Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (22 page)

“Of course they are,” Peter responded with automatic derision. “Reincarnation is such a stupid idea, when you think about it: we die then come back later as someone else but still the same person. How can that work?”

Felix shook his head. “Not the same person, Peter, the same
soul.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there is. Remove the body, and all that remains is the soul. No love, no emotions, no memory: nothing but the essence in all of us. That which makes us
like
each other.”

Peter heard the echo of what Felix had said in the mall, the sense of certainty in the man’s voice. He wondered if he’d traded one religious fanaticism for another by allowing the man into his afternoon.

“So what if they are?” he asked, pretending to be more interested in the approaching cyclist. “OWE, I mean; wrong. What can I do about it?”

Beside him Felix sighed. “These are difficult times, Peter. What happens always happens. All we can do is try to make it a little easier.”

The boy in the bike leapt the curb a few metres from Peter and skidded noisily past. His hair was short and blonde, and he was older than he had looked from a distance.

“I think you’re crazy,” said Peter to Felix. “All this talk about ‘end times’ is just the usual sucker line to drag people in. Any second now you’re going to hit me for a donation, and then—”

The bike skidded to a halt. “You what?” said the boy.

“Nothing.” Peter shook his head. “I was just talking to—” He stopped in mid-sentence.

“Yeah?” The boy’s sneer said it all.

Felix was nowhere to be seen.

~ * ~

Jed caught the news on the bus. China had frequently been accused of fouling the Irtysh, one of the Eurasian continent’s longest rivers, with industrial and biological pollutants, thus rendering its precious water unusable for those further downstream. Tempers had recently reached flashpoint with construction beginning on a Chinese dam designed to restrict flow even further. Now trade embargoes had been threatened and troops were moving. The UN was calling for a summit.

“World War III,” a fellow commuter mumbled, and Jed surprised them both with a snort of laughter.

“I doubt it,” he explained to the ring of faces staring at him. “There are too many sides to choose from, these days, and none that really matters. World-wide chaos is about the best we could manage.”

A vague murmur told him that he’d touched a common chord in his fellow commuters. But still they watched the broadcast with trepidation, the older ones remembering the Gulf War or even earlier. Remembering other times when the world had trembled on the brink of change.

By the time Jed made it home, Peter was unconscious in the hallway with a large bruise darkening his temple. The wall-screen was torn where a chair had struck it. Broken glass littered the lounge room. The air stank of booze. The only sound came from where the phone lay discarded on its side—the regular beep-beep tolling a personal Armageddon, twenty-first century style.

Jed managed to drag Peter to bed and made a cursory attempt to tidy up before barricading himself in his bedroom to study the evening away.

Why bother
? He asked himself that question a thousand times before finally giving in to sleep. Did it really matter what he did? Sometimes he felt as though he was butting his head against an impenetrable barrier. What would he gain if Peter’s self-absorbed lethargy was in fact the only appropriate response to the world around them?

Tate, the new friend he had shared lunch with two days in a row, would disagree with that, Jed thought. At least Jed hoped he would.

Dawn brought with it sounds of movement in the kitchen. He struggled from bed to find Peter trying to make a cup of coffee. His cousin’s eyes were charcoal-dark with fatigue; his hands trembled almost uncontrollably.

“You really trashed yourself last night,” said Jed, taking the spoon from him and preparing two cups, both strong. “A pleasure to be alive, isn’t it?”

“Not today.” Peter accepted the mug and, sitting down, put it into his lap. “My wife’s left me to join some weird cult that believes in saving the world for their future selves, and I don’t have anything better to do but drink and argue with religious nut-cases. Is it any wonder I think I’m going crazy?”

“No wonder at all,” Jed said with a wink. “I often think that myself.”

“Well, you’re the one who has to put up with it all, or at least clean up after it. I’m sorry. If you want to leave, I’ll understand.”

Jed smiled as sincerely as he could, given the hour of the morning. “Are you kidding? Mum would skin me alive when she found out.”

“Found out what? That you’d left, or
what
you’d left?”

“Both.” He sat down next to Peter and stared into his cup. The only sound for a long moment was that of their breathing and the rasp as Peter scratched at his stubble.

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me the day before yesterday,” said Peter, uncharacteristically breaking the silence.

“Which bit?” Jed didn’t let himself hope that some of his advice had finally hit home.

“Your friend. Tate.”

Jed was puzzled, but only for a moment. Peter was clutching at anything to distract him from the misery in his life. Perhaps with good reason. And Tate’s wild theory was better than current affairs.

“Yes, well, it’s a fascinating concept,” he said. “We talked some more after class yesterday. I told him I thought it probably wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Well, if he’s right, interactions between particles and their opposites must be happening all the time. What happens if there are too many at a particular moment? How does the Universal Particle squeeze into all of them, and what happens to space-time and causality as a result? Is there a limit to the complexity of such situations? Do they somehow break up of their own accord?” Jed shook his head. “The idea seems intuitively simple, but isn’t really.”

“What did Tate say?”

“That he agreed with me about the complexity problem, although he still thought it might be possible in principle.”

Peter grunted and sipped at his coffee. “Real life isn’t like physics, Jed. It’s never simple. Complexity
works
nine times out of ten.”

“I know. I’m learning that, and it bothers me.” Jed punched his cousin on the arm. “But listen to you, man. You’re only ten years older than me. Since when did you earn the right to dispense truisms?”

Peter didn’t respond verbally. With the hand not holding his cup of coffee, he pulled a pistol out of his pocket and put it onto the table between them.

Jed eyed the weapon with wary surprise, knowing instinctively that it was loaded but not letting himself back away. “You’re not thinking of—”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” The bruise on Peter’s forehead stood out like a curse. “I just want you to know that it’s here, in case
you
ever need it.”

Jed stared at his cousin for an unmeasurable time. The naked trepidation on the faces of the people in the bus stared back at him. “I won’t.”

“You don’t mean that. Only a fool would entirely rule out any possibility.”

There was no obvious response to that comment, so Jed let it pass. Together they watched the sunlight outside brighten for a while then dim as a cloud of smog rose to meet it.

~ * ~

The front door slammed at nine-thirty when Jed left to catch the bus. Peter rose from his bed, where he had retired to listen to the news on the radio, then took a quick shower, dressed, and dismissed the idea of going out. Too hot and bright by far for his aching head. Besides, Felix might be waiting for him again.

The news was little more than a catalogue of misfortunes, famines and skirmishes from around the globe, few of which caught his attention. He changed frequencies when an OWE advert came on:

DEATH awaits those

Who SPOIL their own nests!

Think BEFORE you shit!

All the other stations were playing oldies, unconsciously harking back to better times when the planet was only half-dead and there had still been time to do something about it.

He sat in the lounge and stared blankly through the window. The NIMBY Nineties attitude
—Not In My Back Yard
—was something OWE particularly railed against, but Peter didn’t mind. If there was only one yard and everyone was in it, that was fine with him. It just hurt knowing he wouldn’t feel so bad if he had someone to keep him company ...

Shortly before noon, he idly watched a car pull to a halt outside his house, and didn’t recognise the driver until she stepped out. She had cut her hair into a tidy bob and started wearing make-up. Her dress was more formal also, no longer the jeans and loose t-shirts he remembered with fondness. As she opened the gate and strode up the path to the verandah, he considered pretending he wasn’t home—but what was the point? He had to face her eventually.

“Hello, Carol,” he said, opening the door an instant before she knocked.

She blinked at him, startled, but recovered quickly. “Hello, Peter.”

“What do you want?”

“We need to talk.”

“Do we? I have nothing to say to you.”

“We need to discuss the divorce—”

“You already know I’ll contest whatever you ask for.”

“You’re not making it any easier, Peter. For both of us. For everyone.” She cleared her throat. “Can I come in?”

“No. I want you to leave before I call the police. You’re trespassing.”

“I’m doing no such thing. This house is only half yours, remember?”

He reluctantly nodded. “Out here will be fine, then. Take a seat.”

She looked around her and eventually chose a spot on the verandah’s brick wall. He leaned against the door and folded his arms. The sunlight shining through her cotton blouse gave him a perfect silhouette of her waist and breasts. He tried to ignore it.

“Before you say anything,” she began, “I’m here of my own accord. James, my sector coordinator, warned me against coming.”

“Why? Was he afraid I’d corrupt you?”

“No. He didn’t think you’d respond to reason. I’m not sure you will either, but I have to try.”

“Do your worst,” he said.

She looked down at her hands, then wiped them on her skirt. “The simple fact is, Peter, there’s a lot of work to do and not enough resources. I’m not talking about refugees and food riots in Africa. Australia has problems, too.”

“Keep talking. You haven’t told me anything I don’t already know.”

“No? Well, did you know that the Prime Minister tabled a motion this morning in a secret sitting of Parliament to impose martial law? It was defeated by only two votes.”

Peter stared at her. “You’re kidding.”

“Would I joke about something like this? The country’s on the brink of complete environmental, economic and social collapse. We need all the help and money we can get. By not letting us have what’s rightfully mine, you’re doing your bit to make things worse.”

“Like the self-centred bastard you always said I was?”

Her face tightened into a mask. “Don’t prove me right just to score a point, Peter, please. We’re serious, and we don’t have time to go through the courts. Just days could make a difference.”

“How much do you want?” he asked, not entirely certain what he meant by the question:
What are you going to steal from me this time
? or
What will it take to bring you back
?

“Not everything. We only want what can be easily liquidated.”

“‘We’? Who’s this ‘we’ you keep mentioning?”

She ignored the interruption. “The house, for instance; you can have that. And the car. But the deposits, the savings account, whatever’s left from your severance pay-out—”

“If I let you have that, what will I live on?”

“Unemployment, rent from Jed—Jesus, Peter, you could even get a job, you know!” The flash of anger was quickly buried. “We’re prepared to negotiate a fifty-fifty split. Half of what you have— which we value at about two hundred and fifty thousand—belongs to us.”

“To
you.
It belongs to
you.
Not you and your bloody friends.”

She was silent so long he thought he’d pushed her too far. When she finally spoke, her voice was icy.

“What I choose to do with my life is my business, not yours. Not any more.”

“No? Then maybe I should just kill myself and leave you to live with the guilt.”

“Why should I feel guilty, Peter? You’d be doing the world a favour.”

He winced. “That was uncalled-for.”

“And that wasn’t what I meant.” She sounded almost amused. “Have you checked your will lately? Don’t you realise that if you commit suicide, I—
we
—get everything?”

A block of ice dropped into Peter’s stomach at that thought. All the times he had taken the revolver from his cupboard and considered that option, he’d never remembered his will—never thought about what would happen
after.

That prompted another thought.
If,
she had said. And:
We don’t have time to go through the courts ...