Maybe it was the End of Times or something like that. Maybe the Mayans were right but we hadn’t known what to look for. It could have started in 2012. For all I know, it’s been going on throughout history, prehistory, before the world was created or came into existence. I don’t think I was the first to notice and definitely not the only one, but I’ll never forget what happened, even though others don’t seem to have noticed, even my best friend Marvin Franklin, who was visiting me for the Fourth of July. But Dr. Noyer remembers. We get together every week to remind ourselves that we haven’t lost our minds. It really happened and we witnessed it firsthand.

*       *

Marvin and I met at the University of Michigan. There’s no reason our paths should have ever crossed because he was a Marketing and Communications major and I was on the other side of campus, studying art history. He was a wide receiver on the football team, surrounded by beautiful women wanting to be with him, always partying with the in crowd, whereas I was a reclusive gay guy, not dating much and mostly keeping to myself. And Marvin is African American while I’m of Italian descent, my ancestors having a questionable ethical or moral foundation. They were illegal immigrants whereas his American lineage was unimpeachable.

Our meeting was inauspicious, to say the least. I’d been coerced into attending the football game against Michigan State. After the Spartans won, thanks to a last-minute reception by Marvin, I got lost on my way to the exit and ended up somewhere in the bowels of The Big House. I had to take a leak so I ducked into the men’s room to relieve my bladder. I was interrupted by a woman moaning and shrieking with ecstasy from one of the stalls. I finished my business and turned, to be confronted by a beautiful brunette pulling her dress down, her underwear dangling from her left hand. Despite her appearance, what got my attention was the black man who followed her out of the stall. Appreciation slipped out of my mouth.

“I’d like some of that if you’re ready for another round.” I was looking at Marvin’s still erect penis.

This perfect specimen of African American manhood ignored me and pulled his pants up, paying attention to the young woman. What a gentleman. 

Weeks later, I ran into Marvin again, this time in a more public forum; I was getting a chef salad in the student cafeteria when he appeared in line behind me. He didn’t say anything until we’d both paid for our meals. I was looking for an isolated table where I could avoid other people when he said, “Do you mind if I join you?”

I was dumbfounded so I nodded hopefully, thinking that maybe he was bisexual. I was trembling with anticipation as we sat down at an isolated table. He wasn’t bisexual, but we became best friends that day while I ate a vegan chef salad and he devoured a roast beef sandwich with a salad and fries. 

Our natural camaraderie, as strange as that might sound, continued for fifteen years, spanning the miles separating Chicago and Detroit; and now we were going to celebrate the founding of America together, watching the White Sox play the Tigers and rooting for our adopted cities’ baseball teams. It was going to be a great Fourth of July. Marvin would arrive at eleven a.m. according to Google, so I didn’t have to rush my morning routine. 

My first awareness of the transformation occurred when I was shaving with a razor, enjoying the feel of steel sliding over my lubricated skin when my reflection was replaced by…I don’t know what it was, but I was looking at triangles and trapezoids glowing in every shade of the rainbow. No human face was discernible in the bizarre kaleidoscope confronting me, but I kept shaving as if nothing had happened. I wasn’t afraid or even upset. I shaved unerringly while the figures dancing before my eyes continuously changed color. I finished my task, convinced that I’d lost my mind. The hallucination disappeared without warning, leaving me confused. I didn’t feel as if I’d had a stroke or anything and I was clean shaven, not a scratch. 

Marvin arrived exactly on schedule. He’s like that, always punctual, never early or late. He made himself at home in the spare bedroom that served as a home office, and we settled down on the sofa to catch up.

After a couple beers, I was relaxed enough to tell Marvin about my hallucination. He listened attentively to my description of triangles, circles, squares, and irregular angular objects, and their constantly changing colors. When I was finished, he expressed confusion.

“And yet you finished shaving? How could you do that? I mean, why didn’t you just stop?”

I shook my head uncertainly and said, “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t stop. I was fascinated I guess, but I really couldn’t stop. It’s like I was watching myself through a kaleidoscope, I was shaving like normal but I was also seeing myself through this crazy filter…”

I’m a very down-to-earth guy. I’ve never done any drugs and I don’t even get drunk. Marvin knows this, so it was his turn to shake his head ambiguously. “It must have been a stroke, Lenny, we should get you to the hospital for an MRI or something. The next one could paralyze you or strike you blind. You don’t mess around with your brain.”

I agreed that if the vision recurred, he could drive me to the ER. Nothing happened so we had dinner at an Italian restaurant and then watched Zola, a quirky adventure that Marvin and I found a little hard to believe. He suggested that the original tweets were faked. My criticism didn’t go that far. Since he’d driven from Detroit, I’d volunteered to drive, which turned out to be a good thing. We were cruising along Lakeshore Drive when he became silent, not responding to my analysis of the unlikelihood of fake tweets. I took my eyes off the road to glance at him, to find his dark eyes wide open staring at me. 

“Hey man, you okay?” I asked.

His head shook slowly. Words finally came out of his mouth. “I can’t see you, Lenny. Where are you? I think I’m looking at where you were a minute ago, but all I see are strange shapes, swirling, transforming, like you described this morning. I think I need to go to the hospital…”

I did as he asked and, ten minutes later, we pulled up to the emergency room at Northwestern Memorial. He still couldn’t see but had no difficultly climbing out of my Honda unassisted, even refusing help at the curb and the door. I had the eerie feeling that his experience mirrored my own. I held back as Marvin explained his symptoms to a skeptical nurse at the desk, before we took a seat along with what looked like the lower rung of society.

He was called after a half-hour, still suffering from the delusion, and I was left to wait along with the other visitors to the emergency room on a Friday night. There were broken arms, lacerations, bruises, mad rushes to the restroom, and a lot of bystanders. Family or friends, like me, who sat in uneasy silence as their charges were taken through the double doors that said, “Staff Only.” Marvin reappeared after an hour and a half. He looked confused but none the worse for wear, no bandages around his head, not limping, no sign of brain damage.

“Let’s hear it!” I blurt, unable to contain my anticipation.

“First, I can see again…” He looked around at the hopeless faces and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

We compared notes until well after midnight. He’d seen triangles and shapes like I’d described, and colors, but he’d also heard murmuring voices, undecipherable but definitely not speaking English. His experience lasted a lot longer than mine and he’d started making sense of it, comparing the bizarre images to what he “knew” was going on around him. He hadn’t figured it out but the sights and sounds were somehow related to what he’d been experiencing. He’d spoken to a psychiatrist, who’d expressed interest in the phenomena, giving him a referral to a neurological psychiatrist specializing in delusions. He’d been put in an MRI and his brained scanned, showing no abnormalities—a good thing, no stroke.

“No,” he said when I’d expressed support for the positive diagnosis. “I’m just crazy as a loon, and so are you, I’m just worse off.” 

*       *

“So…do you think I should see this Doctor Noyer, or wait until I get back to Detroit? I’m sure there are plenty of…” He read the card carefully before continuing, “Neurological psychiatrists in Detroit. I mean, the whole city is crazy. Those brutal winters should have run all of us off years ago.”

I had to think about that. Marvin was pretty busy as a mid-level manager in a marketing consulting company, building his career, on track for upper management or even partner one day. He couldn’t just take a vacation whenever he wanted. On the other hand, he’d been working from home during the Covid pandemic and hadn’t mentioned any problems. “Can you telework for a few days?” I asked.

“Sure, I don’t have to be in the office until the fifteenth. You know, it might be a good idea to see a shrink in Chicago, keep it out of the gossip column—”

I scoffed and interjected, “Yeh, right, like the paparazzi are following you around. Not yet, pal, but maybe in a few years.”

“Sure, but investigators, even if they’re only working for a competing firm, can dig up records. They’re like bloodhounds. I think I’ll send her an email.”

“Go for it. I’d love to have you around for a few days. You can water my plastic plant when I go to work—”

“Shit, Lenny, you haven’t had an office in at least ten years. I’ll set up on the kitchen table and stay out of your way. Just don’t show up in your drawers while I’m on Zoom.”

I was glad to agree to that arrangement. 

Marvin emailed Dr. Noyer. I hoped they would answer and have a sudden opening to fit him in the next week because I wanted to talk to an expert myself. After all, I’d had the same hallucination, first. Marvin had brought his Specialized Allez road bike, so we went for a ride around Chicago, staying off the busiest streets, favoring parks for the cool shade of trees wearing summer foliage. I struggled to keep up with what was probably a loafing pace for him. I was glad Chicago didn’t have any hills. 

We were approaching Navy Pier when the hallucination returned in force. A million times stronger than before. Marvin, twenty feet ahead of me, turned into a collection of concentric and intersecting shapes, triangles like Hollywood uses for targeting in science fiction movies. I increased my speed and the forms changed to squares with a circle in the middle, colored in magenta and fire-engine red. I couldn’t see Marvin, the path, the trees; I was blind but still I avoided colliding with him as I pulled alongside.

“Let’s stop,” I said, not knowing if I was panting or speaking casually.

“Tired?” was his sarcastic response.

I shook my head, nodded, then said, “Of course, but the visions are back. I can’t see anything…”

We stopped under an oak tree. I couldn’t see the oak tree but I knew it was there, dappled shadows shielding us from the midmorning sun. 

“What’s it like?” he asked.

I described what I was seeing; looking at him I saw only shapes and colors, but then something new appeared while I was talking. A wave of ocean-blue shapes came out of the sun like a tidal wave, threatening to drown Marvin and me. I grimaced and held my hands up to stave off the threat, to no avail. The wall of twisted figures flowed over us, engulfing me in feelings I’d never felt before, raising my consciousness to a new plane. I looked at where I knew Marvin was sitting, on a park bench, watching me closely.

“Did you feel it?”

“What?” he asked.

“Being one with…with the universe. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t have the words to share what it was like…”

“Give it a try,” was his patient response.

I looked in his direction, the patterns swirling around, focusing on what I assumed was his eyes, maybe his consciousness. “A wave of…of particles that just flowed over us, threatening to drown us, but it didn’t…it was fucking amazing!”

Marvin looked at me doubtfully and said, “We should get back. Can you ride?”

I nodded emphatically. “Oh yeh, I can ride. I’ll race you back!” I jumped on the bike I couldn’t see and sped off, expecting Marvin to blow past me any second. The strange vision continued until I arrived at what I knew was my apartment building, even though I couldn’t see it. Then it ended. I felt cheated, deprived of something that had made me a better man, a better human being. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs that had suddenly enshrouded my mind and looked around to see Marvin a hundred yards behind, peddling furiously. He arrived, breathing as hard as I usually did to keep up with him.

“What the fuck was that?!” he exclaimed between gasps for air, filling his athletic lungs with oxygen. “When did you become an Olympic cyclist. “Goddamn!” He gasped again.

I wasn’t breathing hard, drawing a lungful of air through my normally congested nasal cavities. “Don’t ask me, Marvin. I couldn’t even see where I was going. But the hallucination has ended. I’m back to normal although I’m not tired. I’ve got to say that that bike ride was a lot of fun. No wonder athletic guys like you enjoy intense sports like football. I feel great!”

He pushed past me with his expensive bike and said, “I think we need to see the…neurological psychologist together. We are seriously fucked up…”

As if aware of our dilemma, Dr. Noyer had responded to Marvin’s email. She could fit him in on the fifth of July because of a cancellation. That left us with three days of unpredictable delusional episodes to deal with. We could be one episode away from a massive stroke—on the Fourth of July. Not knowing when we might suffer another episode, we spent the rest of the day in my apartment and had food delivered. We watched science fiction movies, hoping to get some insight into what was happening, and I’m here to tell you that nothing was off limits. From, The Matrix to Inception, we entertained every possible scenario, discussing them in depth, sometimes interrupting a movie that was inapplicable. Then we stumbled across a film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. 

“That’s it!” Marvin exclaimed when the movie ended. “That’s what’s happening to us. We have fallen down some kind of interdimensional rabbit hole, just like Alice.”

Although I agreed with his conclusion, there was a problem: Marvin and I were sharing a delusion whereas Alice had experienced it alone. We could back up each other’s claims. I pointed this fact out and Marvin thought a minute before saying, “Do you think we should go to the game tomorrow?”

“Why not? After all, I apparently rode my cheap bike at breakneck speed, dealing with traffic and pedestrians, even crossing several streets, without a problem. And even if one of us is slammed with an out-of-body experience, we have each other to fall back on. We’ll take care of each other. No problem.” Little did I know.

*       *

We went to the game. It was more than we had expected. Like Alice in Wonderland. We got some beers and took our seat in the outfield stands because Marvin had always wanted to catch a homerun ball; and with his new-found allegiance to the Tigers, he was certain that one would come his way. When I asked why he was so confident, he responded, “I can feel it in my bones, Lenny. Today is the day.”

I scoffed and said, “You may catch a homerun ball, but it’s going to be from a Sox bat. Sorry about that.”

The pretense of team rivalry continued for six innings. 

We went to the men’s room before getting some hot dogs when everything changed. Marvin and I were using adjacent urinals when the transformation occurred. I looked at him, now represented as a blue area in my field of vision, and said, “Shit. I’m in an altered state, man. Don’t let me go haywire, got it?”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re nothing more than a little bit of yellow, or maybe that circle spinning off into the distance. I’m fucked up Lenny, maybe we should leave?”

I finished my business and was able to close my fly without pissing on myself, so I said, “Let’s have fun and get our hot dogs, with a large order of fries to share, and play it by ear, unless you feel nauseous or anything…I feel fine.”

 He finished up without making a mess and said, “Okay. We can always leave if we feel sick or…whatever.”

After a ten-minute wait in line, we faced the young woman behind the counter, busy putting together an order before she faced us. I couldn’t see her as I started to tell her what I wanted.

“Yes sir, will there be anything else?”

I was speechless, so Marvin said what he wanted. She pushed his hotdog and large fries and beer front and center. Smiling as if she knew us, she added, “Yessir, it’s all ready.”

Marvin and I checked the order we hadn’t made, agreed that it was correct and started to pay but were rebuffed.

“Thanks for your business. We hope to see you for the next game.”

We gathered our order together and got out of the way of the next hungry sports fan. We made our way, despite being blind, to our seats and settled in. I took several large bites of the hotdog that was visible, possibly, as a green splotch in the upper-right quadrant of my field of view. Every bite was accompanied by an explosion of shapes and colors in the lower-left quadrant of my visual field. It was disconcerting but, for some reason, not a cause for alarm. Marvin and I finished our dogs and his fries, which I helped him with, washed down with ice-cold beer. 

“Does any of this seem strange to you?” he asked.

I scoffed. “Hell, no. I been living on LSD for years. Didn’t you know?” 

One thing was certain: I felt intensely alive, as if I’d just been born. Maybe this was what the first moments of life were like, overwhelmed by strange new sights and sounds, senses topsy turvy, unaccustomed to the world.

Marvin’s premonition proved accurate, about catching a fly ball, only it was hit by a Sox batter. He caught the ball in his left hand, not spilling any beer and, without a word, stood up and threw it at the runner as he was passing first base. The ball hit the guy in the leg, knocking him down. During the ensuing confusion on the field, I turned to Marvin in awe.

“When did you become…whatever that was…maybe the world’s best baseball player?”

He looked at me sheepishly, or at least that was the impression I got from the pastel blues emanating from his direction. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I hope that guy’s not hurt.”

The runner was back on his feet and jogging around the bases, favoring his right leg.

*       *

Dr. Patricia Noyer was a tall woman in her forties, blonde hair streaked with brown, a patrician nose highlighting a wide mouth that didn’t smile much. Her inquisitive brown eyes switched between Marvin and me when we entered her office in Kenwood. She introduced herself and expressed curiosity at the appearance of two men instead of one.

“Are you two together?” she asked.

Marvin and I had recovered from our July Fourth episode without a relapse, so I was seeing what she actually looked like rather than shapes and colors. 

Marvin answered her question. “I’m Marvin Franklin, and yes we are together but not like that…”

“Like what?” she began.

I interjected, “My name is Lenny Bianco. Marvin and I have been best friends since college and we’re also sharing the same experience, so I thought we should both talk to you together. We’ll be glad to pay double…”

Marvin was nodding emphatically.

Dr. Noyer nodded agreeably and explained her specialty. She studied unexplained neurological phenomena, which certainly described our experience. She summarized what she’d been told by the ER physician and suggested that Marvin—maybe me too—was presenting stroke mimicking, with the hallucinations. She was surprised they didn’t involve real objects as was common in stroke victims, but only geometric shapes. I interrupted to tell her about my sudden cycling power and Marvin’s unbelievable skill with a baseball. 

“That was you? I heard about it on the news. You actually threw a baseball more than three-hundred feet and hit a runner?”

Marvin nodded sheepishly. “It was an impulse. I was mad because he’d hit a game-winning homerun and the Sox beat the Tigers. I couldn’t even see him at the time, at least not with…not consciously. And I threw it left handed but I’m right handed, not ambidextrous. And I never played baseball in my life.”

That got her attention. “I think we can rule out a psychogenic cause. You two are definitely suffering from a functional neurologic disorder, one I’ve never heard about…”

She then explained that our symptoms indicated a biological cause. It wasn’t in our minds. But she had no idea what was going on; however, rather than order a lot of unwarranted diagnostic tests, she led us to another room and had us play computer games. They weren’t real games but only psychological tests of our visual, cognitive, and motor skills, designed to see how our minds functioned in the real world. They were pretty boring. Marvin and I were in cubicles separated by screens like they have in libraries to keep people from being distracted. I was looking at rapidly changing images of people and objects, pushing buttons to indicate what I thought I saw. Then I relapsed. But it was different this time.

The computer screen had transformed into an irregular polygon with a lot of sides and I was aware of the displayed objects by fluctuations in the coloring of an irregular star-shaped object within the “screen.” I typed on the keyboard, seen as an odd-shaped figure in blue. When the test was over, a fact I knew without knowing it, Dr. Noyer entered the room, approached me, and calmly said, “What’s going on, Lenny?”

She was no longer unrecognizable, now identifiable by a triangle face with her eyes highlighted in magenta. “I’m…I’m having a seizure or whatever it is…”

“Can you continue?”

“Sure. No problem. Did I screw up?”

“Not at all, but you entered all the correct responses before the test was even half finished. I didn’t want to continue if you were under physical or emotional duress, which would make the results meaningless. Should we continue?”

I nodded and we continued. I enjoyed the games more in my altered state. 

*       *

Dr. Noyer called in person that evening and asked Marvin and me to come in for some more tests the next day. My fugue had ended and we went out for Chinese cuisine, from a takeout shop, and ate in the small park near my apartment. It was a pleasant summer evening. The food was great but we were unsettled by the manner in which it was delivered. Instead of asking for our orders, the young man behind the takeout counter produced several bags, smiling pleasantly. Remembering the baseball game, I thanked him and didn’t bother offering to pay, turning away. Marvin insisted on paying but the young man had become the Buddha, steadfastly refusing to be paid twice for the order. And he thanked me for the tip.

We found a clean park bench to eat our Sesame Chicken, Beef and Broccoli with Oyster Sauce, and Crab Puffs. 

“What the hell was that about? I could understand a mistake at the baseball game, but that guy wasn’t stoned or confused. He got our order—which we never voiced—perfect and didn’t let us pay. What the fuck is going on?!”

I shared what I’d discovered. “I was billed for the hotdogs and beer.” I pulled out my phone and checked my bank account. Sure enough, the cost of our current meal was listed as a recent purchase. I showed my proof to Marvin and added, “I think Dr. Noyer is going to have to come up with something bigger than a functional neurologic disorder to explain this.” I wasn’t going to worry about it anymore because it was out of my hands.

We ate in silence, except for an occasional comment that the food didn’t taste as good as the ballpark crap when we were stoned—for lack of a better phrase.

The silence continued on the walk back to my apartment, with a stop for a couple of bottles of wine. Settled on the sofa, we surfed the web for experiences like ours, projecting the results on my big screen monitor. We didn’t find anything, not counting LSD trips described by new-age bloggers. We were watching an old man talking about his experiences with LSD in the seventies, when Marvin hissed, “Psst.”

I turned to him, seeing the world normally.

He continued, “Do you see that figure standing in the corner, with a recognizable body and head, watching us?”

I look in the direction he was pointing. There it was. It wasn’t solid but it wasn’t a random geometric figure in outline either. It was looking at us. I wasn’t having an episode and I asked Marvin if he was in a trance or whatever.

“No, Lenny, but I can see that goddamn thing watching me.”

“I can see it but, for some reason, it doesn’t bother me—”

“Why the hell not?!” he exclaimed.

 I had to think a second to come up with a response. “It’s part of whatever’s happening. I don’t think this is the end of the world, at least not like religions imagine, but only the beginning of something new, something better than what we have now. The birth of a new species of human…”

He looked at me incredulously. “Did you just now come up with your theory of a new world order, or did I miss something in all those movies we watched?”

All I could think of was, “Let’s watch 2001 A Space Odyssey.”

We did and it explained a lot, sort of.

The next day, we returned to Dr. Noyer’s lab for more games/tests. She wasn’t as calm as before when she asked, “Have either of you had another episode?”

Marvin volunteered, “A strange creature appeared in Lenny’s apartment and watched us all night. It looked solid but I could pass my hands through it. We both saw it. It was like the geometric shapes and colors we described before but it had recognizable facial features, even limbs, but nothing like a human.”

“It was a phantom,” I added.

Dr. Noyer’s blondish eyebrows lifted in surprise. Anticipating the morning’s activities, I said “Marvin and I are looking forward to giving you more data, so that you can figure out what’s going on.”

She shook her head in denial before explaining. “That’s not how it works, Mr. Bianco. Even if you were in an altered state right now and talking to the phantom you described, it would mean nothing to neuropsychiatry because we don’t have a model for such phenomena. I would be unable to diagnosis what is happening…”

Marvin interjected, “You sound as uncertain as Lenny and me, as if you’ve experienced the same…phenomena as us. Did you?”

Her head nodded. 

“Well then,” I asked, “What’s going on? You must recognize the disorder if you’re experiencing its symptoms yourself.”

 She took a long breath before answering, speaking slowly and deliberately, “This isn’t a virus or a bacterium, at least nothing like science has discovered, or a lesion or a blood clot, or anything. In fact, it is entirely outside the realm of science. This is something entirely new and…and unforeseen.”

Marvin tentatively asked, “So… you believe us?”

Dr. Noyer laughed, regained her composure, and answered, “I am no longer an objective observer Mr. Franklin because I’m part of whatever is happening. Psychiatry is based on objectivity. I’ve lost that. I’ve seen the phantom although I haven’t shared your other experiences. Those were probably the early signs of a completely unknown phenomenon. I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself seeing my children in such stark, transcendental forms tomorrow morning…”

She was scared but I wasn’t. “It’s not the invasion of the body snatchers or the end of the world Dr. Noyer but something benign. I know this to be a fact even though I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling I have.”

She nodded quickly and said, “You’ve had time to accept what’s occurring. But I wonder if it’s a global phenomenon or limited to a few, susceptible individuals.” She rambled for a while using long words that I didn’t understand and finally said, “We should stay in touch on a regular basis so that none of us feels isolated. Whatever this is may be unknowable, but the response of the human brain to unexplainable phenomena such as this is well understood. I don’t want any of us to feel alone or helpless. We have each other.”

I nodded my agreement, but Marvin had doubts. “What are you saying, that we three are like, alone in the universe—that’s something from a science fiction movie. Is that all you can offer? I mean…really?”

She quietly replied, “Our shared experience—the polygonal creature watching us—may be nothing more than a phenomenon I have studied. However, I’ve only studied historical accounts of such group manifestations, so I don’t know how it works on an individual level. It’s possible that—”

I interrupted her delusional explanation. “What about the credit card bills I had from people who’d prepared our orders before we’d even arrived? Marvin and I weren’t having an episode at the Chinese takeout diner…”

She nodded quickly, accepting defeat. “Historical examples are limited and usually restricted to people with something in common, like being in the same community or sharing similar beliefs, so the group size is usually small.”

Marvin added, “The banks being in on the game tells me this is global, not just a few of us having a common schizophrenic delusion…”

Dr. Noyer wasn’t listening to Marvin because her attention was focused on the creature sitting on the window sill, watching us with interest. Her eyes were open in fear but I felt calm, so I took the lead. I faced the patchwork figure, constructed of both solid and outlined triangles of different colors, lacking eyes or a mouth, and said, “What’s up, dude?”

The figure seemed to shrug but no sounds were emitted from its head, no thoughts appeared in my mind, no contact. Without warning, Dr. Noyer started waving her arms in the air as if directing traffic, using sign language, which was confusing because if the creature didn’t understand voiced English why would it respond to American Sign Language? I was wrong. Appendages appeared from the trapezoid located where its chest might have been. They weren’t arms per se, but more like connected segments of multicolored lines. Dr. Noyer seemed to understand the meaning of the gestures because she waved her arms some more. They had a conversation. Marvin and I didn’t interrupt. After a couple of minutes of this back and forth, she lowered her hands and the creature seemed to shrug again.

Dr. Noyer’s expression was difficult to interpret when she looked at me. She may have been uncertain about what had been communicated during the conversation, or simply afraid to tell Marvin and me what she’d learned. 

She cleared her throat theatrically and began, “I don’t know where to begin…I didn’t really learn much but the entity…” She nodded towards the figure, now standing near the door, and continued, “Well, Lenny, the entity we all saw—”

Marvin interrupted her. “I was videotaping your conversation, but all I got was you using sign language. The—whatever the hell it is—isn’t in the video at all…” He offered his phone as evidence, and there was only Dr. Noyer waving her hands, brow knotted with concentration. 

She shot him an exasperated look and continued, “I’m not surprised because…if we could see the entity and communicate with it, while everyone else is unaware of its existence, including electromagnetic devices, we may be experiencing the effects of an unknown quantum field…but what I was going to say Lenny, is that the entity we all saw claimed to be you…I mean it was you and it was as confused as us by what’s happening to it…him…you…whatever…”

I looked at the figure, now hovering in a corner, then at Dr. Noyer, shaking my head in disbelief, but I was way past incredulity. A respected psychiatrist, a specialist in medically unexplainable neurological phenomena, was sharing our experience so I felt comfortable with the situation, but I was curious. “So how does this alternate Lenny Bianco see us?”

“The same way apparently. He’s confused and doesn’t know what’s happening, and he doesn’t live in a world of geometric shapes and vibrant color spectra. His world is, as well as I could ascertain under the circumstances, just like ours.”

Marvin’s jaw was agape when he said, “Does this otherworldly Lenny know what the fuck’s going on?”

Dr. Noyer shook her head. “I think we’re seeing the alternate Lenny represented as simple shapes because our minds can’t translate what we’re experiencing. We’re using familiar concepts—symbols in this case—to make sense of an unfathomable phenomenon.  He’s experiencing the same thing for the same reason. You aren’t concerned Lenny because it’s you we’re communicating with, just as the other Lenny accepts whatever is going on. You two are connected in some way…”

Her explanation made sense to me, but not to Marvin. “What’s going on, Dr. Noyer? Is this a time warp? A black hole? The end of the world? What the fuck are you talking about?”

I interjected, “Calm down, Marvin. Nothing we do is going to change what’s happening so let’s just go with it, make the best of an uncertain situation. Dr. Noyer has offered her best guess and I agree with her. This is either some kind of dimensional shift like in the movies, or a spurt of evolution but not just for people, all the plants and animals are along for the ride. I’m not worried personally.” 

Dr. Noyer added, “I concur with Lenny’s analysis. We just need to keep our heads clear, avoid panicking, and don’t act precipitously. If we don’t do anything drastic, we’ll get through this. It’s not the end of the world, just an anomaly, an event we weren’t supposed to notice. That’s all it is.”

Marvin started to protest but was interrupted.

The room began to spin and change size and shape at the same time, making me dizzy. I fell to the floor, unaware of Marvin and Dr. Noyer, or the other me, the one from a different dimension who could speak sign language. I had to close my eyes to stop my stomach from turning inside out. I felt as if I were in a dryer, spinning and spinning and…

*       *

Like I said, Dr. Noyer (I call her Patricia now) and I get together to remind ourselves that we’re sane, that it really happened. I didn’t pass out during the transformation or merging of dimensions, whatever it was, but I lost track of time and space. She did too. Marvin is another matter.

I regained a sense of reality sitting in the chair across the desk from Patricia. She was wearing a confused and uncertain expression, which is probably how I looked too, but Marvin was saying, “…so I’m concerned about the fact that I’ve started having dreams like Lenny’s, after he described them to me. I mean…am I like, I don’t know, trying to be like him?”

Patricia tossed a questioning look at me and I nodded emphatically, certain that she was as aware of what had happened as I. She turned to Marvin and said, “It doesn’t mean anything, Mr. Franklin. However, it was a good idea to accompany Mr. Bianco today, to alleviate any doubts you may have had. Nevertheless, it’s clear that we’ll need to look closely at the root cause of his delusions, especially the manifestations of his dreams while awake.” She looked at me quizzically, expecting a response.

“Definitely,” I said. “It’s one thing to dream about meeting a version of myself from another dimension and something entirely different to think I actually saw such an apparition. I’d like to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.”

Marvin was nodding as he patted my arm condescendingly. “We’ll get you through this, Lenny. It’s probably just stress after the pandemic, that’s all. You’ve been spending too much time alone. You’re a people person, you need to get out more.” He looked convinced but neither Patricia nor I accepted his delusional words. 

It was obvious that Marvin had made the transition smoothly. 

*       *

“Well?” I began, “Why do you and I remember what happened?” Patricia and I had stopped meeting in her office but instead got together for lunch every week. She was working on a theory about how people with no personal connection could share an experience so vivid and interactive as meeting an alternate version of one of them.

“We are not delusional. Neither of us shows any sign of changes in our brain activity, at least nothing that can be measured by an EEG, a Cat scan, or an MRI. I’ve been speaking to a theoretical physicist who’s interested in quantum biology—quantum neuroscience to be exact. He tells me that physicists don’t even know what a quantum field is, not really, and they know even less about the physics of the brain, not to mention consciousness. What happened is real and it’s persistent. I’ve been having experiences like yours even since the—”

“The transformation,” I interjected. “You mean the hot dogs and Chinese food?”

“Yes, and I’m aware of what’s happening, just like you were before…well, I don’t think we were meant to or…”

“Maybe we were,” I finished. “Maybe you and the physicist you’re working with will get some insight into quantum biology or whatever and explain why I don’t have to order food anymore and neither does anyone else, as far as I can tell. We’ve all become mind readers.”

She smiled nervously, nodded quickly and responded, “It’s disconcerting isn’t it? My husband and children take this strange new world for granted, as if it’s always been like this, while I keep making a fool of myself, asking for things as if I couldn’t read minds, but the truth is that I’m not part of this brave new world. I don’t fit in…”

I nodded hopefully. “Maybe we’re observers…”

The Gypsy

I wake up in a daze, my current girlfriend out cold next to me. What a ride! 

Nadine is a part-time prostitute and full-time heroin addict, and she is sensational in bed. We’ve been hanging out for a month, after that blast at Johnny’s place, hooking up in the bathroom, taking turns throwing up, I took her back to her motel as the sun rose, interpreting her mumbled directions, needing a place to crash.

I don’t like to lose it, like happens with heroin or opioids, or even marijuana. But I like to party. I drink beer and Crown, never buying it myself. There’s something about so many people interacting, being real, that turns me on–like Nadine. She’s real, even if she’s stoned half the time. You can’t get much more realistic than selling your vagina for money—that’s what she says. I agree. She pays the rent in the motels we frequent around the Houston area, I stay out of the way when she’s working. 

I roll out of bed and look at the evidence of the wild time we had, a whiskey bottle surrounded by used condoms only the tip of the iceberg. What a ride! It’s like this every night and I love it. 

Unfortunately, we’re back on the street because her recent income won’t cover rent after buying all that booze and heroin. But we won’t be homeless. Nadine and I aren’t like those losers who push shopping carts filled with shit around, mumbling to themselves. A bunch of schizophrenics. Sick motherfuckers. Nadine and I aren’t parasites, what with her making a lot of money and me supplying us with plenty of food.

I shake her and say, “Hey, I’m going downstairs for a smoke. Join me when you wake up.”

“Mmmm…”

I stumble to the elevator and find my way to the ground floor, and follow the dirt path to the smoking patio. I take a seat to check up on my social contacts, which isn’t going to happen because I picked up Nadine’s phone by mistake. It was buzzing constantly as I lit a cigarette. Fuck! I didn’t feel like going back to the room because…what did it matter? None of it mattered…everything…the job as a cook I’d quit when my boss had complained about my poor performance, what the fuck is that? I’m not running on the treadmill to nowhere, that’s what matters.

I get to the covered area that serves as the designated smoking area and settle into one of the rusty metal chairs to have a smoke. I fiddle with a cigarette, rolling it between my fingers, thinking about why I’m hanging out with Nadine, diving in dumpsters for meals, going to all-night blasts with people I don’t know or even want to be around, loudmouthed assholes who get violent after a few beers, maybe I’m just a loser, I’ve been called that more than once by my parents, and that was before I left home at sixteen. 

My reflections are interrupted when an old guy shows up with one of the motel’s paper cups of coffee, brewed in his room, what a loser he his, wearing ridiculous cargo pants and a polo shirt, looking like an escapee from an old-folks home, but I see the pack of cigarettes in his hand and figure, it’s worth listening to his bullshit to get some free smokes. 

He nods at me with a senile smile but doesn’t say a word, probably ignoring me because he’s only partially conscious, so I get his attention. “What’s up? Ain’t this cool?”

Suddenly awake, he looks at me and says, “Sure, I just came out to have a cup of coffee. Didn’t I see you out here yesterday? My name’s Lester.”

My eyes on his cigarettes, I respond, “Paul. It’s good to meet you, Lester. What brings you to Houston? Business?”

Lester is tight-lipped at first but it doesn’t take long to get to the point of our conversation. He offers me a cigarette. I reluctantly accept his token of what he probably thinks is friendship, savoring the expectation of nicotine. He lights his immediately. I play with mine. He’s like the Buddha, just sitting there, ignoring me, trying to get my attention.

Finally he says, “I’m getting all my stuff together, to move to Virginia. I didn’t want to rush so I’m staying here for two weeks. How about you?”

Just like that, he’s turned the tables, putting me on the spot. 

“I’m a gypsy,” I say.

He thinks a moment before replying, “Just passing through Baton Rouge, I guess?”

I put the cigarette I got from him in my mouth and he offers his lighter, forcing me to speak. I light the fag and say, “I’m from Baton Rouge,” scoffing and continuing, “I like…live free, you know? I was a sous chef, but it wasn’t me, I hated it to be honest…”

He looks at me curiously and lights another cigarette. “What would you rather do?”

I take a drag from my cigarette, beginning to hate this guy, who’s like my parents. I shake my head, wanting him to go away, but feel obliged to answer. “I like to party…there are these great blasts…you wouldn’t believe it. They go all night. There’s one tonight but it’s like five miles from here…I don’t like to walk…”

In Buddha mode, he  says, “That’ll only take an hour and a half. If that’s what you want to do, it’s worth the effort.”

I don’t get this guy. I blurt, “I’m kind of hungry.” I show him my boots, discovered in a dumpster, and add, “And that’s a long way in these boots.”

The son-of-a-bitch doesn’t even look at my boots before replying, “Get some breakfast and then you can take all day to make it to the party.”

I can’t believe this old guy. I’m feeling a little light-headed from hunger, so I say, “I don’t have any money to buy breakfast. I get my meals from the dumpsters…I know where to get the expired food, sometimes it’s steak or club sandwiches, bagels, you name it, I love it…”

His next words dig into my mind like sharp claws. “I guess you better get busy then. It probably takes time to collect such a bounty, and a lot of walking.” He glances at the boots now and adds, “in those shoes.”

Something about his ambivalent attitude forces me to explain what it means to be a gypsy. I spill my guts, like I’m talking to a therapist. I hate psychologists. I left home at sixteen when my parents mentioned a therapist. Been doing okay for fifteen years. Now I have to deal with this old fuck, just to get free cigarettes. I tell him about being a chef and how I hated it, how I could open my own restaurant but didn’t want to deal with the hassle, I like not dealing with all that shit, dumpster diving is easier.

He doesn’t blink. “I guess I’m getting old because the idea of spending half my time looking for my next meal is unacceptable. I couldn’t live like that. I’ve always been…” He paused before continuing, “There are a couple of things that have always been important to me, probably because I’ve been hungry and homeless although only for a few days at a time. I have to know where I’m going to sleep and where my next meal is coming from.” He shook his head in a triumphant manner—I didn’t know that was possible—and added, “I wouldn’t want to live like you Paul, even though I probably could. There’s just too much to do, to be spending my time foraging for a meal, or a pair of pants, shit that can be purchased easily.”

His words hurt. He lights another cigarette, offers me one, so I take it and play with it while I explain how radical my lifestyle is. He doesn’t interrupt, so I tell him about my broken heart, when Rachel, the woman I’d been with for six years dumped me with no explanation. My honest answers to his insightful but casual questions make it clear that I’m not part of mainstream society. I hadn’t even noticed that Rachel, who’d been fifteen years older than me, had been going through menopause, all her actions that led to our breakup the result of biological processes, her reaching out to me afterward being an admission of this. I’d ignored her texts and calls and treated her like an adversary. I’m an asshole.

Lester offers me another cigarette and asks how I can buy cigarettes and afford to live in the Trident Motel. I scoff and answer honestly, “My girlfriend makes some money…you know…”

“I couldn’t live like that,” he responds.

Lester doesn’t get it, that I hate my life, that I wish I didn’t have to dig in dumpsters for my clothes, meals, everything, I know I’m a loser but I’m down with that, so I totally fuck up explaining that this is the best I can do.

After my incoherent rant, he says, “You still have to find breakfast and get to that party. Five miles from here. Good luck with that.”

He suddenly gets up, drops a cigarette on the table, and leaves.

Nadine appears from the back door, held open by Lester, and calmly sits on my knee like a little girl. I watch Lester disappear as she continues her social interaction on her phone, hopefully setting up a gig that will get us another night in a motel.

She turns to me and asks, “What’s for breakfast?”

I always loved automobiles, playing with toy cars as a child, still creating cities and highways for my Matchbox vehicles (I had earth-moving equipment) when I was eleven. I bought my first real car when I was sixteen, a year-old Chevelle Malibu, from my brother. The great thing about real cars is that they can be modified, not necessarily for the better, but fiddled with. Like playing with toy cars.

But real cars couldn’t be thrown in the trash as easily when they broke. I learned that from that Malibu, which spun a main bearing with only thirty-thousand miles on the odometer—no, I didn’t race it or let it run out of oil. It should have been a warning that I wasn’t meant to have cars. It was apparently an unnatural event, me owning something complicated. 

But it was more than that.

 I’ll skip ahead 43 years to events that convinced me once and for all that there is such a thing as emergent sentience in complex mechanical systems. Automobiles meet these criteria for intentional behavior. I’m not claiming they are conscious. 

Did you ever see the movie Christine?

*

I’ve never bothered giving inanimate objects appellations, other than derogatory names spoken in anger and frustration. Maybe I should have been more personal with them. Perhaps automobiles wouldn’t have been so unkind to me if they’d thought I loved them. I don’t know. 

I toyed with naming the 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser I bought after I retired because some people had monikers for their offroad vehicles. I even used the name Phoenix a couple of times, trying it on. It didn’t work for me. I’ll use it in this story because, to be honest, I need some kind of intervention right now…

I was going to rebuild rather restore the truck because it was missing too many original parts to be brought back to stock condition. A fun project. Make it a reliable rig for running around town and doing some light off-roading, like at trail ride events. The intent was to drive it carefully as repairs were completed, never seeing it unusable for more than a couple of weeks at a time.

That’s not how it worked out.

When I picked up the light-blue Land Cruiser, the top was removed but was available at a later date. (It was being stored in a barn somewhere.) It worked as well as could be expected, however, with all the lights operating and new brakes. Stuff like that. No rust was a big deal in a truck that old. The first upgrade was power assist for the steering because the tread on its MT offroad tires was more than ten-inches and I’m not built like the Hulk. 

When I picked it up from the Toyota dealer who’d installed the brand-new power assist from an early Toyota minitruck, fuel was spewing out of the carburetor, fuel pump, and fuel lines. I mean pouring as in a fire hazard. They never touched any of those components. None of the parts were available new. An electric fuel pump and aftermarket carburetor got me back on the road—for a while.

Then the windshield wiper stopped working. No brake lights. Then no power. The antique 30 amp main fuse was blown. Still available but not well displayed in 21^st century auto parts stores. All’s good until I use the wiper again—another 30 amp fuse. Hmmm. This could be a problem. A new, generic wiper switch. All good. For a few days, then…you know the rest. 

The brakes were original and the guy I bought Phoenix from, who drove it around town as well as on rocky trails, had even replaced all the brake shoes and had the (four-wheel) drum brakes turned. They weren’t round. Stopping had become iffy at best, but it wasn’t fluid loss. (Maybe a little seepage from a cross-threaded connection.) The engine, which burned no substantial oil, didn’t like the new carburetor and wouldn’t idle anymore. The original distributor was wobbly and, when removed for inspection, found to be so tight that it must have used 10 hp just to rotate it. I mean the bearings were shot. A new, pointless distributor fixed that, but the engine still didn’t like to idle at less than 1200 rpm. But at least it would idle.

*

I know what you’re thinking: All these older (if not original) components had worn out evenly and in unison; replacing one threw them out of equilibrium. I agree and that’s my point—for now. This is solid physical evidence for the Ghost in the Machine. Like I said, it isn’t alive or even conscious, but has become an entity of some kind. Physicists refer to emergent phenomena. That’s what I’m talking about.

At any rate, Phoenix’s ghost was very unhappy and the engine gave up the ghost as they say. It spun a bearing, just like my first car. And it did it at the most inopportune time, two months before I had to vacate the home I had put on the market. No time to rebuild an antique motor in SE Louisiana. So it got a rebuilt one from a newer model (a 4.2 L to replace the original 3.8 L straight six), shipped from Texas via New Hampshire. (That’s another story.)  With a new heart, Phoenix came to life, reborn. It also had a new electrical system, disk brakes in front, along with a rebuilt transmission and brand-new transfer case, as well as new differentials and complete axle assemblage in the front. I even threw in a new fuel tank and fuel lines (with a better electric fuel pump). It’s a new machine. The only original components are the alternator (probably a replacement) and voltage regulator; brake master cylinder, lines and rear brakes;  windshield wiper motor; instrument cluster; intake manifold (I’d replaced the rusted exhaust manifold with a tube header); body and frame.

How much of the original ghost can possibly remain?

This should be a new vehicle with a new lease on life. No more disequilibrium between components that have aged together. Right? 

Because of cross-threaded carburetor mount studs, machine work was required; I went ahead and had electronic fuel injection (EFI) installed by an experienced, licensed mechanic familiar with Land Cruisers (he had three of his own). 

Phoenix had a new ghost for me to deal with. 

I know what you’re thinking: I can’t possibly expect all these new/rebuilt/old mismatched parts to function in a coherent manner; after all, this unique combination of components isn’t the result of years of R&D by hundreds of engineers. I agree. The emergent ghost from the upgraded Phoenix has to have time to develop. That’s how my story ends and how it ties back to the beginning, that 1972 Chevelle.

The fuel injection system works fine until it doesn’t. That rebuilt (old) motor starts and runs great but sometimes stops at intersections, at red traffic lights. It just stops running. Starts up immediately—so far. Maybe it’s the brand-new, EFI system from a GMC motor, showing its antiquated design’s limitations. Who knows. The most-disturbing evidence of the new ghost in this machine occurred recently. Something deep in its bowels brought Phoenix to a halt when backing out of a parking space, with a loud bang and the sensation of mismatched gears inside the transmission or transfer case. Nothing fixed it, not even removing the rear driveshaft. An inspection revealed nothing in arrears. Nothing.

So my new/old truck has a ghost that is apparently unhappy. Maybe some of the old remained in the body or frame. Maybe it’s the voltage regulator. 

Maybe it’s me.

As unlikely as it sounds, maybe all those quantum fields that underlie reality are out of equilibrium between me and mechanical systems…

And their ghosts.

This was a book I purchased in Doha, Qatar, for the second leg of a 31 hour international flight. I like to read action novels on long flights, maybe for the adrenaline rush? Anyway, I finished it just before landing, in about 14 hours. I’ve never read any of the author’s books before but he has quite a few, and is apparently very popular. None of that matters to me, however, because I’m a little more critical than the average reader or critic these days. There is no such thing as a master story teller to me.

First, as you might expect from an experienced author like Hurwitz, the grammar and punctuation are good. The style is ponderous, the way my early drafts tend to be. Readable but slow going at times. I noted that the second half of the book was less well-written than the first, a tendency I’ve noted before. The first half gets read more and thus cleaned up; also, the author can get impatient towards the end, especially when they know they’re going to make a gazillion dollars.

As with so many best-selling authors (read inflated egoes), there is a lot of explanation of minor points in the story, such as the mechanics of print/paint art restoration. Unrelated to the story. I suppose they’re meant as diversions from the main plot, which was easy to figure out as soon as the contributing elements were revealed. In an effort to keep the story interesting to a reader who had already figured out who did it and why, several side characters were introduced, again contributing very little to the story. There was supposed to be some introspection by the protagonist but it wasn’t very convincing; how could it be with a guy who murdered people for a career and for whom a violent solution is the first choice, in every situation?

The author does a good job describing violent scenes, like fights and murder. However, after two or three such depictions of physical prowess by the protagonist, I was wishing they had been either shortened or deleted. I guess that’s how it’s done when you have a reputation to keep up: repeat ad nauseam whatever made you famous. At least the hero lost a few times.

Overall, it was okay but I skipped a lot and had to go back and read it because my motto is “I read every word.” I did, even if it hurt.

This is a short novel translated to English from Japanese, so this review is of the original story, as much as it’s still present, and the translation. I think stories like this are difficult to translate because they are a mixture of stream-of-consciousness and standard narrative, with subtle variations in the narrator’s mood. In this case the story is told in the first person by the central character, examining his life and what brought him to his current situation. An interesting style which the translator did a good job of capturing (as far as I can tell).

I only found a half-dozen grammatical errors, mostly missing words. It was easy to read, but a little on the stilted side, which was probably intentional. The translator knew the author well and spent a great deal of time studying the locations described and talking with Yu Miri, so they probably got it right.

The central story is sprinkled with rather long and confusing segments of historical background. I had to go to Wikipedia to get some of this straight. I’m sure it’s technically accurate, but was oversimplified either by the author or translator; after all, this isn’t a historical novel. These soliloquies are thinly disguised as the words of characters sometimes but also are introduced by the narrator.

Otherwise, the writing style is terse, like the simple thoughts of the narrator. Very short paragraphs indicating someone who doesn’t have deep thoughts. Very evocative of their state of mind. However, a major decision that created the situation described in the book is utterly without explanation. Not a single word of justification. Nothing. If this behavior is common for people like the narrator, that could have been at least referred to. It’s like the author took a break at that critical juncture and, when they continued writing, forgot about the reason. There is an explanation of why some men do as the narrator, but no evidence at all that he would have made this decision. It left me confused.

This is a short review because this is a short book, even with all of the historical material, not much more than a short story. I would have preferred it without the extra material myself because it detracts from the real story. I would recommend it if you like to read about human experiences that are all too common, and very unpleasant, and learn a little Japanese history in the process.

I stumbled into this book. I don’t usually read science fiction because that was my favorite genre for more than 10 years when I was young, but what the hell. It was available, so here’s what I think about it.

First, the overview. This is an old story in the SF genre; a cop (FBI in this case) gets a robot partner to evaluate, then all hell breaks loose and they save the city/nation/world from a scheme devised by either anarchists or the wealthy elite. I’m not saying. The central character is the robot but they’re not cute or anything. The character develops realistically, using its deep-learning capability to grasp insight from the behavior of the real central character, Agent Lara Keegan. A human story is introduced through her life, which is falling apart even as Washington DC is assaulted. This is an interesting part of the story because the robot (TAMS) becomes a part of her private life, even though it’s only a robot, Well done.

The second thread of the book is the thriller plot. It’s run of the mill. Not even that big a deal and unlikely to work, even if hugely successful. Pretty much every SF gadgetry you’ve heard about is integrated into the story, which is set in the not-too-distant future. Several unrealistic scenes are set up to take the story forward, which makes Keegan look either stupid or naive, to be an decorated ex-Marine and FBI agent. These kind of inconsistencies are why I don’t read SF anymore, and also avoid international conspiracy novels. I’m not referring to the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy SF, but rather the integration of personal stories (like Keegan’s) into a SF theme.

The authors’ use a lot of footnotes, with a long list of references at the end. This is confusing because, rather than explain the footnoted text, there are references to books, magazine articles, on-line blogs and new stories, reports, etc, all with internet addresses. This might be okay if I’d read the book digitally and could click on the links, but I read a hardback copy. It doesn’t make sense. Instead, I Iooked up some of the high-tech references on a computer. This was annoying.

The handprint of two authors is visible in the two threads. I’m guessing that one author wrote the personal story and the other focused on the action. They are written in different styles, both wordy and ponderous. This is a typical style for first-drafts that I’m familiar with.

This draft was not ready for publication. It is wordy (to say the least), has too many examples of bad grammar to count, and is full of cut-and-paste errors. Sentences that change meaning in the middle are more than annoying. I don’t like to read paragraphs over and over, not in a novel, to guess at their meaning. The authors were either in a hurry or are simply sloppy–I don’t care which.

Overall, I can’t recommend this book because, despite Keegan’s personal problems, it’s not that good a story. If it had been cleaned up, I would recommend it. It’s close enough to the thumbs-down line that the bad punctuation and clumsy writing killed it for me.

I didn’t know this was a play when I bought it. It’s the original version, with stage notes throughout and even a list of characters and the actors who played them at the beginning. It also turned out that two-thirds of the book consists of analyses of the original play by a number of literary critics, including the playwright himself. I’m writing my review before reading any of that so that I can compare my comments to theirs. Should be fun.

THE SCRIPT

The play was written in 1949. The vocabulary is awkward even for that era. I’m not sure why Miller wrote it this way, but I guess he wanted to convey the image of the Loman family without a narrator. He had to use dialogue. Thus, my review will focus on the dialogue.

A lot of the dialogue is clumsy, I guess because the actors are supposed to say the words, rather than a reader using them to get the gist of the conversation. This is pretty realistic, with sentence fragments and misspeaking throughout. I got a good sense of these people, what motivates them, etcetera. The Loman family is not well educated and it comes across clearly. I didn’t like any of them, but I guess that was Miller’s purpose. The play reveals the inner workings of a dysfunctional American family and its patriarchal basis. As the title suggests, Willy Loman is going to die. The story is a series of flashbacks of his life, his two boys (both of whom are having trouble getting ahead or being honest) who are in their thirties. The flashbacks are all completed on a set that doesn’t change, so it was a little confusing when movements on the stage were described.

There isn’t a whole lot to say since the story consists of dialogue only. The characters are simple people without depth, no growth being revealed in the flashbacks. A bunch of one-dimensional people who ended the same as they began, except for Willy’s oldest son, Bif, who realizes what he is and insists on being honest at the end of the story. I guess one could argue that the story is really about him, if one assumed it had a plot, which it doesn’t. This is a character study.

The best aspect of this story is how Willy is showing signs of dementia and begins thinking about suicide. Very well done. The flashbacks slide in whenever he’s having a fugue episode. When the story ended, I had a pretty good idea of what made this family tick. I guess that was Miller’s objective, so he succeeded.

I don’t recommend it as a reading exercise but I’ll bet the play was good because there are a lot of emotional scenes, which always look good on stage.

THE MOVIE

I watched the 1951 film production. Fredric March deserved his Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The movie followed the play to the word except for several missing scenes, those where his sons were too young to use the adult actors to play them. It was fine without them. One problem I had was that the movie didn’t improve on the confusion created by the frequent flashbacks. The movie was black and white and the actors’ makeup wasn’t different enough for the memory scenes to be easily identified. Willy was shown over a fifteen-year period and there was no noticeable increase in gray hair (he was 63 in real time). This may have been a problem with the time transitions, which were smooth in the play, too smooth for the production techniques of the time. It left me a little disoriented, my confusion reduced because I’d just read the play.

The film gave me a greater appreciation of the play however. The director was also nominated for an Oscar and it was well deserved. He turned a confusing play script into a coherent story, which I’m sure the original play director did as well. I would love to see this on stage. The problem was the swiftness of emotional scenes, brought on by mental illness, turning into memories. This is a very difficult transition to do under any circumstances.

So, whereas I can’t recommend reading the play, I give the 1951 film a very positive review as an accurate and excellent presentation of the original play. My only regret is that Lee J. Cobb, who played Willy Loman in the original Broadway production, didn’t play the role in the film; however, he reprised the role in a 1967 made-for-TV film production.

LITERARY COMMENTS

I’m also going to comment on the literary analyses that made up the bulk of the book. Several essays by Arthur Miller (the author) and an interview give some insight into how he perceived the story. What is most telling about these commentaries is how they reflect societal views of cognitive degeneration (e.g., Alzheimers Disease). The author’s view is evident in the play itself; Willy’s sons comment that people think he’s crazy because of his increasingly eccentric behavior. In one commentary, Miller refers to Willy Loman as being the kind of person who would speak to himself on the subway. Maybe, but that’s not what he did in the play or the movie.

Here’s a quote from a 1957 commentary by Miller: “He [Loman] is literally at that terrible moment when the voice of the past is no longer distant but quite as loud as the voice of the present.”

Wow! The author didn’t even realize that he had to create a terminally ill man to create the kind of emotional violence he desired, so that he didn’t have to have a plot but only reveal the elements of Loman’s destruction. He refers to Loman as “Mad” at one point. That is how these people were treated when the play was written. In his essays and interview (included in the copy I have), he makes vague references to integrated or disintegrating personality, popular terms from psychology in that era.

Other reviewers seem unaware of Willy’s cognitive decline. His bizarre behavior is referred to as “fatigue” of his mind by one, written in 1950. Another reviewer refers to Willy “losing his mind.” I have no idea what one reviewer means when she says that “…most of us have experienced delusions wilder…than this.” Is she kidding? He’s in the front yard yelling, planting seeds at midnight…I’ve never had a delusion like that, or met anyone who did.

There’s even a review by a psychoanalyst who wrote popular books. This guy’s gotta nail it. He refers to “insanity” and a “disintegrating mind.” Getting close. He refers to Willy’s hallucinations in psychological jargon, even referring to the “Oedipus complex.” He drops the biggie (for the era): Willy is “Mad.” He never gets past “Exhausted” in recognizing what’s wrong with Willy Loman. Not even a practicing mental health professional recognized cognitive deterioration in 1950. One analysis, from 1958, actually refers to the “advance of modern psychology” and then talks about Freudian concepts which the author (Arthur Miller) explicitly denies in his essays. Go figure.

A critical essay written in 1962 by Joseph A. Hynes refers to Willy’s “Dementia.” Finally, someone at least acknowledges a neurological illness, rather than just “madness.” But even here, it is treated as being nothing more than a point of view, which Willy can change at will.

ANALOGOUS STORIES

Some excerpts of stories about salesmen were appended as part of the literary context of Death of a Salesman. One was from 1915, a lot of anecdotal comments suggesting that a salesman has to be more committed to his work than himself. The author felt that too many salesmen were blow hards and mediocre at selling things.

There was a short story written in 1941 about a salesman who gets lost on a country road in Mississippi and is helped by a couple subsisting in the woods. He’s been sick with the flu for a month and is still tired. The author spends a lot of time discussing his heartbeat, using metaphors. He feels strange and decides to leave in the middle of the night, despite being given dinner and a place to sleep. It turns out that he has a heart attack and probably dies in the dark. Nice lead-up to the tragedy.

There’s a one-act play about a 78-year old traveling shoe salesman (same as in the previous story) who has heart problems (another curious similarity). It was written in 1945 by Tennessee Williams. He’s complaining about changing times but doesn’t die in the play.

The last, analogous story (published in 1941), is the best because it focuses on a man in his thirties who had reached the pinnacle of his life in college, as an athlete. Willy Loman’s son, Bif, had been a football star in high school.

These stories/plays are all older than Death of a Salesman. It is very likely that Arthur Miller had read them because they were by popular writers. The common theme between them and DOAS is the past that led to the present, which in every case was not where the protagonist had expected to be. Overall, they are a bleak collection of rusty lives with very little to show for them.

SUMMARY

The play script is confusing because of the flashbacks, which are presented in continuous dialogue, and movements on a stage set that isn’t available to help. To be newer than the examples, I find the language of Salesman clumsy and incomplete, not even up to the standards of the 1915 story. Maybe Miller was trying to show how illiterate and ignorant the Loman’s are. Maybe. The reviews varied from adoring to bored. Remembering that the reviews are based on viewing the play performed by actors, the range of responses makes perfect sense. The positive critiques focused on the innovative stream-of-consciousness approach used, which was easier to see in the movie. The negative reviewers acknowledged this clever technique, but pointed out all the inconsistencies and irregularities in the play.

I guess I’m on the fence.

I wrote my review of “El obsceno pájaro de la noche” before reading several essays by the author (added as appendices), written year later. I nailed it. José Donoso had a reaction to morphine given to him for pain after surgery for a serious stomach ulcer, and became schizophrenic. The book had been imagined based on several experiences of the author, but it was written when he was literally “out of his mind.”

I added this post because it’s rare to find someone suffering mental health issues capable of writing anything. I respect his decision to leave it in its original form when published.

I am speechless…

This book was over my head. I think it is too difficult for someone who reads Spanish well. I found it on a web page that recommended books for intermediate Spanish students, which I admit I am not. But I wanted to be introduced to more writing styles. I sure got that. It took six months to finish this novel, but I can say that I have as good an understanding of it as anyone, except maybe someone with a large Spanish vocabulary who could have read it in a couple of days or weeks.

Okay, now for the book itself. First, the grammar and punctuation. There was none. Sentences sometimes lasted for pages, especially when the “Narrator” was sharing a stream of consciousness, paragraphs for many pages. There was no attempt to use proper punctuation. Commas were tossed around like paper boats in a hurricane. This was what made it so difficult to read for a beginner or even intermediate reader. Prepositional phrases were not identified with commas and Spanish is a little weak on conjunctions.

As with other Spanish authors and even translated books, pronouns were avoided at all costs. To make it worse, the author used the present subjunctive conjugation more than the present tense; the PS in Spanish is the same for first person and third person singular. Also for third person and second person plural. When the narrator is speaking in first person, describing what someone else is doing…you can see the potential difficulties.

I don’t think the story has a plot. Some chapters describe historical events in Chile’s history completely in the third person, and aren’t too difficult to follow. These scenes are less than a third of the book. Most of it is the first-person narrator jumping between perspectives, occupying every character’s mind at some point. It was an interesting style, which was taken too far because this head hopping occurred in mid-sentence as often as not. I read a lot of paragraphs (single sentences) several times to verify this. Bizarre is an understatement.

Several of the threads made sense. For example, the actions of two of the characters and their families’ histories is straightforward, as is some of the action at a run-down church that serves as a homeless shelter/orphanage. There is another thread (maybe multiple — it’s hard to say) based on the assistant of a central character (Jeronimo de Azcoitía), who appears to be stark, raving mad. Paranoid delusions abound and this guy talks to imaginary characters and is pursued by newspaper photos. There’s an entire chapter of such outrageous behavior that the story wanders into Monty Python territory. This floating narrator even becomes an infant, but they are predominantly a man who apparently had a nervous breakdown and fled from his employer (Azcoitía), seeking refuge in the church.

I don’t want to forget about the deformed child of Azcoitía and his wife, who was walled into a country estate and surrounded by naked deformed people. This was a major thread that ended without settling or explaining anything. It’s like the author lost interest. Strange. The relationship between this thread and another (involving a 15 year old girl who’s pregnant) was never explored and also dropped without notice.

Finally, the book just ended. The narrator spent the last five pages imagining being sewn into a sack (in the mind of the infant) and trying to escape, and failing. Nothing happened. The story just ends with an old woman who isn’t one of the central characters from the Church/homeless shelter.

The preface is written by another Chilean writer, who warns the reader that this book was written over a period of years (1962-1969) when the author had mental health issues. That would explain the coherent chapters and those that are in never-never land. To me, despite the lack of a plot, any explanations, or an ending, I kind of enjoyed reading this novel because it gives a lot of insight into what goes through the mind of someone who’s suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, or something like that. I couldn’t help getting the impression that the bizarre, stream of consciousness thread was a reflection of the author’s own suffering.

I was disturbed by the evocative images of depredation, created for no purpose but which the narrator couldn’t get out of their mind, whichever mind they were occupying at the time. Some of these will take years for me to forget.

This novel is available in an English translation. I don’t know how that would work because of all the untranslatable sentences and words. The English version can’t be more than an educated guess at what the author had in mind. (He didn’t translate it himself although he probably could have, having lived decades in the U.S.)

I suggest it for anyone who wants to see what it’s like to lose your mind.

We don’t get paid as much as Hollywood stars because we’re not very good at pretending to be someone we’re not. That’s the only difference. They simply have a talent for forgetting who they are, allowing them to step into someone else’s mind. It’s possible that actors have the best-developed Theory of Mind of anyone on the planet.

Being able to get inside someone else’s mind isn’t the same thing as understanding their situation. I’m digressing so I’ll get back to the point.

We are all actors. And like professional actors, we have some capacity for understanding another person’s plight, and like professionals, we treat the subjects of our curiosity as objects. Our attention lasts only a few seconds, or maybe minutes. The length of a scene. Our lives are a series of scenes, and cinema has simply found ways to reproduce the perceived reality we share in the discontinuous manner our brains are accustomed to.

The next time you watch a movie, consciously place yourself in the story, not as a viewer but as a participant. You have of course been doing this all your life; my point is to think about it, and maintain that sense of being in the action. You will find that it is reality.

This is the reason for the title of this post. We play roles, a well known fact, but the sociologists don’t dare go further. They can’t say what is obvious: Most of us shouldn’t waste our time thinking but just go with the flow, and play our roles.

It’s good to know your role. Just do it!

Unfortunately, I can’t do that…bummer; however, I can write these blogs that no one will read…

LOL.