An Unusual Angle

by Greg Egan

  And then I encounter distribution problems. I write to ten different magazine distribution companies, sending them sample copies, and none of them even bothers to write back.

  And so there is only one market left open to me. The school. So I send a letter, and a copy, to the Principal. And wait.

  How could I do it?

  It was purely a business decision.

  Well I have to take some risks sometime.

  A day later coded currents surge through the intricate information network which enmeshes the school, and the speakers summon me; I am wanted immediately in the halls of power.

  Immediately is not strictly accurate. I stand outside the office waiting for fifteen minutes while he persuades an erring teacher to forget faulty thoughts on free thinking. Slimy yellow-green light, gas, thick fluid oozes out from under the door.

  Then I am ushered inside.

  —Sit down

  he says then does so himself, pushing the chair back and placing his feet firmly on the desk. Then, making strange, conspiratorial chuckling noises, he dons his glasses and squints at my letter, fumbles in a drawer for about a minute, finally finds a packet of cigarettes, takes one out, and begins to smoke it.

  With startling suddenness he drops the cigarette in an ash tray, removes his glasses, throws the letter down onto the desk, looks at me and smiles strangely, and says:

  —Now, about this. Very good. Very good indeed.

  He says ‘very’ by making a vvvv noise while shaking his head back and forth, then, after a fairly long time, saying ‘erry’ While he shakes his head his eyes are closed tight. But it is not a stutter.

  I make the oddly detached observation that I am sweating profusely all over, and the seat of the chair is vvvvery damp.

  —Certainly. Certainly you have my permission to sell these things in the school.

  Why does it sound like he’s talking about contraceptives?

  Well at least he’s said that so now I know all will be well I just have to survive for a few minutes surely he has nothing more to say.

  He senses my fear like a snake and says:

  —Well, don’t look too happy, will you? Haha!

  He desperately wants me to laugh but I cannot. This makes things worse. He now thinks of me as a specific human being, which is dangerous.

  —Come on, now, if I tell a joke, will you laugh? Huh?

  I stare at him. You are a bloody maniac, I think.

  —Trouble is, I can’t think of one right now. Except a dirty one, and we can’t have that, eh? Can’t have a headmaster telling dirty jokes to a student, eh?

  —No

  I agree in a whisper and smile weakly which is a mistake. He thinks he has degraded himself somehow in the conversation, and he is now on the defensive.

  —Of course, this stuff is a bit unusual. Very unusual. Have you shown this to the Senior English Master?

  —No

  I manage through a throat filled with sweat. I did not know the inside of my throat could sweat.

  —Well, you should. After all, this sort of thing is his business. Yes, you write from a very unusual angle. A very unusual angle.

  He leans over the desk and peers at me, as if waiting for me to defend my unusual angle. After about twenty seconds (not minutes? I guess not) he realises I’m not going to say anything and he goes on:

  —You know, I have this theory about people like you. People who do things like this when they’re young. When they’re very young. When I was very young, I was brilliant at filling inkwells. Top of the class all the time, even stunned the teachers. I was better than all of them.

  He smiles at his immodesty.

  —Well, I think people like that, people like us, are reincarnated. Perhaps I learned to fill inkwells in my previous life, and you were a writer in your previous life. That’s what I think. Of course, I’m no expert on this sort of thing, but I’ve been a teacher for years, I’ve studied education, and I’ve been a headmaster for five years, and I’ve got a pretty good idea about this sort of thing.

  He pauses, hoping I will agree or disagree but I am concentrating on a tiny patch of skin between his eyes, with a super telephoto setting. Examining tiny parasites.

  —You know, you should try getting this around to some other places. Not just here. I’m sure you could get some professional people to have a look at it, and get it around to some other places.

  —I tried, uh, I tried some distributors and they turned it down.

  My face is turned down. As if my heart is / pity-seeking.

  —Well. Mmmm. Well, perhaps I can help there. If I ring up a few people and say, ‘I’m Malcolm T. Seward, Principal of Fenkirk Vale Senior High School,’ we might be able to get some things done, eh? Of course, they won’t listen to me because I’m Malcolm T. Seward. That’s not very important, is it?

  He waits for an answer but gets none.

  —No, they’ll listen to me because I’m the Principal of Fenkirk Vale Senior High School. Yes, that’s why they’ll listen. Anyway, we’ll see what we can do about that.

  He seems to have come to a dead end. He sits perfectly still for a while, trying to remember what he should do next. Then he stands up, goes to the door, and opens it.

  —You show that to the Senior English Master. And good luck selling it. Yes. Anytime you want any help, just come and see me.

  —Thankyou

  I gurgle as my throat is filled with sweat.

  An ugly girl with stringy hair, chewing gum, and a blue tattoo on one shoulder looks up at me.

  —What was all that yellow muck?

  she asks.

  I leave, looking like I have been immersed in hair oil, and also not smelling terribly pleasant. My pulse, blood pressure, and respiration are all near fatal levels. I shut off all sensory inputs and stand still for a while until my metabolism is back to normal.

  I just can’t understand why I am so completely terrified of him.

  I try to sell the magazines at 20c each. On the first day I sell two. On the second day I sell none.

  I lower the price to 15c. On the first day I sell three. On the second day I sell one. On the third day I sell one. On the fourth day I sell none.

  I lower the price to 10c. On the first day I sell three. On the second day I sell one. On the third day I sell two. On the fourth day I sell none.

  I lower the price to 5c. I sell no more.

  I have sold a total of thirteen copies. I offer the rest free of charge. I give away two, due to the superb aerodynamic qualities of the paper.

  Then I give up.

  I stand at the far corner of the oval and I scream at the school:

  —You don’t deserve it, anyway! You stupid bunch of mindless morons!

  The school does not answer. I produce a machine gun and fire at the library, but it is too far away … light years.

  I send copies of all my written films to established magazines. I do not get even one rejection slip.

  And I know what the problem is. I should not be wasting my time on paper. It is worthless. Only with celluloid can I be successful.

  And life has locked all my celluloid (well, it’s not actually celluloid, it’s some peculiar organic compound which is synthesised by some gland in my head, but if I say celluloid you’ll know what I mean …) deep in my skull, irretrievable.

  So I will have to be content with myself as the audience. And surely that is not so bad, considering that I am always quiet and attentive, always pleased with my results and I always give every new film a standing ovation.

  Yet I feel awkward and unsatisfied that I cannot show the results of all my painstaking work to even one other person.

  Perhaps I should commit suicide. The autopsy (hopefully one as photogenic as the one in Providence) would reveal the tiny spools of ultrathin, ultraflat, ultrastrong film in a tiny cavity in the centre of my brain.

  Posthumous release.

  Only kidding.

  I would rather be around at the premiere. Surgery is
the only answer but it is no answer because I cannot persuade a surgeon to co-operate. Or even to operate.

  Sorry.

  When faced with such dilemmas (whether to feel frustrated or feel frustrated), I make every possible effort to ignore them. I try to concentrate on something else. This invariably fails, because my untrustworthy thought trains always take me back to the unpleasant subject. So my only real course of escape is to sit and think about it, immersed in anguish (or at least a mild itch) until I have examined it in such detail, so many times, that a kind of purging takes place in my mind, and, although the problem is not solved, it ceases to worry me.

  So I do this. And it works.

  What now depresses me is the large pile of unsold magazines which takes up so much space in my room.

  So I have a small bonfire and burn them all.

  The next day, one of the distributors answers, saying it would like a trial batch of two hundred copies.

  With a great deal of self-control, I do not tear all the hair from my scalp. I do not bang my head hard against a brick wall (despite the appealing nature of the sound this makes). I merely write a sober apology to the distributor saying that all the copies printed were lost in a fire.

  I phrase this carefully so that it is not a lie. I never lie on paper. Only on film. Any lies on film are always simple, mathematically describable transformations of reality, or changes of context. Which makes it all right.

  Well, it does not matter. I no longer want to live on top of a reinforced-concrete tower, or on the moon.

  But I would like somebody else to see one of my films. All that effort. All the time shooting, editing …

  Stop whining.

  Sorry.

  The Cruel Joke timed it so well: the day after the bonfire. The logistical problems, well … I’m almost impressed.

  To take my mind off it all, I close my eyes and start going through miscellaneous footage—I have quite a lot of it—looking for any scenes I could make use of in my next pseudo-documentary. My pseudo-documentaries are not filmed from screenplays, but are rather assembled from meaningful similarities and connections I can find amongst randomly selected shots. However, they are not attempts to portray reality. Making one is rather like going through piles and piles of miscellaneous photographs, snipping out little pieces, and assembling them into a picture which appears to be a photograph of something real, but in fact is not.

  Most of my miscellaneous footage is boring and repetitive, or boring and repetitive. Some of it is repetitive and boring. Some is boring without being repetitive. None is repetitive without being boring.

  I compose a short promotion:

  AT LAST! THE FILM EVENT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!

  THE MOST INSIPID, SOPORIFIC, PROSAIC, SOMNIFIC, TIRESOME, IRKSOME, UNVARYING MOVIE OF THE DECADE!

  YAWN!

  AS SCENES ARE REPEATED OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

  DOZE!

  AS THE UNCOMPROMISING BLANDNESS OF IT ALL MAKES YOU LOSE INTEREST IN STAYING CONSCIOUS!

  YES, ONCE YOU’VE SEEN THIS, WALKING DOWN THE STREET WILL THRILL YOU BY COMPARISON!

  IDEAL FOR PEOPLE WITH WEAK HEARTS, OR ANY OTHER ILLNESS REQUIRING REST AND RELAXATION.

  What is most frightening to me is that it would get enormous audiences, who would love it. The critics would all rave, finding intricate networks of symbolic metaphors.

  It’s enough to drive you to television.

  Only kidding.

  I am merely disillusioned with the possibilities offered by commercial exploitation of art.

  That sounds vvvvery pompous. But it’s true.

  Though I’d give anything to get those prints out of my skull. Well, nearly everything.

  But nothing I can give can make any difference.

  Ho hum.

  I really don’t care. It doesn’t worry me. Not even disgust.

  It doesn’t worry me.

  Much.

  I’ll just try not to think about it.

  STOP WHINING!

  Chapter 8

  HONESTY

  The bus stop is stingingly hot and air shimmers above the concrete square in which it is set. Some of the graffiti is amusing, but it is a form of literature notorious for its rather limited range of styles and themes, and a great deal of repetition. I have reels and reels of it which one day I hope to have statistically analysed.

  A wide band of ants trek from their nest beneath the cracks of the concrete to the overflowing bin sticky with evaporated soft drink, and back. The net motion is clear, but looking closely each ant seems to move in an almost random manner. Somehow there is an overall guiding trend. Whether they are performing intricately planned specialised tasks, or simply taking part in an unorganised rush, I am not sure.

  I half-stand to see if it is the bus each time I hear bus-like noises, but trucks can be very deceptive. Intentionally.

  A car stops across the road. A nun leaves the front passenger seat, closes the door. The car leaves. She crosses the road and sits on the seat, beside me.

  She is agelessly old but seems physically all right.

  —What time is the next bus, do you know?

  she asks in a cheerfully young voice and I am glad because frail old nuns always make me sad though I don’t know why.

  —Two forty-seven and fifteen seconds, I think

  I say. I am absolutely positive that it is two forty-seven and fifteen seconds. I am just not prepared to take the responsibility. Isn’t that silly?

  She glances at a delicate wrist-watch on her brown, furrowed arm.

  —Shouldn’t be long

  she says cheerfully. Why do I feel like she has just done something for me and I should thank her? I cannot help making a short, agreeing noise. I cannot help feeling illogically uncomfortable.

  —You go to Fenkirk Vale?

  I am not sure if it is a statement or a question, but I must answer:

  —Yes. I’m in second year

  I add to avoid the inevitable next question.

  —That’s a nice age to be. A very nice age.

  Here we get difficult. Should I be honest and say I think it’s a lousy age to be, or be polite and agree? I take the third alternative, and say nothing, which is OK because there was no direct question.

  She feels a gap from my saying nothing, decides the discomfort would be unbearable if she left it at that, and so she goes on:

  —Yes, I teach at St Bodmas myself. English and History.

  A pause. I search my head (literally) for something to say but there is nothing appropriate.

  —We used your hall last night for our speech night. It’s usually too cold to have it outdoors, but this year it was really sweltering and we should have had it on the grass.

  Weather! Common cultural conversation point! Salvation!

  —Yes, it’s been very hot.

  There’s weather exhausted. Not what it’s made out to be.

  —What do you plan to do when you leave school?

  she asks, wisely changing the topic.

  Now, should I tell the truth and say I want to be an actor, director, producer, cameraman, editor, and writer, or should I pick just one? People usually laugh when I list them all. They don’t believe you can set out to become multi-talented. They think it has to come at birth.

  —I want to be a film director

  I say. Not a lie. Not the whole truth, though. Not that it’s any of her business. I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.

  —NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

  she roars at me. In a single deft movement she removes her habit and mask, and I am looking at the infamous Cardinal Bellamine.

  Only kidding. I watch far too much Monty Python.

  —Oh, that’s nice. You like English then?

  What a day for controversial questions! Should I say that I think it is pure pompous bullshit? That would be accurate. That would be truthful.

  —Yes

  I agree. I don’t go too far. But it’s far enough. I am a
lying hypocrite but to speak the truth seems unthinkable.

  —What novels have you done this year?

  Done. That’s the right word. You do a novel in English. Image: cockney tough-guy pressing Bleak House against a brick wall with one hand, the other hand a threatening fist ready to smash the book to a pulp.

  —I’ll do you!

  —None, actually.

  She smiles in disbelief, then decides that I am joking.

  —Now, you can’t expect me to believe that. I can’t imagine you not doing any novels at all.

  And she is telling the truth. She can not imagine it. That’s scary.

  YOU HAVE A DANGEROUS CONCEPTUAL BLOCK, I would like to scream, but I can not.

  —What sort of teacher wouldn’t do any novels in a whole year?

  It is a rhetorical question, but I would like to answer:

  —EITHER AN EXTREMELY RARE SORT OF TEACHER WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN RAPING WORKS OF FICTION, OR AN EXTREMELY COMMON SORT OF TEACHER WHO IS MORE INTERESTED IN THE USE OF COLOURED PENCILS AND FELT-TIPPED PENS, NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS, PICTURES FROM MAGAZINES, FOUR-WORD POEMS ON PAPER DOLLS …

  Kindergarten-style graphic arts, in fact.

  I cannot answer at all, of course. Instead I have to half-smile and put an indescribable expression on to my face.

  Saved by the bus. I choose a seat well behind her, and stare out the window, wondering if I should feel guilty about being a lying hypocrite when the truth is unspeakable.

  Imagine:

  —That’s a nice age to be. A very nice age.

  —I disagree. I think it’s a foul age to be, along with every other age. I wish I’d stayed in the womb.

  She looks a little ruffled.

  —What do you plan to do when you leave school?

  —I am going to be a film producer, writer, director, actor, cameraman, and editor. I have a miniature camera inside my skull. Sometimes I film directly through my eyes, while sometimes, by a kind of psi facility I have, I film from a viewpoint outside my body. The film I use is 35 mm, and I use the standard wide-screen frame-format with four-channel sound, but because the film, being made from a special substance produced by special glands I have grown, is unbelievably thin, I can fit spools and spools into a tiny cavity in my brain. I often suspect that the cavity is a little crooked in the fourth dimension, and is hence bigger inside than outside, because I have dozens of prints, and quite a bit of equipment in there, and it would have to be very small not to interfere with my brain. My head’s quite a normal shape, so, you see …