Season of Wonder

by Paula Guran

  “They looked up and saw a bright star

  Shining i-in the heavens beyo-ond them far . . . ”

  Watching Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life has become a Christmas tradition for many—but it did not attain its status as a now-beloved and inspirational classic until decades after its initial release on December 30, 1946. Capra himself did not consider it to be a Christmas story. But during the 1970s and 1980s, it became a staple of seasonal television programming. The film uses the sf/f tropes of parallel/alternative/infinite realities—embodied in the powers of a guardian angel—to show George Bailey, the protagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life, what his world would have been like without him, Here, Robert Reed expands broadly on that idea.

  A Woman’s Best Friend

  Robert Reed

  The gangly man was running up the street, his long legs pushing through the fresh unplowed snow. He was a stranger; or at least that was her initial impression. In ways that Mary couldn’t quite define, he acted both lost and at home. His face and manner were confused, yet he nonetheless seemed to navigate as if he recognized some portion of his surroundings. From a distance, his features seemed pleasantly anonymous, his face revealing little of itself except for a bony, perpetually boyish composition. Then a streetlamp caught him squarely, and he looked so earnest and desperate, and so sweetly silly, that she found herself laughing, however impolite that was.

  Hearing the laughter, the man turned toward her, and when their eyes joined, he flinched and gasped.

  She thought of the tiny pistol riding inside her coat pocket: A fine piece of machinery marketed under the name, “A Woman’s Best Friend.”

  The stranger called to her.

  “Mary,” he said with a miserable, aching voice.

  Did she know this man? Perhaps, but there was a simpler explanation. People of every persuasion passed by her desk every day, and her name was no secret. He might have seen her face on several occasions, and he certainly wasn’t the kind of fellow that she would have noticed in passing. Unless of course he was doing some nasty business in the back of the room—behaviors that simply weren’t allowed inside a public library.

  As a precaution, Mary slipped her hand around the pistol’s grip.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Don’t you know me?” he sputtered.

  Not at all, no. Not his voice, not his face. She shook her head and rephrased her question. “What do I call you?”

  “George.”

  Which happened to be just about her least favorite name. With a reprimanding tone, she pointed out, “It’s wicked-cold out here, George. Don’t you think you should hurry home?”

  “I lost my home,” he offered.

  His coat was peculiarly tailored, but it appeared both warm and in good repair. And despite his disheveled appearance, he was too healthy and smooth-tongued to be a common drunk. “What you need to do, George . . . right now, turn around and go back to Main Street. There’s two fine relief houses down there that will take you in, without questions, and they’ll take care of you—”

  “Don’t you know what night this is?” he interrupted.

  She had to think for a moment. “Tuesday,” she answered.

  “The date,” he insisted. “What’s the date?”

  “December 24th—”

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” he interrupted.

  Mary sighed, and then she nodded. Pulling her empty hand out of the gun pocket, she smiled at the mysterious visitor, asking, “By any chance, George . . . is there an angel in this story of yours?”

  A gust of wind could have blown the man off his feet. “You know about the angel?” he blubbered.

  “Not from personal experience. But I think I know what he is, and I can make a guess or two about what he’s been up to.”

  “Up to?”

  She said, “George,” with a loud, dismissive tone. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this. But there’s no such thing as a genuine angel.”

  “Except I saw him.”

  “You saw someone. Where was he?”

  “On the bridge outside town,” he offered. “He fell into the river, and I jumped in after him and dragged him to shore.”

  The man was sopping wet, she noted. “But now what were you doing out on the bridge, George?”

  He hesitated. “Nothing,” he replied with an ashamed, insistent tone.

  “The angel jumped in, and you saved him?”

  “Yes.”

  That sounded absurd. “What did your angel look like, George?”

  “Like an old man.”

  “Then how do you know he was an angel?”

  “He said he was.”

  “And after you rescued him . . . what happened? Wait, no. Let me guess. Did your angel make noise about earning an aura or his halo—?”

  “His wings.”

  “Really? And you believed that story?”

  George gulped.

  “And what did this wingless man promise you, George.”

  “To show me . . . ”

  “What?”

  “How the world would be if I’d never been born.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh again. Really, this man seemed so sweet and so terribly lost. She was curious, even intrigued. Not that the stranger was her type, of course. But then again, this was a remarkable situation, and maybe if she gave him a chance . . .

  “All right, George. I’m going to help you.”

  He seemed cautiously thrilled to hear it.

  “Come home with me,” she instructed him. And then she turned back toward the old limestone building that occupied most of a city block.

  “To the library?” he sputtered.

  “My apartment’s inside,” she mentioned.

  “You live inside the library?”

  “Because I’m the head librarian. That’s one of the benefits of my job: The city supplies me with a small home. But it’s warm and comfortable, with enough room for three cats and one man-sized bed.”

  Her companion stood motionless, knee-deep in snow.

  “What’s wrong now, George?”

  “I don’t,” he muttered.

  “You don’t what?”

  “Go into the homes of young women,” he muttered.

  “I’m very sorry to disappoint, but I’m not that young.” For just an instant, she considered sending him to a facility better equipped for this kind of emergency. And in countless realms, she surely did just that. But on this world, at this particular instant, she said, “You need to understand something, George. You are dead. You have just killed yourself. By jumping off a bridge, apparently. And now that that’s over with, darling, it’s high time you lived a little.”

  Reverence has its patterns, its genius and predictable clichés. Many realms throw their passions into houses of worship—splendid, soothing buildings where the wide-eyed faithful can kneel together, bowing deeply while repeating prayers that were ancient when their ignorant bodies were just so many quadrillion atoms strewn across their gullible world. But if a world was blessed with true knowledge, and if there were no churches or mosques, temples or synagogues, the resident craftsmen and crafty benefactors often threw their hands and fortunes into places of learning. And that was why a small town public library wore the same flourishes and ornate marvels common to the greatest cathedrals.

  George hesitated on the polished marble stairs, gazing up at the detailed mosaic above the darkened front door.

  “What is this place?” he whispered.

  She said, “My library,” for the last time.

  George was tall enough to touch the bottom rows of cultured, brightly colored diamond tiles, first with gloves on and then bare fingers.

  “Who are these people? They look like old Greeks.”

  “And Persians. And Indians. And Chinese too.” She offered names that almost certainly meant nothing to him. But she had always enjoyed playing the role of expert, and when the twenty great men and women had been identified, she adde
d, “These are the Founders.”

  “Founders of what?”

  “Of the Rational Order,” she replied. “The Order is responsible for twenty-three hundred years of peace and growth.”

  George blinked, saying nothing.

  She removed her right glove and touched the crystal door. It recognized her flesh, but only after determining that her companion was unarmed did the door slowly, majestically swing open for both of them.

  “I can answer most questions,” she promised.

  Like an obedient puppy, George followed after her.

  Sensing her return, the library awakened. Light filled the ground floor. Slick white obelisks and gray columns stood among the colorful, rather chaotic furnishings. Chairs that would conform to any rump waited to serve. Clean, disinfected readers were stacked neatly on each black desk. Even two hours after closing, the smell of the day’s patrons hung in the air—a musky, honest odor composed of perfumes and liquor, high intentions and small dreams.

  “This is a library?”

  “It is,” she assured.

  “But where are the books?”

  Her desk stood beside the main aisle—a wide, clean, and overly fancy piece of cultivated teak and gold trimmings. Her full name was prominently displayed. She picked up the reader that she had been using at day’s end, and George examined the nameplate before remarking, “You never married?”

  She nearly laughed. But “No” was a truthful enough answer, and that was all she offered for now.

  Again he returned to the missing books.

  “But our collection is here,” she promised, compiling a list of titles from a tiny portion of the holdings. “You see, George . . . in this world, we have better ways to store books than writing on expensive old parchment.”

  “Parchment?”

  “Or wood pulp. Or plastic. Or flexible glass sheets.”

  His eyes jumped about the screen. He would probably be able to read the words, at least taken singly. But the subject and cumulative oddness had to leave him miserably confused.

  “This town isn’t a large community,” she mentioned. “But I like to think that we have a modest, thorough collection.” Mary smiled for a moment, relishing her chance to boast. “Anyone is free to walk through our door and print a copy of any title in our catalog. But I’ll warn you: If we made paper books of every volume, and even if each book was small enough to place in those long hands of yours, George . . . well, this library isn’t big enough to hold our entire collection. To do that, we’d have to push these walls out a little farther than the orbit of Neptune.”

  The news left the poor man numb. A few labored breaths gave him just enough strength to fix his gaze once again on the reader, and with a dry, sorry little voice, he asked, “Is this Heaven?”

  “As much as any place is,” she replied.

  George was sharp. Confused, but perceptive. He seemed to understand some of the implications in her explanation. With a careful voice, he read aloud, “ ‘Endless Avenues. A thorough study of the universe as a single quantum phenomena.’ ”

  “Your home earth,” she began. “It happens to be one of many.”

  “How many?”

  “Think of endless worlds. On and on and on. Imagine numbers reaching out past the stars and back again. Creation without ends, and for that matter, without any true beginning either.”

  Poor George stared across the enormous room, voicing the single word, “No.”

  “Every microscopic event in this world splits the universe in endless ways, George. The process is essential and it is inevitable, it happens easily and effortlessly, and nothing about existence is as lovely or perfect as this endless reinvention of reality.”

  The reader made a sharp pop when he dropped it on the floor. “How do you know this?” he asked.

  “Centuries of careful, unsentimental scientific exploration,” she replied.

  He sighed, his long frame leaning into her desk.

  “My earth is rather more advanced than yours,” she continued. “We have come to understand our universe and how to manipulate it. Everyone benefits, but the richest of us have the power to pass to our neighboring worlds and then back again.”

  Once more, he said, “No.”

  She touched him for the first time—a fond, reassuring pat delivered high on his back, the coat still wet from the river. “It takes special machinery and quite a lot of energy to travel through the multiverse,” she admitted. “Tying the natural laws into a useful knot . . . it’s the kind of hobby that only certain kinds of people gravitate towards.”

  Poor George wanted to lie down. But he had enough poise, or at least the pride, to straighten his back before saying, “My angel.”

  “Yes?”

  “He was just a man?”

  She laughed quietly, briefly. Then with a sharp voice, she warned, “My world embraces quite a few amazing ideas, George. But there’s no such notion as ‘just a man.’ Or ‘just a woman,’ for that matter. Each of us is a magnificent example of what the infinite cosmos offers.”

  This particular man sighed and stared at his companion. Then with his own sharpness, he confessed, “You look just like my wife.”

  “Which is one reason why your angel chose this world, I suspect.”

  “And your voice is exactly the same. Except nothing that you’re telling me makes any sense.”

  About that, she offered no comment.

  Instead she gave him another hard pat. “There’s a private elevator in the back,” she told her new friend. “And first thing, we need to get you out of those cold clothes.”

  Once his coat and shoes were removed, she set them inside the conditioning chamber to be cleaned and dried. But George insisted wearing every other article on his body, including the soaked trousers and the black socks that squished when he walked.

  She stomped the snow off her tall boots and removed her coat. Then before hanging up the coat up, she slipped the little pistol from its pocket and tucked it into the silk satchel riding on her hip.

  He didn’t seem to notice. For the moment, George’s attention was fixed on the single-room apartment. “I expected a little place,” he muttered.

  “Isn’t this?”

  “No, this is enormous.” Her ordinary furnishings seemed to impress the man, hands stroking the dyed leather and cultured wood. Artwork hung on the walls and in the open air—examples of genius pulled from a multitude of vibrant, living earths—and he gave the nearest sculptures a quick study. Then he drifted over to the antique dresser, lifting one after another of the framed portraits of her family and dearest friends.

  She followed, saying nothing.

  “Who are these two?” he asked.

  “My parents.”

  George said, “What?”

  “I take it those aren’t your wife’s parents.”

  “No.”

  She quoted the ancient phrase, “ ‘The same ingredients pulled from different shelves.’ ”

  George turned to look at her, and he gave a start. His eyes dipped. He was suddenly like a young boy caught doing something wicked. It took a few moments to collect his wits.

  “My DNA is probably not identical to your wife’s,” she assured. “Not base-pair for base-pair, at least.”

  He wanted to look at her, but a peculiar shyness was weighing down on him.

  She said, “George,” with a reprimanding tone.

  He didn’t react.

  “You know this body,” she pointed out. “If you are telling the truth, that is. On this other world, you married to somebody like me. Correct?”

  That helped. The eyes lifted, and his courage. With more than a hint of disapproval, he said, “When I found you . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Where were you going?”

  “To a pleasant little nightclub, as it happens.”

  His hand and her smiling parents pointed at her now. “Dressed like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have .
. . ”

  “What, George?”

  “Underwear,” he managed. “Where is your underwear?”

  Every world had its prudes. But why had that anonymous ‘angel’ sent her one of the extras?

  George quietly asked, “What were you going to do . . . at this club . . . ?”

  “Drink a little,” she admitted. “And dance until I collapsed.”

  George dropped his gaze again.

  “You were married to this body,” she reminded him. “I can’t believe you didn’t know it quite well by now.”

  He nodded. But then it seemed important to mention, “We have children.”

  “Good.”

  “Your figure . . . my wife’s . . . well, you’re quite a bit thinner than she is now . . . ”

  “Than she was,” Mary said.

  His eyes jumped up.

  “In your old world, you are a drowned corpse,” she said. “You must have had your reasons, George. And you can tell me all about them, if you want. But I don’t care why you decided to throw yourself off that bridge. Your reasons really don’t matter to me.”

  “My family . . . ” he began.

  “They’ll get by, and they won’t.”

  He shook his head sorrowfully.

  “Every response on their part is inevitable, George. And neither of us can imagine all of the ramifications.”

  “I abandoned them,” he whispered.

  “And on countless other earths, you didn’t. You didn’t make the blunders that put you up on that bridge, or you pushed through your little troubles. You married a different woman. You married ten other women. Or you fell deeply in love with a handsome boy named Felix, and the two of you moved to Mars and were married on the summit of the First Sister’s volcano, and you and your soul mate quickly adopted a hundred Martian babies—little golden aliens who called both of you Pappy and built a palace for you out of frozen piss and their own worshipful blood.”

  George very much wanted to collapse. But the nearest seat was the round and spacious bed.

  He wouldn’t let himself approach it.

  But she did. She sat on the edge and let her dress ride high, proving if he dared look that she was indeed wearing underwear after all.