Ahead of Time Read online

  He examined his state of mind with close attention. "Is this boredom?" he asked himself. If so, not even boredom was unpleasant. There was a delightful, sensuous relaxation about it, like floating in a warm summer ocean. In a sense, he was too relaxed.

  "If this is all there is to immortality," he told himself, "I might as well not have bothered. Pleasant, certainly, but not worth bartering my soul for. There must be things that will rouse me out of this somnolence."

  He experimented. The next five years witnessed his meteoric fall from public favor as he tried more and more frantically to break through that placid calm. He couldn’t do it. He got no reaction from even the most horrific situations. What others saw with shock and often with horror had no meaning to Fenwick.

  With a sense of smothered desperation under the calm he saw that he was beginning to lose contact with the race of man. Humans were mortal, and more and more they seemed to recede into a distance less real than the solid earth underfoot. In time, he thought, the earth itself would become less solid, as he watched the slow shifting of the geologic tides.

  He turned at last to the realm of the intellect. He took up painting and he dabbled in literature and in some of the sciences. Interesting—up to a point. But always he came before long to a closed door in the mind, beyond which lay only that floating calm which dissolved all interest out of his mind. Something was lacking in him. . . .

  The suspicion was slow in forming. It floated almost to the surface and then sank again under the pressure of new experiments. But eventually it broke free into the realm of the conscious.

  Early one summer morning Fenwick roused out of a sound sleep and sat straight up in bed as if an invisible hand had pulled him out of slumber.

  "Something is missing!" he told himself with great conviction. "But what?" He meditated. "How long has it been gone?" He could not say—at first. The deep, ineradicable calm kept lulling him and it was hard to follow the thought. That calm in itself was part of the trouble. How long had he had it? Obviously, since the day of his pact. What caused it? Well, he had been assuming all these many years that it was simply the physical wellbeing of perfectly and eternally functioning bodily mechanisms. But what if this were really something more? What if it were an artificially induced dulling of the mind so that he would not suspect a theft had been committed?

  A theft? Sitting up in bed among heavy silk sheets, with the June dawn pale outside the windows, James Fenwick suddenly saw the outrageous truth. He struck his knee a resounding blow under the bedclothes.

  "My soul!" he cried to the unheeding dawn. "He swindled me! He stole my soul!"

  The moment the idea took shape it seemed so obvious Fenwick could not understand why it had not been clear from the first. The devil had cunningly and most unfairly anticipated the pay-off by seizing his soul too soon. And if not all of it, then the most important part. Fenwick had actually stood before the mirror and watched him do it. The proof seemed obvious. For something was very definitely missing. He seemed to stand always just inside a closed door in the mind that would not open for him because he lacked the essential something, the lost, the stolen soul. . . .

  What good was immortality, without this mysterious something that gave immortality its savor? He was helpless to enjoy the full potentialities of eternal life because he had been robbed of the very key to living.

  " 'Certain memories of the past,' is it?" he sneered, remembering the devil’s casual description of the thing he wanted for surety. "Never miss them, eh? And all the time it was something out of the very middle of my soul!"

  Now he remembered episodes out of folklore and mythology, people in legend who had lacked souls. The Little Mermaid, the Seal Maiden, someone or other in Midsummer Night’s Dream—a standard situation in myth, once you considered the question. And those who lacked the souls always yearned to get one at any cost. Nor was it, Fenwick realized, simply ethnocentric thinking on the part of the author. He was in the unique position of knowing this yearning for a soul to be quite valid.

  Now that he was aware of his loss, the queer, crippling inward lack tormented him. It had presumably tormented the Little Mermaid and others. Like him, they had had immortality. Being extrahuman they had probably possessed this curious, light-headed, light-hearted freedom which even now interposed a cushion of partial indifference between Fenwick and his loss. Were not the gods supposed to spend their days in just this simple-minded joy, laughing and singing, dancing and drinking endlessly, never weary, never bored?

  Up to a point it was wonderful. But once you began to suspect that something had been removed, you lost your taste for the Olympian life and began at all costs to crave a soul. Why? Fenwick couldn’t say. He only knew. . . .

  At this moment the cool summer dawn shimmered between him and the window, and the devil stood before James Fenwick.

  Fenwick shuddered slightly.

  "The bargain," he said, "was for eternity."

  "Yes," the devil said. "Only you can abrogate it."

  "Well, I don’t intend to," Fenwick told him sharply. "How did you happen to show up at just this moment?"

  "I thought I heard my name called," the devil said. "Did you want to speak to me? I seemed to catch a note of despair in your mind. How do you feel? Bored yet? Ready to end it?"

  "Certainly not," Fenwick said. "But if I were it’s because you swindled me. I want a word with you. What was it you took out of my head in your closed hand the day of our pact?"

  "I don’t care to discuss it," the devil said, lashing his tail slightly.

  "Well, I care," Fenwick cried. "You told me it was only a few unimportant memories I’d never miss."

  "And so it was," the devil said, grinning.

  "It was my soul!" Fenwick said, striking the bedclothes angrily. "You cheated me. You collected my soul in advance, and now I can’t enjoy the immortality I bought with it. This is out-and-out breach of contract."

  "What seems to be the trouble?" the devil asked.

  "There must be a great many things I’d enjoy doing, if I had my soul back," Fenwick said. "I could take up music and become a great musician, if I had my soul. I always liked music, and I have eternity to learn in. Or I could study mathematics. I could learn nuclear physics and who knows, with all the time and money and knowledge in the world at my command, there’s no limit to the things I could achieve. I could even blow up the world and rob you of all future souls. How would you like that?"

  The devil laughed politely and polished his talons on his sleeve.

  "Don’t laugh," Fenwick said. "It’s perfectly true. I could study medicine and prolong human life. I could study politics and economics and put an end to wars and suffering. I could study crime and fill up Hell with new converts. I could do anything—if I had my soul back. But without it—well, everything is too—too peaceful." Fenwick's shoulders sagged disconsolately. "I feel cut off from humanity," he said. "Everything I do is blocked. But I’m calm and carefree. I’m not even unhappy. And yet I don’t know what to do next. I——"

  "In a word, you’re bored," the devil said. "Excuse me if I don’t show enough sympathy for your plight."

  "In a word, you swindled me," Fenwick said. "I want back my soul."

  "I told you exactly what it was I took," the devil said.

  "My soul!"

  "Not at all," the devil assured him. "I'm afraid I shall have to leave you now."

  "Give me back my soul, you swindler!"

  "Try and make me do it," the devil said with a broad grin. The first ray of the morning sun shimmered in the cool air of the bedroom, and in the shimmer the devil dissolved and vanished.

  "Very well," Fenwick said to the emptiness. "Very well, I will."

  He wasted no time about it. Or at least, no more time than his curious, carefree placidity enforced.

  "How can I bring pressure on the devil?" he asked himself. "By blocking him in some way? I don't see how. Well, then, by depriving him of something he values? What does he value? Souls. Al
l souls. My soul. Hm-m-m." He frowned pensively. "I could," he reflected, "repent. . . ."

  Fenwick thought all day about it. The idea tempted him, and yet of course in a way it was self-defeating. The consequences were unpredictable. Besides, he was not sure how to go about it. To undertake a lifetime of good deeds seemed so boring.

  In the evening he went out alone and walked at twilight through the streets, thinking deeply. The people he passed were like transient shadows reflected on the screen of time. They had no significance. The air was sweet and calm, and if it had not been for this sense of nagging injustice, the aimless inability to use the immortality he had paid so high for, he would have felt entirely at peace.

  Presently the sound of music penetrated his rapt senses and he looked up to find himself outside the portal of a great cathedral. Shadowy people went up and down the steps. From within deep organ music rolled, the sound of singing emerged, occasional waves of incense were sweet on the air. It was most impressive.

  Fenwick thought, "I could go up and embrace the altar and shout out my repentance." He put his foot on the bottom step, but then he hesitated and felt that he could not face it. The cathedral was too impressive. He would feel like such a fool. And yet——

  He walked on, undecided. He walked a long way.

  Again the sound of music interrupted his thinking. This time he was passing a vacant lot upon which a large revival tent had been pitched. There was a great deal of noise coming out of it. Music pounded wildly through the canvas walls. Men and women were singing and shouting inside.

  Fenwick paused, struck by hope. Here at least he could do his repenting without attracting more than a passing glance. He hesitated briefly and then went in.

  It was very noisy, crowded and confused inside. But before Fenwick an aisle stretched between benches toward an altar, of sorts, with several highly excited people clustered under the uplifted arms of an even more highly excited speaker in an improvised pulpit.

  Fenwick started down the aisle.

  "How should I phrase this?" he wondered, walking slowly. "Just 'I repent'? Is that enough? Or something like, 'I have sold my soul to the devil and I hereby repudiate the bargain'? Are legal terms necessary?"

  He had almost reached the altar when the air shimmered before him and the crimson outlines of the devil appeared very faintly, a mere three-dimensional sketch upon the dusty air.

  "I wouldn't do this if I were you," the pale image said.

  Fenwick sneered and walked through him.

  At this the devil pulled himself together and appeared in full form and color in the aisle, blocking Fenwick's way.

  "I wish you wouldn't create scenes like this," the devil said pettishly. "I can't tell you how uncomfortable I feel here. Kindly don't be a fool, Fenwick."

  Several people in the crowd cast curious glances at the devil, but no one seemed unduly interested. Most probably thought him a costumed attendant, and those who knew him for what he was may have been accustomed to the sight, or perhaps they expected some such apparition in such a place at such a time. There was no disturbance.

  "Out of my way," Fenwick said. "My mind is made up."

  "You're cheating," the devil complained. "I can't allow it."

  "You cheated," Fenwick reminded him. "Try and stop me."

  "I will," the devil said, and reached out both taloned hands.

  Fenwick laughed.

  "I am a system enclosed within itself," he said. "You can't harm me. Remember?"

  The devil gnashed his teeth.

  Fenwick brushed the crimson form aside and went on.

  Behind him the devil said, "Oh, very well, Fenwick. You win."

  Relieved, Fenwick turned. "Will you give me back my soul?"

  "I'll give you back what I took as surety," the devil said, "but you won't like it."

  "Hand it over," Fenwick said. "I don't believe a word you say."

  "I am the father of lies," the devil said, "but this time ——"

  "Never mind," Fenwick said. "Just give me back my soul."

  "Not here. I find this very uncomfortable," the devil told him. "Come with me. Don't cringe like that, I merely want to take you to your apartment. We need privacy."

  He lifted his crimson hands and sketched a wall around himself and Fenwick. Immediately the pushing crowds, the shouting and tumult faded and the walls of Fenwick's sumptuous apartment rose around them. Slightly breathless, Fenwick crossed the familiar floor and looked out the window. He was indubitably at home again.

  "That was clever," he congratulated the devil. "Now give me back my soul."

  "I will give you back the part of it I removed," the devil said. "It was not in violation of the contract, but a bargain is a bargain. I think it only fair to warn you, however, that you won't like it."

  "No shilly-shallying," Fenwick said. "I don't expect you to admit you cheated."

  "You are warned," the devil said.

  "Hand it over."

  The devil shrugged. He then put his hand into his own chest, groped for a moment, murmuring, "I put it away for safekeeping," and withdrew his closed fist. "Turn around," he said. Fenwick did so. He felt a cool breeze pass through his head from the back. . . .

  "Stand still," the devil said from behind him. "This will take a moment or two. You are a fool, you know. I expected a better entertainment or I'd never have troubled myself to go through this farce. My poor stupid friend, it was not your soul I took. It was merely certain unconscious memories, as I said all along."

  "Then why," Fenwick demanded, "am I unable to enjoy my immortality? What is it that stops me at the threshold of everything I attempt? I'm tired of living like a god if I have to stop with immortality only, and no real pleasure in it."

  "Hold still," the devil said. "There. My dear Fenwick, you are not a god. You're a very limited mortal man. Your own limitations are all that stand in your way. In a million years you could never become a great musician or a great economist or any of the greats you dream of. It simply isn't in you. Immortality has nothing to do with it. Oddly enough——" And here the devil sighed. "Oddly enough, those who make bargains with me never do have the capability to use their gifts. I suppose only inferior minds expect to get something for nothing. Yours is distinctly inferior."

  The cool breeze ceased.

  "There you are," the devil said. "I have now returned what I took. It was, in Freudian terms, simply your superego."

  "Superego?" Fenwick echoed, turning. "I don't quite——"

  "Understand?" the devil finished for him, suddenly smiling broadly. "You will. It is the structure of early learning built up in your unconscious mind. It guides your impulses into channels acceptable to society. In a word, my poor Fenwick, I have just restored your conscience. Why did you think you felt so light and carefree without it?"

  Fenwick drew breath to reply, but it was too late.

  The devil had vanished. He stood alone in the room.

  Well, no, not entirely alone. There was a mirror over the fireplace and in the mirror he met his own appalled eyes in the instant the superego took up again the interrupted function of the conscience.

  A terrible, smashing awareness struck down upon Fenwick like the hand of a punishing God. He knew now what he had done. He remembered his crimes. All of them. Every last terrible, unforgivable, immutable sin he had committed in the past twenty years.

  His knees buckled under him. The world turned dark and roared in his ears. Guilt was a burden he could hardly stagger under. The images of the things he had seen and done in the years of his carefree evil were thunder and lightning that shook the brain in his skull. Intolerable anguish roared through his mind and he struck his hands to his eyes to blot out vision, but he could not blot out memory.

  Staggering, he turned and stumbled toward his bedroom door. He tore it open, reeled across the room and reached into a bureau drawer. He took out a revolver.

  He lifted the revolver, and the devil came in.

  De Profundis


  THE TROUBLE IS with the words. The trouble is—only an insane man could write this because it could only happen to an insane man. And the barrier is hard to get past. I mean the barrier that has built up around the real me. I can think clearly, but I never know when the compulsion comes, and then the wrong words come out on the paper——

  I'm like a wheel spinning too fast. I was pretty well educated—before. I know a lot of the catch phrases. The doctors aren't sure yet what's wrong with me. There's only a tentative prognosis. It might be catatonia or schizophrenia——

  IT IS A MOST DEADLY HOPELESS TRAP

  Stop. I must try to be coherent, anyway. I must try to write this in conventional form. I want to write it upside down and backwards and like a palimpsest, all over the paper. But I must make everything clear. I'm the only one who can distinguish between the hallucination and the real, but of course I can't make anyone else see it. The trouble is, they slip in among my hallucinations and masquerade as delusions themselves——

  It's hard even for me, sometimes. I haven't got the anchor of sanity to cling to. I know I'm insane. That is, I know it when I'm halfway rational. When I'm on the skids, there is only this whirling, prisoning hell of darkness. . . .

  Case history: William Rogers, 38, white, unmarried, early neurotic and psychotic history——

  Something like that is on my chart. I don't remember very much about the past. I have been in a sanitarium before. I remember there was something wrong even when I was a kid. My memories don't work quite right, especially since time warped itself a little to let The Visitors in.

  The Visitors are not hallucinations. They are the realities among all my delusions. They came only lately. That much I know. They explained everything quite clearly to me. No one else can see or hear them. They said if I wish I could tell the doctors; the doctors would listen sympathetically and ask me questions and not believe anything. Auditory and visual hallucinations. God knows I had enough of those to begin with.

  I saw the Cloud sometimes. And I saw demons. Somehow they were so conventional I knew they weren't real, even when they told me I had sinned. That was long before The Visitors came. They are quite real. They come from another space-time continuum. They want to visit and observe. You'd think they'd want somebody like Einstein, but that isn't the way it works. They don't want our world to know about them. I can imagine why. You can't observe an electron without throwing it off its normal path. An animal won't act naturally if it knows it's being watched. Or maybe there are other reasons, too——