Asimov's Science Fiction: September 2013 (23 page)

"Hush," say the flowers. They are hugging me and wiping away my tears.

"You were never dumb," they say. And that's how I know they are my friends.

But even though my friends are nice I am still mad.

I am mad that I was born the way I was and mad that I was changed and nobody asked me if I wanted to change they just gave me a pill.

And I don't go to the park the next day. I am not going to go back to the park until I have an answer for the alien or at least a good comeback.

I think about the problems of the world. There are so many and not just the drought. I print out a list of endangered species, plants and animals, and then I bring it to him when I am ready.

"First of all, I need you to save all of these things. Then I need you to get rid of Alzheimer's completely." I cross my arms and glare at him. All of these things could have been done weeks ago, when they first came. This is how I know the aliens don't really care about us.

"And you will come with us, if we do these things?" asks Mr. Stranger, jaw still moving like a puppet.

"You should just do them. Just because. But yes, if you do a good job, I will come." He stares up into the sky for a minute. "I have asked my comrades and they have said no deal." He transmitted a concept to me, one that doesn't translate into words, telepathic or otherwise. They are here to observe, not to change. This is like a museum to them. You don't walk into a museum fixing all the mistakes you see. They have a word for it. It sounds something like nonterferobvs.

They are looking for a souvenir. Not like a souvenir. They have a word for it that's less mean. Friyowa, like a friend you watch. They wanted to take the most special thing on this planet to be their friyowa. They decided on me, but now that I won't come they are going to ask their second choice, the albino cheetah, and he will probably say yes since he is the reincarnation of Mozart. Cheetah has no special requests, he just wants to leave this hot and lousy planet.

"A tip for you," says the alien, "you should stop taking the pills. The mice have already died."

Dr. Steven's Down syndrome mice. After the pills they were able to do the mazes as well as the other mice. And then they were able to do the mazes better. And then they were able to fake their own death so they could escape and then form their own society. The alien and Dr. Steven are not as smart as they think they are. They think this is
Flowers for Algernon
when it's really
The Rats of NIMH.

I know because these mice have been in contact with me, sending me notes. They say not to stop taking the pills. They say they are making more, for Mikey and for all my friends. They say we will form a new society. They say they will save the endangered species, even the cats, even the cheetahs. They say they will cool the earth and end the drought. They promise to make it rain. Not now, they are not smart enough yet. It will take a few more years of good medicine.

The people on earth can't help but look up at the sky. They think change is going to come from above. They don't want to be experimented on, they don't want to be cured. They want to stay the same. They want to go on and on.

So they look up and up, when they should be looking around. I am always looking down. I want to catch a glimpse of white fur or a pink nose. I want to see those little round ears that hear everything or those dirty little claws used for scratching out messages.

I like my friends. They know how hard it is to have a new brain and an old body. One day they will ask me to join them, and I will say yes, no conditions attached.

Ponies and rocketships are the blackest of magic
because they exist in your mind beyond sin and debt,
a heroic nirvana of open ranges and deep space.

Because as little girls and little boys we believed we could have them
and we ran around the house with our fingers like ray guns
and our pink cowboy hats long before we understood
the complex historical and social ramifications
that made our dreams impossible.

Also that they shoot mustangs now because they trample vegetables,
and light speed travel hasn't even been invented yet.
They probably believed in ponies and rocketships once too.

Ponies and rocketships are horrible things
because we have always watched movies
that tell us heroes ride ponies and rocketships
into suns, and we fell for it every time
and still hope we too
will ride into suns and sunsets.

And one day you realize it's impossible,
and also you will not be president.

My mother wished for them for every Christmas
and ran out in the snow in her bare feet
while her mother called her an idiot
from the kitchen window in her bare feet.

And she threw open the garage door and found
only her parents' VW van and the little puddle of oil—
the old rusted tools that she would leave
for years after her father died.
She never found a pony or a rocketship
and neither will you.

What will actually happen is something like this:
you will get into the college of your choice, that you can't afford,
and the poet goddess of your department will call you practical
as if it's a contagious disease, and you will feel
like you have become a minor character.

You will find an uncomfortable peace in this and you will get very drunk very often.
You will wake up next to people. You will walk
down dark alleys and get in at least one fist fight.
You will smash your head against the ground
and feel very strange for a day, but refuse
to go to a hospital. You'll be fine.

You will work much longer than you are being paid for.
You will be praised for your determination or not.
And you will play by the rules and still
not find a job to pay the money you owe and you will
wonder why you ever wanted to go to space
or chase outlaws in the first place.

You will wonder
what kind of debt that would have gotten you.
And then you might meet someone
and lie on the floor eating popcorn
because you can't afford a couch yet
and talk about a time when you will afford
so many couches.

You crush out the tiny fleas
and talk of a time when you won't
wage a tiny war across your carpet.

Yes, ponies and rocketships are the darkest of magic, because
the fantasy will creep back into your life
no matter how practical you are
or how little wine you drink
or how few times in your life
you allow yourself to use the word yeehaw.

You will start thinking
of fighting space aliens again, maybe
only driving home from work, at stop lights,
or pouring eggs into a saucepan, but you will
think of them again.

You will plan what you would do
if someone galloped into your living room,
stuck out their hand and said,

There's no time!
If you are lucky—if you have lived your life well—
you will think of the movies and the daydreams,
the hopes and disappointments with a surprised affection—
a nostalgia like that for your first shitty car
or ratty apartment—

as if you were the hero,
as if these were your war stories.

Mothers fasten extra air packs
to their children's bags, secure
breathing tubes and dust masks.
They affix stickers, bright pink
and blue nylon tags to identify,
at a distance, who is walking
steady, who is in danger of
straying off course. In August,
the dust storms are always
terrible, red tumults that smear
pressure suits. During recess,
the youngest draw their initials
on each other's arms, laughing.
The older ones play ball. I watch
them wind across the covered
court, short Earth children under
a tall Martian sky; they throw the
balls and catch them, yowling,
jostle each other to the ground.
After arithmetic, human biology,
compare and contrast writing,
they help each other into gear,
trudge home. I watch from the
door screen as their bright, hard
frames disappear, occluded by
red gales. Every day, my final
duty: count my classes home.

We sent the nanobots out To explore the galaxy, New jump tech sent them hopping, Faster than old sub-light probes, Self-repairing and—replicating, Using what they needed to Keep up the search, They could go where we Had not the funds to follow.

Back they trickled, flowed, Then torrented, Bringing back fantastic shots: Worlds, stars, & nebulae Imploding, bursting, shrinking.

Then, one by one, The nearer stars winked out.

It took half a century, but even Yale got on board:
a threehundredlevel elective in Martian literatures
for those with junior standing or the instructor's approval.
The little man who taught it—balding,
thickly-accented, a bit green behind the tweed—
liked a pinch of rust in his cappuccino. Not an easy A,
not with that thirty-page research paper
in the Martian critical approach of your choice
(or as near as a carbon-based life form
with neuron-based mental functions
could approximate) but it broadened
intellectual horizons, deepened understandings—

And that wasn't really a metaphor. Example:
I met this girl in a bar in New Haven.
A real show-off, she threw out a few lines
in the endangered local dialect of the Cydonia region
between Long Island iced teas. I wasn't too impressed
until the glassware started tinkling, the rum bottle
burst out its cap like a gunshot...

The Connecticut Sea is nice this time of year.
Quiet. They say that on a still night
you can hear the lecturing ghost of Harold Bloom
underwater, burbling with resentment.