by Gene Brewer
“All you have to do is make arrangements to speak to your United Nations Security Council. If they agree to listen to you, the matter would then be taken up by the General Assembly representing all the people of your world.”
How did he know about our — “And if they don’t?”
“It’s over.”
I’m sure I gulped quite audibly. “What’s over?”
“Your species will be eliminated from the Earth.”
I could feel my stomach sinking. This simply could not be happening. “And how would I do that?” I asked weakly. “Get permission to talk to the Security Council, I mean?”
I could hear his dead teeth grinding. “When fled was here, your government finally understood — after it was too late, of course — that she should have had a forum. It would be a simple matter to go to your president and ask for such a hearing now. You could tell them some of fled’s friends sent you.”
“Ask the President??”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“But — But I don’t know the President,” I whined.
“Then (you imbecile) go back to the people who followed you around when fled was here. They’re probably expecting you.”
“What is the time frame?”
I could hear him breathing heavily. I wondered how this was possible since he was dead and shouldn’t be able to breathe at all. “A week should be enough.”
“You want to speak at the United Nations a week from now?”
“Ahhhhhh!” he shrieked. “They told me you sometimes pretended to be deaf for reasons of your own. No, you idiot, you will speak there!” This time I didn’t imagine the epithet.
I felt the weight of the whole world drop again onto my sagging shoulders. “You’re asking me to present your case to the United Nations?”
He was actually seething now. “Is it possible that you are really as stupid as everyone says? It’s not our case. It’s your case.”
“But it’s you who — ”
“Try hard to listen to me, sapiens. The entire human race depends on your doing this. Do you care whether your species survives?”
I thought about my grandchildren, who were completely innocent of all this. “Of course I care! But I don’t want to represent our species at the UN. I’m not very good at public speaking. I don’t like it. I don’t want the responsibility.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, and almost in a guttural whisper: “You have no choice.”
I felt my respiration rate increase perceptibly. Even speaking at a PTA meeting always made me feel breathless and queasy. When I was working, I had to talk to various groups now and then, but it was about topics I was familiar with and could have recited in my sleep. Now I was being asked to convince the President of the United States that I needed to speak to the United Nations Security Council, and then to actually do it. On top of that, I had to sell them on the Bullocks’ demands, whatever they were. I was already terrified even though I was still sitting in my familiar old car in my own little neighborhood. Why the hell did my wife have to have a jar of pickles all of a sudden? I wished prot had never come here. I wished I had never been born. Why, oh why, did I become a goddamn psychiatrist?”
“A lot of reasons.”
“Oh, God, you can read my mind. Like fled could.”
“Your feeble mind is as transparent as a glass of water.”
“So if I don’t need to talk, why are you letting me?”
“You humans need to talk. It organizes your mind. Otherwise your thoughts would be a jumble.”
“Then you must know I don’t think I can do this.”
“Then Homo sapiens will disappear from the face of the Earth. Would you like to reconsider your position?”
“If I said, ‘Go to hell!’ would you know what I meant?”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t get you out of your dilemma, even if there were such a place.”
I turned onto Harrison Road. Somehow I felt that if I could just get home, things would be different. At least I would feel safer. But of course there was no place to hide, even there. We drove in silence until I pulled into the driveway. The familiar backyard and the woods behind it suddenly seemed strange, foreign. Even the light looked different, as though darkness were descending. I felt as if I were on the outside looking in, perhaps like a schizophrenic might feel. I turned off the engine. “So you’re leaving now? Back to wherever you came from? And I’m on my own on this thing?”
“No, I’ll be here for a while. You’ll need to know exactly what our demands are, won’t you? And if you fail, we’ve got some work to do.” He, or they, seemed to be sneering less than before, as if they had finally gotten used to the revolting appearance of a human being, much as we might slowly become immune to the sight of maggots devouring a corpse. I thought, with a curious sense of false hope, that perhaps the Bullocks were beginning to like us.
“Uh — what kind of work?”
“We’ll discuss that later. Make arrangements to speak to your Security Council first. If they refuse, there is no need for further discussion.”
“But I’d better not fail, is that it?”
“Only if you don’t want to see your grandchildren become the last generation of humans on the Earth.”
The brief sense of hope quickly evaporated. I was sick, frozen with fear, not because it looked as though I would have to speak at the United Nations (it was still hard to believe this could happen), or even because it appeared that I was responsible for the fate of the human race, but because I was staring right at the thing almost all of us fear most. And very close up. It was the face of death.
I got out of the car, expecting Walter to follow. But when I looked around, he was gone. For a moment I felt another wave of relief. But of course this, too, was only temporary. The whole conversation flooded back into my mind and I was right back where I was before. Did I imagine it all? No, he — they — were only too real, right down to the scowl. Even Flower knew something was up: she ran out the doggy door and sniffed around the car with intense concentration, as if there were a dead rat in it.
I took the grocery items inside, where Karen was waiting in the kitchen. “You won’t believe what just happened,” I said. I don’t know whether she noticed that I was still shaking.
“Don’t be silly. I’ve met two aliens from the constellation Lyra and traveled from here to the Grand Canyon in a fraction of a second. I’ll believe anything you tell me.”
“There’s another visitor.”
Without batting an eye: “Who is it this time?”
“He’s calling himself ‘Walter’ at the moment, but that’s probably only provisional. He’s currently inhabiting a corpse, unless he’s already vacated it.”
She actually laughed. “Sounds like an interesting one.”
I thought: what is wrong with this woman? “It’s not very funny. He wants me to speak to the United Nations.”
“You??”
“Now you can laugh!”
But she was suddenly quite serious. “What does he want you to speak about?”
“The survival of our species. Except that ‘he’ is actually ‘they.’ They’re like a colony of ants.”
She squinted at me for a moment. “Sweetheart, are you sure you’re not imagining all this?”
“I don’t think so. You should have heard Walter.”
She gazed out the window at the woods behind the kitchen. “And how do you get on the agenda at the United Nations?”
“He — or they — suggested I call in the government.”
“You mean Dartmouth and Wang (the government agents who tracked fled’s visit)?”
“I suppose I would have to start there, yes.”
“Then there’s probably not a moment to lose.”
“Can I have a hug first?”
“O
f course!” She gave me a squeeze and I held tight for a few minutes. “What can I do to help?” she asked.
“I don’t know. First I’d better try to get hold of Wang.”
“I’ll make us some lunch while you do that. Even if you’re the most important person in the world, you have to eat.”
She was probably joking again, but I pretended not to hear it. Instead, I went to my study to make the call. As my perceptive wife had pointed out: for all we knew, every second counted.
I found Wang’s private number lying on the shelf above the phone. I don’t know why I had kept it handy — maybe I somehow suspected I would need it again. Of course, I didn’t expect him to answer the call himself. But he did — I recognized the annoying voice immediately. He almost seemed to be expecting my call. There was no “Hello,” or “How are you?” just “What can I do for you, Dr. Brewer?” even though I hadn’t spoken to him in years.
“Houston, we have a problem,” I said, trying to lighten up an impossibly serious situation.
“Talk to me.”
“We have another visitor.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Huh? Where are you?”
The phone clicked.
I went back to the kitchen and told Karen about the call. “Does he eat?” she asked immediately. “Would he like some lunch?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask him when he gets here.”
It was just under (by a few seconds) five minutes when Wang tapped on the door. As always, he showed me his badge before coming into the house. When he sat down in the living room he eyed Flower suspiciously. I reminded him that she was harmless. He nodded without taking his eyes off her.
“Where’s your partner in crime?”
“What?”
“Dartmouth.”
He gave his head a good scratching, as if wondering whether to reply. “Mr. Dartmouth is in a rest home.” Motes of dandruff swam in a beam of sunlight.
“Oh. Well, I hope he’s resting well.”
He shrugged.
“May I just ask: how did you get here from Washington in five minutes? Not asking for you to divulge any secr — ”
“That’s classified. Now. Who has been visiting you?”
“He calls himself Walter. But I think he, or maybe it’s ‘they,’ isn’t corporeal. I think he’s occupying a dead body.”
“Yes, we know about that.”
“You do??”
“Mr. Aragon disappeared from the funeral home a few hours before you called. That’s how we — But never mind that. What does he want?”
“He — or they — want me to give a speech at the United Nations.”
Wang stared into space for a brief moment. “That can be done. What does he expect you to talk about?”
“I don’t know the details. But he — or they — seem disturbed that we sometimes kill one another, as well as all the other animals on our planet. They can tap into everyone else’s pain, or anguish, or something like that. I think they basically want us to stop the killing.”
Flower lay down at Wang’s feet, as if to comfort him. The feet inched away from her. “That’s it?”
“As far as I know.”
“And what happens if we don’t?”
“They didn’t say, exactly. Only that Homo sapiens would disappear from the Earth.”
He stared some more. “Did he say when they will return with the details?”
“No.”
He stood up. “If he comes back, you have my number. Call me 24/7. Otherwise we’ll be in touch. Probably later today.” He saluted and started to get up.
“Just one question, Mr. Wang. You already seem to know what I’ve been telling you. How did — ”
“That’s not important now. What’s important is that we were a bit tardy in recognizing the significance of fled’s visit. I took some flak for that, and so did Mr. Dartmouth. That’s why he’s in — But that’s neither here nor there. If not me, someone will let you know what you need to do next.” He stood up. “You’ll be hearing from us.”
Just then Karen came in. “Would you like to join us for lunch?” she asked Wang.
“Thank you, Mrs. Brewer. No time for that.” He looked meaningfully back to me. “We’ll talk later… .” He quickly headed for the front door, Flower following close behind.
I sighed miserably. “Yeah.” He hurried out, slamming the door in Flower’s face. My wife stared after him. “Doesn’t he ever eat?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, I know you do, and lunch is ready.”
The way things were going, I knew I might not be eating regularly for a while. “Let’s go,” I said.
“It’s not that great,” she pointed out. “Just soup.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
But it wasn’t. I wasn’t as hungry as I thought I’d be. I kept thinking about those people on death row who get one last glorious meal. Then they can’t eat it. Karen, evidently noticing how glum I looked, tried to console me. “Don’t worry, sweetie. It can’t be as bad as it seems.” How unprophetic that turned out to be.
“You know I never liked public speaking,” I reminded her. “And now I’ve got to speak at the United Nations, for God’s sake!”
“Maybe they can find somebody else to do it in your place. With something this important, maybe the President himself will want to do it.”
“I don’t think he can. Walter said it had to be me.”
“Maybe. But he wants you to get the world to agree to something, doesn’t he? Otherwise, why the UN?”
“I don’t even know that. He hasn’t told me yet what I’m supposed to say. And even if he does, how would I be able to convince the UN to agree on something? They never agree on anything!”
“Nevertheless, we don’t really know what he wants or how this thing is going to play out. I don’t think you should worry about it until it happens.”
“Easy for you to say!”
“Not really,” she replied glumly.
I looked out the kitchen window at the trees, already turning color, the squirrels gathering acorns for winter, the birds congregating, getting ready to migrate. It was a beautiful scene, reminiscent of dozens of others one sees over a lifetime of more than seven decades. But it’s never enough. I wanted to see it thousands and thousands more times. Why is it that we don’t notice or appreciate what we have until something comes along to threaten it? Was it all about to end if I failed to perform? It wasn’t fair that I should be the only person in the world with the responsibility to save the human race from extinction. There are plenty of books and movies with such a theme, and the hero always does his job, and willingly. But this wasn’t fiction. It was really happening. What if I screwed up? What could I possibly say to the UN, even if I had the guts to stand before the whole world and say it? Where was Wang now? Where was Walter? Were they out there somewhere getting ready to pop up and give me orders to jump? It was almost too much to bear.
“Are you going to eat that soup or not?”
I lost it. How in hell could she be so concerned about soup when the world was literally falling apart? I jumped up and stalked out the door and into the woods. Flower, who had been waiting for me to finish, and maybe have the dregs in my bowl, followed me out. As always, she ran after a squirrel and didn’t catch it. She has never caught one, though she never gives up trying. It ran up an oak tree and she seemed mystified about where it had gone, as she always is. For some reason this made me laugh. I suddenly realized that no matter what happened, dogs would still chase squirrels and fail to catch them until the end of time. The only question was whether there would be any humans around to see it.
I was in the woods for half an hour or so, meditating and/or praying, things I’ve never been able to do successfully. As always, nothing came of it. W
hen Flower and I returned to the house, Karen told me there had been a call from the White House. A Mr. Jones, she said. There was a number. “Sure,” I responded. “Jones. And no doubt he has a partner named Smith.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Gene, but he seemed genuinely eager to talk to you.”
I punched the number — a little too vigorously, maybe, judging by the frown on my wife’s lovely forehead. It rang once. “Hello, Dr. Brewer,” came a surprisingly soft and sympathetic voice. How are you?”
“Just ducky. And you?”
“I am well, thank you. Sir, I won’t waste your time. The President and a few other government officials would like to speak to you as soon as possible about a certain matter with which you are quite familiar. May we schedule that conference?”
“You mean a phone conference?”
“Not exactly. The nearest airport to you is Stewart International. Are you familiar with it?”
“Newburgh, right? I’ve been there once or twice.”
“Good. Can you leave immediately? Mr. Wang will pick you up at your home in a few minutes to take you there.”
My heart sank, and not for the last time. When you’re facing necessary surgery, the only thing to do is get it over with. I took a very deep breath and replied, “How long will I be gone? Will I need a suitcase, or just a toothbrush?”
“Don’t worry about that. Everything you need will be taken care of.” Oddly, I felt better. Somehow it seemed that the hard part was over. A lot of other people were going to help me deal with the Bullocks. All I had to do now was get on a plane. I glanced at Karen. “May I bring my wife?”
There was a brief pause; evidently no one had thought about that. “Certainly. If you wish… .”
“Thank you. And is there anything else I need to know?”
“We’ll discuss everything when you get here. The President’s plane is already on its way.”
“The President’s — ”
“See you soon, Dr. Brewer.”
“Uh — thank you.”
“It is we who should be thanking you. And if everything goes well, the entire world will soon be thanking you.” He hung up.
