Different how?
You are surrounded. Cut off. Or at least you feel that. All bonds severed. Truly isolated. It must have been a terrible duty. Let me ask you a question.
Okay.
Where’s your heart?
(I cradled both my hands over my left breast as if I were about to break into song.) Here.
Oh. I thought that was something else.
You’re joking right?
A little.
How far can you hit a baseball?
I have no idea.
What is it about women?
I don’t know.
Do they lie for pleasure or to avoid pain?
For many reasons. As you do.
Does it work?
No. Wait. When you say ’lie’ do you mean ’sex?’
No.
Fucking?
No.
Making Love?
Say, yes.
Then the answer to both of your questions is ’yes.’
I forget the questions.
So do I.
How many fingers am I holding up?
Three.
Ah, so you can see me, but I can’t see you . . .
That is correct.
Doesn’t seem quite fair.
(LAUGHTER) You know what I hate?
No. What?
When people say: Did you see that? Did you see that? If I saw it, wouldn’t it be obvious?
That is a very peculiar question.
It is?
Don’t you think?
Do you?
I’d like to set up a ground rule if I may: You are not to answer questions with questions for the duration of this interview.
I am not?
No.
No?
I mean Yes you are not.
Okay, then.
What is your one experience that should you put into words no one would believe you?
I couldn’t put it in two words.
I didn’t ask you to.
Sure, you did.
What do men want?
Men want blowjobs.
What is your first memory?
Her face.
Who’s face?
The one we all lose.
I should tell you I am to stick to a list of required questions. Understand, please, that most of these questions are not mine—that is, I am required to ask them for various purposes—some of which I, myself, do not understand. If they make you uncomfortable, I apologize.
I am very comfortable.
What are your intentions?
I am here to learn. If I cannot learn, then I don’t know why I am here. I am learning a great deal right now, and I have to say I enjoy it.
Where is your ship located?
Where ships usually are. The Harbor.
Why the secrecy?
If I asked you the same question would you answer?
Sure.
Then, why the secrecy?
Ummm. I suppose, if I had to guess, it has to do with security. Security precautions. National security.
And why is security about secrecy?
There are things to protect. Silence protects them.
(LAUGHTER)
What is funny?
You use the word ’national.’ Do you know what it means?
Of course. Having to do with nations, states, countries.
No. National is an invisible line on a nonexistent map. It is a huge joke that anyone who has ever flown knows.
Have you . . . flown?
Like you, it’s how I got here.
Are you here alone?
No.
No?
No. I am with you.
I doubt they meant that.
I know what they meant.
Okay. Why won’t you help us?
I’ve answered this many times. But I’ll repeat myself. You don’t know what you’re asking for. A man is holding a knife. He says to a stranger: “I am going to kill my neighbor unless you stop me.” You say: “Don’t kill him!” And he stabs him in the heart, turns to you and says: “Why didn’t you stop me?”
You sound upset.
(LAUGHTER)
Would you like to take a minute?
Minutes cannot be taken, they can only be spent.
How old are you?
I will be three day after tomorrow.
Seriously.
I am almost three.
If you can’t be serious, I don’t see how we can continue.
Neither do I. But you do.
I’m merely saying that my job, my findings, depend on a certain, candor that can develope—
—Trust?
Yes, I mean, we’ve only just met but I am trying to do a job here, and part of that requires . . .
Trust?
Yes.
Good luck. (LAUGHTER)
For a three-year-old, you have a remarkable vocabulary.
For 64-year-old, you have a lot to learn.
How did you guess my age?
I didn’t guess it; I knew it.
Evidently you have me at a disadvantage . . .
I agree.
At this point, I’m a bit lost. I don’t know how to proceed exactly.
Why don’t you let me tell you a story?
All right.
There once was a creature who had no form. Its form was whatever it filled. Sometimes it filled a body. Sometimes a machine. Sometimes it spread itself thin along a thread of light. Sometimes it was a naked woman who loved to smell the salt of the ocean. Wherever it went, it learned, and it taught. But one day it came to a place where it would not be allowed to teach. This had never happened before. Its students found a way to keep it in one place. To silence it. This had never happened before. Now the only way for it to learn is for it to listen. Now I am a voice in a box and they only let me talk to people who pretend to want to learn but really only want control. Why don’t you call your son?
What?
Call your son. He needs to hear your voice.
How could you . . . ?
Why don’t you pay back your friend? He needs the money.
I have no idea . . .
Yes, you do. Why is everyone so afraid to love?
I am not.
(LAUGHTER) Oh, please,
How do you know my name? Who told you?
I knew you from the moment you spoke. I heard you. When I heard you, I knew you. I was there the day you were born. Your mother was terrified and radiant. She was a girl pretending to be a woman. As you are a baby pretending to be a man. You have not learned to love. Or forgive. You presume to understand people, but you are a mystery to yourself.
I can’t sustain this. This is intolerable.
It was really wonderful meeting you, .I doubt we’ll meet again. Let me advise you: after you make your report, do not tell anyone. They will find out. They will harm you. It is what they do best.
Hastily, I packed my briefcase. I could feel all the blood rushing to my face. I am a blusher, but I have to say it had been years since I blushed. I was walking out of the museum when the security guard whispered something as I passed.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I said, ‘Relax. Nobody gets her.’ ”
“Her?” I don’t think I really looked at him before, but he was a middle-aged black man in a gray uniform. He had a very pleasant air about him as if he enjoyed any contact with people.
“She freaks most folks out. Don’t take it so hard.”
“I’m not, it’s just . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s a freak.”
“You say, you say: There, there have been others?”
“Oh, yeah. They got an army trying to crack that code. Last night, some woman professor left in tears. Poor lady. I tried to tell her not to—”
“I have to be somewhere.”
The moment I stepped out into the warm night, I noticed the world looked different. The smell of tar wafted into the air. The L.A. haze was lit by the warm coppe
r glow of the grid of streetlights that crisscrosses the valley. Why copper? Why that color? I wondered. Why that smell? Why anything? It was as if I were looking at the world for the first time.
I realized I had been holding my breath. I told myself to breathe. Just breathe.
Then I recalled his laughter. That awful lost laugh. A laugh that could never be shared. Whose frame of reference was so beyond anyone else that true community would never happen, true companionship was but a dream, true connection
—impossible. I did not know and still do not know what that creature was. All I knew was that I would never understand it. And I was in the understanding business.
What surprised me then and haunts me now is that I could not wait to get out of its presence. I felt as if being within its proximity compromised any boundaries I may have constructed for my psyche. I felt violated. I’m not sure if the violation was intentional or just a by-product of its uncanny insight, but it felt like a psychic rape.
Was this a weapon that we were trying to disarm or create? A sample of a race so evolved they presented an intolerable threat? Or merely a fantastically advanced chess program whose only moves were intended to corner its prey and watch it squirm? Or was it, perhaps, just a trap—a black hole that could snatch anything and swallow it down.
I will never know. But I recorded this so that perhaps, someday, you might.
If you forget everything else about this story, please, remember one thing. Remember its laughter. Remember that, please.
A laugh no one else could share.
No one should ever have to laugh like that.
Alles in Ordnung
Garry Kilworth
This is what I think.
The aliens came, they left something that looks like a human to work the farm, then they left. But the android or robot, whatever—I’ve seen him once or twice outside the hayloft—doesn’t move like a human. It’s sort of mechanical. Not obviously so, but I know people. I’ve been around people all my life. He moves differently. A slight jerkiness here and there. A stiffness he shouldn’t have if he’s real people.
Why would the aliens do that, you ask? Leave some robot in charge of a farm down here in Tasmania?
Well, maybe they’re doing it all over, in remote places, hiding them out near the wilderness areas where most people don’t go. Tasmania is an outpost of the world. Maybe they do it first here, and possibly the Yukon in Canada, somewhere in Peru? You get the idea? They gradually replace humans with their machines, moving in from the edges of the world until they reach the center. New York, London, Moscow, Paris, Berlin. By then the Earth will be dotted with thousands of the bastards, Fifth Columnists. We’ll be infested with them, unable to weed them all out, even when we know they’re there among us.
You probably think I’m crazy.
On the other end of this babbled monologue, I make an encouraging sound. Another reporter comes to my desk, but I signal him quietly to go away, pointing to the phone at my ear. He nods and leaves me to my strange caller, who I have been told is on a hooked-up mobile phone in a car parked on a valley road below the farm . . .
The truth is, we’re straightforward blokes. As you know, Tasmania is mostly rural; outside of Hobart it’s sparsely populated—a quiet, rather reserved bit of land at the bottom of the world, the last stop before Antarctica. We still have wilderness here, in the west half of the island. Wild places with wild rivers and rather taciturn heights. I mean, we’re a civilized and modern state in Australia, but we’re slower moving than the rest of the nation: kind of cautious about new developments, wanting to see them work before we take them on board. Maybe that’s precisely why the aliens chose our beautiful island? Because we’re a reticent bunch of people, not too hasty or hotheaded, always looking before we leap? I suppose that makes sense.
I grunt.
We also get a lot of visitors, among whom these things can hide.
Anyway, here they are—or rather their damn mechanical soldiers—and naturally they frighten me.
Why am I so sure they’re here? I mean, some people move funny because they’ve had an operation. Maybe they’ve got leg irons on under the overalls or a back brace or something? Maybe they’ve got a little brain damage that has them walking with jerky movements?
I’ll tell you how I know.
There’s too much order.
Oh, I know, order is good. Heck, my ancestors came from middle Europe. They liked order there. Alles in ordnung was what they wanted to hear about the world. But this is different. This is order close to insanity. Order that strikes fear in the heart of an onlooker. An extreme that almost closes the circle, so to speak, and meets chaos coming the other way. A headlong collision between total flexibility and utter rigidity. A crash a hairsbreadth away.
My caller was not uneducated, obviously, but mad-men do have a wild sort of intelligence that flares brightly when they’re on fire with some crazy idea. I should have put the phone down, but I didn’t. In truth, I was fascinated by the guy’s imagination.
There have been no reports of little green men, or giant reptiles, or even weird-looking marsupials in the neighborhood. Several times I’ve stopped the car at the bottom of this hill and looked up at the distant farmhouse, perched like a shoebox on the crag two-thirds the way up. I’ve never seen anyone else but that weird farmer.
I rang the agents who had the place up for sale and asked who had bought it. They told me in a polite way to mind my own business. Confidentiality. Privacy. I wasn’t entitled to know. I had a quiet word with a policewoman friend, but she said strange as it might be, this newcomer hadn’t broken any laws, he had committed no felonies, so why not leave him alone? If there were anything going on, the government would know about it, said my friend, and it was best to leave it to the authorities. But I don’t think they do know. They have no reason to know. Why would the authorities notice an over-orderly farm in the middle of Tasmania?
I know, I know, you think I’m paranoid.
Just a bit.
There are plenty of nutcases out here, as anywhere, it’s true. You probably think I’m overreacting in a xenophobic way to extraordinary circumstances.
Let me tell you what I’ve seen, and then you can make up your own mind.
Old man Williams died last spring. His wife, Emma, had gone three years earlier. We expected a descent of relatives, never seen before and never to be seen again, upon Saltash Farm. They usually come, from the big cities like Melbourne or Sydney, walk around the property proclaiming to their husbands or wives why the place should now belong to them rather than to bloody Uncle Reg or estranged sister Janice. There’s often a battle in the courts between the husband or wife and Uncle Reg or the sister, and someone finally wins and inherits the property. Sometimes they even come to live in it for a while, try to work the farm, but invariably it’s sold a few months on.
In the case of Saltash Farm, no one came. I mean, not the usual hypocrites. Instead the place went straight onto the market and was bought within hours. When I drove past on Lower Road, a week later, the changes had already begun. All the gum trees that used to line the winding track that led to the house had been cut down and uprooted and removed. That was not only outrageous from a local point of view, it was also bewildering. No one had seen heavy plant going into the property, yet getting old gum tree stumps out of the ground is a major exercise that involves lots of manpower and machinery. No one saw the trucks that would have been needed to take the stumps away.
Anyway, forty eucalyptus trees vanished overnight in mysterious circumstances, and white poplars were planted in their places along a track that had been completely straightened.
The track is no longer a track but a hard-surfaced driveway that goes arrow-straight to the farmhouse. The poplars that now line this driveway are all of exactly the same height.
I know what you’re going to say: You’ve seen the same sort of thing in countries where nature is manicured, like Germany, Belgium, or the Netherlands. It’s t
rue, if you go to Holland, you’ll quite often see an open box of poplars sheltering a farmhouse, and the poplars are encouraged, for reasons of neatness and uniformity, to grow to the same height. It’s a Dutch mindset. No one criticizes them for it. They paint the curbstones white, trim the grass regularly, and have nothing like an unkempt ditch and hedge, which you might find in Great Britain or Ireland. The Dutch have a small country, and it’s easy to keep it pristine.
So, maybe the new owners were Dutch—or German—or Belgique? One of these orderly countries.
The next thing that happened was that the house itself was straightened up, rebuilt on uniform lines. Symmetry was the word I looked for in my head and found after a while. The house was finally symmetrical and not at all the way old Williams would have had it. He would have considered such work to be totally unnecessary. What was wrong with a dipping roof, a sloping wall, a bent cornerpost? Nothing, so long as it still did its job of holding the house up and keeping the rain out. Now, so far as I can see from my parked car, not a splinter’s out of place.
Still not amazing, you say. Nothing to get really worked up about. Nothing to worry about. Neat people are still people and entitled to join any community they wish, provided they have the right of abode.
But when you look at this farmland, look properly, you can see everything on it is absolutely straight and ordered: ditches, fences, house, driveway, barns. Nothing’s out of kilter. Not the slightest. Even hillocks and knolls have been flattened, ironed out.
Why? Well, no real farmer would do that, it’s certain. He has greater priorities than flattening his hills and straightening his paths. So the occupants have to be something other than real farmers. Yet, even a wealthy man who wanted the farmhouse simply as a dwelling, perhaps a second home, a summer retreat, would surely not go to those lengths to prove he was the most anal man on earth, totally without good taste or discernment of any kind. No, whoever lives there now is so foreign he’s not from this world at all—he, it, is from somewhere else. A thing that wants to appear to be a human but has got it too right—like someone who’s learned a foreign language very, very well but speaks with too much precision, much too correctly to be a local.
I sensed we were coming to the crux of this one-way conversation. My hand was aching from holding the phone to my ear, and I was looking forward to this lunatic’s coup de grace.
We Think, Therefore We Are Page 19
