subrosa: the adventures of bill chase chapter_09

Chapter 9


I’ve seen Doctor Bob a few times in the weeks that have passed. My wounds have repaired rapidly; his only concern was my missing memory. He said I had had a concussion but it was not so serious that it should continue to impair my progress. He suspected I had gone through a traumatic event that had blocked out all events prior to it. Doctor Bob wanted me to come back once a week to see him so that he could continue tests.

I enjoyed Doctor Bob’s concern. I also enjoyed the hospitality of Betty and Dave and the little adventures with their son Jimmy. Jimmy had an older sister, Suzanne, who had recently come home for the summer. She had been at a far away university. Suzanne took me to the library to show me how to find books. I read long into every night, filling my head with other people’s words. One of the books was a collection of short stories. One story festered a new condition I was just learning about. The condition was paranoia. I thought it was new to me, Doctor Bob was not certain. The paradox of the story was that a one eyed man in the valley of the blind should be a king but as it turned out he was treated as a unfit mutant.

Doctor Bob reminded me, each time I told him about a story, that stories were just stories. He did not think people could be explained in a story. I asked him why people had to follow so many rules and he explained that a society needed rules to have order. When I told him that I thought people had too much order and that they appeared to be day-dreaming most of the time and were not aware of what they were doing most of the time, he explained that I was looking at things a different way then he was. He did not say I would have to have my eyes fixed, he just wanted to make certain I was well.

The best thing for me was work. When I had regained my strength, I worked with Dave and Jimmy on the farm. Dave was a determined worker and never looked sideways when he knew where he wanted to go. He knew what he was, he knew what he did and he was quite happy with himself. When I worked with him, I felt I could be like him. Jimmy was a little like his father but I could tell he did not like farm work as much.

In the evenings, on most days, Betty and Dave were content to wane away the hours in front of the television. Dave might read a newspaper at the same time and Betty might read a magazine or fix a sock or a shirt. It somehow disappointed me to see them, the way they entertained themselves.

Suzanne was often out with friends. Jimmy would try to teach me how to be normal. He liked to show me things. On warm nights, we would go to the swimming hole. When the sun disappeared into the mountains, we would gather a little wood to make a fire. Jimmy was
proud that he could build a fire without paper. He assured me that, if he had to, he could start a fire without a match.

"Birch bark is the best thing to start a fire. You only need a little. If you can’t find little dry twigs on the ground or on the lowest branches of coniferous trees, you can make shavings with a knife. As the fire grows, you can put on bigger pieces."

"There’s something magical about a fire," I proclaimed.

"Oh, sure. But really if you want a fire, it’s good to have a match. It’s a good idea to keep them dry. When we go camping, I’ll show you how we do it."

Jimmy was quite excited about camping. He belonged to a boys club from the church that sometimes went camping in winter or on a canoe trip in spring. I had been to a couple of meetings with Jimmy. To me, the club was a little strange. They wore club shirts on which they sewed badges. These badges were awarded for particular achievements. The boys like to line up at the start of the meeting. The leaders took them through some ritual things and they all recited ritual chant like speech that made no sense to me. They studied the bible
and prayed. They talked about God and how Jesus died for our sins. A good portion of the time was set aside for learning a craft or making some things to take home. And they always played some kind of sport. It was usually a little rough, with much laughing and shouting.

"A wet match is of little use, I’d guess."

"Unless it’s a water proof one. You can buy them. It’s good to have a few on hand on a canoe trip, in case your other methods of storage haven’t worked."

"I think I’ll enjoy the canoe trip."

"Of course. We always have fun. And we don’t talk about God too much. A little in the evening. Don’t let it get to you. Most people believe in God."

"Do you?"

"I don’t know. I probably will when I’m older. Bill, what do they believe where you come from?"

"Likely something as ridiculous, but I don’t remember."

"You can’t remember anything?"

"I remember speech."

"That’s lucky. But you better watch how you use it with some people. They might take you for a nutter."

"I suspect that is good advice."

"I think you’re a smart fellow. Fart smeller, my Grandpa used to say. You just seem lost. I don’t think you need Jesus or anything like that but you should get a grip."

"It is something I could work on."

We sat in silence for some time and watched the fire consume wood. At times we looked at the sky for meteorites.

"They call them shooting stars," Jimmy said. "But they are just small stones that fall into our atmosphere and burn up. That ain’t as romantic though. Have you ever kissed a girl or anything?"

"I do not think so. Nothing that I can remember."

"I have."

"Wet."

"Um."

"And I felt her breast and had my hand in her pants. And she liked it. And she goes to our church. I think we’ll go farther. She rubbed me like she was hungry for me."

"That sounds okay."

"You’ll get a girl. You’re good looking and from somewhere else. They like that as long as you aren’t from too far away. I mean, an outer space freak. They usually don’t get so many girls."

"How do you get to have the girl?"

"That’s the hard part. And I don’t know if anyone knows for sure. But it’s good to be a little cool and let them know you like them but don’t look like you are starving for it. They get scared when a hungry monster tries to devour them. You got to be cool. And it’s okay too if you talk to them and be their friend first. That’s why our youth meetings are good. You get to talk to girls and they don’t feel like you are attacking them."

"Maybe I’ll come to a meeting."

"I don’t know why you don’t."

"I am not certain if I can cope with it. It is not so bad at your boys meetings. That seems to me more natural. But I can not believe that girls are natural. I have to learn to accept it."

"It sounds to me like you must have come from a private boy’s school. Why else would you be so weird about girls? You don’t remember at all where you came from?"

"No."

"That’s so weird. You have to be at least sixteen, maybe as old as twenty, and you are smart enough, you have to come from somewhere."

"I would think so as well."

"You have to be born and brought up. That’s the normal way. You know?

"No."

"That’s how it works. A boy and a girl get to like each other and then they have sex and you are born. Otherwise, it usually doesn’t happen that you are born."

"As far as I recall, I came from a river out of the mountains."

"So you’re a special case of an extremely fast evolving fish."

"I guess so as well. From wet unconsciousness, I struggled to solid earth to breathe the air and see the light of your beautiful world."

"You know that could make you millions of years old?"

"I might be quick."

"Or you might be brain damaged or you either don’t want to remember or you don’t want anyone to know. Maybe your parents abandoned you in the mountains and you were raised by wolves."

"Or I was raised by apes."

"There aren’t any around here if they aren’t in zoos."

"You know what is also possible, Jimmy, is that I am from another dimension and I really did pop into life part way through it. Because of where I come from, in another space continuum where things are so different, I cannot fit my memory into my present condition," I tried to frown and express myself like a well educated English Lord might.

"Sometimes I think you’re flipped."

"The distances to the stars are staggering to think about. The universe is so unbelievably big. Possibly, and as far as we can see, infinite. How long is that? But try to think how there could be and ending. What would be on the other side of the end? Only more space. Or maybe not space but void. Which would be similar to nothing but it would not be the end. A void can only end with a something. Space might be quite different from nothing but nothing has to have a way to be. You cannot have nothing without it having a way to be. But how can nothing be?

"I couldn’t imagine it. But I can imagine that the universe is very big."

"It is mind boggling to try to understand it."

"But it’s fun."

"Except for the distant stars, the sky is black now that the sun has moved away."

"The world just turned so we don’t face the sun now."

"A round world."

"That’s what we believe now."

"I guess it would not work so well if it was square or flat."

"A big flat disk might be cool. Relatively flat like they used to believe. If it didn’t spin and just went around the sun as it now does then the days could be all year long or half a year. Or always night. We could stay in bed forever. If it wasn’t for Copper what’s his name and a few of his friends, the sun and the universe would have to zip around the flat Earth every day. Maybe the sun could do it. But imagine how fast some of the stars would have to go."

"Earth being the center of the universe. I wonder if you could make it work."

"God only knows."

"It is amazing to understand a little about how things are, for I suppose they could be entirely different except that they are not and they are exactly like the are. Or at least they seem to be."

"The only thing that really changes," Jimmy said, "is what we believe and how we live our lives."

"That will likely always change. I hope the universe is not bothered by humans changing their minds all the time."

"Einstein thinks it may be effected by us looking at it but I don’t really see how."

"Is that the cat thing Suzanne was trying to explain to me?"

"Yeah. The universe is a big cat that we are looking at, or want to anyhow."

"I hope it is on when we finally get the box open."

"Yeah, really. The hole dam thing could be gone Because we looked at it at the wrong time."

"I hope that does not happen. I hope that the cat can go on living even if we look at it in the wrong instant."

"I think so. A lot of these theoretic things don’t really change much."

"People just want to make answers to things."

"Or they just want fancy jobs."

"Maybe I am one of those cat things that came out of the box. Maybe the box was being transported down the river and I fell off the back. Or someone looked in and seeing it was just me, threw it overboard. When the box broke onto a rock, I was lucky enough to escape death and crawl up onto the rock and dry land."

"It’s a bit unlikely."

"Is the universe not unlikely?"

"It’s here, it can’t be too unlikely."

"I am here as well. So I must also be at least a little likely."

"Not likely."

"But I am irrefutable evidence of my inevitable existence."

"Yah sure, but you didn’t start your life out of a box, part way through your life. You are as human as I am and bound by the same physical reality. You are born of a woman and that’s how it is."

"It is the only way?"

"That, my alien friend, is how it works. All species, including humans, reproduce themselves. You have to spend time in a woman’s womb, then you are born and then you grow up and quite possibly take part in the same procedure."

"Fine, if I have to do it again, I will try to make sure I come out through a woman’s womb and not the cat box, even though it does seem like a lot of trouble."



by Joanne B. Washington

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