that he was going to die (he no longer assumed anything), he did not see how he could continue to exist in his present state indefinitely. Six of the group were dead, and Joanna- his Joanna-had entered some strange limbo on the margins of a changed world in which he now found himself.
He did not speculate further upon his personal fate, merely wrote down the story in all the detail that he could recall, starting with his reading in Around Town of Joanna's expose of Camp Starburst and the cynical manipulations of Ellie and Murray Ray. He wrote of his first meeting with Joanna in a television studio, and then later on Sixth Avenue after her unnerving confrontation with Ellie. He wrote of how the idea of the experiment had been born, and how his relationship with Joanna had grown with it. In swift and simple prose he set down all that had happened from that time until the time of writing almost twelve months later, and a universe apart.
What does that mean, a universe apart? Am I speaking of parallel worlds? And if so, what does that mean? It's just an idea, a way, one of many, of describing the strangeness of nature when we examine her closely. We know that in truth there is only one world: the one we are in. We know too that concepts like space and time are merely constructs of our consciousness, not things “out there” existing independently of us.
Physicists, it is said, have paid a high price for their understanding of nature: they have lost their hold on reality. Of course, that was “reality” as defined by common sense-a transaction between “out there,” where the world was, and “in here,” where we were. Now that distinction has disappeared; the common sense that took it for granted has been proven an untrustworthy ally. There is nothing to lose our hold on anymore. That which holds and that which is held are one and the same; observer and observed are merely parts of a spectrum, neither one existing independently of the other.
In physics we have had to learn a language that reflects both the precision of our knowledge and the ambiguity revealed by it. An electron, for example, is not a particle or wave; it is both. It exists in a “superposition of states”-until we want it, for the purposes of measurement, to be one or the other. Then it will oblige us.
The universe in which we live is as much conceived by us as we are by it. Obvious simple rules like cause and effect have lost their power. Niels Bohr defined causality as no more than a method by which we reduce our sense impressions to some kind of order.
No one disputes the reality of this strangeness on the microscopic level. The only question has been whether it could carry over into the macroscopic world of our daily lives. There is increasing, indeed by now overwhelming, evidence that it can.
I myself, sitting here, am living proof.
He set aside his pen and leaned back to look up at the ceiling. It was barely visible beyond the penumbra of the lamp on the desk. Night had fallen while he wrote. He searched for a summing up, a final phrase that would crystallize and give shape to what he was trying to say.
It was of course a hopeless task. There was no such thing as a last word.
“Living proof,” he read, and picked up his pen, but wrote no more.
Because in that moment he had heard her voice. Quite distinctly though not loudly. Nor was he sure where it had come from.
He stood up silently, as though the least sound he made might frighten her off and he would lose her, perhaps this time for good.
“Joanna?” he called out softly.
There was no response. Only then did he realize that, although he'd heard her voice, he had no idea what she'd said. Had he really heard her? Or was his mind playing tricks?
He stepped out onto the landing and listened in the darkness. The house was silent except for the muffled sound of traffic in the street. He called her name again.
“Joanna…?”
Still no response. Then, somewhere above, he heard a faint, brief sound, as though someone had passed quickly and lightly over a loose floorboard.
The darkness around him grew deeper and more dense as he turned a corner on the stairs, losing the last reflected light from the music room below. He paused and spoke again, in barely a whisper.
“Joanna, are you there…?”
Again he heard her voice, closer this time, and in a whisper like his own. There could be no doubt it was her voice, but still he couldn't understand what she was saying.
“Joanna…? Where are you…?”
He groped in the darkness for a light switch, and cried out in shock as his hand connected with the feel of warm, firm flesh. Her unseen fingers interlaced themselves with his, and held him tight.
“I'm here,” she said. Her voice was clear now, so close to him that he could feel her breath on his. Her body pressed against him, soft and warm. He held her naked in his arms, and in the dark her lips found his.
He felt a movement of her hand against his chest and realized she was unbuttoning his shirt. Brushing her fingers aside, he tore off his clothes in what seemed like a single unbroken movement. He didn't try to speak, he knew he couldn't. The beating of his heart was like a hammer in his chest as she led him blindly through the dark until he felt the bed against his legs.
They tumbled onto it, devouring one another with a violence and a passion that seemed inexhaustible and endless. The only sounds they made were cries and gasps of need, desire, and satisfaction, until, sated at last, they lay entwined in silence.
“I'm so happy,” she whispered. “I knew you'd come. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore.”
He pulled her to him, feeling the swell of her breasts, the curve of her stomach and thighs, and the film of perspiration covering her skin as it pressed against his own. He could feel her, but he could not see her. He knew that the dancing lines and contours he fancied he had glimpsed from time to time as they made love were simply his imagination creating mental images from the sensual contact of their bodies.
“I want to see you,” he said. “I have to.”
“Yes, I know.” There was a softness in her voice, as though the words came through a smile of tenderness. Her hand traced the contours of his face. “It's all right. You can put on the light.”
He reached out to where he remembered seeing a bedside lamp, his fingers feeling for the switch. He found it-but, for some reason he did not fully understand, he hesitated.
“Don't be afraid,” she said.
He pressed.
There was a searing flash of light, like an explosion. Worse even than the pain that scorched his eyes was the blistering, asphyxiating sound-like the roar of an inferno, all around him, all consuming, burning through his brain.
He didn't know how long it lasted, but as the blinding whiteness faded and the silence gradually returned, there came too a strange emptiness and an absence of all feeling.
Somewhere he heard a howl of pain and fear. It was his voice, he knew, but it no longer seemed to be a part of him.
She spoke again, calm, reassuring, in control, as though she had known all this would happen and was here to guide him through it.
“It's all right, my darling…don't be afraid…you're safe now…”
He cried out in startled rage, “I can't see…where am I…?”
Feeling returned abruptly, as it does after an injury when the body has been momentarily anesthetized by shock. But it was not pain he felt now, merely the sensation of being on his feet, stumbling forward like a blind man, arms outstretched in search of unseen obstacles.
Her voice came again-so close now that it seemed to be inside his head.
“Come…come with me…”
He felt her hand on his, its touch so light as to be barely there at all. He took a few more steps, and then the ground beneath his feet seemed suddenly to fall away.
But he himself did not fall. It was as though the house, the city, and the world around it were opening into endless space. He felt that he was flying, borne aloft by a mysterious, all-powerful and all-embracing force. He knew that she was with him, but he was not sure how he knew.
Then the thought came to him that she was not with him, but was now in some way part of him. The idea seemed so obviously and inevitably true that he did not question it, or wonder how it could be so, or where it was that they were going.
