ASHA

David E. Seaman

The ambulance came to a stop at the small town Midwestern ED doors. A doctor waited for Zach to be removed from the vehicle. So did others: people in suits, men and women, representatives and technicians for American Therapeutic Corp. Zach could smell the humidity in the cold spring morning air. It was early, the sun hadn’t risen yet.

“This shit always happens at night,” Zach thought to himself. The few times he had ever had to make use of the city ED had never been during daylight hours.

The young Asha was a faint voice in the dark morning. She kept herself quiet and spoke in hushed tones. “Don’t take the drugs.”

“I’m in pain,” Zach argued. “I can’t hide it. There really is no choice for me.”

“I might be lost…”

“They are here, Asha, the techies.” Zach saw the concern on the people’s faces, the ones wearing the suits with laptops tucked under their arms.

The IV had already been started by the EMTs on the way to the city hospital. Nurses waited with syringes and plungers to shoot the pain numbing drugs into Zach’s system. There were lots of raised voices, hurried speech. This had never occurred before. Everyone was curious as well as concerned.

“There is an ethical dilemma here to consider,” a woman said. She was smartly dressed in a modern suit, and had brown skin, dark eyes, and a dark dot over her third eye. “We have lost Asha, his therapist.”

“He is my main concern now,” said a young man, the ED doctor with dark-rimmed glasses and short-cropped hair who had taken charge of the situation. “Clark Kent,” Zach thought to himself. Asha giggled. She understood the reference.

“The pain must be addressed.”

“The pain is our only link to the therapist.” Laptops had been opened and Zach could hear the tapping of fingers on cheap plastic keyboards. He saw the needless spot light from above. They had him in a trauma room. He felt his own twinge of fear. A lot was happening all at once.

The twenty-nine year old Zach had been relaxing in the tub when the pain attacked him. The pain was what they could measure. The pain registered then, as anxiety and fear did now. The uncontrolled crying made no sense to the scientific professionals, so they ignored it, assuming it stemmed from the pain. He made no mention of it. The woman in the suit suddenly appeared in his line of sight. She looked at him sternly. She knew.

“Only a weak dose of Benzos.”

“I can’t ignore the extremity of the pain. He could go into cardiac arrest. It must be controlled.”

“Wait until we have reversed the connection.”

“How long?”

Zach was aware of a nurse at his head fiddling with the IV. He craned his neck up to see, but the nurse was out of his line of vision. He looked back down to Clark Kent who quickly nodded his head in approval. Seconds later Zach felt the relaxation wash through his system as the Benzo was shot through the IV.

“Please no,” Asha pleaded.

“Don’t you want some relief?”

“I don’t want to die. If I get lost I will die.”

“Connection established,” came the voice of a male techie. More tapping on keyboards. The room was filled with anxious concentration. “Ready for reversal.” The tone had a hint of shock, like he wasn’t expecting things to be so easy.

“It’s all wireless?” asked the doctor. The dark skinned woman nodded positively. She still had her eyes on Zach.

“She’s scared,” Zach informed her.

“We know…”

In a sudden instant, after more than two years of contact, Asha was gone. Zach felt a sudden loss, emptiness. The woman put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m a therapist. I’ll walk you through this.”

Clark Kent nodded again and Zach was awash with the euphoric relief of opioids coursing through his blood.

“Asha?”

“Zach?”

“Rest…”

“I wanna see this thing,” the doctor contemplated aloud. “Let’s get him to x-ray…”

“No x-ray,” came a rising of voices from the techs. “I wouldn’t x-ray. Don’t radiate the chip. No. No radiation. Can’t x-ray.”

“What do I do then?”

“Let us handle it. We have the chip under control. We are pinpointing her location now.”

“It’s about the size of a peanut,” the dark-skinned woman said. She tapped Zach on the forehead. He smiled wistfully. “Right under the frontal bone.”

“Is he in danger?” Mr. Kent asked.

“The ethical dilemma,” the woman reminded him. “He took on a portion of danger by agreeing to this connection. She has kept him alive these past two years, now it’s his turn to save her.”

“I’m scared,” came Asha’s voice in Zach’s head.

“I know. I am too. I think everyone is. But they are all working very hard.”

“I can’t tell how you feel…”

“The chip has been reversed. You’re scared. It’s dark.”

“There’s no light.”

“And it smells. I hear a baby crying in the distance.”

“I’m too young to die.”

“Asha, you won’t die. The consensus is that you were abducted by human traffickers. Pretty common in the neighborhood where you live.”

“I want to be near my family.”

“You don’t have to explain for me.”

“It’s like we are the only people in the world.”

“That’s not true. The room here is packed. You are being located. Helicopters will be deployed!”

“So what’s your story?” the ED doc asked.

“Personality disorder,” the ATC woman answered.

“And depression,” Zach added. “Deep dark depression with anxiety; suicidal ideation.”

“And you can afford the ATC chip?”

“Beta testing. I’m a test subject. Small percentage of survival. Can that damn light be turned off?”

“This is a last resort situation,” the ATC woman explained. “Everything had been tried including electroshock therapy. Meds don’t work on personality disorder. But Zach has responded well to the intense therapy provided by the chip.”

“How’s the pain?” Dr. Kent asked.

“Gone now that the chip is reversed. She wasn’t just kidnapped…”

“We know,” the dark woman said.

“I hear things,” Asha whispered. “Gunfire. Helicopters?”

“The Indian police. Stay put. They know exactly where you are.”

“That’s reassuring.” She was sobbing quietly.

“You’re much younger than I thought.”

“Good job,” the ATC woman said. “Keep talking. She has known you for two years now. Your voice is reassuring.”

“Tell her to get away from the door,” ordered an anonymous tech.

“Asha, get away from the door.”

“The gunfire is getting closer.”

“Go to the farthest corner of the room, away from the door.”

“I’m scared…”

“Make yourself small. Curl up into a little ball with your back to the door. Cover your head.” Zach’s eyes were closed tight while he gave these instructions. The doctor and the brown skinned woman looked at each other, concerned.

There was an explosion. Asha remained curled into a tight ball. Strong hands grabbed her, picked her up; ran. Zach heard the sound of helicopter blades slapping at the air. She rose straight up.

“I don’t fly, Asha!” Zach’s eyes were still shut tight. His breathing came in gasps.

“Thanks, Zach,” came the still small voice in his head.

“Totally selfish on my part, Asha. You know good therapists are hard to find.”

Food for Thought

A personality disorder is the type of mental illness that cannot be fixed with medication the way depression or bi-polar disorder may be. Personality disorders require intensive therapy. But some clients of a therapist specializing in this type of work cannot make it between sessions without hurting themselves, destroying their lives, or attempting suicide. An ideal situation for such patients would be a twenty four hour accessibility to professional counseling until the thinking patterns of the suffering patient can be redirected. This story combines current technologies of mobile therapy and brain implantations to create just this kind of service. The scenario described in the story gives an idea of what this kind of therapy might look like, but the question is implied. Would a patient really want the voice of reason to be constantly in their head?

About the Author

David has previously been published by various lit and poetry magazines through the years. Recently his list includes MidAmerican Fiction and Photography, Penny Shorts, and Bluffs Literary Magazine. He is an English major at Illinois Central College and lives in central Illinois with his wife, four dogs, and three exotic birds. He can be reached at dseaman77@gmail.com

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JAVI AND PARMA

Ellen Denton

From the Galaxapedia, Volume III Chapter XIV:

“Members of the Wakinian race are born as two connected entities and remain that way through life. A thick, six-foot-long braid of fatty tissue connects the two bodies, allowing each some leeway of movement; the joined pair can work or otherwise operate in close proximity to each other, but at independent tasks. Of necessity, they grow up learning to physically and mentally act in harmony and as a single unit when needed, but unlike Siamese twins, as their species later came to be called on Earth, they don’t share a DNA profile and are completely distinct in thought and appearance. One of the advantages of this is that at any task, mental or otherwise, their independent thoughts and unique strengths, combined with their fluidly synchronized movements, maximize speed and efficiency. In essence, they complement each other in every respect.

They are also self-generating; a joined pair reproduces by mating with each other, resulting in a new, distinct Wakinian duo.

They interchange biological substances on an ongoing basis which are necessary for survival; each contains what the other needs, so that if their connecting tether gets severed, both halves die. Tether severance is the leading cause of death planet–wide for the species, and kills more Wakinians than all other causes combined.”

One frigidly cold day in the northeastern quadrant of the planet, Parm and Parma Halovin were about to become the first Wakinians to undergo a radical, experimental procedure to separate the two bodies, the hope being that one of the pair would survive. A vehicle collision resulted in a partially severed tether which would shortly snuff out the lives of both, so with nothing to lose, and themselves having been part of a forward-thinking scientific community, they agreed to be guinea pigs for the surgery. It would involve the transplant of glands and organs from one into the other, so that the one receiving the transplant would have everything needed to survive independently. This procedure had never before been carried out on a still-living Wakinian.

The operation would have to occur within hours, and as they lay side by side in bed, they still had one last and dreadful decision to make.

Drs. Ello and Ella Kygis stood by the couple’s bed, Ello adjusting dials on an array of equipment and monitors hooked up to Parm and Parma, Ella leafing through pages of checklist items for the third time to verify no pre-op steps had been left undone, beyond settling this one final issue.

She looked down at the slowly dying Wakinians in the bed and forced an understanding, patient smile.

“Parm, Parma, I know this is a very difficult choice to make, and I don’t want to rush you, but time is running out.”

Having lived always as joined entities, words between Parm and Parma were often unnecessary. The ones that needed to be said already had been.

In their interpersonal relationship with each other, Parm was their strength and protector, Parma the generator of creative ideas and the maker of things of beauty. Parm was the forger of plans and goals, Parma the weaver of dreams. Together, they made a fluid and perfect whole.

They now turned their heads on their respective pillows and looked into each other’s eyes. Parma shook her head no. Parm shook his yes, reached over, and took her hand, then turned to the doctors.

“Her. It must be her.”

Doctors Ello and Ella Kygis now both looked down at Parm and Parma with similar expressions of understanding and compassion. It was Ella Kygis who spoke.

“Thank you both very much. If the procedure works, not only will Parma live, but it will change the course of medicine and save thousands of Wakinian lives in the future. The sacrifice you’ve both made today will never be forgotten. The operating theater is already set up with the full crew standing by, and we do need to move fast at this point, but Ello and I-”

Ella stopped mid-sentence, because she knew that, despite her normal professionalism, her voice was about to break. A Wakinian herself, she knew what was at stake.

“Ello and I will leave you to have a few final minutes alone.”

Over 100 scientists and medical professionals watched from a glass-enclosed viewing area that encircled the operating room, as Dr. Ello Kygis deftly opened the chest cavity of the still alive, but sedated Parm Halovin, while Dr. Ella Kygis did the same with the body of Parma.

Two hours later, everything that was needed for Parma to, at least theoretically, survive on her own had been removed from Parm and placed inside her.

Ello looked up at Ella, then around at their attending staff, some just looking into his eyes over their own surgical masks, others nodding their understanding. One and all then looked down at Parm with sadness as Ello turned off his temporary life support monitors and finally detached the last threads of damaged umbilicus tether from Parma.

All attention then swept over to the monitors attached to her. One minute. Five minutes. The surgical team glanced around at each other, hopefulness, and tentative, restrained excitement in their eyes. Many of the people in the elevated viewing area were now on their feet watching intently or talking excitedly to each other.

Fifteen minutes later, Parma’s life signs were still holding strong.

Days later, when the successful, groundbreaking procedure was announced to the world at large, not everyone viewed it as a medical miracle that would enable half a Wakinian duo to survive a tether separation. There was a strongly divided camp on the subject of the “inner chest transplant” procedure, as it came to be called.

Many viewed it as the creation of a freak and a travesty of nature. There was uproar in religious circles as well. In all denominations, planet wide, the normal rituals of faith required the participation of both halves of a Wakinian. There was no such thing as half a duo sleeping through a church service on Wakinia.

Some objected solely on the logical grounds that the half of the Wakinian who survived as a result of the transplant could never have a normal life. Their single-unit appearance alone would make them an object of derision, pity, or scorn, all on top of the many other problems that would inevitably arise. It was considered an unconscionable cruelty to relegate someone, by means of surgical alteration, to an unavoidable life of isolation as a singleton in a culture built around binary life forms.

The debates and disagreements raged over the next weeks. Petitions to courts, tribunals, politicians, and rulers flowed like water around the globe. Editorials and talk shows on the subject became more inflammatory with each passing day. Demonstrations outside the medical science center where the procedure had been done, as well as all around the Dome-of-State government buildings, were carried on day and night. Picketers toted signs demanding legislation forbidding inner chest transplants, and demanding the euthanizing of Parma.

Things reached a crescendo when the military had to be called in to quell a rioting mob that attempted to storm the medical center in an effort to get at Parma and the doctors responsible.

Two months later, legislation was passed planet wide that put an end to any further ‘experimentation’ that resulted in the surgical alteration of a Wakinian pair.

By that time, the procedure had only been done on one other twosome.

A law enforcement duo named Javi and Java Kolpre suffered a severe tether injury in a shootout. They were only five miles from the science center when it occurred, and Java, injured beyond repair, and knowing about the transplant procedure, requested that it be done to save Javi as her death-bed wish.

Like Parma’s, his procedure was successful, and like her, he would live a life of isolation, with no way to conceal his single-unit appearance, and in constant fear for his own life because of his being an ‘ungodly travesty of nature’.

With the procedure now outlawed, the medical team, in conjunction with government representatives, worked out a number of options for Javi and Parma’s future, which were discussed in a meeting with both of them present. They could continue as they were, which would result in either a life of constant rejection and harassment or a life of self-imprisonment, locked away in some government facility for their own safety. They could be willingly, humanely euthanized, or they could be provided with a home off world. An uninhabited planet had been found that would support Wakinian life. There, they would at least not have to live in hiding for the remainder of their days. Javi and Parma, who had by this time become friends, were then left alone in the conference room for private reflection and for discussion with each other.

Kale and Kala, eager and curious four-year-olds, sat side by side on their parents’ laps looking over volume VII of the Galaxapedia decology. Their parents, Jord and Jorda, smiled to each other over some of the questions the children fired at them and did their best to explain some of the strange pictures to them. They were pouring over the drawings and photos in chapter XXII.

“YUK!! Look how funny they look. Where’th their Thtwing?” Kala had a lisp, so still called the Wakinian umbilicus tether a Thtwing instead of a string. ”How come thothe Wakininth aren’t in one pieth like we are?”

Jord glanced at Jorda, who shook her head no.

“We’ll tell you that story when you’re a little older. And on that planet, they’re called Earthians because their planet is called Earth, just like we’re called Wakinians, because our planet is Wakinia.”

Kale, the more precocious of the two, now stabbed a drawing with his finger and shrieked with laughter. “That one’s boobies are showing!”

This caused Jord to laugh. “It’s probably so warm where they live that they had to take their clothes off.”

Jorda rolled her eyes at him, and wondered if the kids were just a little too young to be looking at a galaxapedia.

“What are their names?” Kale asked.

“The ones in the photos? I don’t know.”

“No, the boobie ones in the drawing.”

“On Earth, those two are called Adam and Eve.”

Food for Thought

1: Can you think of a way that a scientific technology that you oppose now, might yet be of great value at some time in the future, or can you think of times this occurred in the past.

2: What about one that you think is of high value now? Could you see ways in which it could be used destructively, or times this occurred in the past?

3: What would you say is the yardstick that measures the value of any technology or creation in terms of it being constructive or destructive to the individual or society at large?

4: Similar to the characters in the story, how far would YOU go beyond the realms of established norms to save your own life or the life of a loved one? Would you have undergone the experimental surgery that was done in this story, if you were in Parm and Parma’s position?

About the Author

Ellen is a freelance writer living in the Rocky Mountains with her husband and two demonic cats that wreak havoc and hell (the cats, not the husband).Her short stories have been published in over a hundred magazines and anthologies. She as well has had an exciting life working as a circus acrobat, a CIA spy, a service provider in the Red Light District, a navy seal, a ballerina on the starship Enterprise, and was the first person to climb Mount Everest. (Editorial note: The publication credits are true, but some of the other stuff may be fictional.)

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ACTUS REUS

Patrick MacPhee

“Mrs. Davidson, is that man in this courtroom?”

“H-he is,” stuttered a middle-aged woman, who sat up awkwardly in the witness stand. She averted her eyes and pointed a thin, shaking finger towards the defence team.

The room erupted in a cacophony of flash photography (the judge had already tried to ban it twice that day, but this kind of theatre was front-page stuff), unsettled murmurs, and outright histrionics.

“Objection!” The defence attorney was on his feet, a thin, balding Englishman who had been spending much of his limited speaking time shifting radically between an unassuming placidity and vociferous intensity. The cameras loved him.

The judge overruled him, but he had his chance a few minutes later in cross-examination.

“Mrs. Davidson,” he began. “I don’t doubt what you saw. In fact, I don’t doubt what the other witnesses say, or what the Skype video shows.”

“Does Mr. Charon wish to change his plea, now?” suggested state attorney Linda Stinson, a thirty-something woman who had been looking perpetually tired while trying a case that, on the surface at least, had seemed like a slam dunk. Her question was smothered by an angry look from the judge.

“No,” Rice answered anyway. “Your honour, Mrs. Davidson presents as a credible witness. She says she saw my client walk into his former office, saying he was there to get some personal effects, only to proceed upstairs into a teleconference meeting filled with several senior executives, and look at them intently. We do not dispute that. Mr. Charon went somewhere in that building where he was not supposed to go. And when told to leave, Mr. Charon did exactly as ordered by the firm’s security personnel. He left.”

“Not before looking at one of the guards as well,” said the state attorney.

“It’s not a crime to look at people.”

“It is when six of them drop dead within seconds!”

The room erupted again and it took the judge some time to restore order. Mercifully, the prosecution wrapped up its case and they recessed in time for the evening news, coming back early the next day. The defence team called only one witness, Dr. Richard Senway, a psychologist and well-known professional “sceptic”.

Wanting to get ahead of cross-examination, and realizing the YouTube version had already surpassed four hundred million views, Rice showed “The Video”. For the fifth time in open court, everyone saw a series of videos spliced together to follow Mr. Charon in the twenty-three minute period preceding his arrest. The videos showed everything from a cheap one-frame-per-second outdoor security camera that captured his approach to the building, through a series of faster black and white indoor cams, to the show-stopper, the climactic HD thirty-frame-per-second Skype video conference call that captured him in exquisite detail, walking into the conference room and staring at four men in turn. As he stared, each man spasmed in his seat and clutched his throat and chest before slumping over, lifeless, the whole process taking perhaps ten seconds for each.

“What we are seeing here looks shocking, but it is an example of what is referred to as confirmation bias. Each of these men died of a massive heart attack. It is possible that seeing Mr. Charon triggered some kind of psychological stressors that then contributed to those heart attacks. It would not be unreasonable to assume that men in such positions are under an enormous amount of stress. Heart attacks are common and I understand these men were in the midst of a rather harrowing teleconference concerning a rather dismal earnings report.”

“Objection! Dr. Senway is not a medical doctor.”

“Sustained.”

Rice sighed and changed his angle of attack. “Do we need to know why they died, Dr. Senway?”

Senway shook his head, then was directed to state ‘no’ for the record. “So many deaths so close together may seem unlikely, perhaps even improbable, but it is far from impossible.”

“So, Mr. Charon doesn’t have special powers?”

A titter of nervous laughter swept through the courtroom.

“You mean like psychic ability? Psycho-kinesis?” He grimaced and shook his head. “No, there are no such things as psychics, Mr. Rice. It is scientifically impossible. And to punish a man for having the misfortune to look at someone, even a few people – why, we might as well be back in the olden days when women were accused of witchcraft for looking the wrong way at a field of crops that failed, or at an animal that took sick.”

“Did Mr. Charon kill those men?”

“No,” he scoffed. “Of course not.”

“How do you know, doctor?”

“He didn’t kill those men, because it is against all known laws of physics for him to have killed them. There are no traces of drugs, or any conceivable external trauma. The room was even electromagnetically shielded in an effort to prevent corporate espionage. No, what the prosecution claims is, in fact, impossible.”

As Rice sat down and Stinson took the lectern, a wave of murmuring swept through the room, smothered by the usual gavelling.

Stinson said, “Doctor Senway, since you presume to tell the court about science, then could you explain to us how gravity works?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The judge was sceptical of this whole line of questioning, but gave Stinson some leeway.

“Gravity. How does it work?”

Senway stammered slightly before catching himself. “Well, Einstein believed it is a simple curvature of space-time – and we’ve observed such curving and twisting through experimentation.”

“All well and good, Doctor,” continued Stinson. “But how does this force communicate? According to the Standard Model, particles communicate with other particles through messenger particles – what we call the four fundamental forces of the universe, is that correct?”

“A physicist may have much more to say, but… well, that’s a basic understanding, yes.”

“So, where are the gravitons? The messenger particles for gravity – we have yet to observe any.”

Senway looked momentarily confused, but realization dawned on him. He closed his mouth, nodded his head and smiled. “Yes, of course. The old ‘science can’t answer everything’ routine – quite common in pseudo-scientific circles. Is that what you’re getting at, Ms. Stinson?”

“I had hoped so, yes,” she quipped and a few spectators chuckled.

“Ms. Stinson, our maps of what we know about reality may have boundaries, beyond which we can only speculate, but you’ll forgive me if I thought we’d grown beyond the need to fill the unknown with monsters. Or in this case, psychic assassins.”

“That depends, Dr. Senway. If a man lived his whole life having never seen a tiger, in fact never believing that such a thing existed, could he then close his eyes and go into a cage with one, protected by his ignorance?”

“But other men have seen tigers, Ms. Stinson. Other men and women could show him evidence. He could be made to understand, by degrees, that tigers existed and that going into that cage would be harmful.”

“And what if he refused to believe, even with that evidence?”

“Then he would be eaten by the tiger. Ms. Stinson, Mr. Charon is not a tiger. Psychics don’t exist.”

Stinson stifled a sigh. The jury, and the cameras, looked on intently. “Dr. Senway, surely you realize the absurdity of suggesting that something is impossible, because it is impossible.”

“Extraordinary claims require-”

“Extraordinary evidence, yes. We’ve all heard that fallacy, which holds no sway in a court of law.” She looked to the judge, who gave the barest hint of a nod. “We have video tape, Dr. Senway.”

“Coincidence. You are confusing a correlation with causation.”

“Are we? Doesn’t every major drug company, every medical study in history, look for correlations? We give x patients y drugs and observe z results? Should we invalidate them now, Mr. Senway?”

Senway sighed. “You’re twisting my words. There’s-” Stinson tried to press on, in the best TV-courtroom-drama tradition, but the judge banged his gavel and told Senway to take his time answering. Nodding in appreciation, he took a deep breath and continued. “A double-blind study that controls for variables, coupled with a meta-analysis of multiple such studies – and all peer-reviewed by qualified professionals, is far different from some… random YouTube video.”

“Peer-review, you say?” Stinson asked, after the laughter had died down. “There is ample such evidence that supports the existence of psychic phenomena.”

He smiled grimly. “Are you referring to the pseudo-science of parapsychology?”

“Your calling it that doesn’t make it so, Dr. Senway.”

“Ms. Stinson, the so-called ‘science’ of parapsychology has yet to meet the standards of publication for any reputable journal. Gathering a few like-minded folks together to rubberstamp each other’s work and calling that peer-review, does not constitute proper science.”

“Do you serve on one such journal?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you receive submissions from these parapsychologists on occasion?”

“Yes, we do.”

She shuffled her papers and withdrew a photocopied letter. A bailiff walked it over to Senway.

“Did you write this, doctor?”

“I did.”

“Could you read it for the record, please?”

Senway scanned it silently and sighed. He put on his reading glasses and read aloud:

“‘Thank-you very much for your submission, (redacted). As you know, (redacted) does not ascribe any scientific validity to so-called ‘psychic’ or associated phenomena. While your findings are certainly interesting, they are statistically marginal and will likely dissolve upon tighter control of possible variables. Best of luck in your future endeavours.’”

“Is this an accurate version of your letter, Dr. Senway?”

“Yes,” he answered through gritted teeth, shifting about uncomfortably.

“Doctor, did you just tell this court that parapsychology is not a reputable science, because it had not been published in reputable magazines, while serving on the board of directors of such a magazine, a magazine that refuses to publish pro-psychic articles, because it claims that they are not reputable science?”

A hiss of whispering filled the room, exchanged between those who had actually followed what Stinson was getting at and those who had not.

Dr. Senway said, “You must think I’m so smug. The truth is, I’m just tired of wasting so much effort on this nonsense.” He shook his head, searching for words, a gesture that included the jury as well. “You have to understand, these kinds of claims of psychic phenomena would come in every few weeks. In the early days, we took them seriously and we tried to replicate them. We’ve never been able to. We’re not a charity, Ms. Stinson. How much time and money are we supposed to waste?”

Stinson shuffled her notes, searching for a counterattack. She didn’t search long.

“Many parapsychologists claim that extreme scepticism can interfere with the results of an experiment that seeks to measure conscious influence.”

He scoffed. “We don’t see the results, because we don’t want to? Yes, how convenient for them.”

Stinson’s eyes narrowed as a smattering of laughter drowned out her follow-up.

Senway held up a conciliatory hand. “I’m sorry, Ms. Stinson, but until these parapsychologists can provide us with an experiment that even crusty old unenlightened sceptics like me can reproduce, then I will not call it science and my magazine won’t waste any more precious resources by investigating.”

Stinson took a long time with her papers this time before frowning and folding them together. “No further questions.”

The jury deliberated for forty-three minutes, time enough to give the appearance of caring about the truth (while going through a few more taxpayer-funded pizzas). Then, they found Mr. Charon not-guilty of all charges.

There was enough light for a press conference outside the courthouse, where the jury forewoman explained the verdict to a gaggle of squawking reporters.

“…of course it looked bad, but we have to go back to our duties as jurors. We had reasonable doubt … I don’t know if he did it or not. Probably – maybe. I don’t know … but how do we convict on that?”

Whatever she had said next would have to wait for the impending book as it was drowned out by a wave of questions towards the man who descended the steps behind her. She yielded the microphones to Mr. Rice and Mr. Charon.

Mr. Rice did the talking, while Mr. Charon stood stoically, looking almost as though he were suffering some kind of gastric problem. He’d been live in front of millions of people throughout the trial. Perhaps the prospect of needing to speak was the unsettling bit, now.

“I hope this judgment proves to everyone, once and for all, that my client is not a monster. This whole sorry affair was…” He broke off and several reporters asked what that strange smell was. Mr. Charon looked even more agitated and had begun to sweat profusely.

“Somebody’s looking at me,” he stammered. He put a hand in front of his face. “Turn them off. Turn them all off, now!”

Suddenly, Rice jumped away from his client and the reporters gasped. Wisps of smoke were rising from Charon. He screamed, his voice a mixture of pain and surprise, but barely took three steps before he was fully engulfed in flames. Everyone watched in horrified fascination as he staggered, fell and was still.

Then they panicked.

Food for thought

This story explores the mysterious philosophical realm that lurks beyond our present understanding of reality. In this particular case, the so-called psychic phenomenon is tested, but in a way that is more intense (mass murder) than a typical laboratory experiment that may seek to alter a random-number-generator by several decimal points.

1. Which is a better arbiter of truth: a courtroom or a science laboratory?
2. Did the jury act correctly? What would you have done?
3. Did Dr. Senway represent the sceptical viewpoint as strongly as possible? If no, what was missing?
4. Did state attorney Stinson represent the believer viewpoint as strongly as possible? If no, what was missing?
5. Senway and Stinson reach a philosophical impasse. Stinson argues that psychic phenomena exist, but are only testable by “believers” and that sceptical thought can actually negatively influence a thought experiment. Assuming, just for argument’s sake, that this “observer effect” is true, can parapsychology ever be considered scientific? Is this a limitation of science, or a limitation of parapsychology?

About the Author

Patrick is a husband, father, and teacher, who has been writing stories for many years. His work has appeared in Neo-Opsis and Ethereal Tales and has been short-listed at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and at Allegory.

He was the kind of child to walk through the woods, see a path leading off into the trees, and feel an almost overwhelming desire to follow it to wherever it may lead. He still feels that curiosity, although the paths he follows presently are often philosophical.

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IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND … A PARABLE

Anthony Marchetta

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King – Desiderius Erasmus, Catholic Priest and scholar

In a land, far away from ours, there lived a race of people who were all blind.

Many ages ago, the people had the ability to see, but had lost it in what was known in their history as the Great Disaster. The people didn’t mind much; they were an ancient race and were quite used to it by now. It didn’t hurt that their other senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch were quite acute. Their blindness was characterized by white cataracts that clouded their pupils—not that they knew this, or cared.

One day, the people of the Land gathered together outside the King’s Palace to watch the annual Contest of the King. The Contest of the King was the great contest held once a year to decide who would rule the Land. The Contest consisted of three trials designed to test hearing, smell, and taste. Since anybody could enter, one would have to be outstanding in all three categories to win. Oftentimes, the same person ended up reigning as King for many years until a worthy challenger came along.

At the time the great contest was being held all the people in all the land gathered outside of the King’s palace, even those not competing, to observe. Bells were rung, with contestants standing many yards away to figure out who could hear them, and faint odors were released into the air to figure out which contestants could smell them and from how far away.

As was expected the same person who had won for the previous ten years had won again. This was no surprise, and nobody minded; he had ruled them well. Not that there hadn’t been occasional problems, but always he had managed to guide them back to prosperity.

The King was ready to once again be crowned for another year when a voice floated through the crowd shouting, “Wait! Wait!”

The crowd turned toward the direction of the voice. It was recognized as the voice of Grogan the Cripple. Grogan was 33 years old, and his ambition was always to become King. Due to injuries sustained from a fire, he found this impossible. The fire had crippled him so that he could only walk with a limp, and the smoke had damaged his sense of smell so that there was no way for him to win any of the scent contests.

It was Grogan who had been shouting, and he limped up to the front of the crowd and cupped his hands to speak.

“My people!” he shouted, shoving the King aside, “My people! You cannot let this man become King! He is not ready to deal with the danger!”

The crowd started murmuring amongst themselves. The King, who was not happy about being shoved aside, tapped Grogan on the shoulder and yelled loud enough for the crowd to hear, “Danger? What danger is there that I have not led my people through before? I can face any danger!”

Grogan did not even turn his head toward the King, choosing instead to address the crowd. “My people, you do not know about the monster!”

The people’s murmuring grew louder.

“Yes! The great monster! Fifty feet long and one hundred feet high, with wings that stretch the length of his body on either side! The monster who sweeps through our lands! I tell you now, my good people, that the monster is hovering above our heads this very second!”

The crowd had started to shout when the King yelled, “Surely you realize how ridiculous this is? If there were a monster why has it not attacked before?”

Grogan shouted, “But it HAS attacked! Remember the plague, my people? Remember the famine? Remember the tornado? The plague was the beast breathing its horrible breath into your lungs. The famine was caused when the beast spewed fire onto your crops! The tornado was the beast beating its horrible wings!”

The King tried to pick on flaws in Grogan’s story. “But how do we not hear this monster? Surely, he’d be making noise doing all these terrible things to our people?”

This time, Grogan did turn in the direction of the King but yelled loud enough for the crowd to hear. “This monster is magical! He cannot be heard or smelt or felt! He can only be seen!”

The King sneered, “Then how do you know he is there? You are blind, just like the rest of us, and a liar!”

Grogan turned in the direction of the crowd once again. “I know he is there,” said Grogan, “Because I can see! The day after the fire, I woke up, and it was as if a window was opened, and the sights of the world were revealed to me! The fire that destroyed my heartiness and my sense of smell has gifted me with sight in one eye!”

The noise in the crowd started swelling. Grogan bellowed to make his voice heard over the din.

“But there is more, my people! Our beloved King is not free from blame! I told him of the beast! He knew of its existence since before the plague! But he did not try and fight the monster! He did not build walls to protect us from this foul beast! Oh no! Instead of taking action, he thought only of his own wretched skin and begged the monster for mercy. He has bribed the beast by stealing YOUR crops and giving it to the monster as payment!”

At this comment, complete chaos erupted in the crowd. One man shouted, “Get the King!” There was a mad scramble in the direction of Grogan and the King. To this day, nobody knows if the King was ever caught or if he had escaped. He was never found again.

In the midst of the hysteria, Grogan once again stepped to the front of the crowd. After the King was long gone, Grogan yelled, “SILENCE!”

The people obeyed.

“I,” said Grogan, “Can help you. But only if you help me. I would do all the work myself, my people, except”-and here he groaned loudly-“my leg is twisted and burned from the fire. I cannot carry heavy objects, and I would only hinder your progress. But I know the Beast’s weakness. I only ask for your cooperation to protect us from this hideous creature.”

The crowd cheered. Of course, Grogan was made the King; this seemed to be the only logical course of action for the people to ensure their safety. Under Grogan’s direction, the people built walls around the country’s capital and attached giants spears to them, then spent weeks casting complex defensive spells and creating potions to ensure people’s safety from the beast. Whenever Grogan himself was asked to help, he’d get up and limp heroically forward, then cry out, “My leg! My leg!” The people, who hated to know that their King and Savior was in pain, would rush toward him and rest his leg, then get him any luxury he desired.

At last, after three long months of securing their capitol from the beast, Grogan asked the people to surround the castle. He walked onto his balcony and announced, “My people, there is great news! The beast has died! The beast knew that I, your King, was organizing you in defense and so targeted me in the castle! But before he could reach my bedside at night, he was stopped by one of our defensive spells and fell to the ground. Unable to fly, he battled me on land. And my people, even weakened by the spells, he was a fearsome opponent; after many hours of fighting, I managed to stab his evil heart with one of the spears from the castle walls. Once hit in the heart, the beast was no more, and dissolved into smoke. As proof, I give you, the bloodstained spear!”

And then Grogan dropped the spear, point upwards, into the crowd below, and indeed the people could feel wetness on the blade. They gave a great cheer, and the celebrations lasted for a month. King Grogan was hailed as a hero, and he was loved by all the land.

Years passed. Of course, the Contest of Kings was not held anymore; what was the point with a King as great as Grogan? Indeed, he was so beloved that he became known as Grogan the Great. There was a famine, a sickness, and even a civil war, but as Grogan reminded them, these horrors were nothing compared to the atrocities the beast could have committed had he lived for much longer. The King liked retelling the story of how he risked his own life to save his people, especially in times of hardship, lest the people should forget; and the people, remembering, never stopped loving their King.

In the tenth year of the reign of Grogan the Great, traders came into the Land of the Blind. The traders were the first people in thousands of years (besides Grogan, of course) who had the ability to see; indeed, the Land of the Blind was so far away from any other land that these were its first visitors ever.

Throughout their stay, the traders kept hearing about Grogan the Great and his fight with the beast. In fact, they heard the story of the one-eyed King so many times over that the traders were adamant about meeting His Majesty at the royal palace.

The traders marched up to the Castle with a great crowd of people following behind them. The King, hearing the crowd talking excitedly, walked onto his balcony and yelled, “Why all the noise, my people?”

The traders stepped forward to get a look at the King. There was a moment’s pause.

Finally, one of the traders spoke. “What are all of you talking about? The King’s blind too.”

Food For Thought

Do you think the reactions of the people in the story were believable? Why were they so quick to believe the things Grogan told them? What do you think of the narrator? He seems to be somewhat unreliable, telling the story from a third person point of view but with a certain bias. And what do you make of the character of the King? Do we really know if he was a better ruler than Grogan? Or is he just a very canny politician?

What do you think of the decision to tell the story in parable form? How did this add to the story, if it did?

About the Author

Anthony Marchetta is a 20 year old college student who started reading science fiction last summer and loved it. He has previously been published in the Journal under the name Marc Anthony, and changed it at the request of his parents, who really wanted to see his name in print. He is currently working on several short stories and a novel that makes good use of the Arthurian legends. This story is dedicated to his Grandma Marie, who he knows would have appreciated it. He can be contacted at noblesquire1@aol.com

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WRONG CAT

Christian Roberts

Once upon a time there lived in Roswell, New Mexico a family of cats. I say “family” in the figurative sense because they weren’t related by blood, but had been rescued over the years by a kind woman with long gray hair.

Cats, as you may know, have a peculiar compulsion to bury their feces. These cats were no exception—except one of them. For whatever reason, this particular cat did not feel compelled to bury his.

One night, a flying saucer swooped low overhead and shot the cats with an energy beam of the frequency and amplitude that bestows the powers of reason and language upon its victims. When the saucer had flown away, the cats asked themselves, “Why on Earth do we bury our poop?”

They agreed that leaving their feces unburied led to an uncomfortable sensation which could only be alleviated by burying them. “It’s like an itch that needs scratching,” said one.

“Not exactly,” said another. “It’s more like heat from the sun in hot summer.”

“No,” insisted a third. “It’s more like hunger. We feel it inside ourselves.”

The cat who never buried his feces couldn’t understand what they were talking about. He lost interest and became absorbed in the moths fluttering around the porch light.

The other cats continued arguing. While similar to other sensations, this one wasn’t exactly like any other. They finally decided that what they were feeling was wrongness. Although they felt wrongness inside, like hunger, it originated outside, like heat. Heat radiated from the sun; it was therefore reasonable to assume the sun was hot. Since wrongness emanated from their unburied feces, they naturally concluded that leaving their feces unburied was wrong. Then they looked at the cat who never buried his. “Why don’t you bury your poop?” they demanded.

The cat was taken aback. “Why should I?”

“Because it’s wrong to leave it unburied.”

He blinked. “Why is it wrong?”

The other cats hadn’t considered why it was wrong. It was enough to know that it was wrong, and that burying their feces alleviated its wrongness. Asking why it was wrong was like asking why an itch itched. Wasn’t it enough to know that scratching relieved their itches?

“Because,” snapped the youngest cat, swishing his tail. “It feels wrong.”

“What do you mean?” said the cat. “It doesn’t feel wrong to me.”

The other cats could hardly believe their ears! How could he not feel wrongness? He may as well have said he couldn’t feel hunger. Their fur bristled. “There must be something wrong with you.”

The cat was reluctant to argue, but curiosity got the best of him. “Could there be something wrong with you, instead? This compulsion of yours seems obsessive.”

“No,” hissed the other cats, arching their backs. “There’s nothing wrong with us.”

“Maybe none of us is wrong,” he replied. “If it’s only wrong because it feels wrong, then it must be wrong for you but not for me.”

“No,” they yowled. “You’re wrong!”

Wrong Cat fought the impulse to run away. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “It’s wrong because it feels wrong, and it feels wrong because it is wrong?”

He nervously chased his tail around in circles while they mulled this over. Finally the oldest cat admitted, “There must be another reason why it’s wrong.”

Just then the door opened and the woman with long gray hair emerged in her bathrobe and fuzzy lion slippers. “Psssst! What’s all the commotion out here?”

Now, this woman talked to the cats all the time and imagined they understood her. She sometimes even imagined they talked back, so she wasn’t all that surprised when the oldest cat replied, “Why do we bury our poop?”

She rolled her eyes, but Googled it with her smartphone nevertheless. “It says here that it’s to avoid attracting the attention of predators.”

“Ah-ha!” cried the Right Cats. “It’s wrong to leave your poop unburied because it attracts predators!”

“Attracting predators reduces our likelihood of survival,” said the oldest cat. “Surviving is good; not surviving is bad. Doing things that lead to bad outcomes is wrong.”

Wrong Cat, unable to feel the wrongness of it firsthand, still couldn’t quite put his claws on the obvious. “But we live in the middle of the city,” he said. “There are no predators around here.”

Suspecting it was Wrong Cat’s unburied poop she’d stepped in a time or two, the woman said, sternly, “If it’s wrong, it’s wrong because God says so. Don’t you ever listen to anything I say?”

“God?” asked the cats, who’d never before listened to anything she’d said.

The woman once again described God in the way she thought cats could understand: a giant, all-powerful kitty in the sky. When she’d finished, Wrong Cat asked, “What else is wrong?”

Stifling a yawn as she turned to go, she said, “Waking me up at night.”

The cats pondered this after she’d departed. Only Wrong Cat suspected the truth. “She’s right,” he said. “I felt it myself when we were arguing. Didn’t you?”

Ashamed to admit that they hadn’t, the Right Cats didn’t answer.

“That proves it,” said Wrong Cat. “I can feel wrongness.”

Still the others held their tongues.

“In fact, it proves that I can feel it better than you can.”

The tips of their tails began to twitch.

“But only,” said Wrong Cat with all the conviction the woman had exuded while describing God, “when wrongness is actually present.” Mistaking their venomous glares for rapt attention, he concluded, “Therefore, it must not be wrong to leave our poop unburied after all.”

This was too much for the Right Cats! They felt the wrongness of it deep inside their bones. Teeth bared, claws extended, howling bloody murder, they pounced on Wrong Cat.

At that moment the flying saucer returned and shot the cats with a reverse polarity beam that relieved them of their powers of reason and language, whereupon none of them gave a crap about wrongness anymore.

Food for Thought

Where do right and wrong come from? Were they really determined by God? What if He doesn’t exist? Are right and wrong then simply cultural inventions without any basis in objective reality? How did people first arrive at the idea of wrongness? Did they think it through and come to rational conclusions based on a consensus of desired behavior? Was it a matter of rationalizing some instinctive sense of inhibition? Or was it a clever mechanism of control foisted upon the common man by a self-serving elite?

About the Author

Christian Roberts is a retired electrical engineer and former US Army Ranger trying for a second career as a writer. His short story, R.I.P., won first prize in the Olympiad of the Arts contest in Santa Clara, California. His work has appeared in Ruthless People’s Magazine, Daily Science Fiction and Niteblade, among others.

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UNI-MAIL

Ellen Denton

The gigantic transmitting stations, rising up like behemoths from stretches of windswept sand, were the only signs that life had ever existed on the planet.

When the Star-Rover’s communication equipment first picked up the faint, computerized call for help, it was coming from so far away, it was an event in itself that it reached them at all over such a great distance.

As word spread along the ship-to-ship grapevine, it evoked a great deal of speculation and excitement among the space exploration community; no civilization or race had thus far been encountered that had such advanced transmitting technology.

Ship-to-Earth communication links were all at once abuzz with requests to be allowed to respond to the call. All wanted to be the first to reach such an evolved planet, offer whatever assistance they may need, and perhaps form a new alliance that would help Earth in its own forward scientific thrust into the future.

Star-Rover IV was on a non-time-sensitive reconnaissance mission, so it was this ship’s captain, Roger Mondale, who got the go-ahead to deviate from his current flight path to respond to the still-repeating distress call.

Five weeks later, when the ship went into orbit around the planet, a bio-scan showed there was nothing on it that breathed, moved, or grew.

The three-man search team was now on the surface and stood in voiceless perplexity looking at a landscape of shifting, grey sand that ran like an ocean from horizon to horizon. After establishing that the air was breathable, they pulled off their helmets and discarded their cumbersome bio-suits.

Leah, the science officer, finally pulled her gaze away from the desolate scene and turned to Mondale.

“Rog, what the hell do you think happened here?”

Roger knew, after having spent so much time to get here, he would have to produce at least some kind of informative report about what they found and what may have occurred. To that end, he and two ship officers had been traveling for hours on the planet’s surface, and their probes, tests, and readings showed that nothing alive had been there for a very long time. Aside from the massive transmitters, there was not so much as a hint of prior habitation – no decay, artifacts, ruins, or even an alien skull, grinning, half buried in the sand. Even more mysterious and unsettling was how and why the transmitting devices were continuing to send out their synchronized signals, in all directions, across the vast reaches of space.

They were about to wrap up for the day when Ian, the third team member, saw something in the distance. They approached it, and now stood silently staring at what from the outside looked like nothing more than a towering, but carefully constructed pile of stones.

Ian slowly walked around it a few times.

“It has such a primitive, atavistic look to it. Maybe it’s a burial site, but if so, why would this be the only one”?

Rog turned and scanned the barren landscape while he considered the question.

“I don’t know Ian. Whatever it is, it’s the only thing besides those transmitting stations still standing. Someone wanted to make damn sure it was noticed.”

Leah, Rog, and Ian carefully lasered away each magnetically pinioned rock. When they first came upon the cairn, their initial scan showed a metal shape inside and descending downward underground so dense that the contents within, if any, were not revealed by even the scanners’ highest beams.

The now exposed, glittering, white obelisk appeared seamless. It took hours, using the laser cutter, to make an opening in the side of it wide enough for one of them to get inside. Leah volunteered, and using an air-pump ladder, descended the 200 feet to the bottom. As a precautionary measure, she was again in a full bio suit, and blinking hard, stared through the tinted face piece of the helmet. She raised her fist to rub her eyes, having momentarily forgotten she was wearing the suit, so was surprised when her hand bumped the helmet. She now became aware again of the susurrating hiss of the oxygen mechanism inside it. She looked around incredulously one more time, just to be sure she hadn’t overlooked something.

“Rog, there’s nothing down here but, well, I’m not totally certain yet, but it looks like it’s just a single sheet of blank, white paper, coated in some transparent, wavy stuff, sitting on a rock.

She touched the gelatinous surface of the thing with one gloved finger, and streams of digital symbols shimmered into view.

Back on the ship, Rog continued his report for Base Command back on earth.

“When we get back into electra-send range, I’ll beam you a universal translator printout of the page, along with my full report, but here’s a quick overview: it’s been preserved for thousands of years in a semi-liquid, glass-like substance that coats the page. In essence, they were quite technologically advanced, and were working on some type of energy-force experiments that make our atom bombs look like primitive pop guns. Something went catastrophically wrong, causing some unstoppable chain reaction. The society was decimated, with more than three quarters of the population of the planet wiped out in a matter of days. Those who remained, due to some kind of escalating, irreversible side-effects that this page doesn’t go into much detail about, died out over the next ten years. They were the ones who set up the transmitting devices at various points on the surface. They left this page as a brief record of what occurred.

In summary, I wanted to mention that those transmitting devices are advanced beyond anything I’ve ever seen. As you know, the computerized version of an SOS they put out reached us from thousands of light years away, and they’re almost indestructible, but here’s the clincher to all this – as the page covers, they weren’t calling out for help to passing ships or other civilizations. They were trying to send the signal to god.

Food for Thought

1)Do you believe there is truth in the saying “There are no atheists in foxholes”?

2)If you yourself were an atheist, and found yourself in a situation of utter hopelessness in terms of some form of technology, such as medical scientific solutions, being able to help you, do you believe you would ask God for help, or at least suddenly get religious?

About the Author

Ellen is a freelance writer living in the Rocky Mountains with her husband and two demonic cats that wreak havoc and hell (the cats, not the husband).Her short stories have been published in over a hundred magazines and anthologies. She as well has had an exciting life working as a circus acrobat, a CIA spy, a service provider in the Red Light District, a navy seal, a ballerina on the starship Enterprise, and was the first person to climb Mount Everest. (Editorial note: The publication credits are true, but some of the other stuff may be fictional.)

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