The Collection

formulate at least some semblance of apian. I felt in my pockets and counted out all the money. One hundred dollars. That would buy me some time.

I did it all without saying a word. It's amazing, really, how well one can function without even the slightest form of verbal communication. I rented a small shack on the beach for a week and bought enough groceries to last me for that time without saying so much as a 'yes' or a 'no' to anyone. I got by with noncommittal grunts, quizzical looks, nods, and various gestures.

And then I was ready.

I had already decided never to utter another word again. Now, I knew, I must enforce that vow. I had to wean myself from the world of people. I had to cut off all ties with hu­manity. I had to isolate myself from everything-go cold turkey, as it were. And I had to do it in a week. In seven days, I had to reject and unlearn a lifetime of thought pat­terns, habits, and behavior. I had to de-acculturate myself.

It was hard at first. With the absence of human contact, I found myself wanting to think out loud. I felt, like the he­roes in radio dramas, compelled to talk to myself.

But I overcame that compulsion. Soon, the urge disap­peared altogether. I spent my days walking along the empty beach, occasionally swimming and reading good books. I grew used to my solitude.

Nights, however, were a different matter.

The first night, I decided to turn in early. I drank a cup of espresso, marked my place in the book I was reading, and settled down in the double bed.

I awoke in what had once been a shopping mall, now abandoned and inhabited by poor people, most of whom were wandering down the once-carpeted aisles of stores try­ing to hawk pieces of scrap metal they'd scavenged. A woman walked up to me and held out a rusted gear. 'Want to buy it?' she whined pitifully. 'Only a dollar.'

I was completely baffled, trapped in that dazed and foggy netherworld between sleep and wakefulness. I did not know what was going on. I looked down at my body and got an­other rude shock. I was female.

Then it came to me. I remembered my warm comfortable bed in my rented beach shack. 'I am back in my cabin on the beach,' I blurted out. 'I am the same person I was when I went to sleep last night.'

And I was.

I must have been talking in my sleep. It was the only plausible explanation. No one had ever mentioned it to me-not my parents, my brother, not any of my friends or roommates-and perhaps it wasn't even audible, but appar­ently I was a sleeptalker. That was a problem. I could con­trol my waking actions and my conscious thoughts, but sleep, dreams, and my subconscious were beyond my reach.

The sleeptalking continued, and I was never sure whether I'd wake up in my own bed, wake up on some alien planet, or even if I would wake up at all. Sometimes, I would awaken in the middle of the night only to find myself in some surrealistic nightmare, in a world with no recognizable features and with the bizarre juxtaposition of unrelated ob­jects so characteristic of dreamscapes. Once, I remember, I awoke in a Wild West fort on a huge bed of ostrich feathers nearly twenty feet high. I was surrounded by soldiers. To my right, a storm was brewing over a barren plain. To my left, bright and shining, stood an ultra-modern supermarket.

Although I never broke my vow of silence during the day, I constantly talked in my sleep, and then again when I awoke-in order to return to the 'real world.'

Eventually, the problem did go away. Whether I willed myself to stop talking in my sleep or whether it disappeared of its own accord I don't know. All I know is that it took a long, long time.

I refuse to let myself think about the possible reverberat­ing effects my nighttime mumblings may have had.

When the week was up, I left my rented cabin. I traveled. At first, I wanted to get as far away from people and civi­lization as I could. So I headed north, to the wilds of Canada and then on to Alaska, doing odd jobs here and there for my room and board, pretending to be mute. But I'm a city per­son. And I found that I missed the throngs of people and the hustle and bustle of city life. I wanted to be near the crowds, even if I could not be part of them. And, truth be told, it's just as easy to remain isolated and alone in crowded cities as it is in deserted countrysides. Cities are so impersonal and cold, and the people in them so alienated from each other, that I fit right in. I mean, / notice my lack of communication; I have to live with it, it is an unending constant in my life and it is torture to me. But to everyone else, I'm just another person. No one notices that I don't speak.

But this is all beside the point. This is all background in­formation. This is all a preface to what I want to say.

I have given it a lot of thought. Over twenty years of thought. And I have decided to use the power one last time. I do this not out of selfishness or greed. I do this not for my­self at all. And I do not enter into this rashly or without rea­son. I do this after careful consideration and deliberation, and with a definite goal in mind. I do this purposefully and with a clear conscience.

For over these past decades, I have come to realize the full implications of this ability. I understand the tremendous, almost supreme and absolute power which I wield in my fal­lible and mortal body. It is a terrible thing to live with day in and day out, a terrible burden and responsibility. I cannot and should not be entrusted with such capabilities. Nor should any person.

I do not know if there are others with this power. Perhaps, even as I write, whole realities are coming and going, shift­ing and changing all around me. But no more. I intend to put a stop to it. I intend to make sure that no human being shall ever have to live through the hell which I have experienced.

Tonight I will speak. And the power will cease to exist.

I have thought this through, as I've said, for many years, and I believe I have honed down, defined, and clarified my statement to such an exact degree that it will have no effect other than the one which I intend. I have even written it down, to make sure I make no mistakes.

Of course, it is impossible to know exactly what all the consequences of my words may be. The laws of nature and science may crack and break; the world itself may change ut­terly. But I am willing to take that risk. I must take that risk.

In the process I, too, along with my power and along with any other individuals who have this ability, will cease to exist. It is for the best. My senile ravings, once I grow old, will now never be able to affect anyone; the cries of my death will not cause chaos. Instead, I will simply de-exist. I will probably never have existed at all. The people I once knew will not retain even a faint memory of me.

This, then, is my record, my proof. I have written down the events as they have transpired and have attempted to ex­plain, somewhat, the full implications of my power. If I am successful in what I intend, the power will disappear forever and will never trouble humankind again. If I am not suc­cessful ... who knows? I can only try. And I am willing to chance it.

Wish me luck.

The Washingtonians

During the Gulf War, I was amazed at the public's mass acceptance of the government's view of events. Something like 120,000 Iraqis were killed, not all of them soldiers or Husseins-in-training, many of them ordinary men, women, and children who happened to be living in the same geographical area in which we were dropping bombs. But the news was controlled, information filtered through official government press conferences, and on TV we saw no bodies, no blood. So people believed what they were told. I got to think­ing about what it would be like if all our history was like that, if what we learned in school was simply the party line, not the actual truth. 'The Washingtonians' grew from there.

I will Skin your Children and Eat Them.

Upon Finishing, I will Fashion Utensils of Their Bones.

'It's authentic,' Davis admitted. 'It was written by George Washington.' He flipped off the light and, with gloved fin­gers, removed the parchment manuscript from underneath the magnifier. He shook his head. 'Where did you get this? I've never come across anything like it in all my years in the business.'

Mike shook his head. 'I told you. It was in a trunk of my great-grandmother's stuff that we found hidden in her barn.'

'May I ask what you intend to do with it?'

'Well, if it was authentic, we were thinking we'd donate it to the Smithsonian or something. Or sell it to the Smith­sonian, if we could. What's the appraisal value of something like this?'