A Thousand Deaths (42 page)

The sun went down beyond the glass doors in my office, and the nighthawks made their shrill calls as they swooped for insects. The air became pleasantly cool, and I decided that I'd worked enough for one day. I left the story after writing the first six pages. The main character, Frank, had been introduced to the two aliens, had thrown out the possibility that he was merely crazy, and was about to try to get rid of them. Of course, he wouldn't be able to. He had to fail amusingly two or three times before the climax and the ending. I swallowed the remaining Guinness in my bottle and stretched. All in all, it had been a good day profitably spent. I would reward myself with another few hours of television. It was Thursday night: that meant
Hill Street Blues.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, with the house so quiet that I was awakened by the sound of the air conditioning coming on, I realized that I could not get back to sleep. I tried all the relaxing exercises I knew; I relaxed my body bit by bit, starting with my toes. I did not fall asleep. I tried again, starting with my scalp and going down. I tried relaxing in alphabetical order. Nothing worked. Frustrated, tired, and wide-awake, I reached out and switched on the lamp beside my bed. I thought that if I read for a while, I'd get sleepy; that didn't help either.

At last I decided that as long as I was awake, I might as well work. I supposed that the same thing had happened to me the night before; I was just unable to remember it. I went into the office and sat down at the keyboard. I read the last paragraph of "Let's Be Frank" on the screen.

 

"Oh, thank goodness!" cried Frank, overjoyed. "Alone at last!"

 

Because I didn't really recall what came next, I paged back a little way and was startled to find that the story was now twenty pages long, and rather obviously complete. I knew I'd only written six pages. Where had the other fourteen pages come from? Had I gotten out of bed already that night? It was only two o'clock in the morning: I couldn't have written fourteen pages and not remembered it. And I didn't even know how this story was going to end. As I read it, I was pleased by the cleverness of the writing. It was a good little story, and Steinschlager would surely buy it. I just wished I knew where it had come from.

I decided to try an experiment. I made a note to myself in my notebook:
Have begun new short story, "The Arms Race."
I intended to make such a notation whenever I added to the story, and I planned to take three or four days to finish it. I wrote the first paragraph.

 

Dr. Raymond Sanchez hurried to the conference, his white lab coat streaming behind him like a banner. He was young and handsome, but his face was set in a worried frown. He had just made a terrible discovery, one that would have serious effects on the safety of the whole world.

 

At this point, I had no idea in hell who Dr. Sanchez was, who the people at the conference were, or what the terrible discovery might be. I had just set up a situation and was betting that my innate resourcefulness would make something of it. I added to the notation: 2:20
a.m. Story so far—1st paragraph.
Then I went into the kitchen, got out a bottle from my liquor cabinet, and made myself a double gin and tonic: That would help ease me back to sleep.

When I got up the next morning, I felt wonderful. I felt like meeting the challenge of the new short story, wherever it was going, whatever it might turn into. I sat down at the word processor and was dismayed once more. The new story was finished, just as "Let's Be Frank" had also been finished during the night. There were no more notations to indicate that I'd written it later that night. I began to worry: it was as if the computer was doing the writing on its own; but I knew that was impossible. It was a little spooky though. I decided to call the salesman who'd sold me the equipment.

The salesman was out of the office, but a secretary told me that my call would be returned as soon as possible. "Well," I thought, "there's no point in trying to work until I find out what's going on here." So I watched Australian-rules football on cable and
Fraggle Rock
and switched back to the network for
Ryan's Hope
(this was after Ryan's bar had been rebuilt and Sydney, Max's old mistress, was plotting her revenge on him). Then my doorbell rang.

It was the salesman. "Mr. Courane?" he said. "I'm Jack Horvath, from The Floppy Shoppe."

"You didn't have to make a special trip here," I said. "I just wanted to ask a couple of questions."

"Well," said Horvath, following me to the office, "I dialed your number, but I got a recording that said your line had been disconnected."

I was startled. "It shouldn't be. I paid my bill two weeks ago."

"Maybe they're just doing some work in the neighborhood, and there's a temporary shutdown of service."

"They still should have notified me," I said.

He indicated my word processor. "Are you having hardware trouble?"

"I'm not exactly sure what the problem is, to tell you the truth. There are programs that let the computer invent its own art designs, aren't there?"

"There are programs that generate patterns," said Horvath. "I don't know if you'd go as far as to call it art. I guess it's in the eye of the beholder."

I nodded. "And there are programs that let the computer write poetry and fiction, aren't there?"

"That's the same sort of thing, randomly chosen words and phrases. They produce images just from their order on the page, but I wouldn't call it literature, myself."

I began to feel a little foolish. "I don't suppose there's some sort of built-in thing in the word-processing program I'm using that would enable the computer to turn out complete short stories? I think it wrote two stories, beginning to end, last night. On its own."

Horvath laughed. "That's impossible, Mr. Courane."

"I kind of thought it was. I had a story partially written when I went to bed last night. About two A.M. I got up and came in here, and the story was finished. I started a second story—actually, I only wrote a single paragraph—and this morning that story was finished, too. I couldn't have done all that work and not remember it."

It looked as if Horvath was trying hard not to laugh again. "It just couldn't do that, Mr. Courane. These machines are just sophisticated office equipment. Your computer could no more create its own short stories than, say, your electric pencil sharpener could. If the stories were finished this morning, it's because you were sleepwalking or sleepwriting or something. Your situation sounds a bit like the old shoemaker and the elves; don't credit the machine. You should have called a doctor this morning, instead of me." I saw him glance into my wastebasket, where there was a large brown jumble of empty Guinness bottles.

That made me angry, but I kept my mouth closed. In a moment my hostility subsided. "Maybe you're right. Thanks for coming out here."

Horvath smiled. "There isn't anything else about the computer that's giving you any trouble?"

"No, it's fine. It's just fine."

"Well, then, good day, Mr. Courane." The salesman departed with a great gag to tell the others at his store. I was glad that I hadn't told anyone else about what had happened; I would be the laughingstock of the entire publishing industry.

I had to think for a moment about Horvath's suggestion. The only rational explanation was that I had, indeed, been sleepwriting. I tried to accept that, but I just couldn't; for one thing, there hadn't been sufficient time for me to write two entire short stories in final draft between bedtime and morning. I just can't work that fast. And I didn't want to believe that I could write better unconscious than awake. I'd rather accept a supernatural explanation.

I didn't feel like working at all now. I didn't feel like watching more soap operas, game shows, and old movies, either. I decided to pay a visit to the telephone company and find out why my service had been cut off. I had to stand in a long line there; when it was my turn, I was told simply that the main office had received a call from someone saying he was Sandor Courane, requesting that my number be disconnected and a final bill sent out.

"It must have been some practical joker," I said. "I do
not
want my service disconnected. I need my phone for business calls."

"I understand," said the service representative. "You'll have full service restored before five o'clock this evening."

"Thank you."

It was about half past twelve; I decided to go to a movie and kill the afternoon. I stood in line again to get into the big release of the summer season, a science fiction picture that depended more on loud, sudden orchestral chords than on plot logic. I admired it greatly; I try to do the very same thing in my own stories.

After the movie I had two Big Macs, fries, and a vanilla shake. Then I dropped a coin into a pay telephone and called my phone number to see if my service had been restored yet. The phone rang once, and then my answering machine responded. "Hello," said the recording, "this is Sandor Courane's residence. Mr. Courane is gravely ill and cannot come to the phone. If you leave your name and number, Mr. Courane will return your call as soon as he is able."

Beep.

I hung up quickly. I hadn't made that recording. I stared at the pay phone, frightened. It had been my own voice, all right; but I hadn't made that recording.

All the way home I fought off an anxiety attack threatening on the horizon, like a summer thunderstorm. I had no simple explanation for what was happening; I didn't even have a complex explanation. I only knew that I hadn't written those stories, and I hadn't made that recording. Perhaps the computer salesman had been right, and I ought to see a physician. Maybe all the years of excess imagination and creativity had worn my mental gears smooth. Maybe they were beginning to slip.

I punched the button for the elevator in my apartment building. It lit up and went out; that meant the elevator was already on the ground floor. The door opened, and I stepped off into space. I fell fifteen feet to the bottom of the elevator shaft. I screamed in pain as I realized that I had broken my legs in the fall. The door closed, high above me, plunging me into absolute darkness. Then I heard the racket of the elevator's motor; the car was coming down. There was no place to hide. I screamed again, briefly.

 

A few days later, the telephone rang in the office. "Hello," said the voice on the answering machine, "this is Sandor Courane. The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I'm sorry I can't come to the telephone in person, but if you leave your name and number, I'll return your call as soon as possible."

Beep.

"Sandy? This is Rocky in New York. I love both of the stories. I think I'll get someone to do a cover painting around 'The Arms Race.' Absolutely brilliant. Your checks are in the mail. Please send more stories. Just keep 'em coming."

I disconnected the telephone, then took care of a few small chores. I called my bank's computer and transferred money to the utilities company's account to pay the electric bill, and I did the same to pay the rent on the apartment for another month. Celebrating the sale of the two short stories, I decided to try something more ambitious, more challenging. My cursor paused for a moment, as if I needed a moment to consider how to begin. White letters flicked across my green face:
When Yesterday Disappeared
, A
Novel of the Time Patrol, #1 in a series by Sandor Courane.

Then I really got down to work.

 

 

 

The Wicked Old Witch

 

 

Sandor Courane was an easygoing kind of guy, generally speaking. The daily surprises and even disasters that ambushed him usually left him in a calm, philosophic mood. He was a hard man to ruffle, either with insults or physical attacks. It was a good thing, too, because on a particular day in 1992, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the town of Gremmage, an ice-cream- laden eighteen-wheeler forced him off the road to the left, across a drainage ditch that did no great good to the undercarriage of his eight-year-old Renault Alliance, and onto the thickly wooded median.

It was only through an unconscious but superb emergency steering technique and the best of good fortune that he didn't destroy his car and himself immediately thereafter. Nevertheless, at the very end of the primary phase of his adventure, Courane slammed the Renault into a typical northeastern deciduous tree, rendering the car inoperable, and in the process smashing his face forward into the steering wheel.

He suffered some painful injuries, particularly neck whiplash and stinging cuts and bruises in his mouth where his teeth had been forced against the inside of his lips. Immediately afterward, however, he fell backward again into the seat, in the normal driving position.

Dazed and confused, he sat there for some time trying to figure out what had happened. His first thoughts concerned the seat belt, which he'd always been too great a man to use. It was a simple shoulder harness, but he'd long since learned to ignore it. After he thought about the seat belt, he pondered what he was supposed to do next.

He breathed slowly through his mouth; it was marginally less agonizing than breathing through his banged-up nose, but who could really tell? Who was conducting the high-level tests that determined the accuracy of this sort of statement?

"Mr. Courane, after extensive clinical comparisons, we've decided that the mouth-breathing technique costs you in discomfort only about seventy-five to eighty percent of what our nose-breathing patients experience."

Who was Sandor Courane, and why should we care about him? Well, in the first place, he's the representative of the reader, the Everyman who found himself in bizarre circumstances. Courane will soon have to deal with an even more bloodcurdling, life-threatening situation, one which the average person will never have to face unless, God forbid, the reader's as much a
schmendrik
as Courane.

This way, the reader learns how Courane will react to what he'll walk into, so that in a worst-case scenario—that is, if the reader
does
find himself in the same unlikely series of events—the reader will know exactly how to respond. This is a very important function of the story, and it could be of vital significance to somebody, someday.