Charlie’s eyes closed and his shoulders slumped. He turned away from Jerry. “I can’t.”
“Then how do you know it’s true?”
“I’ve always known, I think, in the back of my head somewhere. But then one day....” He turned back to Jerry, and his eyes were two black pits of fear and despair. “I had just said good-bye to Hermione the hedgehog, I turned back to go into my house, and then... suddenly everything was black. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see. I was squashed flat. But somehow I knew that all around me, piled above and below me like a huge stack of pancakes, was everyone and everything I have ever cared about. They were all squashed flat too, but I was the only one who knew it. That went on for a moment that seemed like forever. And then I was right back in my house, as though nothing had happened.”
A thought balloon appeared above Jerry’s head: “He’s bonkers!”
“I know it sounds crazy. But it was as real as anything. And ever since then... I know we’re being read, and we’re being laughed at.”
“I get it,” Jerry said with false cheer. “When you talk to yourself you are telling them jokes!”
“No!” Charlie’s hands bunched into fists, and he pounded the air ineffectually. “I’m trying to explain myself!”
Jerry scratched his head, and a few question marks came out. “You certainly aren’t doing a very good job of it now.”
“Well, for instance... last week, when I was working on my car. I was just putting the engine back in for the third time, and I was explaining to the readers that this was a very delicate operation and had to be performed with the utmost care. Not funny at all.”
“Charlie, you were pounding it in place with a sledge hammer. That’s pretty funny. And calling it a delicate operation just makes it funnier.”
Charlie stood stock-still for a moment, his lip quivering. Then he collapsed into his chair, his purple neck arching high as he dropped his head into his hands. “I know!” he sobbed, big blue teardrops running down between his fingers. “No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to be serious, it comes out hilarious. And I’m tired of them laughing at me!”
Jerry offered his handkerchief, and Charlie blew his nose in it with an immense orange HONK.
“These ‘readers’... Can you hear them? Can you see them?”
“No.” He didn’t raise his head from his hands.
“Then how do you know they’re laughing at you?”
“I just know. The same way I know they’re there.”
“Where are they, exactly?”
“Right now? Over there.”
Jerry followed Charlie’s pointing finger, but there was nothing there but the green and white flowered wallpaper. At least it was prettier than the pink and white polka-dots that had been there before. “I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I. But they’re there. They’re always there.”
“Always?”
“Well, most of the time.” He lifted his head and tried to return the sodden handkerchief, but Jerry gestured to keep it. “I don’t think they watch anyone else. I mean, they’re watching you now, because you’re with me. And they might watch you for a while after you leave here. But eventually they’ll come back to me. I’m the main character in their little comic book.”
Jerry’s tail bristled. “Why you? Why not me?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. That’s just the way it is, I guess.”
Jerry paced back and forth on the table for a time, thinking. Finally he spoke. “I think you ought to talk with Dr. Nocerous about this.”
Charlie shook his head, a slow rueful motion. “Okay... but I don’t think it will do any good.”
-o0o-
Doctor Nocerous’s office walls were completely covered in diplomas, from such institutions as THE SCHOOL OF AARD VARKS and WAZUPWIT U. The doctor himself was a stout gray rhino, nearly as wide as he was tall, whose wire-rimmed glasses perched incongruously at the top of his horn. He wore a white lab coat, and a small round mirror was strapped to his forehead. He never used the mirror in any way. “Hmm,” he said as he held his stethoscope to the side of Charlie’s neck, and “Hmm” again as he stood on a stepladder to peer down Charlie’s throat, and “Hmm” one more time as he held Charlie’s lapel between two fingers and looked at his watch.
“Well, doctor,” said Jerry when the exam was finished, “what’s wrong with him?”
“My examination has discovered no physical infirmities whatsoever. Superficially, he is salubrious as an equine.”
“What?” said Charlie.
“Healthy as a horse,” explained the doctor.
“I told you.”
“But he’s seeing things!” said Jerry.
“Indeed. These phantasmagorical manifestations are most worrisome,” the doctor muttered, puffing on his pipe. A few small pink bubbles emerged as he pondered. “I recommend that we keep your friend under observation.”
“How ironic,” Charlie said to the wall, then returned his gaze to the doctor. “I am not seeing things, or hearing things! I just know things. Is that so bad?”
Jerry jumped up on the doctor’s desk. “Charlie, listen to me. I’m your friend, right? I’ve never steered you wrong?”
“Of course not.”
“Then get this through your thick purple skull: there are no ‘readers.’ You are not the ‘main character’ in anyone’s ‘comical book.’ You’re just a person like anyone else, and you’re here to muddle through your life the same as the rest of us. Nothing more.”
“The veracity of your diminutive companion’s statement is incontrovertible,” said the doctor, waving his pipe. “These megalomaniacal misapprehensions must be immediately terminated. They jeopardize your physical integrity and the overall stability of the community.”
“What?”
“You’re a danger to yourself and others.”
Charlie jumped out of his seat. “I’m no danger to anyone! So what if I talk to myself? That doesn’t mean I’m going to pick up a big mallet and start flattening people!”
“Solipsistic delusions are frequently merely the initial manifestation of a general insensitivity to the legitimacy, even the existence, of external personalities. If allowed to go unchecked, these tendencies could escalate into antisocial or even injurious behavior!”
“What?”
“He thinks you might pick up a big mallet and start flattening people,” said Jerry.
Charlie stood with his feet planted wide and his fists clenched. The white fabric of his gloves was bunched and strained. He stared at the wall. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”
“Nobody’s making any jokes here, Charlie,” said Jerry. “We’re serious.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” He turned around, pointed at a different spot on the wall. “This has all been arranged for your amusement! Are you happy?”
Jerry and Dr. Nocerous looked at each other.
Charlie pulled a big mallet from his pocket and began pounding on the wall. “Are you laughing now? Huh? Are you?” The WHAM of the mallet on the wall was huge and black. “Just let me get out there and I’ll show you what comedy is all about!”
“This situation necessitates immediate incarceration!” said the doctor as he ran behind his desk.
“Ditto!” said Jerry as he dived under a chair.
The doctor pressed a button under the desk; no sound came out, but a few small lightning bolts appeared. Moments later two enormous gorillas, their white coats stretched taut over bulging muscles, burst through the door. There was a swirl of motion, and when it cleared Charlie was on the floor, trussed in a straitjacket.
“Don’t let them put me away!” Charlie cried.
“It’s for your own good,” said Jerry, and waved encouragingly as the gorillas hustled Charlie away. But as soon as they were gone, Jerry’s shoulders slumped. “What are you going to do, Doctor?”
“His prognosis is not encouraging. However, he will be the recipient of the most advanced
experimental treatments modern medical technology has to offer.” From his pocket, the doctor drew one end of a set of heavy jumper cables. Sparks flew from the sharp copper teeth as he touched them together, and a small strange grin appeared on his face.
-o0o-
Charlie’s sad, desperate eyes peered through the slot in the metal door. “You’ve got to get me out of here, Jerry.” His word balloons squeezed through the slot like bubbles from a sinking ship.
“Hang in there, buddy. Dr. Nocerous tells me you’re coming along nicely.”
“He’s been saying that for weeks.” Charlie shook his head, bringing his blackened horns briefly into view. “But I know the score. I’m not going to get out of here until I show some improvement, but since there’s nothing wrong with me I’m never going to get any better than I am now.”
“Charlie, you must accept that you have a problem. It’s the first step on the road to recovery.”
Charlie chuckled ruefully. “I have a problem, all right. I’ve learned that there are worse things than being laughed at.”
“Nobody’s laughing at you, Charlie. You need to understand that these ‘readers’ are nothing more than a projection of your own feelings of self-doubt and inconsequentiality.”
“That’s just what the rhino told you to say. But you’re right—nobody’s laughing at me. The readers aren’t laughing at me. And that’s the problem.”
“I thought you didn’t want them to laugh at you.”
“I didn’t. But since I’ve been here in this padded cell, tied up in this straitjacket all day long with nothing to do... They’re bored.”
“Well, that’s an improvement, isn’t it? Maybe now they’ll watch someone else instead.”
“They’ve tried. But—no insult intended—none of you guys are as funny as I am.” Jerry’s tail bristled. “So they’re leaving. They’re going away completely. And that scares me.”
“You should be glad to be rid of them!” Jerry fumed.
Charlie’s eyes closed for a moment. When they opened again, Jerry saw a bit of the old manic fervor. “Listen... do you ever think about the nature of time?”
“What?”
“Time. How it passes, from moment to moment. Haven’t you ever noticed how some things change when you aren’t looking at them?”
“Like the wallpaper?”
“Exactly. I believe that time is... divided. Into moments, or segments. Within each segment we are alive and awake, but in between... there are gaps. That’s when things change.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“I think the readers live their lives in the gaps between our time segments. They live in our time too, somehow—I know because they can see us. But in the gaps... they have the universe to themselves.”
“Charlie, you’re not making any sense.”
“I know it sounds crazy. But I’m dead serious. And here’s the important part: when the readers aren’t watching us... we don’t exist!”
Jerry shook his head and turned away, but after a moment’s thought he turned back. “OK. Suppose I accept this theory of yours. Suppose there are gaps between moments. But time still feels continuous to us. See?” He waved a paw rapidly back and forth. “So it doesn’t really matter!”
“It doesn’t matter as long as they keep coming back. But if too many of them get bored... if they all go away and don’t come back... then the gap will just go on and on, and we’ll never exist again. It’ll be the end of the world, Jerry. Squashed flat in the dark, forever.” Charlie’s eyes were desperate, sincere, pleading. “You’ve got to get me out of here. I’ll joke, I’ll pratfall, I’ll do anything to keep the readers coming back. To keep us all alive. Please.”
Jerry closed his eyes, unable to bear his friend’s gaze. “There are no readers, Charlie.”
In the end, he was right.
Falling Off the Unicorn
David D. Levine and Sara A. Mueller
Sailing in slow motion above the sand of the arena floor, Misty thought “This is going to hurt.”
Just a moment ago she’d been in the saddle, nudging Vulcan through a shoulder-in, concentrating on moving the unicorn’s right back hoof toward his left shoulder, getting him used to working in this building. It was new, still smelled of paint, and was making all the animals edgy.
And then some moron in the stands had lit up a goddamn cigarette.
Misty’s spur caught on the saddle as Vulcan whirled out from under her, alabaster coat and flaxen mane blurring past her eyes. She couldn’t get her hip under her and hit the ground on her left knee. It did hurt—it hurt like a sumbitch. She gasped from the pain, pulling in a breath full of shavings and manure dust as she rolled away from Vulcan’s sharp cloven hooves. The last thing she needed was an enraged four-hundred-pound unicorn stepping on her head.
Somewhere on the stands, she could hear her groom Caroline shouting. There was shouting all around, and the metal voice from the announcer’s booth called out, “Loose unicorn, Harry, close the gate!” No one wanted a Persian stud running loose on the fairgrounds.
Misty kept one arm wrapped around her throbbing knee and the other over her head, but she could still see Vulcan rearing and pounding the rail with his iridescent hooves, making the hollow steel ring and tipping his head sideways to lunge through the rails with the double-edged spiral of his horn. His scream of rage echoed in the high hollow ceiling as he struggled to reach the offending smoker. Caroline pushed the stupid addict toward the exit, bellowing “Whoa, Vulcan! God-dammit, whoa!”
And the stupid beast whoa’d. He dropped right to his feet and gave a self-satisfied snort, pleased and proud that he’d defended his rider from the vicious cigarette. Misty rocked, holding her knee. Damn idiot animal. Caroline vaulted over the rail, dropped the six feet to the arena floor, and caught Vulcan’s reins. Crisis controlled.
Misty tried to sit up as the announcer cleared the arena. Brighter pain stabbed in her knee; it felt full of white-hot glass shards. She pushed herself up on her arms, spitting and snorting out sand and the ground-up shreds of old sneaker soles. Caroline walked Vulcan over, the animal placidly lipping her dark buzz-cut as if to say “Did I do good, boss?”
Caroline crouched down and cradled Misty’s knee in her hands, sliding her thumbs across the top of the kneecap. Only six weeks older than Misty, Caroline had always looked after her like a beloved little sister. She whispered under her breath, and a brief tingle of investigative magic slipped through the crackle of pain. “Can’t tell how bad it is, but it’s not broken. Think you can get up, blondie?” Though she kept her words light, concern tightened the skin around her eyes.
“I’d rather not.”
Caroline gave a little smirk and hauled Misty to her good foot.
“Ow!” Misty leaned hard on Caroline and hopped to keep her balance. That was a mistake—the injured knee screamed with pain at the jolt. “Sonofa—” But she bit off the curse, sucking air through her teeth and blinking hard. There were a lot of things that unicorn riders weren’t supposed to do, and one of them was swear out loud, especially not in front of an entire arena full of riders who’d love to see her disqualified.
Double especially not in front of Mary Frances Schwartz, the only other girl here with a real shot at the Nationals. Mary Frances was a barracuda in a double-A bra, five years younger than Misty’s seventeen and almost as tall. She’d be too tall to ride Persians next year, unless she turned out to be a “teeny little freak” like Misty. She sidled her own unicorn Angel over, threateningly close to Vulcan, who laid his ears back and arched up at the other stud. “Are you all right?” she asked with nearly authentic sympathy.
“It’s so sweet of you to ask,” Misty ground out through clenched teeth. At least two reporters were taking notes, so she couldn’t say what she was really thinking. She put one arm over Caroline’s shoulder and the other over Vulcan’s saddle, clutching the saddle horn as the three of them hobbled slowly out of the arena to the stable.
It took them almost ten minutes to cover the hundred yards to their stalls, Misty leaning into the lithe strength of Caroline’s body. Vulcan was limping too; maybe he’d hurt himself attacking the rail. The dusty fairground was painfully bright after the mercury-lit dimness of the arena.
Once they reached the shade of the stall, Caroline eased Misty onto a shrink-wrapped sawdust bale. Misty sighed and rested her head in the soft hollow of Caroline’s neck, smelling clean sweat and the cotton of her shirt collar. “Thank you,” she said, and squeezed her hand.
Caroline squeezed back for a moment, then pulled away and turned back to Vulcan. Misty felt a childish urge to pout—Vulcan had to be secured in his stall, but the knee didn’t hurt as much when she held Caroline’s hand.
Caroline unbuckled Vulcan’s bridle, replacing it with a halter cross-tied to each side of the open stall door. You never let that horn loose around people if you could help it. Once the unicorn was secured, Caroline brought Misty an ice pack from the trailer. “I told your mother those damn spurs were going to be trouble.”
“Since when does she listen to either of us?” Misty sucked in a breath as Caroline laid the ice pack over the ruined knee of her pink Wranglers. She didn’t want to let on just how much it hurt. “Anyway, it wasn’t the spurs, it was me. You’d never have lost your seat.” Caroline had grown too tall to show unicorns, but on a horse she was a study in long-limbed grace.
“I’m just the groom, shorty.”
Misty gave Caroline a mock glare. “I’m gonna hit five feet this year, you wait and see.”
“Dream on.” Caroline crouched by Vulcan’s front leg, inspecting the suspect hoof. “Looks like you’ve got a bruised hoof there, son.”
“Seriously, Caro, it should be you out there on Vulcan, not me. You trained him, after all. I just sit on him. He’s the proverbial push-button pony.”
“I’m too tall, and you know it. I can ride ’em, I just don’t look good on ’em.” She picked up Vulcan’s bruised foot and cupped it between her hands for a moment, muttering a healing charm like a prayer whispered in a lover’s ear. Vulcan let his head hang in the cross-ties, eyes half closed as the magic flowed through his injured hoof.
Space Magic Page 17
