Slow Birds: And Other Stories

by Ian Watson

  Lucretius mustn’t have been used to our modern toe-grip style of sandal – or else delayed shock caught up with him – since we hadn’t gone far before he stumbled and collided with me. I took the opportunity to slip my arm through his.

  ‘Is it true you were driven mad by a love-potion?’ I whispered. (This was something my researcher Karen had turned up, cheering me considerably. Our Roman reportedly had died raving mad, crazed by aphrodisiacs. Too, he had always been a manic depressive, forever flipping from ectasy at the beauties of the world to gloomy horror at all the carnage in it. Though he had tried very hard to maintain a philosophical detachment.)

  Jim overheard. ‘For God’s sake!’

  Lucretius eyed Jim with a pained expression. ‘Do you still believe in gods?’

  Me, he continued to clutch. I guess my knee-boots, micro-shorts and halter must have turned him on. Goodness knows what he thought Muhammed was up to, bobbing about with his mini-cam. A black slave, fanning us?

  Invited to dinner that first evening were two people from the afternoon audience: tubby Max Stein the astrophysicist, and particle physicist Ingrid Langholm wearing a full-length orange gown with organdy insets showing flesh discreetly. Our hostess Martha Roseberry was definitely a Rubens woman: portly and pink and powdered. Daughter Harmony Roseberry, an adolescent know-it-all, was plump too, and spotty, thanks to her addiction to greasy doughnuts. Mother and daughter both obviously regarded Jim as the next best thing to God.

  Muhammed and Carl had gone off to the local motel; Tony was relegated to the kitchen, whence Machiko, the Japanese maid, served drinks and the products of the family’s Filipino cook. Whenever Machiko came into the dining room, Lucretius inspected her oriental features in puzzlement. Finally, in the midst of the smoked salmon and asparagus, he enquired whether she was Egyptian – which sent Jim rushing off to his study, to return with a globe of the world: one more modern marvel to amaze our Roman with, to add to electric light, TV, and flush toilets.

  And as I listened to Jim explain how we had explored and mapped every last inch of the Earth, and even gone to the Moon, I began to understand what wasn’t quite kosher about him.

  It was like this: Jim’s great scientific breakthrough was to yank past geniuses out of time, supposedly to honour them so they would know their lives had been worthwhile in the eyes of the future. But then he would go on to tell them – oh so kindly – where they had gone wrong or fallen short of the mark. And how much more we knew nowadays. ‘You almost got it right, boy! You were on the right track, and no mistake. Bravo! But …’

  That was why he chose scientists to resurrect and host. An artist like Mozart or Shakespeare could never be upstaged; but a scientist could be – by superior knowledge. Thus Jim Roseberry became superior to Darwin, Galileo, and whoever else.

  True, Lucretius was a poet, but he only wrote poetry in order to explain science. He was sort of the Carl Sagan of ancient Rome.

  Beef Stroganoff with pilau rice was next. Max Stein devoured second and third helpings; but Lucretius only toyed with his food.

  ‘How do you find your meal, Magister Lucretius?’ Martha asked in Latin. (We had all spent a night with the hypno equipment, of course.)

  ‘Bitter,’ he replied. ‘Sour.’

  She passed the salt cellar. Harmony demonstrated its use. Lucretius tasted and grimaced.

  ‘Do the rough atoms tear your tongue?’ asked Jim with a twinkle in his eye.

  The Burgundy was a success, though.

  During the dessert (lemon mousse – and a doughnut for Harmony) conversation turned to electrons and quarks, and the Big Bang. Ingrid Langholm proved rather ingenious at coining Latin words to explain what happens when you split the unsplittable. Coffee and Cognac followed; and Lucretius began to frown and ask for more Cognac. He was still keeping his cool; but for how long? I was next to him; I rubbed my bare leg against his bathrobe, innocently. (Tonight was too soon. Perhaps the next night …)

  That was when I heard thunder. Jim jumped up and went to part the drapes. Outside the night was black and moonless, and no stars showed. A wind seemed to be rising. ‘Dirty weather brewing,’ he told Max and Ingrid.

  Max consulted his watch and sprang up. ‘I’d better be going!’ He stuck his hand out at Lucretius. ‘A real pleasure to talk with you, Magister!’

  ‘Me too,’ said Ingrid, also rising.

  Lucretius stared at Max’s offered hand. ‘That’s all right. I don’t wish to go outside to vomit.’

  ‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Martha.

  ‘Roman feasts were so gutsy, Mom,’ said Harmony, ‘the diners usually had to vomit between courses.’

  ‘Was this a feast?’ asked Lucretius. ‘I admired its moderation, if not its flavour.’

  ‘Well, I never!’ Martha said.

  And so the party broke up.

  I spent a scary night in one of the guest rooms. That storm kept circling round and waking me. Every hour or so, fresh bouts of thunder erupted and lightning flashes squeezed through the drapes. Most of the time, a real banshee of a wind howled. Occasionally I thought I heard a cry or owl-screech. I felt edgy, and burrowed deep under the duvet, even if it overheated me.

  When I got up the next morning, the wind was still wild. Enormous cloud galleons scudded through the sky, sail piled on sail high up to the stratosphere.

  My bedroom window looked on to woodland which hid us from the highway. Amidst the general grey-green I noticed something brightly orange.

  Suddenly it seemed as if the area of trees I was staring at, well, threw itself at me – shucking off veil after veil which flew towards me. I felt the impact of each thin copy of the scene like a physical blow upon my eyes. What I was looking at was radiating its surface at me. For a moment I thought I was having a flashback to an acid trip, years ago. But then I focused on that orange patch.

  It was Ingrid Langholm, and she was half way up a tree!

  Was this a hallucination? It didn’t seem to be.

  I dressed quickly, and went to rouse Tony and Jim Roseberry too. If Ingrid had spent the whole night up a tree in a storm, she must have had a damn good reason.

  When we got back to the house, supporting a bedraggled, worn out particle physicist, Martha Roseberry was outdoors too, in her housecoat, ignoring the wild weather. Lucretius had also emerged, in his bathrobe.

  ‘Whatever happened?’ squawked Martha.

  ‘Front wheel gave out,’ gasped Ingrid. ‘I had a flat.’

  ‘Her chariot wheel gave out,’ Jim said in Latin, mindful of his duties as host.

  ‘No flashlight with me … so I started walking back … and a goddam lion – ’

  ‘A lion chased her up a tree. It kept prowling about.’

  ‘Lions fear the cry of a cockerel,’ remarked Lucretius, sagely.

  ‘Eh?’ from Martha.

  ‘So it would flee at dawn. Pigs shun perfume and marjoram, lions fear a rooster.’ Lucretius regarded poor Ingrid with dour satisfaction. Her gown was torn and sodden. Her make-up had all run. Her hair was in rats’ tails. She looked a bleary ragbag.

  Just then, Ingrid’s face detached itself and flew at mine – time and again. It was as if she wore an infinity of masks, which each peeled off in turn and flew through the air, without in any way diminishing her. Martha, too, rubbed her eyes in disbelief.

  But Jim was too busy staring up at the wild and roiling sky. He pointed shakily. A giant face was grinning down at us from the side of a cloud. It became a snarling lion’s head, then dissolved, dripping like wax.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Flimsy films of vision sometimes generate themselves spontaneously in the sky,’ Lucretius said helpfully.

  As though this wasn’t bad enough, at that moment two neighbouring Douglas firs suddenly burst into flames. Jim rounded on Lucretius.

  ‘Oh, and what’s the reason for that, then?’

  ‘Why, wind rubs the trees together. Friction enflames them.’

  By now the steady rain of bl
ows from the wind was dislodging the atoms of my mind and body from their station so fast that I felt I hadn’t slept at all the night before. I’d lost a lot of density and I needed food to fill the cracks. (And part of me asked another part, ‘What the hell am I thinking? Blows? Dislodged atoms? Loss of density?’) My limbs tottered. I didn’t notice the snake sneaking through the grass till Tony shouted, ‘Look out!’

  Hastily I jogged my vital spirit, to get it to jog my body aside. (I did … what?) Lucretius spat casually at the snake. Instantly the serpent writhed around and bit its own tail, stinging itself to death.

  Lucretius clucked in satisfaction. ‘Luckily it’s one of those which human spittle poisons.’

  I was reeling. And in the furnace of colliding clouds, seeds of fire were being crammed together. A thunderbolt burst forth and smashed into the ground quite near us.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ cried Tony.

  ‘I need some breakfast urgently,’ I told Martha. ‘Please! I’ve lost too many atoms. My vital spirit will quit.’

  ‘Are you into some new kind of therapy?’ Martha asked, baffled.

  ‘We’d better get inside fast,’ advised Jim.

  * * *

  We breakfasted on waffles with maple syrup; the smoothly trickling particles of syrup seemed to please Lucretius’s palate. Soon the storm was on the wane.

  Jim gazed across the table at me balefully. ‘What’s happening? I’ll tell you what’s happening. Those “films” you see flying off surfaces and hitting your eyes – that’s how our friend here thought vision worked. And now we’re seeing it happen, as though it’s true. All the crazy rest of it, too! His world-view is affecting us. Somehow it’s … projecting itself. And I’ll tell you why. It’s because you sexed him up! On account of how you’re dressed. Or undressed!’

  ‘So what’s wrong with shorts and a halter? I’m not exactly nude with body paint!’

  ‘I watched you at dinner. You caused the onset of a love-frenzy.’

  ‘A what?’ asked Harmony.

  Martha said mildly, ‘Do you think we should be discussing this in front of our guest?’

  ‘Aw, the hell with that.’

  I spoke from the depths of me. I cut sounds into words with my tongue and moulded them with my lips. (At least that’s what it felt like.) ‘The hell with my costume and morals, too! How is this happening to us?’

  ‘It’s his world-view taken literally – and taken to extremes … This must be an aspect of the Roseberry Effect I hadn’t taken into account. With Darwin and even Galileo we were on the same general wavelength. The modern scientific world-view,’ Jim mumbled.

  I just had to laugh. ‘So instead of you wising Lucretius up, he’s changing things to suit his own half-baked ancient notions? Oh, that’s too rich!’

  Jim went white. ‘I’m going to make some phone calls. Excuse me.’

  Harmony looked daggers at me, then rushed out of the room after him. I hoped the mini-cams and snoopy-mikes were working okay, getting all this taped.

  While Jim was away, Ingrid, wrapped in a spare bathrobe, drank a lot of hot coffee. After a while Lucretius coughed, to clear his throat of sticky atoms, I suppose.

  ‘Indeed I must confess that I felt love-frenzy coming over me. Will we never reach a state of equanimity? Will we never heed the Master’s word?’

  ‘The Master?’ asked Ingrid.

  ‘Epicurus.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And yet … if one concentrates on the defects of a woman, however fair at first she seems …’ He looked steadfastly at Ingrid, who resembled a drowned rat after her night out; and I realized to my chagrin that Lucretius had been more excited by her than by me.

  Maybe that was just as well! Otherwise I might have been the one who was trashed. Still, the snake had been heading for me … I could almost imagine myself swelling up and raving, and black flux pouring from my bowels … Where were such notions coming from? I must not think along those lines!

  Presently Jim returned, followed by Harmony. ‘The phone’s okay. Those little atoms still rush along the wires. The effect’s quite local.’ He sat down, though he wouldn’t meet my eyes at first – because I had seen through him. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Ingrid. ‘If Jesus Christ were here instead of Lucretius – if this were His Second Coming – then we could experience joy and peace and true love. For a while. In one little corner of the world.’

  Oh beautiful! thought I. Bless you, Ingrid. Press that button again. I’d been trying to get on to the business of resurrecting Jesus, but whenever I broached the subject Jim had neatly evaded it – till I suspected that maybe he had begun the rumour himself, just to get hold of a fancy chunk of TV money for the Institute.

  Ingrid blushed. I guess I was praying a bit last night. Old habit, long forgotten. It kept me company.’

  And maybe it wouldn’t be so beautiful, after all! Lucretius was an unreligious man. Would we want real archangels flying about … and Satan knocking on the door in person?

  ‘As I say,’ resumed Jim, ‘this is a local problem. Reality has become a little unhinged in our friend’s vicinity. And definitely more plastic. His imagination is moulding it – and he always had a strong imagination! As to why exactly, it’s too soon to say. We’ll have to put our heads together at the Institute. But for my money I’d say it’s a function of how far we’ve gone into the past this time. Apparently the further back we pluck a fellow from, the more we loosen the continuum. Don’t worry, it’ll bounce back afterwards.’

  ‘After he goes home,’ said Harmony, rather grimly.

  ‘Meanwhile we’ll have to watch our step. Avoid exciting him too much.’

  ‘Who,’ asked Lucretius, ‘is Jesus Christ?’

  ‘Ah. Urn. Long story, that,’ said Jim. ‘I guess you could call him a teacher. Like Epicurus.’

  ‘He was the Son of God,’ said Ingrid, with eyes downcast.

  ‘A god?’ cried Lucretius irritably. ‘Then maybe I’m a god, if I can produce storms and thunderbolts? But I have already pointed out in persuasive verse that this is nonsense. Lightning strikes where it wills! Do you mock me?’

  ‘No, no,’ Jim hastily assured him. ‘It’s just that reality is a bit more complicated than you thought … Look,’ he said, with an effort at bonhomie, ‘it’s brightening. Let’s all go for a walk in the grounds. That’ll clear our heads.’ He switched to English briefly. ‘I’ll fetch my hunting rifle. Just in case. I’ll pretend it’s a walking stick.’ And in Latin: ‘We won’t meet any more lions, will we, Magister?’

  Lucretius was offended. ‘I’m not responsible for hallucinations. Wild beasts are sometimes seen when none are there, because the mind is constantly beset by images; and if a person happens to be afraid, and thinking of wild beasts – perhaps because her chariot has broken down at night – then from these images the mind selects …’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ said Jim. ‘We won’t think of lions, will we? Not any of us! We’ll think of nice things: like flowers, and poetry. We’ll walk down by the lake. Feed the geese. That’s always soothing. Fetch some doughnuts for the birds,’ he told Harmony.

  Jim hustled us outdoors rapidly, so that I hadn’t any time to summon Carl and Muhammed from the motel; though Tony came along, with a mini-cam hastily mounted on one shoulder and a snoopy-mike fixed to the other. Ingrid had flaked out by now and was being put to bed by Martha. So five of us set out: me, Tony, Lucretius, Jim, and his daughter.

  The wind had dropped. Clouds were evaporating quickly. As we stepped out of the house, suddenly the sun shone forth. Unfortunately I glanced up at it – and a film of solar disc hit my face with force. Particles of fire scorched my eyeballs. ‘The sun!’ I yelped. ‘Don’t anyone look at it!’ It was a whole minute before I regained my vision, and even then my eyes remained untrustworthy; they kept watering and unfocusing. Tony helped me along for a while, but I shook him off. I wanted him filming, not guiding me as once Antigone led blind Oedipus.r />
  On our way to the lake we passed through woods, which were moist and warm. The sunlight dappling down was genial, here.

  What I took at first to be a giant puffball sprouting from the loam suddenly split open as we drew abreast of it – to disgorge a bleating baby goat. The young kid tottered to a nearby bump on the ground, from which white liquid began leaking. Splay-legged, the kid grabbed hold of this bump with its mouth and sucked greedily. Yes indeed, suckling milk from a breast of the earth!

  The bump just had to be a nipple. Which meant that the puffball, now collapsed, must have been … not a fungus but a rooted womb!

  We stared in amazement as the kid grew apace. Soon it was grazing contentedly on poisonous hellebore which had sprung up nearby.

  Lucretius frowned, and tutted.

  ‘How odd. In the late, decaying state of the world nowadays, only worms and animalcules should be generated spontaneously from the soil. This is exceptional.’

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ snapped Jim.

  ‘And if goats can get born from the soil,’ broke in Harmony, ‘why not lions as well? Gee, Daddy, anything could pop up. This is scary.’ Oddly, though, the prospect didn’t seem to scare her so much – how can I put it? – as encourage her.

  Lucretius shook his head. ‘I still maintain the lion must have been a hallucination. One must always select the most reasonable explanation of phenomena. Though in this case – ’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Jim growled softly. Yet just then (when I thought back on it) he too looked oddly content.

  And we carried on.

  The lake was circled by lawns. Our group was still in tree shade, but all before us the sunlight was blazing down. (I took care not to look anywhere near the sun again, but one thing I remembered about it was that it had seemed to be only a few miles away – and no larger than it looked.) The rainfall of the night before was steaming off the grass. At that moment I could see quite clearly.