell that well." He bent down a bit to wipe some of the powder off his expensive-looking black Bruno Magli shoes. "It's all about commodities, you understand." I coughed from the dust. If he was trying to scare me he was succeeding. I didn't let it show. "To business then?"
He stood up and grinned. It wasn't a calming grin, it was the grin of a financial demon in a three-piece herringbone suit. The light glinted unnaturally off his flawless white teeth and in the sun he really did look quite a bit like Alan Alda. He held his hand out and gestured for me to shake it. I didn't. He grimaced and took it back.
"You're not being very cooperative, Mr. Lamb."
"Well, who would be?"
"Most are, in fact. You'd be surprised. And rather than wasting my time you might as well face up to facts. Otherwise you're just standing in the way of business."
"You call this business? You're angling for my fenking soul, here!"
"It's you we're taking. The soul concept is just a complication. At any rate it's not yours to worry about anymore."
I glared at him stonily.
"All right. You wanna know all about it, what's going on? I'll show you." He reached behind him and something glowing popped into his hand. It was small, metallic, and covered with strange inscriptions. It had seven sides.
"What is it?"
"This, Mr. Lamb, is what eternity looks like."
** END TRANSMISSION **
** 153/07/05/1977**ACCESS **
** SUBJECT%#HU$MAN**NAME%#ADAM@LAMB**99684^B8[9F **
** BEGIN TRANSMISSION **
The Fourth of July bazaar on the green was on the fifth that year. The day was sweltering hot, the hottest of the year, if you believed the TV weathermen. I'd gone out anyway, figuring quite logically that weathermen were all idiots. Besides, I usually had good luck in things like that, it'd probably be a real beauty of a day. I'm a lucky guy. I'm not just saying that, it's true. I'd been lucky with business, the law, love - I'd even been lucky with my first car. Got a damned good deal and then of all the license plates I coulda gotten, they gave me "777-ASL." Three lucky sevens, and my very own initials. How lucky can a guy get, eh?
But that day hadn't started off well. I'd suffered a nasty spill first thing - tripped over a homeless man who looked a bit like Richard Nixon. It'd gone downhill from there and by the time the clock on the green struck three I was bruised, woozy, sweating, and staring at cheap plastic crap at some awful 5th of July bazaar on the hottest frigging day of the year, feeling dazed and subhuman and wishing I hadn't eaten the only thing I'd eaten all day which was a pushcart corndog. I'd promised myself, I'd sworn off crap food on doctor's orders, but I was hungry and out-of-myself enough to snag just one corndog, which promptly set about making me sick.
Today the green was decked-out with streamers, flags, and the standard plastic crap (of course), set up in booths so the trashmen wouldn't take it. It looked like a circus. It didn't usually. On an ordinary day the most interesting thing on the green was a small half-burnt wooden wall of pikes on which strange clumps of reddish ivy grew in any season. The story went that it had had some religious purpose in some silly century or somesuch. It wasn't worth caring about, but apparently someone did for it for it to stay up so long. It had a brass plaque identifying it as historical. It was ugly enough that it'd have to be. I staggered past it to one of the booths. They were all pretty much the same. This one was peddling a necessity of life it called the "Yankee Doodle Hat" -- an ugly cardboard thing with a purple feather sticking out the top, covered with stylized drawings of macaroni. They were collapsible - you could stick 'em in your pocket - and the kids were begging and pleading with their folks to cough up $2.95 for 'em. I'd have shuddered if I'd had the strength. As it happened I simply lost balance and fell down onto the grass.
"Mr. Lamb? Mr. Adam Lamb?" A gravelly hiss of a voice, now. A man slid into view standing over me. I had to say something, so I said :
"Hunh?"
"You are Adam Lamb?" He was rather short but dressed like a rich lawyer in a grey three-piece herringbone suit. He had a trustable face and looked a bit like Alan Alda.
"Uh, yeah, why?"
"We have business to discuss."
"Hell, I hope not."
"Watch your language." His eyes narrowed into pale slits. He reached down and picked me up with one hand. I thought that rather odd. I also thought it odd that despite an otherwise immaculate wardrobe he had bits of white powder all over his expensive-looking black Bruno Magli shoes. A cokehead, I thought. Explains everything. "You're looking at my shoes, I see. The dust is soul residue."
"Never heard that name for it before but all right."
"I deal in souls, you see. We like to think of them as little projects. Every one is important; they're quite desirable as commodities go."
Clearly a lunatic. Possibly dangerous. I laughed, in spite of myself. "So, you're from ..." I pointed upwards.
"No, no, though they are a close competitor of ours, I ..." He suddenly trailed off, as junkies often do, and stared in horror at one of those Yankee Doodle hats. I knew the feeling, but I'd had enough of hell for one day so I left the missionary alone with his thoughts and escaped into the crowd.
They were packed like sardines, a great throbbing sea of humanity, and just as salty with perspiration. I gagged from the stench and in a moment's inattention got pushed back out into plasticland again.
I looked up at yet another shopkeeper, keeping shop in her tent. She smiled at me. I smiled back. She had a big nose and looked like Barbra Streisand. What she had to sell was basically more silly hats. Damnation-repellent. I chuckled to myself. It was too good to resist.
"One Yankee Doodle, please," I said, and felt lucky enough not to regret it later.
** END TRANSMISSION **
** 155/07/05/1977**ACCESS **
** SUBJECT%#HU$MAN**NAME%#ADAM@LAMB**99684^B8[9F **
** BEGIN TRANSMISSION **
"But it's just a ..." I was shaking, without knowing why.
"I can understand if you don't recognize it. Very few humans ever get to actually see time. Go on, touch it."
I reached out, but stopped myself. I looked up at the Alda-thing with something that was supposed to be defiance.
"It won't hurt you," he said.
I touched it. It rippled like water.
"This is the standard size we use. Everything has to be codified, you see, else it doesn't work. Like A4 and the metric system in Europe, or your silly American systems. This little chunk would comprise seven of what you call minutes. How your kind were able to figure out the standard measurements of time is beyond me." He looked me over with a predatory eye. "And probably beyond you as well. Yes, well, here we are, here are your chips," he produced three of the little seven-sided things as if this were some bizarre game of poker, "and we'll be off now, eh?"
"Huh?"
He gave a look of acute boredom. "Your project is through, Mr. Lamb, and it has been purchased by us. You will be given three chips worth seven minutes each ..."
"Seven ... that's twenty-one minutes! The afterlife lasts twenty-one minutes?"
He rolled his eyes and gave a deep sigh. "You're not dealing with some two-bit brokerage here, Mr. Lamb. We take custody of your soul for eternity. We just have to cut costs a little. Our competitors have squandered away their resources offering the nonviable a glorified sensory amusement park. Even if we could afford such, it arouses contempt and is financial suicide."
"But ... twenty-one minutes?"
"We select three consecutive seven-minute blocks from your original run, so to speak, and program you into repeats."
"Like syndication?"
He glared. "How you humans keep from committing suicide from depression on account of your own stupidity I'll never understand. It is simply a loop. We try to put the three in the right order, and off you go to cost-effective eternity."
"And that's what hell is?"
His eyes flashed red. "Watch your language. But yes, you have the essential idea. We've working on our image of late as there were complaints, but we still as always pride ourselves on excellence in giving your kind what they deserve."
"But the twenty-one minutes - what if they were a really nice time in the person's life?"
He almost gave a genuine laugh. "Ah yes, the age-old question. Let me tell you a story. One of my first projects was a poet from Spain. His twenty-one were the best of his life. On vacation in the islands, enjoying great food, fine drink, crystal waters, good music and the company of a woman he loved more than anything else in the world."
"So what happened?"
"After about a hundred replays he started to feel detached, hollow. He couldn't change things and felt cut-off and ill. He realized that no matter how much pleasure he was enjoying it had all ended. He began to hate the taste of wine and lobster. And depression over never being able to spend more than a shallow twenty-one with the woman of his dreams faded to analysis of every pore in her face, and everything began to disgust him more and more until he, like all the others, went completely insane for the rest of eternity." He paused and gave me another lookover. "You oughtta have a quick time of it. Shall we go now?"
Defiant look again. "The hell I will."
"WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!" His head rose up five feet from his body, flesh stretching taut and transparent and pulsating with flame, hate and atomic death. He recovered, and smiled in an uncalming way. "Heh heh. Sorry. So if you're quite ready ..."
"Just one last thing."
"What is it NOW?" Small spires of black flame shot from his eyes.
"Isn't there some way to stop the process?"
"You mean, loopholes?"
"Yes."
He paused a moment in thought. "After the transfer has been set into motion, no. But all our agents have one legal weakness."
"What might that be?"
His brow furrowed, then smoothed itself out again. "I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to tell you now. All right - we cannot take over a terminated project if that project is carrying ... a feather."
I nearly laughed. "A feather?"
"A purple feather, in fact. Tradition leaned a bit toward the superstitious then. Thankfully it's not the sort of thing most people carry with them at the end."
"Lucky for you, eh?"
"Yes, and lucky for fashion. Enough. Come with me." He turned and went. I followed. He walked like a lawyer too, though in his increasing frustration he'd grown a tail and that gave him away. He was heading toward the wall of burnt pikes and ivy. I'd guessed he might. He was doing a rather silly-looking slow solo dance and placing the little chips and myself in some sort of order on the wall, and was just about done with whatever he was trying to do when I took my final purchase out from my pocket and waved it at him.
He gave a look of horror. I gave my most calming smile. And the pleasant little demon in the three-piece herringbone suit who looked from certain angles just like Alan Alda collapsed into dust on the ground.
There was a strange noise like all the sounds being pouring like water back into an silent world, and I fell heavily off the ivy wall and was free. Peeling myself off the ground I saw a subtly-horned skull lying awkwardly atop two expensive-looking black Bruno Magli shoes, now dusty beyond recognition. I laughed at my own dumb luck.
I'd been lucky in business, crushing every competitor to reach the top. I'd been lucky with the law - throwing a little money about in the right places never hurt anyone. I'd been lucky in love - none of my wives had pressed charges. And now I'd been lucky enough to beat the forces of hell itself. I noticed the three timechips were still there, lying around me; they'd not been cashed in yet. I laughed at them too, and picked them up to take with me as souvenirs, absentmindedly wondering how they worked anyway.
There was a flash. I dropped my hat.
** END TRANSMISSION **
** 154/07/05/1977**ACCESS **
** SUBJECT%#HU$MAN**NAME%#ADAM@LAMB**99684^B8[9F **
** BEGIN TRANSMISSION **
"Certainly, sir. Would you like a bag?" She was already opening one up. Pure Streisand.
"No thanks," I said, and she tried not to look disappointed for the bag, which was still hanging there, its Yankee Doodle destiny unfulfilled. I noticed that. I notice a lot of things. So I snatched the silly thing up and gave a calming smile as I did ...
Property of Orange Cow Productions. ninc., 1999. This piece may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, altered, forwarded, or otherwise worked with in any way without the express written consent of Orange Cow Productions, ninc. We can be reached at ocpmovie (at) lycos.com.