The Man From Maybe

  You lose your memory; and you find a new lifestyle.

  You seem to lose your sexuality; and you find a new type of lust.

  You lose your sense of time; and you find time re-paced and re-defined.

  You search for yourself; and you meet “Helen of Troy” and “Professor Apocalypse”.

  You read this book and you are taken into worlds that are frightening and unknown.

  CHAPTER ONE

  He lay motionless and emptied of dreams in the narrow crystal prison encasing his naked body. His eyes were closed. His black hair curled down around his shoulders and beyond. His finger and toenails curled also, the blunt blades of organic scimitars.

  He did not – could not – see the white knife of lightning slice the sky outside the room in which his prison was housed. The thick voice of the thunder that followed the sky’s illumined sundering sounded but he slept on undisturbed.

  Later, when the great tree outside the building split at the lightning’s electric touch and added its own protesting voice to blend with that of the uncaring thunder, he slept on. As the tree shuddered, leaned, and then crashed against the building, he did not stir.

  The weight of the fallen tree’s branches caused the door of the building to bulge inward and then burst open to admit the cold rain.

  Almost immediately a great black bird, its wings fluttering wetly, flopped through the door. Its beak opened to permit its protests to invade the clean silence of the room in which it unexpectedly found itself. Water dripped from its ebony body as it found its feet and scrabbled across the floor on talons as thin as threads. It spread its wings and shook them, then turned its head and pecked forlornly at its feathers, a damp and useless preening.

  It bent its legs and settled slowly on the closed trapdoor set in the floor, its glittering eyes glowing like the raindrops that glistened on its body. One of its eyes closed and then quickly opened again as the thunder uttered another incomprehensible sentence.

  Time passed.

  The sleeper in the crystal casket saw no bird.

  The bird in its search for sleep saw shapes within the room which its tiny brain could not comprehend.

  Both bird and sleeper existed in their separate worlds as outside the building the rain slowed and finally stopped. Silence returned to the room and the two living creatures slept, each unaware of the other, each sheltered from the world outside the room and whatever that world might hold for them.

  The sound, when it suddenly came, was like a shrill whistle formed by invisible lips. In its shrillness, however, there seemed to lurk the dark sound of a statement – as well as the much darker sound of a summons.

  The bird screeched several times, an abrupt and terrified anthem, and was suddenly aloft in the still air. Flying without direction, responding to the biological warnings of its alarmed body, it swooped first one way and then wheeled sharply to careen crazily in the opposite direction.

  As the white lights flickered into life on the screen that formed one entire wall of the odd room, the bird screeched again, its voice an anxious wail.

  Wings awhir, it looped backward suddenly. As it did so, one of its wings caught in the web of thin cables suspended from ducts set in the ceiling. Frantically the bird struggled to free itself – and failed. It hung there a moment, its dark breast pulsing, its eyes clamped shut, and then it fluttered once more but to no avail. Hopelessly trapped, the wire wound among the feathers and slender bones of its wing, it hung, breathing soundlessly.

  The bird’s struggles had torn loose the end of the conduit that entered the crystal casket of the sleeping man. Now it dangled loosely inside the casket, no longer attached to the skull of the sleeper. Only a thin film of red paste on the man’s forehead indicated where the conduit had once been connected to him.

  The bird shuddered helplessly in its trap and twirled about, suspended between floor and ceiling.

  At last, when it could muster no more energy to struggle with the cord, that had caught it and halted its frightened flight, the bird let itself hang limply, its head down, its body swaying slightly. “

  Below it in the crystal casket, an eye opened. And then a second eye. They closed, only to slowly open again. At the sides of the no longer sleeping man, his fingers flexed.

  The bird stared down.

  The man stared up at it, his eyes moving slightly from side to side as they dumbly measured the diminishing arc described by the black body swaying above him.

  As his fingers touched his thighs, the man became conscious of them and of the smooth contact of flesh with flesh. He touched all ten fingers to his two thighs and then experimentally pressed first one finger, then another and another against his legs. As he did so, his eyes continued their left-right-right-left tracking of the trapped bird.

  Slowly, his right hand rose to touch the thin crystal of the arched lid of the casket in which he was lying. He turned his attention from the bird to his hand, watching it move along the glass. He heard the faint ting as the pressure of his hand pushed the lid of his casket up an inch. His tongue moved in his mouth. He felt it pressing against his teeth and then moving past his lips. In mute wonder, he watched both of his hands lift the lid of the casket. When it lay back on its hinges, he lowered his hands and fumbled with the cilia-like filaments that were mindlessly massaging the muscles of his body. When he had freed himself of them and their ministrations, he concentrated on directing the actions of his body. It took him some time to manipulate it properly so that he could sit up. And then much more time was spent in learning to control the mechanism of himself sufficiently so that he could climb, somewhat clumsily, out of the casket.

  The bird gave a thin cry as, a moment later, the man lurched to one side and then slid to the floor; he spent the next several minutes touching his toes, his testicles, and other parts of his body, which he obviously found fascinating.

  Tentatively, he rose to his feet again, holding tightly to the rim of the casket for support. He became aware of tensions in various parts of his body. Muscles strained as he stretched. Ligaments grew taut, and bones clicked beneath their covering of flesh.

  The bird opened its beak and emitted a sound that was louder than a chirp but not quite a shriek.

  He stared up at it in wonder. As he reached up to touch it, the bird’s body came alive and it fluttered, an ebony bundle of agitation, seeking desperately to avoid his touch. But he gripped it in his hands and felt its warmth. One of his thumbs rested against its breast. He felt its heart drumming. He held the bird in one strong hand and placed the other against his own chest to feel the beating of his own heart. Vaguely sensing a kinship with the creature he held in his hands, he began to unwind the cord that had captured it. When he had succeeded in freeing it, he set the bird gently down on the floor and was both startled by its sudden lifting into the still air and surprised at its sudden disappearance through the partially open door.

  Alone, he looked about the room, which was constructed of an unseamed material. The low ceiling arched slightly; the walls curved outward beneath it. The overall impression the room gave was that of a well-lighted tunnel, but no single source of illumination was visible. The light seemed to ooze through the material of which the structure was built. There seemed to be no furniture, nor were there windows. Colour was absent. The ceiling, the walls, and the floor had the pallor of frost.

  As he stared about him, he noticed other caskets resting on raised pallets not far from one wall. They formed a neat, almost regimented line. Placing one foot in front of the other and paying careful attention to the act he was performing, he walked toward the mounds of crystal.

  As he reached the first one, he bent forward slightly and peered down at the woman it contained. Her eyes were closed as his
had been only minutes earlier. Her skin as pale. He noted the curves and gentle roundings of her naked body, so unlike the angularities and planes of his own. Staring dully at the woman beneath the gleaming glass, he sought to make sense of her presence there as well as his own. No clear thoughts came to him. No answers reached him; he did not know how to ask the correct questions.

  The next casket contained another woman, shorter than the first. Her greying hair was curled and her features were coarse. Her large nose was soft, its wide nostrils fleshing it out even further. Her mouth was a thin line bisecting an austere face. Her cheeks were plump puddings beneath her forehead.

  He returned to the casket containing the other woman. Yes, he preferred to look at her.

  But not at the thin cable that was fastened to the centre of her forehead. Without fully realizing what he was doing, he raised a finger to touch his own forehead, where traces of ointment remained. He could see pink beads of the same ointment surrounding the conduit at its point of contact with the woman’s forehead.

  More quickly, he moved down the line of caskets. An old man, bearded. A young man, also bearded with a superbly developed body and the ghost of a grin raising the corners of his mouth. Others. Eight in all. And all with conduits reaching down from separate ceiling ducts to enter their caskets and make contact with the skin covering their skulls.

  Puzzled, the man stood without moving, looking from one casket to the next. He became aware of the silence in the room and found himself thinking of the bird he had freed. He was vaguely sorry it was gone. He turned to stare at the door through which it had disappeared. He took a step in the direction of the door and then a second step.

  But he halted abruptly when he heard the sudden shrilling that pierced the silence and his mind as well. Throwing up his hands to cover his ears, he stood still, his head lowered.

  The sound ceased.

  He looked up and saw the flickering lights that appeared on the screen following the cessation of the sound. Fascinated by their cavorting images, he moved toward them. When he reached the screen, he raised his hand to touch them. His fingers collided with a thick sheet of glass beneath which the lights flickered and flashed.

  His lips parted as he smiled stiffly.

  The exotic spectacle continued to amuse and fascinate him. At last, he gave up trying to grasp the images between his fingers. He simply stood in front of the screen and gazed at their odd shapes, concentrating first on one, then on another, as a message marched, fragmented by his erratic and uncomprehending attention, past his eyes…

  …repeat…reconstruction continues…chosen method…only one feasible…artifacts have been destroyed…to reduce risk of…disposition of nine to be determined based on evidence accumulated…electronic monitoring… Helen…New York…

  The words alive in the lights intrigued him. Their shapes, curved or starkly angular, delighted him. And yet… And yet, as he watched the gaily glittering words, there was something – something that stirred in his brain like a hunted animal darting from thicket to thicket, now almost visible, a moment later merely another shadow among a confusion of swiftly shifting dark shapes.

  One word among all the others acted as a blunt dart flung at his memoryless mind. Nine. But what did it mean? He traced the outline of the word on the glass shielding it from his touch. Nine. He opened his lips, placed his tongue against his teeth and spoke the word aloud. “Nine.” A feeling of fury welled up within him. His saying of the word had not worked the sought-after magic. Vaguely, he recognized the word as a symbol for a number. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, closed his eyes and then opened them quickly as the whistle sounded again.

  Startled, he withdrew and stared up at the electric words. He watched them flow to the right and then vanish from the screen. For a moment, only blankness met his gaze. And then, when the sound ceased, other words eased across the screen in a brilliant track; a few attracted his attention, most of them escaped it completely.

  …authority hereby granted… to make independent and unilateral decision concerning permanent disposition…based on data…decision is scheduled for Time: 110100…

  He took a step backward and then another, his arms at his sides. He watched the words repeat themselves. He barely heard the sound of the whistle that seemed to initiate the flow of language. For uncounted minutes he stood watching without understanding anything of what he saw on the illumined slate of symbols. Finally, becoming bored with the display, he turned away as the screen said, Time: 108016.

  He walked slowly toward the crystal casket of the first woman, the one he liked to look at. For a time, he stood staring down at her body, watching her breasts rise and gently fall. And then he became aware of what he at first believed to be another occupant of the casket. It took him some time to realize that what he saw was his own reflection in the glass. He examined the bearded man suspended half-way between himself and the woman enclosed in her glass prison.

  He did not recognize the stranger. The colour of the stranger’s hair – black – was somewhat familiar but its length puzzled him. The frown on the face of the man staring up at him made three creases in the flesh between his thick eyebrows. It was a fairly young face, but the frown it wore added fictitious years to it. Did he like the face? The answer to his question fled as he raised his hands and they obliterated the image in the glass. Removing his fingers from his face, he looked once more at the man in the glass.

  Who?

  No name came to him.

  He moved to one side. So did the man the glass. He grimaced, baring his teeth. So did the man in the glass. He winked. His wink was returned.

  Me, he thought. But –

  Who?

  The single syllable of his question alarmed him. It whispered of a life without coordinates, an identity without focus. He could not remember his name or where he was or, more importantly, why he could not remember. He felt no pain. But he did feel – he could not name the emotion that chilled his naked skin and dried the saliva his mouth. A faint moan slipped through his lips and quickly faded into silence.

  Below him, the woman’s breasts lifted, lowered, lifted again.

  He touched the lid of her casket. If he had opened his prison, he could, he believed, also open this one. He lifted the lid an inch and as he did so the conduit tore free of its mooring against the woman’s forehead.

  The sudden sound of singing outside the building caused him to stiffen and then to spin around toward the source of the sound. He stood motionless for a moment, his fists clenched and his teeth grinding relentlessly against one another.

  “– and the wicked wiggle in her walk makes her tits twinkle!”

  As he listened to the somewhat harsh voice merrily extolling the physical attributes of a woman as enterprising as Eve and as elusive as a will o’ the wisp, his curiosity concerning the singer drowned his earlier anxiety.

  Forgetting the casket in which the woman was lying motionless, he began to move toward the door that had been torn open by the falling tree. When he reached it, he awkwardly eased his body past the branches that fingered their way into the room. Drooping leaves swept his face as he climbed over the slanting tree trunk. Shards of loose bark scraped his unclothed body.

  He emerged from the wet womb of the tree and stood staring at the vast world surrounding him and stretching away into an unmeasurable distance. Far from him mountains rose, their summits swathed in soft crowns of pale mist. Trees stood tall above their roots that were sunk firmly into grassy ground, their leafy eyes on a sky they seemed to seek to touch. Green was the dominant colour of the landscape. Green were the swords of grass beneath his feet. Green too were the faintly veined vines climbing the walls of the building from which he had emerged.

  Lazing in the blue sky were clouds, sisters of the mists resting on the mountaintops, their whiteness made brighter by the dazzling gaze of the sun which now shared the sky with them.

  He halted, folding his arms about his body despite the warmth that
was everywhere, and stared at this world he had discovered. All that lay before him bruised his eyes with an easy but disordered beauty.

  He started as a small animal leaped from some bushes nearby and bounded away, its white tail pom-pomming above its sleek buttocks. And elsewhere, everywhere, birdsong. Threads of sound unwound in the pleasant air as invisible birds in their unseen nests gossiped together about food and the rich feel of air sliced thin by wings.

  Blending abruptly with the vibrant bird chorus was a vulgar burst of words…

  “I’ll slip my sword in your sheath, and we’ll let the sweet battle begin, oh, my lovely little lady…”

  The singer sat perched on the limb of a tree, like a male bird of gaudy plumage. The naked man examined the one-piece suit of golden fabric that the singer wore. It matched almost perfectly the tawny splendour of the body it covered. The singer, the naked man slowly sensed, was not – what? Not like him.

  The difference between them dwelled in a certain stiff regularity of the singer’s movements, an obviously ordered set of discrete actions that combined to produce a single motion. Edging closer, the man saw that the singer serenading the unnamed woman was definitely different.

  His skin was slick and unwrinkled. His ripe male laughter contained a hint of falsity, as if his merriment were manufactured and not the gay product of genuine emotion. His arms were bared by the garment he wore. He possessed shoulders any ox would envy. His chest was thick and mounded above his narrow waist and equally narrow hips. His arms were young oaks, his limbs lean and long. A stiff codpiece covered his genitals, calling attention to their immensity.

  Brilliantined by the orange light of the sun that was slipping lower in the sky, the treed singer caught sight of the naked man. His eyebrows lifted to loop above the wide blue of his eyes. He held out his arms as if in welcome, and when the naked man shrank back from the gesture, he leaped lithely down from the limb on which he had been sitting and slyly beckoned.

  “I have a proposition for you,” he called out, striding briskly toward the naked man.