The Short Life

by Francis Donovan

  VI

  Indian summer now lay softly upon the land.

  On a wooded rise ten miles from the outskirts of the town, close bya bluff overlooking the bushland, the tan walls of a small tent warmedto the late afternoon sun. Here and there beyond the bushland thesupper-smoke of scattered farms stood columned and motionless. The onlysound on the still air was the harsh, labored breathing of the dyingHomer.

  The dog lay in the open near the edge of the bluff, his eyes closed, hiscompanions seated nearby. Phil had brought Timmy on a week-end campingtrip that now appeared spoiled at the outset, for the short, steep climbup the bluff had unexpectedly proven too much for old gray-muzzle. Histrembling legs had barely carried him to the top before he collapsed,and now it was only a question of how long he must suffer beforerelease. Phil glanced toward a .22 rifle lying with their gear. It wouldbe more merciful.

  "No, Uncle Phil. He'll live until sundown at least. Let him have thatmuch."

  "I'm sorry this happened, Timmy, but now that it has I think we shouldmake it easier for him."

  "You liked him, didn't you, Uncle Phil?"

  "Yes, Tim ... I'm a bit surprised to find that I really did. I can't saythat I'm much of an animal-lover, but in his way Homer was the perfectOld Faithful. No beauty and not very bright, you must admit, but henever left your side. It won't seem the same."

  "It won't _be_ the same, Uncle Phil." The boy raised his head to lookover the distant bushland. His face was composed.

  "Timmy, I hesitate to say this, but--"

  "I don't seem very upset about it?"

  "Well, yes. Did you really care much for Homer? You never paid anyattention to him, never petted or played with him, just let him tagalong."

  "I had no need to pet or play with him, and it was enough that he giveme all of his attention. I should have spared a thought for him, hisneeds and limitations, but it's too late now." The answering voice wassubtly changed from that of a boy, and strangely gentle. "A dog's lifeis so short, hardly more than today and tomorrow. A breath or two, andit has begun and ended. When Homer dies he will be free, and I will nolonger exist."

  A chill slid over the man.

  What makes a voice? Air and musculature and tissue, but what more?A brain, a mind--a life. An accumulative series of reactive patternscalled Life grows like a fragile crystal around a seeding impulsethat lacks a name acceptable to all, and the resulting structure iscalled "personality" or "character" and it influences what it touchesin a manner peculiar to itself alone. Given the crude tools of asound-producing mechanism it will, if it chooses and has the skill,disclose some trifle of its own true nature. Phil heard words thatshould have sounded idiotic coming from a boy, but they carried completeand instant conviction. Without elocutionary tricks, without fire andoratory, the boy-voice had changed in timbre, acquired a quality thatcould sway multitudes--the wild thought crossed Phil's mind that whatit had acquired was the quality of complete sanity.

  A suspicion, planted deliberately and nurtured through the years,matured on the triggered instant. Phil twisted around--alert, wary,almost hostile, his eyes searching the somewhat bony young face. Hisgaze was returned steadily, with assured composure.

  * * * * *

  "Who are you?" he demanded bluntly. "_What_ are you?"

  Timmy laughed lightly, patently at ease.

  "I am nothing, Phil. Nothing at all."

  "Rot. You are flesh and blood, human, and were born to Helen and Jerry.What else?"

  "Is there more?"

  "Stop playing!" Phil jumped up angrily, standing tall over the seatedfigure. "I've watched you for years. You've given yourself awayrepeatedly."

  "Ah, that 'advanced scientific knowledge' worried you badly, didn't it?"

  "I ... see. You revealed it deliberately. There are other things. Youraversion to crowds--"

  "Their thinking confused me. They were dangerous."

  "Were?"

  "After tonight, crowds will not matter."

  "Because Homer will be dead?"

  "Because Homer will be dead, poor beast. My conscience will be dead."

  "What on earth does that mean? I find it impossible either to doubt youor to think of you as a boy any longer."

  "That is because your mind is filled with uncertainties, mine withcertainties. You have never before met anyone in whom certainty was aclear truth unquestioned on any level of any remote corner of the mind.I am such a one."

  Phil sat down helplessly. There was no point in standing. Whatever Timwas, he was not going to be dominated by tricks.

  "_What are you?_"

  "What can I say? I am a book that is being read, yet I am neither thepages nor the printing on the pages, but only the meaning inherent inthe shapes and sequences of the letters that comprise the printing."

  "Can't you give me a straight answer?"

  "It is difficult. You must think about what I say."

  "But the ideas recorded in a book are merely--thoughts. They have notangible existence."

  "Nor have I."

  "You're not a product of my imagination!"

  "Hardly."

  "Are you giving me that line about 'All is Illusion'?"

  "No," the boy laughed spontaneously.

  "Are you a mutant, a new evolutionary development?"

  "No, nor am I a machine or a monster."

  "At least you're alive!"

  "That, I think, is a matter of definition."

  "Then, for the third time, what are you! Stop baiting me!"

  * * * * *

  Timmy's hand closed on Phil's--a firm, warm, dirty and somewhatcalloused boy's hand that was unquestionably flesh, blood and bone.

  "Take it easy, Uncle Phil." Perhaps he had pushed too hard. The dancingeyes veiled themselves a little and the intangible, indescribablemagnetism somehow faded. Phil, looking at him, was suddenly able tosee him and to think of him once more as Timmy, a boy with unusualqualities, but the same boy he had watched for years. He shook his headand felt somewhat bemused, as he had done once before.

  "Look, let's get a fresh start, Tim, and stop going in circles."

  "O. K., Uncle Phil." He was an eleven-year-old again, respondingobediently.

  "I've suspected for years that we didn't know the truth about you--thatyou were something special, something new."

  "Well--" Tim appeared to consider it gravely. "Yeah, I guess that's fairenough. I'm something new, all right."

  "For years, then, you've been concealing something--something thatshowed through whenever you made a slip."

  "Wanna bet on how many of those slips were deliberate?" Tim challenged,then joined Phil's rueful laugh. "Not all of them were, I got to admit,but most of them."

  "But today--apparently because Homer is dying--you've abandonedpretense, come out in the open."

  "Not all the way out, not yet. You've still got some shocks coming,Uncle Phil."

  "I don't doubt it, you young hoodlum. You were pretty overwhelming therefor a few minutes. But why all the mystery? Why not just tell me?"

  "You explained why."

  "Overwhelming? Are you that terrific?"

  "I'm a humdinger, Bub. Think you can stand it now?"

  "I think the full blast would be better than any more of your 'gentle'hints."

  "That's what you think." Come now, the first shock had been fairlyneatly delivered and fielded after all, the concept of differenceproposed, established and accepted. "Well, here goes. You rememberthat spray of flowers I handed you in the car that night?"

  "I've had my suspicions about them ever since."

  "O. K.--now smell this pine cone."

  Phil looked at it with distrust.

  "The thing that beats me is how I can be morally certain that pine coneis loaded, cocked, and ready to fire, and yet I take it," he let Tim putit in his hand, "and smell it." He raised it to his nostrils, held hisbreath for a moment, then gingerly sniffed.

  * * *
* *

  Time stopped.

  All sense of duration was gone. Awareness drifted in formlessinattention until a focal point, a mere nucleus of intellect, capturedand held it. The nucleus strengthened, became an impression ofidentity--not his own identity, nor any that he knew, but that ofsome Other. From this other presence came insistently the warmth andgentleness of good will, an unreserved outpouring that sought to evokean unreserved response.

  Isolation, the sanctum of the mind, took the assault, melting like anice-castle in the sun--but before the tempting surrender could becomeirrevocable alarms rang through his being and his mind gathered in onitself in confusion, holding its isolation intact and inviolate. Throughthe opposing desires to yield and to withhold, to break barriers downand to raise them up, he detected from the Other a reaction both of pityand of revulsion. The pressure decreased. He knew then that what heyielded willingly would be accepted as sufficient, and no more be askedof him than he was capable of giving. Somehow, it was not a victory, buta defeat.

  He became aware that the private domain he had claimed for his own wastruly his own, a corridored, compartmented, dungeoned storehouse offiled fancies and forgotten files. A tunneled, revetted, embrasured andbattlemented citadel filled with rusty armor and broken lances. A hockshop, a junkyard, a hall of distorting mirrors. A cemetery by the sea,a peak of glory, a slough of despond. A radiant light, an encroachingdark, the sweetest of melody, the sourest of discord. A library oftrivia, museum of curiosa, sideshow of freaks, and shrine of greatness.It was the lowering pendulum, the waiting pit, the closing walls. It wasthe vaulting spirit, the gallant heart, the just and the kind and themerciful. Withal, it was a haunted castle, perpetually besieged, thetowers soaring but the structure toppling. It was himself. His memories,his experiences, his actions and reactions, his life. And it wasappalling.

  A gentle prompting from the Other roused him from his self-immersionand for a moment he was all panic lest his secret had been observed.Mechanisms he had not known he possessed slammed doors and bangedshutters over windows in a fine frenzy, so that the Other winced andfell back, pleadingly, then softly and insistently drew near once more.He realized that there was a purpose that must be served. Something wasdesired from him. A voice. He tried, and the croak of a clogged throatwould have held as much meaning as the disharmonious thrust of thoughtthat began in chaos and ended in futility. Abashed, he would not tryagain. Silence crept around him, the silence of isolation.

  The most disarmingly hesitant, the most reassuringly inoffensive ofthoughts touched as lightly as a breath and was accepted as his own.He saw no cause to take alarm. Such an insignificant invasion was of nomore moment than the blowing of a grain of dust beneath a locked door.

  The thought lay among his own, and moved like a thread through his own,and the elements that it drew together became the acceptance of an idea.Secure in his ill-kept citadel, he permitted a rapport so tenuous hecould break it at will, yet so strong that--