The Devil Comes Back to Retroville
by Gary D. Snyder
Part 15:
It wasn't long before Jimmy realized that something was terribly wrong. Over the intercom he could hear Cindy struggling for breath and his increasingly concerned calls went unanswered. When he looked back at her he was horrified to see that his worst suspicions were confirmed. Cindy was slumped back in her seat with her eyes closed and fighting for breath as the oxygen in her small compartment was depleted.
"Cindy!" Jimmy shouted. "Increase your oxygen flow! Turn the valve!"
"Don't…worry…about…me…" Cindy labored to say between her gasps for air. "Finish…the…job…"
"Turn the valve!" Jimmy hammered frantically against the clear partition, desperately trying to rouse her. "You can do it! Just reach forward and turn it! Please!".
"Finish…the….job..." Slowly her struggles ceased and she fell completely limp.
Jimmy looked around his compartment in a panic for something to smash the barrier between them and provide a way for the oxygen in his half of the cockpit to reach her. Finding nothing, he drove his elbow against the transparency with strength born of ultimate desperation. The barrier, stronger still, failed to yield. Again and again he tried, and each time failed to even crack the material. At last he gave up, realizing that brute strength was not the solution. He quickly ran the limited options through his mind, and almost as quickly discounted most of them. Jettisoning the canopy would kill them both. Shutting down the transphasal generator would cause them and the dark matter to materialize somewhere inside the Earth while traveling at around Mach 12. The only option, he decided, was to shut down the heating system. The cold temperatures could slow down her metabolic processes and allow her to survive more than 15 minutes without oxygen.
Maybe…
Unaware of the inner turmoil that Jimmy was enduring Cindy found herself in an incongruous setting. Several years ago she and her parents had taken a vacation and had wound up in an Old West town, complete with wooden sidewalks, unpaved dirt streets, and a steam railway station. She could not remember the name of the town, and recalled mostly that her mother had been unimpressed with the experience although her father had found it interesting and Cindy herself had thought that some of the old-fashioned gowns were rather romantic. Now she was back in the town, or somewhere very much like it, under a clear blue sky with a bright sun. Various people were moving along the streets and seemed to take little or no notice of her. More curious than alarmed at her circumstances she moved down the street as well, looking about for what she couldn't say.
She had gone about half a block when she stopped, recognizing someone. Outside the train station, leaning against a post, sporting the clothes of stereotypical 19th-century cowboy, and wearing a floppy hat pulled over his eyes against the sun was Angelo. She hurried up to greet him, delighted at the sight of a familiar face in an unfamiliar place.
"Angelo!" she called when she was within a few paces of him.
Angelo pushed his hat up, revealing twinkling eyes and a wide grin. "Hello, Cindy. Just get in?"
"I guess so," Cindy replied, although she couldn't really remember getting here. "Where am I?"
"Where everyone is. On the threshold between where they've been –" He gestured down the railroad track in one direction. "- and where they're going." He gestured in the other direction.
"What are you doing here? And for that matter, what am I doing here?"
"Well…" Angelo straightened up and scratched the back of his head the way Cindy had seen many grizzled old cowboys do in movies. "There's an important decision to make."
"Decision?" Unlike with Lou, each of Angelo's answers seemed to spawn new questions and greater desire for enlightenment.
"Yes. First of all, where do you want to go?"
"What are my choices?"
Angelo gestured up and down the track again. "Forward. Or back."
Cindy peered up the track, squinting against the brilliant light into which the track vanished. She then looked down the track, her gaze following the tapering lines leading to a somehow familiar landscape. "What would you do?"
"Good question." Angelo sat down down on the edge of the train station, his legs swinging freely. "You know what back is like. Forward has a lot to offer. More than you can imagine and wonderful beyond the wildest dreams of what you can." He looked at Cindy, his face suddenly serious. "But what you leave behind, you leave behind."
Cindy sensed that the tone in Angelo's voice was a subtle hint, or more like a warning. "Forever? Or just for a while?"
Angelo gave her a long, thoughtful look before answering. "It depends. I knew someone once who had everything he could have wanted in life. But something important was taken from him and a part of him was lost with it. If it had happened differently, if he had had time to prepare for it, things might have turned out differently. As it was…" Angelo's voice trailed off, and he went on with difficulty. "As it was, it didn't turn out well. With that part of him missing what he could have been became what he never could be. He had all the answers but no solutions, because everything he did had no purpose anymore. Without the substance, only the form was left." He waited a few seconds to let that sink in. "Some people are like that. They don't really know what gives their life meaning until it's gone, but when it's gone nothing is left for them. Forever."
Cindy looked up the track again and fancied that she could almost see tantalizing shapes and visions in the radiance. But if she went that way something would be left behind. She tried to think of what it could be but her past seemed vague and unreal, and of little consequence. Angelo was warning her, but about what? What would she be leaving behind?
What?
Or was it who?
There was only one way to find out. Reluctantly she turned away from the brilliance and faced Angelo again. "I guess I'd better go back," she told him. "Forward will be still be there later." She looked sharply at him and asked uncertainly, "Won't it?"
Angelo nodded gently. "Forward is always there." He reached into his vest pocked and produced a small piece of pasteboard which he handed to Cindy. "I expected that you'd go want to go back, so I had your ticket ready. Have a good journey."
Cindy took it. "Does everyone get a choice here?"
"No," replied Angelo, shaking his head. "But there were some special circumstances concerning your arrival. And," he continued, smiling, "you did ask me to wish you luck. And sometimes, at the right time to the right person, a wish is the same as a prayer." Angelo looked at the train pulling into the station. "You'd best go. No telling when the next train will arrive."
Cindy boarded the train, handing her ticket to the conductor who carefully scrutinized it. He seemed surprised and looked agape at Angelo, who nodded in confirmation. Shrugging, the conductor punched it without comment and handed it back to Cindy before signaling the driver to get under way. As they began pulling away from the station Cindy's thoughts began to grow clearer. In particular, something Angelo had told her earlier came into her mind and she shouted to make her voice heard above the rising noise of the steam engine.
"You said that Jimmy could lose everything," she called. "Did he? I mean, will he?"
"No," Angelo shouted back. "He'll be all right." As the train pulled beyond the range of his voice, Cindy barely heard his final words. "You made the right choice."
Cindy took a seat in the passenger car, feeling relieved. It wasn't until the train was well under way that the meaning of his final words struck her.
End of Part 15