Pat Cadigan - Life On Earth

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Life On Earth

by Pat Cadigan

The third time Mary tells me that all the people in the nice cars and the expensive clothes

are dead, I believe her. First, because Mary knows things like this for sure and second

because whatever anyone tells you three times is true. But especially Mary.

We were watching the regular morning inbound rush hour from the freeway graveyard,

where highways go to die in the city. Every city has a freeway graveyard, Mary says. I'd

have to take her word for this; the freeway graveyard is the only place I can remember

living in. Don't believe me? Wait around; I'll tell you two more times and then you'll

know for sure. Or you can just ask Mary. She's a living truth detector.

I am not so gifted, so I have to distrust everyone except Mary. But this thing about the

dead people—it's one of those things that Mary says are so thoroughly and consistently

true at any given or random moment that they are never falsehoods, no matter who tells

you.

I know Mary finds this reassuring. Me, it scares. Just you think about it—if there are

things so true that not even the Devil himself can lie about them, how can us mere

mortals face them and live through it?

"Most don't. Or don't want to," Mary says as the traffic inches along the exit ramp in front

of us. "How do you think all these poor bastards died?"

Damn, I've done it again, talking out loud and not knowing it. "I'd have said a plague," I

tell her honestly.

Mary laughs, shaking her fuzzy dirty-grey head. "It'd have to have been a truth plague,"

she says, "and there's never gonna be one of those. The truth ain't catchin'."

"But something that's killed so many people just by their getting exposed to it—"

Mary shakes her head again. "Think of it as a natural disaster. Earthquakes can kill a lot

of people, but not because they caught it from each other."

"Oh," I say. All right. A truthquake; I can see how that would be lethal on a grand scale.

When I say this to Mary, she shrugs. "Some people might not think that's so bad. Hell,

look where they go when they die." She points at the cars. "Luxury sedan with air

conditioning, real leather upholstery, and a top-of-the-line in-dash CD player. Plenty of

people think that stuff is to die for."

If that's true, the to-die-for thinking doesn't survive into the afterlife. You can tell just by

the looks on all the dead people's faces that none of it, not the luxury, not the upholstery,

not the cd players, is making them happy.

I think of what Mary actually said: Hell, look where they go when they die. Mary often

tells the truth without even noticing; it's a side effect of the gift she has. I can't get over

the feeling that this could endanger her but I know if I told her, she'd say I was worried

over nothing. Mary thinks that most people don't know the truth when they hear it.

She could be right about that. OK, given her track record, she probably is right. But most

people doesn't mean everybody (or nobody). You never know when there's somebody

listening who isn't most people.

Mary says I worry too much; I think what that really means is there's too much to worry

about. That's for sure.

· · · · ·

While Mary knows what's true and what isn't, she doesn't know everything. Mary often

said it would be a bad mistake to think that knowing what's true meant knowing

everything. So when I ask her what possible reason could there be for us living people to

be rattling around among the dead, she cheerfully admits she doesn't know. But she has

theories.

"We rattle around, as you put it, among them. But not of them. This strongly suggests a

purpose for us that they—the dead—can know nothing of." When she talks like that, I

can see very clearly the university professor she says she used to be. Her expertise was a

mix of comparative religion and philosophy. Or maybe it was comparative philosophy

and religion. The two seem to be very close, except one of them gives you a Higher

Being to take the responsibility for a lot of stuff, good and bad. I like the idea of a Higher

Being, but I can't get any further than that. I mean, it's a nice idea, but too improbable for

me to think about without laughing out loud. But that's just me. Mary says the dead all

believe in the Higher Being as a reality, even those that say they don't.

"Deep down," Mary says, "and of course, it would have to be because, being dead, deep

down is where they are—deep down, they're all sure that there's Somebody watching

them, noting everything they do, and occasionally stepping in to make things turn out one

way or another. Coincidence is a big thing with them. Even a little coincidence gets them

all lathered up. Some of them get so aroused they're seeing signs and wonders for months

after one little accident."

"Clinical paranoids?" I say, remembering something, but not very well.

Mary laughs. "The clinical-est of clinical and paranoid-est of paranoids, dear."

If it's true, she'll say it twice more before the day is out, but I'm not concerned about

keeping track—it makes sense. I mean to say, you know? I'm sitting on a chunk of

concrete or paving next to Mary and watching the dead start another day in the afterlife

and I know in my heart they have to be sick in their minds as well as dead.

Okay, not all of them. Some of them have to be doing something crucially important—

that's just the law of averages, which, like the law of gravity, is more useful than not. But

all of them, all these dead people in all these cars, laid end to end on strips of roadway—

what else is this but the futility of death?

I'm afraid to die.

· · · · ·

Mary says she can understand that, because she died a couple of times herself and didn't

much like it. I can't imagine Mary dead; she's too alive. Her skin is softly weather-beaten,

like quality leather, and you can see that if you touch her cheek, it will be warm and

supple. Her hair, she says, lives a life of its own. Up close you can see it's wiry stuff. I

think you could sew on buttons and mend rips with it. My hair is limp so I keep it very

short; Mary trims it down with a manicure scissors every few weeks so it never gets more

than an inch long. She says she wouldn't do that to most other women except that she

likes looking at the shape of my head.

She also says that my skin is nicer than hers, but I don't think so. Next to Mary, I'm

greasy-feeling, like a shaved bear that fell into an oil slick. Mary says that any other

greasy people she's ever known have been some pretty icky types but I'm different. She

says whatever my skin secretes reminds her of cocoa butter and almond oil, and that if a

cosmetics company ever found out about me, they'd probably skin me alive and make me

into wrinkle cream. I'm goddam lucky, she says, that I'm not a seal or a civet cat.

· · · · ·

"Not that you have to be either one to get skinned alive," she reminds me. "People get

skinned alive all the time. Lots of people. Right while we're sitting here watching the

transmigration of souls in their metal wombs, whole buildings full of people are having

the hide peeled or dissolved right off their bodies." This is not my favorite conversation,

but it seems to be important to Mary. "You'd think no one would survive that kind of

treatment," she goes on, folding her arms and glaring at a big Cadillac with only one

person in it. "It does kill people, but not right away. Not the first time. I never knew

anyone that died after their first skinning. Usually it takes three or four times before it's

fatal for most people. Some go through half a dozen and live. You'd think someone

would have mercy on them, give up and set them free or just put them out of their misery.

But no. Poor bastards have to endure it over and over again. Every day their skin grows

back, looking just the same so you'd never know unless you knew to begin with. Comes

the night, they're herded to their beds, tucked in and strapped down.

"When all the lights go out, then the Skinners come. Thin as a piece of paper, they slide

under the door like a final-notice bill, float up in the air and land on some poor bastard

either strapped down in a bed or so drugged it's the same difference. Skinners soak

through the sheets and the cheap pajamas right down to the flesh. Some scream; some

talk and pray; some can't make a sound. But the worst is the ones who like it. Those are

the worst of all, the saddest of the sad.

"I was lucky I only had to go through it once." Mary blinks with satisfaction. "One time

was all it took for me to know what to do. After the first night, I spent all day with my

skin growing back and then that night, I made sure I slept under my bed. And by God, it

worked. I never got skinned again. Such a simple solution. You wouldn't have thought it

would be so simple, but it was. Why? Because Skinners are stupid. Is that the damnedest

thing or is it?"

"It is." I don't like this conversation but I have to admit it: it really is the damnedest thing.

· · · · ·

Some of the people in the cars are starting to look familiar. I find myself smiling at them

like friends, or at least acquaintances. A few of them seem like more than that, like

people I actually do know, or did know before they died. A couple of them have this

something about them that makes me like them—I mean, feel affection for them. Not as

much as I feel for Mary, but I can't shake the idea that if I did know them, I'd be that fond

of them. And the feeling would be mutual.

These are the ones I've started actually looking out for, and I miss them if I don't see

them. I wonder if they've gotten so used to the sight of me and Mary having our morning

time on our usual block of broken paving that they feel like something's missing out of

the day if they don't see us.

Mary has told me that emotions and attachments are different for the dead. They don't so

much go out of their ways to get attached as they just have stuff attach itself to them as

they move though each day. Death, Mary assures me, is the ultimate predictability.

"All dead people know exactly what they'll be doing moment to moment, hour to hour,

day to day," she says. "If there's any variation, it will be something that's already been

scheduled for them, so it isn't really a true variation the way us living creatures think of

it."

The idea of living like that makes me feel like I'm going to throw up.

"Well, of course it would," Mary says. "It's not living. It's not even dying. It's death. Only

the dead can stand it."

But how, I wonder.

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摘要：

LifeOnEarthbyPatCadiganThethirdtimeMarytellsmethatallthepeopleinthenicecarsandtheexpensiveclothesaredead,Ibelieveher.First,becauseMaryknowsthingslikethisforsureandsecondbecausewhateveranyonetellsyouthreetimesistrue.ButespeciallyMary.Wewerewatchingtheregularmorninginboundrushhourfromthefreewaygravey...

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Pat Cadigan - Life On Earth

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