The Theory of Insanity
Rick Newberry
This book is a work of fiction composed from the author’s imagination. It is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Contact the publisher at [email protected].
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ISBN: 978-1-948266-00-0/Paperback
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1. Fiction/Science Fiction/Time Travel
2. Fiction/Science Fiction/Alternative History
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
For
Clyde and Matilde
Contents
Part One
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Part Two
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XVIII
Part Three
Chapter XXIX
Part One
The End
I
The day I died was a real bitch.
I’ve seen black and white news footage of Beatlemania—an arena full of screaming fans, security doing their best to hold them back. Of course, that all happened a million years ago. Tonight, it was my ass on the line. My company in charge of security. My reputation at stake. Instead of the Fab Four, however, the fanatics in the Las Vegas Arena screamed for Dr. Anwar Knight, the world’s foremost global visionary.
More than the substantial payday, I liked to think Dr. Knight’s values were the main reason I contracted to provide security for his We Are One world tour. And so far, the firm of Brooklyn Davis, Inc. had performed without blemish. But, like the Beatles before him, the good doctor’s message of peace, love, and understanding attracted its fair share of haters.
The anti-globalists were the worst. They popped up in every city from Berlin to Rio, waving protest signs and hurling epithets. Dr. Knight got a kick out of their creativity, commenting on this poster or that, having a laugh at his own expense. Tonight’s demonstrators had been kept back from the arena by Las Vegas Metro.
I stood on stage, behind and to the left of Knight. Beside me, his longtime business partner, Morton Sully, leaned over and shouted above the crowd, “Listen to them cheer. I can’t understand why we even need your firm. They love him. They view him as the second coming.”
“It didn’t turn out too good for that first guy, did it?” I loved busting his balls.
He gave me a sideways glance at the audience’s chant of “We are one. We are one.”
Knight waved his hands for quiet. The crowd returned to their seats.
All at once, as the arena stilled, my blood turned to ice. Something was wrong—like a portent of things to come—today would be a bitch.
An unusual movement stirred from the middle of Section One. I strained to sort it out while bringing my wrist to my mouth. “Section One,” I yelled into the mic over the rekindled mantra of the crowd.
“We Are One.”
“Section One.”
“We Are One.”
“Section One.” It was no use. All communications between my team was dead.
“We are all black,” Knight said, his voice booming. “We’re all gay.” His volume increased, drowning out my calls for help. “We’re all different.”
I took two steps toward Dr. Knight. He continued to roar into the microphone. “Even though we are all different, in truth, we are all the same. We each share the same needs, the same wants, the same desires. We all want for food. We all need the air. Each of us crave love, recognition, immortality.” The crowd rose, cheering him on. I rushed toward him.
A woman, five feet two, strawberry blonde, around mid-twenties, wrestled her way through the crowd. She yelled something, running toward the stage. I reached inside my coat, placing a hand on the butt of my firearm. Within ten feet of me, she shouted, “Brooks,” over the crowd.
Only a close group of friends called me by that name. I didn’t know this woman.
Her voice grew louder. “Brooks, the podium—”
The podium? The podium that had been searched? The podium that had been x-rayed? The podium that was now sealed? I stepped toward Dr. Knight, but it was too late. The podium lit up and my mouth fell open. A moment later, everything lit up and fell open.
The blast, heat, and force of the explosion tossed me about like a sock puppet—if the puppet were being ripped to shreds while being lit on fire, that is. The good doctor, myself, and a large number of his followers left the face of the earth in a steady wave.
And so it goes…
I opened my eyes.
I’m not a religious man, per se. I have prayed. I want to believe—does that count?
I’ve heard death is visited upon each one of us as a tailored event. In other words, whatever we believe, happens to us when we die—becoming our new reality. One person’s Great Reward, is another’s Big Sleep. Someone’s Higher Power, is someone else’s Happy Hour. There are as many ways to visualize what happens in death as there are people in the world—billions. I can only guess, the moment that bomb exploded, my beliefs kicked in.
We are one. I stood at the Pearly Gates, alongside a million others, scanning them for weapons, searching their faces for signs of aggression—old habits really do die hard. Wait. None of this made any sense. Here I was, the new soul on the block, and I’d already taken the familiar “me against them” mentality. Are we one?
A wide avenue ran parallel to the gate. Crowded with people, they marched by in smooth and unhurried steps, a slight bounce to their stroll. I tested the ground. It consisted of a spongy material—like elastic—giving in to the pressure of my foot. The odd silence of the people on line at the gate extended to the multitude wandering the avenue.
With sudden apprehension, I raised my fingers to my face, expecting a visceral mess of raw muscle and bare bone—traces of the bomb that ended my life. Instead, I touched no wounds, tasted no blood, felt no damage. At least I was saved that mortification, not seeing the sight of other people’s demise—knife wounds and bullet holes and burns and disease and beheading and torture and mayhem, and the myriad of ways humans enter Heaven.
“This isn’t Heaven,” a woman’s voice said, breaking the silence.
No one reacted to her words but me. I turned, staring at the owner of the voice. My heart double-thumped. This was the same woman from the arena, the stranger who had rushed the stage.
An awkward smile worked its way across my lips, my mind racing to make sense of this absurd scene. It didn’t ta
ke long to come up with the answer. This was nothing more than a drug induced hallucination. At this very moment, my body lay in an operating room with surgeons tweezer-ing microscopic bomb fragments from my brain. While the neurosurgeons worked their miracles, I had manufactured this vivid dream world—an afterlife fantasy. I lowered my head and smiled. I’d gotten off lucky this time, but in the future, I’d have to be more careful about the types of clients I chose, not to mention the way we secured podiums.
The girl laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“The stories we tell ourselves about our death pale in comparison to the lies we remember about our life.”
I rubbed a hand over my eyes. “Come again?”
“Believe me, Brooks, this is no fantasy. You’re dead. Nobody within a mile of that explosion survived, and you were only a few feet from the podium. Oh, you’re dead all right.” She spoke with authority. “Uh-oh, do you want to sit down? You don’t look so good.”
Squaring my jaw, I grabbed her shoulders. I didn’t have to squeeze hard, her eyes told me I had her attention. “Who the hell are you?”
“Samantha.”
“Should that name mean something to me?”
She nodded. I released her and she stepped back. “All your questions will be answered. I promise. I’m on your side.” She turned around, speaking over her shoulder. “Follow me.”
I hurried to keep up. “You’re going to answer all my questions?”
“Well, no, not me. But—”
“That does it.” Enough of this afterlife bullshit. I closed my eyes, willing myself back to the operating room table. Somehow, I would have to fight through the Propofol, or whatever the anesthesiologist’s drug of choice was that day and slip back into my body.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she said, her quiet voice cutting through my concentration like a scalpel. “Just accept things as they are right now and follow me.”
I generally don’t turn my back on trouble, but this girl didn’t even exist. All I had to do was trust in the skill of the neurosurgeons, and time would do the rest. In a few hours, maybe days, I would wake up. Not long ago, I had a .44 slug removed from my chest. Obviously, the wounds this time would be a little more significant, but after some intense physical therapy to—
“To what, Brooks?” Samantha was in my face. “To reattach your head to your body? To replace several major organs that vaporized in the detonation? I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you can’t be put back together again.”
I couldn’t breathe. My train of thought left me standing at the station. I didn’t want to hear what she preached—that I was dead—blown to bits. I touched my face again. She couldn’t be right. This wasn’t the end. I wasn’t—
“You’re dead, Brooks. You’ve passed on.”
The breath I couldn’t catch finally arrived, coming in shallow gulps. I realized this woman had read my mind. If I didn’t calm down soon, I would keel over. “No. No, no, no, no. This is all wrong.”
“Listen to me, Brooks. I tried to tell you about the bomb, remember? I was shouting, waving my arms, even yelling “podium” at the top of my lungs. I did everything I could to warn you, but either I was too slow, or you were too full of yourself to accept my help.”
Her scolding got me breathing again. It also pissed me off. I gripped her shoulders, squeezing hard this time. “Listen, you’ve got ten seconds to tell me exactly what’s going on. Believe me, I can squeeze a helluva lot harder than this.”
Her brow crinkled, eyes shutting tight—a typical reaction to pain. “The explosion,” she said, “you were killed in the explosion. I’m telling you the truth. No one survived that blast. You’re dead.”
I relaxed my grip, allowing her to wriggle free. I can generally tell when people are lying, but I still had a real problem believing her. Pearly Gates—really? All of this—from the spongy ground, to the multitude of wandering souls—had to be an elaborate dream. No, it was more unpleasant than that—a nightmare.
She stepped toward me, her hands on my shoulders now. In what my mother used to call an ‘angel’s voice,’ she whispered, “Brooks, this is not a nightmare. You’re dead.”
“But I…I can feel—”
“Feel what? What are you trying to say?”
“I’m breathing.” To demonstrate, I drew in a long, slow lungful of air. “I can move.” I lowered my arms to my sides. “I’m talking, thinking, feeling—”
“Yes, you can still do all those things.”
“Still? What do you mean still?”
She spoke in a quiet whisper, “I mean, even after you’ve passed on, all human traits are still present. You can still feel hunger and thirst, pain and joy.”
Apparently, I could still feel sick to my stomach, too. I searched the immediate area, hoping for a trash can.
Samantha touched the back of her hand to my forehead. “Better?”
“If you mean, do I have to puke anymore…I don’t. But is that better? Better than what? How can anything ever be better if I’m…dead?”
“Acceptance is good.” She smiled. “You’re doing really well. Now, follow me.”
“Follow you where?”
“To the House of Questions.”
I glanced at the people on line at the Pearly Gates. “Shouldn’t I stay here, instead?”
“Maybe later, but for now, come with me.” She took a few steps back, waving at me to follow. Joining the crowd on the avenue, she shouted back at me, “C’mon, Brooks.”
What the hell. I would play along until they woke me up in the recovery room. I stepped toward her, the elastic ground giving way to my weight. The spongy surface made walking an effortless activity, helping one foot rise while easing the other one down.
The absence of a constant drone of automobiles, aircraft, and machinery jarred me. The only sound left—the endless clatter of people tramping along on the spongy terrain. Their footsteps reminded me of a bass drum being struck by cloth covered drumsticks. It produced a hypnotic tone, pleasing to the ear, but faded into the background with time.
Glancing ahead, I noticed bright neon lights shimmering in different colors against an overcast sky. There were no stars, no moon, just brilliant shades of green, purple, blue, and orange rising up, cutting a sharp contrast to the soft, squishy ground. The structures climbed so tall they vanished into the clouds. I squinted at my watch, shook my wrist then brought it up to my ear.
“Your watch stopped at time of death,” Samantha said, “8:22pm.”
II
Twenty, twenty-two hundred hours—my time of death.
The travelers on the avenue didn’t pay any attention to us, even though, as is my wont, I kept my eyes on them. Even here, on the other side, I searched for weapons, hunting out evil. But now, along with observing their actions, I also focused on their wrists. Nearly everyone wore a watch, a shrewd reminder of their demise. At first, Samantha’s casual comment about my time of death startled me. On my wrist, I carried a small token, a souvenir marking the exact moment I expired. Gruesome. But deep down, the thought gave me comfort, perhaps a sense of closure no one else could understand.
“I understand, Brooks,” Samantha said. “Please, let it go.”
“What are you talking about?”
She scoffed. “I’ve been with you your whole life. I know everything about you.”
“Are…are you my Guardian Angel?”
“Ha, that term is so outdated, even a little degrading.” She lifted her head and stared at me—no. She stared straight into me. “We’re called guides now, and I’ve always been yours. I’ve shared every step of your journey on earth. I’m with you forever.”
I shivered at the sudden realization. After all the bottles and drugs and shrinks and group therapy and self-help books…after all the years of agony, I had finally met someone who understood. She knew my burden, the bag of bricks I carried—my shame, my loss.
“War changes everyone,” she said, “one does what one must—w
e survive.”
Sweat coated my brow. “There’s no excuse for what I did.”
“I felt your anguish when they tortured you, every wound they inflicted, every bone they broke.” She placed a soothing hand on my arm. I calmed at her touch, wrapping me in a blanket of serenity. “I understood your need for reprisal.”
I tensed at the memories. Samantha tightened her grip on my arm, easing my anxiety once again. I spoke in a whisper, “They were unarmed. I didn’t care. You use the word reprisal. A civilized word—almost sterile.” My lips quivered. “It was payback, pure and simple. No, it wasn’t even that. It was slaughter, like putting down sick animals. And you know what worried me…what worries me? I…” The words stuck in my throat.
“You enjoyed it,” Samantha said finishing my thought.
I lowered my head, closed my eyes, trying to shut out the horror.
She hesitated. “But the official inquiry ruled—”
“The official inquiry was a joke, a big show for the press.” I pulled my arm from her reach. “Case closed, they forgave themselves.”
“But you never forgave yourself.”
I allowed a grin. “You know, I confided in Dr. Knight once—told him about those demons of mine. He said something I’ll never forget—”
“I remember,” Samantha said chiming in. “He said everything must have a beginning, and that beginning must be linked to something that went before.”
A chill crawled across my skin. “That was just between him and—”
“You know, I have to tell you a little secret about that quote,” she said with a grin. “He stole it from Mary Shelley.”
It took a few moments to register. “Frankenstein? Son of a bitch. I thought I had a handle on what he was trying to tell me, now, I have no idea.”
She leaned in and whispered, “Anwar Knight is a very wise man. Mary Shelley’s story was about a doctor—you—who inadvertently created a monster—evil. It was about good intentions gone wrong. Sound familiar?”
It made sense, until I recalled the whole plot. “In the story, the monster kills everyone Dr. Frankenstein loves.”
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