An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

"113, go ahead."

"113, further information. Neighbor reports suspect has shot wife; she's in the front yard, trying to get to cover. Reporting person advises suspect has three children in the house."

"113 received."

"110 received. Could you notify State Police -- we may need backup out here."

"Received at 1930 hours," the dispatcher said.

"Things are seldom as simple as they seem," the wizard whispered in Timothy's ear. "There are connections everywhere, never quite evident, and events ripple through time such as a stone might cause when tossed upon the water."

"Where are we?"

"In one of the southern colonies, almost four hundred years past your time. The issue of slavery still sits heavily on these people."

"Slavery? Why?"

"I'm not sure I can explain all the ways a human heart can hold hate so closely."

"Hate? Is it as simple as that?

"Nothing is as simple as that, Wrath."

The vehicle accelerated around another corner, the policeman apparently very concerned.

"Who is he? This man?"

"His name is Jim Hughes. He was a kind man, a good husband and father. Educated, he wanted to teach literature but, because of the color of his skin, found it impossible to get a job. He grew up on a nearby farm, refused to leave. You see, his family was from here..."

"Was...? You mean...?"

"You must keep your eyes open, Wrath, and not look away when you happen across things you dislike. You must see connections as they come and go, opportunities that pass on winds of time. Some will take hold, yet others are soon forgotten. Watch. With open eyes."

The vehicle stopped and Timothy got out with the wizard, and he watched the confrontation as it unfolded -- as a spectator might -- but with foreknowledge of the outcome. The suspect, still in the house when they arrived, came out of his house and shot his wife twice, in the back. Hughes stepped out of the vehicle and drew his weapon; he fired once, missing the suspect, who in turn aimed and shot at shot Hughes, hitting the policeman once, in the head. Hughes fell to the ground as more police arrived, and the suspect surrendered with no further loss of life. People gathered around Hughes and tried to help, but it was soon apparent he was beyond all mortal intervention -- and with downcast eyes people turned and slipped away into the night.

Timothy walked over and looked down at the fallen officer, at the shock etched in the man's misting eyes -- and he saw sorrow there, too. Yes, sorrow, and he wondered why.

He turned away, saw his hands on a podium, and he was standing in the glare of countless lights, and beyond walls of television cameras and photographer's strobing cameras he saw an immense crowd gathered at his feet, looking up at him expectantly, adoringly.

'Why are these people here?' Timothy asked the wizard, and he squinted into the light, saw a sea of red and white signs rolling over the crowd...

'Carpenter For President -- Building a Future Together'

And the crowd was chanting now, slowly, forcefully...

"Four More Years! Four More Years!"

The chorus was thunderous, deafening, and he turned to the wizard and smiled.

"They love you, Wrath," the wizard said, but he wasn't looking at the him now -- the wizard was watching the crowd as one might an ominous cloud. Tim saw the wizard was wearing a black suit, his red necktie blazing atop a starched white shirt, and there was a tiny flag on the wizard's lapel...

...and when he saw the flag words came to him freely now, in a blind fury...

"You can't drive through a city like Chicago these days, can you? Have you tried? Have you? Awful -- just awful. They're like cockroaches, they crawl out from under their rocks after the sun goes down and the murder of the innocents begins anew. We can't build prisons fast enough, can we? Can we? Awful...just awful..."

The crowd was delirious now, chants of "Ship 'em Back to Africa!" filled the air...

"And my opponent? He wants to build schools, not prisons! Instead of making our Africans and Mexicans work for a living, he wants to give them free medical care!"

Screams for "Four More Years!" and "Ship 'em Back to Africa!" washed away the growing applause...

...then he saw a woman pushing through the crowd, running for the stage...and he thought he saw something in her hands...

...a blinding flash of light, searing pain -- his shoulder on fire -- and then men by his side, pulling him down, covering his body -- followed by more gunfire. Several people falling on the stage, gunfire from the audience, then from behind the stage...

"We have several active shooters in the audience!" he heard Ted, his chief of detail shout into his radio, then "Eagle One is hit, I repeat, the President has been hit, we're heading for the north exit."

Men carried him by the arms, he felt more encircle his waste, then pick him up as his phalanx pushed through the chaos, and he reached up, felt the spreading warmth under his shirt, his heartbeat growing weak and thready. He tried to breathe and found he couldn't, and he might have panicked -- had he remained conscious...

+++++

Esterhaus looked at the temple down the hill, the lamb curled up by the snake, and he thought of home. The Old World, as people had taken to calling it, memory's temple on the hill, ideas he had looked to all his life.

"Why did you bring me here," he asked the wizard, "if not to question my beliefs?"

"Aren't all beliefs worth questioning from time to time? Or is it wrong to challenge assumptions?"

"But it is belief, or shared belief, that bind us -- one to the other...? Beliefs make civilization possible!"

"Do they?"

"Of course they do..."

"Ah."

"What do you mean -- 'Ah?!'

"I think it's about to start...we must be on our way..."

"What? What's about to start...?"

"Oh, a school -- of sorts..." the wizard said as he turned and faced the sun -- and in an instant Esterhaus was inside an unimaginable structure. Forests of wooden wall, an ocean of black and white marble tile. Hundreds of older men in formal attire gathered outside sets of double doors, and he hears French being spoken, English too, as well as his native German, and he wandered over to a notice posted on the wall beside one of the entryways.

'Sigmund Freud discussing his latest work, 'Civilization and It's Discontents.' Presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of Vienna...'

"And what is this?" Esterhaus said to the wizard when he saw the old man was now by his side.

"A closer look at some cherished assumptions."

The doors opened, a vast lecture hall beckoned and the seats within filled rapidly. Several minutes after they were seated, Esterhaus looked at the wizard once again and whispered: "So, what is this psychoanalysis?"

"It was the study of how people think, and why. The forces, external to our selves, that shape the way we react to the world, and how we deal with the conflicting realities of existence."

"Conflicting realities?"

"Yes, certainly. How do you reconcile the need to live your life within existing norms when instinct compels you to fuck every woman you see, and to kill anyone who gets in your way?"

"What?!"

"I'm sorry, I could not help myself..." the wizard sighed, but lights were dimming, a curtain parting...

And an old man walked on stage and came to a dais under a single bright light. The man was old, very old, his silver hair thin and well kept, the color of his skin like whitest sand under a noonday sun, yet even from this distance it was the man's eyes that held Esterhaus. An eagle's eyes, sharp and penetrating, looking out over the gathered medical luminaries like a grandfather assaying his clan around a fireplace.

He spoke about the 'oceanic feeling' of religious imperatives -- the limitlessness of eternity, and the instinctive quest for both freedom and civilization. How the resulting contradictory impositions -- conformity and reward versus non-conformity and punishment -- distorted instinct and this basic conflict led to cycles of repressive forces within the psyche. Humans had been, he said, inclined towards unrestrained sexual activity and the resolution of interpersonal conflict through violence, and had done so for millennia, and so, over time Human Will had been, in effect, rewired. The anxiety humans felt, the inherent contradictions of their lives could, he said, be explored through dreams...as if sifting through time -- for the truth.

Then he spoke of death, something he called a wish for death, and how coming to terms with our very finite existence had, he said, consumed man for eons, yet now, with unfettered freedom the order of the day, mankind had had to come to terms with something new and completely unexpected: the utter disgust men held for their fellow human beings...and the misery they yearned to visit on those who embodied anguish.

+++++

She was sitting on his face, grinding her lips on his, lost in waves of orgasmic bliss, and he could feel at least two woman below now, working on his cock...

"Oh, I'm so close...so close...don't stop..."

"Dr Rosenberg? Eli?"

"Go the fuck away."

"Dr Rosenberg, it's the president. He's been shot and they're on the way here right now, five minutes out."

Jeremiah Clemens sat up, shook his head and looked around the room. Vending machines along one wall, a sink and microwave on a long counter across the room. He rubbed his eyes, tried to shake off the dream but he could still taste the woman's juices on his tongue, his orgasm almost to the point of release.

"What did you say? Who?"

"President Carpenter, doctor. He's been shot at the coliseum, the secret service are with him in the ambulance. They say he's been shot in the chest, and he's bleeding badly."

Wide awake now, he stood and went to the sink, splashed water on his face. "Is Underwood still here? Who've we got to pass gas?"

"Doctor Underwood is on his way to London. Dr Beauchamp is the resident on call for anesthesia, and he's scrubbing in right now. Mitchell is the thoracic surgeon on call, and he's on his way in...ETA thirty minutes."

"Didn't you say five minutes out," Rosenberg asked, his ears already picking up the wail of a siren in the distance, and he went to the window, watched red strobes pulsing in the distance. "Fuck. Who's down there right now?"

"Those two new interns, Schmidt and Perkins, and Anderson is finishing up sutures on that kid's foot."

Fuck-fuck-fuck..." he said, bolting for the door...all dreams just a memory now, far away and fading fast...

He got to the ambulance entrance off the ER just as the ambulance backed in, and he jumped in the box as it stopped -- and saw -- a -- police officer?

"Gunshot wound to the head, doc. We had to run code...he still has a normal rhythm..."

Rosenberg nodded. "Take him to Trauma Two; we'll have to see what his family wants to do." He heard another siren and climbed out of the box, stood waiting for the inevitable rush. The nurses on tonight would be ready for him, and he wanted to be 'hands-on' as soon as the ambulance arrived.

+++++

The pressure was unbearable, the fire...it had to be fire...the skin on his chest felt like it was on fire, yet the pressure inside was a million times worse. He tried to turn his head but the pressure moved up behind his eyes and he wanted to scream -- but his mouth wouldn't move -- so he tried to open his eyes.

Flickering light, then haze, like his eyes were coated with Vaseline. Someone by his side, wiping his eyes with something cool -- a moistened cloth? Shaking his head slowly, trying to take soundings of this place. Trying to make his eyes focus...

Green tile. Everywhere he looked -- green tile, and...? What are those...banks of instruments? Traces of his life, playing out in real time on walls of screens. Vital signs, he felt sure, indicating he was still alive -- if that's what you could call this...

Yet there was something different. Something new. Someone else.

He felt split, like two people inhabited this body now, like there was someone else inside looking out -- through his eyes, experiencing -- what he experienced, seeing the same things -- he saw. Joined -- in death, perhaps?

He tried to speak again, but no. His mouth still wouldn't open.

"It's alright, Mr President. Your mouth is taped now, and there's a machine helping you breathe. That's why your throat is sore, but maybe those will come out tonight. My name is Emma, and you're in the CICU at the University of Mississippi Medical Center."

He moved his eyes, looked to his left and he saw a black woman standing there. Pretty, he thought. Kind eyes, but faraway, like pain had visited recently. But no, he hadn't thought that, couldn't have thought a negro was pretty. There had to be someone else in here, inside his mind, and they had to be sharing thoughts as they happened...

'But no...that's impossible. Something to do with what happened, maybe brain damage? Maybe my brain was deprived of oxygen for too long?'

But no, he told himself, that couldn't be right, either. He was thinking clearly, at least he thought he was thinking clearly...

"Don't worry, Mr President. Dr Rosenberg is the best transplant surgeon there is, and he was here, happened to be on duty when you arrived. The operation went fine, just fine, and you should be on your way back to Washington early next week. The Vice President was here this afternoon and he said to tell you everything is fine, but he might sneak upstairs while you're away and play with the dogs."

He smiled, nodded his head.

"You just rest now, Mr President. Is the pain bad? Just point with a finger if it feels too bad right now..."

He pointed.

"Okay, just close your eyes now. You'll feel a little warmth for a second...then..."

He felt himself falling away again, and he wondered who she was, and just when had he fallen in love those eyes...?

+++++

He was dreaming again -- he knew it. There had been women again, an endless parade of women, and sex...infinite sex...

Then an old man was there, standing over him, yet still inside his dream. A familiar face. Warm eyes. And he knew things, didn't he?

He knows everything there is to know about me...

"You did well," the old man said. "Very impressive work."

"Where did I learn those things?"

The old man laughed. "You haven't. Not yet, anyway."

"But...how?"

"Think of time. Time, think of time as an infinite set of layers. Like peeling an onion, layer upon layer, one layer over another." He sighed, looked around the mist. "People have discovered there are multiple universes, each a layer -- one over the other other..." But the old man could tell the boy was confused, lost and alone, and he coughed once, then sighed again. "Anyway. The hard part is learning to move from layer to layer."

"I don't understand."

"It doesn't matter."

"I don't know how to explain this, but when I looked into Carpenter's eyes...well, I felt I was looking into my brother Timothy's. Is that possible?"

"If that's what you felt, it is indeed."

"Who am I? And how could I possibly know him?"

"A descendant of yours, a great-great grand-daughter married his father. He is, well, a grandchild of sorts, so the connection you feel is strong."

"What? So, does that mean...this Carpenter? You're saying he's related to my Tim?"

The old man nodded his head, smiled a grim little smile. "Funny, isn't it?"

"Why funny? What's funny about that?"

"Oh, the connections that form -- we're so often unaware. Endless, I suppose, yet how rooted in the past they are."

"For a time, I felt like I was adrift, in a sea of stars..."

"Because you were."

"What? But how...?"

"Something to do with the layers of an onion, Jeremiah."

"What? You're not going to call me 'Pride' anymore?"

"No, Jere, not just now."

"What...why did you call me that? That's what my father used to call me..."

But the old man simply smiled as he looked the boy in the eye. "Because I'm proud of you," the old man said -- with a twinkle in his eye, and then another man ran fingers through a little boy's hair, and for a moment -- for just the briefest flash of time a window opened, then the other man said "Goodbye" -- and was as suddenly gone.

+++++

His mouth dry, his tongue thick and sticky. The room dark, too dark, but he saw banks of monitors and watched their steady beat as echoes of his life marched across the screens. He lifted his head, looked for her but she wasn't there now and he felt sad, adrift, cast aside. His head fell back to the pillow and he looked at the glow of instruments on the ceiling, how patterns of his life shifted from blue to green and back again -- all movement, always -- no time to make sense of things.

He hated himself for being attracted to her, this negro woman, but he couldn't help himself. It was like he was drawn to her, then that feeling again, like someone -- something foreign -- was inside, impelling this attraction. Yet hers was such a gentle soul, so unlike his forceful wife.

He tried to remember her, their years together, the son they had. The boy he neglected. Ruth was always the stalwart campaigner, always by his side, and she had turned into a fine First Lady, a much loved figure -- where he was not. Then cancer, the rapid descent and drawn-out death that played out on the news channels, the attention consuming his second year in office. The bounce in the polls, the early re-election campaign -- now eighteen months with two months yet to go -- until the election. Such a fierce battle this time, how unpopular his rolling back the oppositions' agenda had become nationally. The media against him now -- he was the bigot, the dark, ugly face of America -- or so they called him.

And maybe he was, but he represented millions of angry voters, voters who'd been disenfranchised by 'experts' and other hangers-on, who Rand called 'second handers' -- when Atlas Shrugged, once upon a time. They'd called him the last best chance to save the country -- and he'd believed them, too -- then the country turned on him when he acted on his promises. There had been calls for his impeachment, riots in several cities on the west coast...then Ruth and her cancer consumed all of them as the nation rallied to her side -- and for a while, to his as well.

Her funeral? What a spectacle -- the press loved him! How his re-election team used those images to rebuild his base, and how they'd been so skillfully used to draw the evangelicals back into the fold -- once again...

A light came on -- no, something brighter than that -- impossibly bright...then the pain was on him again, incredible, searing pain, in the middle of his chest...pressure...but -- the light?!

The light is causing the pressure! How can that be...?

And then the light was overhead, fierce white light, like a star, the biggest star he has ever seen... Ten times bigger than the sun, and he stared at flares and coronal loops as they leapt into space. One flare burst from the surface and he saw it coming, coming straight at him, but something was wrong...

He reached for the star -- took it in hand, held the light to his face. "It's a gentle heat," he said, and he seemed to understand it wasn't painful at all, yet the object was so very bright -- then there was a man by his side. Not tall, and he was quite fat. A powdered wig on his head, and he recognized the man from somewhere, from some other time.

"Johann?"

The man smiled. "Yes, Wrath?"

"You were with me, in the cathedral."

"I was."

"Where are we?"

"Where? The carnival, of course, where you have always been. Why? Where do you think you are?"