physical and not philosophical difficulties, given where he sat—he remembered George’s own words and used them to incriminate him. (And not unfairly—maybe George wanted his words to be used in this way, for he needed to be known as himself, didn’t he, wasn’t that what he said: “We’d have to be from separate planets or in different galaxies or however far away you’d have to be not to reflect on each other”—right, wasn’t that it?)
Images from old sci-fi TV shows the two boys had seen and spoofed whirled around his face—actors in cheap comic costumes to play characters in the cosmos—like holograms seeming no less real than things that
were
real. Then he shielded his eyes from what looked like blinding bright lights directed down at him, which heralded the arrival of a vehicle with an ear-splitting engine roar and cold and powerful winds from landing gear that blew any object in its path (toothpaste, hair dryer, towel) from its perch. Joe’s own remaining hair was whipped away in a frenzy and stuck out like swinging saloon doors from the sides of his head.
Then the cataclysm passed and silence and warmth returned to the bathroom. Joe was left with new knowledge; it had just been dropped off to him, as if from a helicopter hovering above a catastrophe site—though this had been no helicopter or something that made only stops upon the Earth; this had been at least the idea of a spaceship, the one that had brought George to this planet, for he was an alien from “elsewhere,” George number-for-name, or however he really was known.
It made perfect sense. He was here to destroy it all. Joe’s only question was: how long had George been here like that? He hadn’t seemed distant and detached as a kid, so had he been abducted later, snatched and then returned, with some crucial part of him gone? Were the two years they had lost touch the time when the transformation took place? Or had he actually been exchanged entirely for another creature (one thinner, better dressed, famous, and of course, with inhuman priorities)? Or had George-not-George been there all along, playing the “person” he had been and preparing to strike, a one-man sleeper cell from outer space? There were so many questions.
There were more questions than he had answers—or pills, for that matter, for Joe now saw he was running even lower than he thought, and he could have no more answers (or come to any more of these kinds of conclusions) without them. But he felt this knowledge demanded action, and he was the only one who could take it, since he was the only one who knew.
When he came shakily downstairs, George was already by the door, blinking a bit more than usual and moving side to side in a restless style that suggested impatience. In his hand was a train schedule he had obviously ripped from the kitchen cabinet, for tape was still stuck to its edges. He no longer had trouble deciphering it, had instead become an instant expert.
“It’s 8:55,” he said. “If we miss the 9:16, there’s nothing again until midnight.”
Joe was nearly amused by George’s opportunistic sense and non-sense of such things as a train schedule; obviously he could have any ability, be any character he wanted, was adaptable as no one on Earth was. Too bad he had given himself away by his coldness. Too bad Joe had deduced the truth!
Yet Joe concealed his own cleverness with a clueless “Sure, sure, let’s go,” fighting to form the words with both his lips going every which way at once for reasons he attributed only to fatigue, the fact of the pills evaded shamefacedly since he had never admitted to a soul he took so many—not even to himself.
George tried to quickly say goodbye to Michelle and Tad, his earlier admiration for them now replaced by a single-minded desire to leave. Yet he had to agree, with a grimace, to be pulled close and hugged by Michelle, who held him as if embracing for a final time any appreciation of her as a person.
Images from old sci-fi TV shows the two boys had seen and spoofed whirled around his face—actors in cheap comic costumes to play characters in the cosmos—like holograms seeming no less real than things that
were
real. Then he shielded his eyes from what looked like blinding bright lights directed down at him, which heralded the arrival of a vehicle with an ear-splitting engine roar and cold and powerful winds from landing gear that blew any object in its path (toothpaste, hair dryer, towel) from its perch. Joe’s own remaining hair was whipped away in a frenzy and stuck out like swinging saloon doors from the sides of his head.
Then the cataclysm passed and silence and warmth returned to the bathroom. Joe was left with new knowledge; it had just been dropped off to him, as if from a helicopter hovering above a catastrophe site—though this had been no helicopter or something that made only stops upon the Earth; this had been at least the idea of a spaceship, the one that had brought George to this planet, for he was an alien from “elsewhere,” George number-for-name, or however he really was known.
It made perfect sense. He was here to destroy it all. Joe’s only question was: how long had George been here like that? He hadn’t seemed distant and detached as a kid, so had he been abducted later, snatched and then returned, with some crucial part of him gone? Were the two years they had lost touch the time when the transformation took place? Or had he actually been exchanged entirely for another creature (one thinner, better dressed, famous, and of course, with inhuman priorities)? Or had George-not-George been there all along, playing the “person” he had been and preparing to strike, a one-man sleeper cell from outer space? There were so many questions.
There were more questions than he had answers—or pills, for that matter, for Joe now saw he was running even lower than he thought, and he could have no more answers (or come to any more of these kinds of conclusions) without them. But he felt this knowledge demanded action, and he was the only one who could take it, since he was the only one who knew.
When he came shakily downstairs, George was already by the door, blinking a bit more than usual and moving side to side in a restless style that suggested impatience. In his hand was a train schedule he had obviously ripped from the kitchen cabinet, for tape was still stuck to its edges. He no longer had trouble deciphering it, had instead become an instant expert.
“It’s 8:55,” he said. “If we miss the 9:16, there’s nothing again until midnight.”
Joe was nearly amused by George’s opportunistic sense and non-sense of such things as a train schedule; obviously he could have any ability, be any character he wanted, was adaptable as no one on Earth was. Too bad he had given himself away by his coldness. Too bad Joe had deduced the truth!
Yet Joe concealed his own cleverness with a clueless “Sure, sure, let’s go,” fighting to form the words with both his lips going every which way at once for reasons he attributed only to fatigue, the fact of the pills evaded shamefacedly since he had never admitted to a soul he took so many—not even to himself.
George tried to quickly say goodbye to Michelle and Tad, his earlier admiration for them now replaced by a single-minded desire to leave. Yet he had to agree, with a grimace, to be pulled close and hugged by Michelle, who held him as if embracing for a final time any appreciation of her as a person.
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