Mind Webs - Rememberance To Come

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1:00Nicole hosts Easter every year. That's why she shops at BJ's wholesale club, stocking up on spiral ham, baked goods, fresh flowers, candy, and five dozen eggs. I've got a lot of baskets to fill. Nicole's not worried because she knows she can save big and get it all done in one trip. It's like winning the Easter egg hunt. When you save everyone wins. Get a $15 digital coupon when you spend $150 in one transaction now through April 5th. Visit BJ's.com slash Easter coupon for details. BJ's your Easter destination.

2:24Welcome to a half hour of mind webs. Short stories from the worlds of speculative fiction. This is Michael Hanson. The mind web story this evening is Remembrance to Come. A story by Jean Wolfe, which appeared in Orbit 6, a collection edited by Damon Knight and copyright 1970.

3:24Leaves in his face. He had chosen in order to prepare himself to go surface and walk in the circummortiated park where he and Ruth at once received their diplomas. Surface to the air had been cool and fragment with autumn and rain just fast. But once underground and on the belt again, there was only the never changing orderlessness in the 83 degree warmth set to make coeds and body paint comfortable. He was always a little apprehensive when he had to go in a classroom now. Already this semester he had received two student senate reprimands for speaking sharply to undergraduates and he couldn't afford a third. On the other side of the door he could hear the coughing and shuffling the feet. He reminded himself that these were only more of the slick young people he had watched streaking across the campus on their bikes a few minutes before. He glanced fritively at his notes and then landed the room and walked to the projector console.

4:25By a gesture he called on a girl in the front row choosing her because he knew she had a clear sweet voice which would help quiet the noisy her boys. She rose gracefully, a courtesy he could not demand but appreciated and parted the long hair hanging over her face before she said I thought and then she paused embarrassed. She was wearing the broadest possible belt and in spite of the painted arrows stabbing inward on her thighs it seemed probable that she had not yet rejected completely the conservative influence of an old fashioned family. She went on to say I thought it was just lovely the lovely park whatever it was and the lovely old carriage the woman rode in I mean I thought it was just shattering she sat down abruptly. He nodded in appreciation and said no let's see it again shall we? Touched a button on the console before him instantly the scene filled the wall in front of the class

5:26an ink drawing filled in with broad splashes of temperate from memory he quoted the idea of perfection which I had within me I had bestowed in that other time upon the height of a Victoria upon the raking thinness of those horses frenzied in light as wasps upon the wing with bloodshot eyes like the cruel steeds of the almond which now smitten by the desire to see again what I had once loved as ardent as the desire that had driven me many years before along the same paths I wish to renewed before my eyes at the moment when matemoiselle swans enormous coachman supervised by a groom no bigger than his fist and as infantile as Saint George in the picture endeavored to curb the ardor of the flying steel-kipped pinions with which they thundered along the ground. The legend over matemoiselle swans head and closed in a balloon whose outlines were of the puffy sort used indicate thoughts rather than speech seemed hardly necessary the cartoonist had

6:29conveyed them well enough in the look she directed toward a strolling group of high-headed gentleman but his students were rereading them nonetheless as he saw by their moving lips far in the background this lumbar figure of the young marcell expressed new admiration he was about to wipe out the picture when he sensed a disturbance far toward the back of the room where the teared seats rose in semi-circles heads were turning toward the door leading to the quarter-belts we heard a girl giggle nervously then something black and shape was centered and sat down for a moment he did not know what to do then stabbing his fingers down at random he replaced matemoiselle swans Victoria with another scene and announced briskly student dialogue on this one shepherd and weeks shepherd and weeks were to the brightest as well as the most talkative they could be dependent upon to keep their

7:30discussion going without in for as long as needed in the picture the projector had produced was of marcell stealing glances at the former princess they lumb and she sat with her feet on the tomb of Gilbert the bad he left it on long enough for the class to study it then changed to a magnified view of the room itself with shepherd and weeks in the foreground when they were well underway and the class had been at least partially distracted he switched his personal monitor to a camera covering the back of the room in the last roll in the seat nearest the door set a figure completely draped in black cloth instead of the sandals worn by most students the feet were shot in black very formal and rather old fashioned masculine shoes and under the cloth apparently something like a box was worn over the head its square outline could be seen just above the triangular holes which allowed the wearer to see twisting a knob he zoomed the image in until he seemed to

8:34stand alongside the shrouded figure the student surely only a student who would undertake such a pranks at motionless utterly quiet in his broad armed chair it was as he realized after a moment a particularly difficult situation any of the fifty thousand students at the university could monitor any class he chose the right had been acquired as a result of undergraduate demonstrations at some time in the remote past and in theory aided students from deciding whether or not to register for a subject in a future semester in practice it was most frequently used by campus agitators who wished to disrupt the class without paying tuition for it he could ask the student under the cloth to establish that he was a student but if he was it would gain nothing and he might be walking into a trap since if as seen likely the student was an agent provocateur for some dissident group

9:36this challenge was presumably what he was expecting and awaiting but for the time being at least he was well behaved and quiet the wisest course was probably to ignore the whole matter until some overt action changed his own position from that of presumptive aggressor abstractedly thought of how the boy must be sweltering under his shroud his own clothing tropical weave cover allses design annotated the sweatshirt and jeans of more formal times oppressed him in the underground the heat still watching the monitor he plucked at his clothes to draw a cooler air in at the neck more conservative and perhaps better celebrate faculty member stuck to the time honored slogans with air shirts more respected because they were outmoted things like get out of Vietnam and God grows his own the legend on his own chest red make love not sludge not very prestigious but the national sewage authority baiting the stipend for the space Nicole host Easter every year that's why

10:41she shops at BJ's wholesale club stocking up on spiral ham baked goods fresh flowers candy and five dozen eggs i've got a lot of baskets to fill Nicole's not worried because she knows she can save big and get it all done in one trip it's like winning the Easter egg hunt when you save everyone wins get a fifteen dollar digital coupon when you spend a hundred and fifty dollars in one transaction now through April 5th visit bj's dot com slash Easter coupon for details BJ's your Easter destination the remainder of the period seemed to pass without believing an impression on his memory and although he was certain afterward that he had asked the normal questions to begin discussions and elucidated correctly the few points referred to him he could recall nothing of it when the class was shuffling out into the hall he remained at the console waiting to see if the dark figure at the back of the room and left for the others and by some trick of thought he felt he had been watching the proceedings himself threw the eyes behind those black holes

11:41and found them remote and in consequential the dark figure had not gone but was still seen and it seemed staring at him across the long rows of empty chairs this was his last class of the day and he was conscious of an overpowering urge to finish it without a disturbance to go home and talk to roof and rest the eye holes which were the only visible feature of that strangely shaped hooded head seemed to hold no malice or even impulse of activity and for a moment he wondered if the student behind them could be asleep slowly he got up and walked toward an exit ignoring him as well as he could he reached the door and risked a glance over his shoulder the black figure was standing now he went out grateful for the soft shushing the door made behind him he was halfway to the elevator when he heard the slow tread heavily shot feet very different from

12:42the pattern of sandals or bare soles he walked faster pressed the elevator button and was fortunate enough to have the doors open immediately when they closed the black figure was still 15 feet or so away his bicycle was in the faculty rack at the south end of the campus and he made his way to it as quickly as he could looking over his shoulder from time to time with the illogical feeling that he was still being followed somehow the site of his own name David P. Paramore on the registration tag dangling from the handlebars reassured him he mounted and peddled off toward home as always there was a multiplicity of bikes and pedal carts on the streets plus the sprinkling of the slow and costly electric cars and a few heavily taxed internal combustion trucks mostly diesels since the government did not care much of members of the liberal arts faculty survived and bomb blast or not the underground on-campus apartments were the prerogatives of members of

13:47the scientific departments paramore had worked his way through the traffic for nearly an hour and was approaching his own neighborhood before he flimpsed the dark figure far behind him the student under that black cloth whoever he was had a bike too a much newer one in his own just as his legs were no doubt younger and his wind better blocked by blocky gains steadily until he was not more than a few seconds behind a push-cart man from whom David sometimes bought vegetables way from the curb and then was gone a blur of unshaven face and glinting teeth twenty years ago he had ridden these same streets in the same way commuting to the campus thinking of the great day on which he would get his doctorate and anticipating the meeting with roof of the student center for lunch and it suddenly occurred to him to wonder why indeed he was hurrying now that all the goals he had set himself were reached in emptiness and it was possible

14:49to set no more what could the student under the black cloth due to him the time had not for a moment he slacked his pace then the repulsion he had felt earlier for here had left him was two-store buyers he careened up onto the lawn as recklessly as a boy left his bicycle lying on the grass instead of pulling it up onto the porch and slammed and locked the door behind him roof had heard him and she called him from her room at the top of the stairs after a moment he began the daily ritual of his visit with her mounting the steps one at a time and pausing a little to catch his breath at each sitting on the bed beside her he described everything the shrouded figure coming into the classroom the pursuit home and she said when he had finished but it's so easy and she held his hand pressed between hers as he talked now she gave it a little pat they did it before David the years ago when you and I were in school ourselves a boy got into a

15:52big black sack and began attending classes that way he wouldn't tell anyone who he was or speak above a mumble at all at first everyone laughed and then when he kept coming day after day like that they were rude to him began to play cruel jokes finally when he wouldn't tell them anything they just ignored him then at the end of the term it came out that it was all an experiment some graduate students had worked out with one of the people in the psychology department he looked at his wife wanting to believe it's so obvious David someone has revived that old experiment we say we're so much freer and more humane than people used to be but are we really while he's going to make the same test again and see if the results are any different David don't look so frightened why did he wait for me after class then why did he follow me home he wanted to see how you do react so he had to give you time to react in and I don't believe he followed you at all don't you see he couldn't take off the bag on campus or someone would see who

16:57he was he was probably on his way home and it just happened to be down our street there are lots of those boarding houses for students who can't get dorm space get it all over he didn't stop here did he David I didn't wait to see uh just went inside there you see he hasn't run the bell or anything has he or tried to climb through a window look around for him I'll bet you can't find him anywhere he did not go outside or even look through the windows that evening but nothing happened to prove Ruth incorrect he did his usual housework watch television with Ruth for an hour and read himself to sleep the next morning the dark shapeless figure was waiting for him and it attended every classy gave for the next two days paramour made an appointment with sunders that of his department

17:57sunders was leaning back in his wivel chair and staring at the ceiling when David came in and did not immediately look at him what is it paramour should I you look awful are you sick as briefly as he could he described what had happened for the past three days and when he finished sunders remained silent look can't you see it's an attempt to entrap me or the department or the school they're waiting for us to do something or say something that can be used against us and then there'll be another riot just like the old days speeches demonstrations and then when it's all over we haven't had many riots since we moved the campus underground after all they can't break our windows and we haven't got any and the belts and the corridors just keep sweeping the long any one who sits down on them until they get dumped off at the end when did you say this started David Monday he had lost sunders was not willing to recognize what they were trying to do

19:02sunders were shuffling through some papers in a desk drawer and did not look at paramour as he spoke and you say he sleeps on your porch at night yes that's right just like a dog someone won't let into the house he sleeps with his back against the fundor but your wife has never seen him what difference does that make roots and invalid you you must know that sunders had found the paper he had been looking for and this regarded the last remark reading it upside down from his position on the far side of the desk David saw that it was his own class schedule what do you want with that well Monday the subject of your class was swan's way one of your favorites isn't it I wrote my thesis and Tuesday you covered within a budding grove yesterday's schedule calls for the hermates way and today citizens cities of the plain what does that have to do with it

20:04well it strikes me that this figure has only appeared thus far at any rate when you are doing post you said he followed you home as he also followed you into the language research complex here is he outside in in the reception room right now no no I hadn't really thought of it that way but but you're right he doesn't come here he rides half a block behind me when I'm coming in the morning and then I lose him in the quarters on my way here to the language research complex and then I don't see him again until I go to class suddenly he understood what the other man was driving at uh you think it's my imagination don't you it was shocking humiliating he felt the blood surge into his face and was afraid to allow himself to say anything more for fear he would actually insult Sundays uh David we live in an age of tension a person like yourself

21:10hard working conscientious perhaps a little introverted is almost certain to have a little trouble sooner or later why do you think we have machines in the coffee shop selling the psycho-specific drugs but but other people see him too uh the students do in class they looked toward him they they giggle it was preposterous but it was that which made him feel so helpless if Saunders could not see the absurdity of his accusation at first glance how could he be made to see it but they don't speak to him and I told you that I I don't speak to him myself I don't want to give him an opening uh undergraduates are liable to let their eyes wander during class and they laugh with almost anything perhaps if there were nothing there they might look at a spot toward which you yourself seem to be staring listen how David about this black figure will you do what I ask you to

22:10your head of the department fine I want you to take the rest of the day off and the next four days off from teaching David I'll have Henderson take your classes and don't forget what I said about the psycho specifics here digging into a pocket Saunders produced an open packet still containing to rather Lindy capsules yeah these ought to hold you until you can get some of your own I'll buy some more when I go to lunch it is real if it's real fine fine I hope it is and if so it will come to the classroom just as you say it has for the past three days and Henderson will report it to me but in any case David you should have a rest you look ready to drop paramore through the capsules into the first crash racetrically passed in the corridor but following Saunders instructions did not go to his classes that day and when he pettled home in the evening he was not followed presumably he reflected the student under the black cloth

23:14was following bore old Henderson now he wondered how Henderson liked it that evening he talked to Ruth as little as he decently could saying nothing about his interview with Saunders long after she had dropped off to sleep still brought up by pillows in her big bed he remained awake thinking about the black shape and speculating on the exact nature of the plot in which it must be involved it was nearly daylight when it occurred to him that he might be able to frustrate it and that it was indeed his duty to do so after much searching in the attic he found an old robe which would serve as purpose and providentially in the same box a square top hat that would lend the correct shape to his hand the next morning after he had carried up Ruth's breakfast he put them into a large grocery sack and rolled to the campus with it clamped under his arm once in the study sell the sign then he stowed it in an empty file drawer a few minutes before the beginning of

24:14the final lecture period he left unobtrusively with a bundle again under his arm in a restroom he put on the hat and flung the cloak over his head reminded of how as a child he had believed that if his own eyes were concealed he could walk unseen by others like golem with the one ring the old robes meld musty and the cuts he had made in it were difficult to keep aligned with his eyes but the hooded student whoever he might be would surely take him for a second member of the conspiracies and to help him he stepped on to the belt and a moment later he dore the classroom it was normally his own and in the split second before the projectors which itself on the realization that he knew what was about to come came rushing down upon him like a wind from the mountains shrewaking in his face in bright primary colors the screen showed the rumpled bedroom with a fork lined walls and the bearded man in the bed involuntarily the words formed themselves

25:17in his mind for a long time I used to go to bed early sometimes when I had put out my candle my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say I'm going to sleep sometimes too just as Eve was created from a rib of Latin so a woman would come into existence while I was sleeping conceived from some strain in the position of my limbs when a man is asleep he has in a circle around him the chain of the hours the sequence of the years the order of the heavenly hosts it was the beginning of swan's way again he knew what was happening now and when mademoiselle swans victorious one through the porch invisible his own bent form arrive on the belt then re-entered to see himself start with fear without a lapse of time he found himself on his bicycle again pursuing his own back under the towering white shapes of the sycamores he pulled the gown from his face letting

26:22it hang properly and straightened the mortar board on his head so soon he seemed to fly you've heard remembrance to come by gene wolf a story which first appeared in orbit six a collection edited by Damon Knight copyright 1970 and published by Berkeley medallion this is Michael Hanson technical production for this program by rich grody mindwebs is produced at w-h-a radio and madison a service of university of Wisconsin extension Nicole host Easter every year that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club stocking up on spiral ham baked goods fresh flowers candy and five dozen eggs i've got a lot of baskets to fill Nicole's not worried because she knows she can save big

27:24and get it all done in one trip it's like when in the Easter egg hunt when you save everyone wins get a $15 digital coupon when you spend $150 in one transaction now through April 5th visit bj's.com slash Easter coupon for details bj's your Easter destination