Two men of our ilk, approximately a third the size of real men, stepped out from behind the useless drapes, one from the right, the other from the left. Growing ever more full-sized as they came, they crept toward my charge, clad in shiny blue (three-piece, wide-lapeled) business suits over which, for reasons unknown, white lab coats had been thrown. Then, in the next instant, the white lab coats would be on the inside, with the shiny blue business suits outside, these transitions occurring every second or so.

  Gentlemen, I said. You’re intruding.

  We’re not, said the first man.

  We’re more than welcome here, said the other.

  More welcome than you, said the first.

  Than you are, said the other.

  Than you’ll ever be, said the first.

  Old friends, said the other.

  Of your charge, said the first.

  Work colleagues, said the other. From way back.

  Mel, said the first, by way of introduction.

  Also Mel, said the other.

  In life we were both named Mel, said the first.

  And both worked closely with your charge, said the other. But never actually met each other. That’s what was so funny about it.

  Mel G., said the first. Call me Mel. Or just “G.”

  Mel R., said the other. “R.” is fine.

  They stepped around me, one on either side, to directly address my charge.

  How’s it hanging, pal? said G.

  It’s us, buddy, said R.

  Who have gone on before, said G.

  To rest eternal, said R.

  Though in neither case did you attend, said G.

  Or flowers, said R.

  Not to worry, said G. We exist in a realm beyond such petty concerns.

  What matters to us, said R. Is all the good work we three did together.

  In the name of science, said G.

  And they let loose a peal of hellish cackling laughter.

  Is it lying when one knows how one wants things to turn out and then says what is needed to achieve that result? said R.

  Lying when a person uses his considerable reputation and his mastery of public communication to thrash his opponents by redirecting the attention of the general populace, thus infecting the people with the tiniest sliver of doubt, which, widely propagated, becomes a sizable wedge of doubt? said G.

  Doesn’t every idea, said R., even those judged by some standards to be fallacious or those which have been disproven outright, deserve to be honored with the public’s attention?

  Doesn’t the public have the right to know? said G.

  And decide for itself? said R.

  Are you calling the public stupid? said G.

  Do you not believe in democracy? said R.

  R. turned to me.

  We were, in life, eminent scientists, he said.

  We practically won World War II, said G. If that’s not overstating it.

  It’s not, said R. I’d say you’re understating it. Because why?

  Atomic bomb, said G.

  Pretty big deal, said R.

  The biggest, said G.

  Ka-boom, said R.

  War over, said G.

  Democracy wins, said R.

  Hence our stellar reputations, said G.

  Having done our part to save the world, we widened our gaze, said R.

  Broadened our stances, said G.

  Filled our coffers, said R.

  Created a more inclusive national debate on several vital issues, said G.

  Stirred up the shit, said R.

  Profited, said G.

  Insanely, said R.

  Allowed dissenting voices into the mix, said G.

  Slowed a nebulous debate to a veritable crawl, said R.

  Anyway, said G.

  Any-old-hoo, said R.

  Just dropping by to say thanks, said G.

  To our friend K.J., said R.

  For the funding, said G.

  Thanks for the funding, K.J., said R.

  The surreptitious, secretive funding, said G.

  Which dared not speak its name, said R.

  Utilized, by us, to fund a plethora of press releases, news articles, and symposia, said G.

  As well as a number of energy-related think tanks, said R.

  “The Council for a Sensible Environment,” said G.

  “The Intelligent Energy Consortium,” said R.

  “The Healthy Earth Alliance,” said G.

  That was a good one, said R.

  Again, the hellish laughter, this time accompanied by the sound of the two of them rather mechanically slapping their knees.

  Awash in your generous funding, K.J., said G., now and then one of our think tanks might spawn a new think tank.

  Even as he spoke, a tiny man, in the exact image of G., plopped out of the rear of G., then sat disoriented on the floor, rubbing its eyes.

  Jeez, look at that, said R. You spawned that little guy right out.

  Didn’t even hurt, said G. Much.

  The tiny G. began to grow, and the more he grew, the more identical he became to the original G., until the two were perfectly indistinguishable and even the rate at which their business suits kept giving way to the lab coats and vice versa became synchronous, giving off, each time, a faint whoosh.

  Friends, said the formerly tiny, now full-sized G.

  Of your charge, said a tiny man identical to R., just then dropping out of R.’s rear.

  Look, now I’m doing it, said R.

  Work colleagues, said the R. replica. From way back.

  Replicas of the replicas began dropping from the rears of the initial replicas and these secondary replicas grew full-sized and began dropping out tertiary replicas, who also grew, until the room was so packed with full-sized versions of the original G. and R., all talking at once, that several of the replicas were nudged out through the wall and, while still in the process of introducing themselves, tumbled down into the yard below.

  Quiet, gentlemen, please! shouted the original R. (or at least I believed him to be the original, based on the fact that he was the R. standing closest to my charge’s head).

  The room fell silent but for a few last-minute suit-to-lab-coat transitional whooshes.

  We, your dear friends, have left that barren stage called Life, said the original R. And frankly, K.J., from the smell in here and how weirdly stiff you appear, it seems that you too will soon be joining our club, amigo.

  The club of the sudden odor of roses, said the original G.

  The club of the clunk-clunk-clunk as one is dropped into the good old death-hole from which one never bounces cheerfully out, said R.

  The black crepe club, said G. The swelling-feet-in-forever-shoes club; the I’ve-got-just-a-ton-of-dirt-weighing-down-on-me club; the club of those gradually becoming forgotten by those still alive above; the club of those whose every left-behind photograph betrays, by way of the comically ancient outfit one is wearing, one’s total obsolescence.

  In response to this ghastly litany, all of them, originals and copies alike, began nervously shifting around, emitting strange moans of dread.

  But on the bright side, said G.

  We want you to know, dear friend, R. said, that we’re here for you. Stand strong against your enemies, even in these, your final hours.

  Yield not an inch, said G.

  Don’t give the bastards the pleasure, said R. You are poised to make a clean escape.

  Whatever “lies” they claim you told or “harm” they claim you did, said G. Fuck those naysayers! You’re about to get away unscathed, pal.

  You, like us, were never proven wrong or publicly disgraced or forced to apologize, said R. And, like us, lived well even until the end, king of your domain, eating regally, traveling widely, praised by many, and never did you recant, cower, waffle, or feel a need to reposition and/or prostrate yourself.

  K.J., pal, dear boy: salud! said G. You really helped us promulgate.

  Our views, said R.

  Helped us win the day, said G.

  And now look, said R. We have won the fight.

  The day is ours, said G.

  All these years later, and nothing much has been done, said R.

  About it, said G.

  Thanks to you, said R.

  And us, said G.

  Mostly you, said R. Let the record show: it was mostly you.

  Clambering up, G. assumed a feral squatting position atop my charge’s chest.

  Don’t give in, pal, he hissed down at my charge. Though the seas may rise and the mountains turn to mud and subsume the farms and the forests burn and entire prairies be denuded and through sleeping cities race the very flames of Hell—

  You didn’t do it, said R., scrambling up adeptly onto the shoulders of his ferally squatting friend.

  You did not do it, said G.

  And even if, it turns out, you did do it? said R. Or contributed to it disproportionally? By pointedly refusing to use your considerable power to, even in the slightest way, acknowledge, stop, or slightly slow it—

  Admit no wrongdoing, said G.

  Nobody can touch you, said R. Unless you recant. The world’s still out there, filled with our enemies, bitching as usual. Let them flail! You stand at the threshold of the next world, dear friend, victorious and unrebuked.

  Leap, said G.

  Leap across, intoned all the replicas at once.

  If you, in fact, altered the world, the physical world? said R.

  So be it, said G.

  Who doesn’t? said R.

  All is illusion, said G.

  Leave with thy victory intact, said R.

  The two original Mels situated themselves in the middle of the room, threw back their heads, spread their arms wide, and the replicas shrank down and each scurried back up into the respective rear of its original until only the two original Mels remained, wincing somewhat at the discomfort associated with the ongoing, continual rear reentry of their miniature selves.

  You two were never welcome here, my charge said. You’re not welcome here now.

  True, said R.

  Hurtful, said G.

  Yet look, said R. Here we are.

  In the very bedroom of your dying, said G.

  The two men bowed formally, G. inadvertently expelling, as he bowed, a final replica just then reentering his rear, which plopped to the floor, then doggedly began ascending that same leg again.

  We’ll be waiting, said G.

  In the bushes, said R.

  Near the redwood fence, said G.

  To collect you, said R.

  Slavering, fast-breathing, said G.

  Discussing with relish the good old days, said R.

  And the good days yet to come, said G. With you at our side, K.J.

  As we roam the earth, encouraging former compatriots in their final moments, said R.

  As we hope we have encouraged you tonight, said G.

  Each letting out a small yelp of torment, they savagely hurled themselves through a closet door nearby as if to avenge themselves upon it.

  Rushing over, throwing open the door, I found only a set of dusty dumbbells and, on a wooden hanger, a green bathrobe, swinging slightly in the backwash of their departure.

  * * *

  —

  My charge’s heart was beating in a tumbling, erratic fashion and a sheen of sweat shone on his face.

  Sweet Jesus, he said.

  Friends of yours? I said.

  Barely knew them, he said.

  Well, they seemed to know you, I said. My goodness. What did you do? Whatever did you do to merit a visit like that?

  From the wedding came a squeal of shock, as if something unthinkable but delightful had just been revealed to a previously demure matron.

  I made them with my mind, yes? he said. Like before. In Belgium.

  No, I said.

  It’s the meds, he said.

  It’s not, I said.

  The matron let out a second, even more shocked squeal, as if to revise her previous, apparently insufficient cry of delight.

  Jesus, what was happening? He’d had enough. Of being harassed. Also, the pain was back. Ugh. At a 6, maybe 7. Per the scale Hospice Joan/Jane had taught them. He was all pain now, just about. And nowhere to go. Jesus God. He had to fight back, the way he’d always fought back when assailed by idiots, by letting his anger flow unimpededly outward toward whichever idiot happened to be nearby, thereby unlocking a special pointed creativity that he, when livid, possessed.

  He seemed now to be taking my measure.

  Why was I pressing him on all this crap, anyway? Did it give me some kind of sick thrill?

  Me? I said.

  Why not get off him? Couldn’t I see he didn’t feel great? Anyway, it was dull. A dull topic. Maybe not to me, though. Maybe to me it was interesting. Maybe I was the type of gal who couldn’t tell dull from interesting. Maybe I was the type of gal who had a bit of the dullard about her. Was I? A ditz? A moron? A dope?

  My eyes (as they had done in that previous realm, when I found myself insulted) filled with tears.

  Causing a delicious feeling of sudden power to arise in him.

  Airhead, he whispered fiercely.

  Space case, dumb bunny.

  Then, as if to drive in the knife:

  Stupid bitch.

  * * *

  —

  I went into a crouch, leapt up through the ceiling, rose higher and higher through the night air, everything below growing smaller, smaller, more schematic:

  Turrets, cupolas, finials, walls of glass, yards, greenhouses, separate shingled studios, sheds, pools, cabanas.

  I swooped low, rolled over onto my back.

  Because I could.

  And because it calmed me.

  To be called “stupid”? “Stupid bitch”?

  By this undersized, foul-mouthed lout?

  Who brought harm to birds?

  And associated with hideous, low companions?

  No.

  No, thank you.

  It was sometimes good, when rattled, to think in the highest possible register.

  And, by this, preserve one’s elevation.

  So:

  The low-hanging midsummer clouds had fled and the canopy of trees overhead resembled a vast mouth in mid-laugh, framing a panorama of twinkling stars that, given the staggering wealth below, seemed to shine upon the neighborhood by compunction, as if hired for the evening to do so.

  (Yes.

  Better already.)

  The streets of his neighborhood below seemed, in their affluence, to be asserting their right to be lazily curved; they lay like tremendous snakes, traceable in the darkness by the irregular contour of ornate carriage lamps, one per spacious lawn.

  Beyond the neighborhood lay a forest.

  Beyond the forest lay a six-lane avenue.

  Along that avenue I went, ten feet or so above it, right down its middle.

  The world along it was like the world I had known and yet not like it at all. Some tendency suppressed and kept within decent bounds in my time had been unleashed and any shame about it so intensely rationalized that it no longer occurred to anyone that the swollen ugliness everywhere was a direct result of the heedless indulgence of some pervasive acquisitive hunger.

  If I might say it that way.

  Greed, greed, one could taste it in the air.

  The gas stations were not the simple cubes of my time but garishly lit fortresses of glass, the enormous signs looming over them seeming to quarrel with one another by way of hideous scrolling slogans (“Special Heinek 6-PAC $12 Fri–Mon LottoMondo YES!!!”), the commerce proceeding therein possessing a fierce yet desultory quality, as if all pleasure had been wrung from the exchange, the money below changing hands with a feeling of mutual resentment, as if obtaining it had been too hard on the one side and the need for it too great on the other for any joy to pertain around the transaction.

  In a vacant lot, among long reedy grasses, lay an abandoned couch.

  I dropped down onto it.

  Well.

  Never before had I felt such aversion to a charge.

  And, in truth, had begun to hate him.

  * * *

  —

  As if drawn there by my presence, two figures of our ilk approached: a handsome black man and a rotund white woman who radiated a likable, perplexed kindness, as if, in life, her tendency to foul up the smallest thing had rendered her perpetually cheerful, placing her somehow permanently beyond humiliation.

  He carried a rudimentary rifle and wore an outfit of rugged buckskin and moccasins marked by extensive wear and an almost unimaginable density of skillful stitching. She, in “flip-flops” and an immense, baggy “T-shirt” marked with a star and the words “Dallas Cowboys,” was continually and absent-mindedly slapping a bulging wallet against a pair of frayed “cutoffs.”

  I got hit and killed just there, she called out to me cheerfully.

  It was “game day,” her friend added. Clyda here was making a “chip run.” She got distracted, and—

  It was a eclipse, Clyda said. I had one of those “viewer thingies.”

  There were “chips” positively everywhere, said her friend. And Clyda lying motionless there among them.

  What’s funny, Clyda said, is that the place I’d just been? For the chips? Used to be right here. Little meat market. Manny’s.

  That also sold chips, her friend added helpfully.

  For your part, William, Clyda said. You died in a humble lean-to. Just there.

  Near present-day Jiffy Lube, William said.

  Brownstone Branch being, at the time of your death, Clyda said, not a proper paved road at all, but a narrow footpath through the woods, used by Comanche and Caddo.