Universe 6 - [Anthology] Read online

  So when will the real facts become known, if ever? Should the main signal be closed off, who will know how to get from one step to the next? How will we know it’s happening? What are the five danger signs of dematerialization? How do we prepare? How do we prevent? How do we get back the power we must have had once, and need now, to screen in advance everything that goes on the radio, everything that passes a tape head, everything that is said to us everywhere we go? What happens if we know everything we need to know and still, in the most crucial of instants, our concentration slips and leaves us staring at what we were never supposed to see?

  * * * *

  There’s still this difficulty with written accounts, the real sensations peeling off and fluttering away, the specifics invoked just to make encouraging noise. So let me close with the film of the arrest. The film per se is only fifteen seconds long, but I had Michael freeze a frame in the middle, a process whereby you print one frame over and over so that it appears that the projector has stopped. After the door opens and I walk toward it, as the man in the suit comes in and reaches into his pocket for the little billfold with the badge in it, there’s one image you’ll see for a long time, almost a minute. It’s me and the cop—his front, my back—both of us from the waist up, each getting half the frame, a moderately low angle so that we find ourselves looking up into his face. We’re drawn there anyway by that diagonal composition with the chair behind me and my arm coming up. Look at his eyes. I know there’s a lot of grain and a slight softening of line due to camera movement, which is why I asked Michael to stretch it out. Look carefully at the cop’s face as he brings his head up, the skin stretching a little against his jaw, his mouth bunching as he starts to talk. I wish we had sound on this, because there’s a slight crack in his voice, but anyway: the eyes. There’s an expression of fear, which is to be expected because, let’s face it, taking orders when you don’t know where they’re coming from is at once the easiest and the most exacting kind of obedience, for me or him or the girl or whoever. If you look closely at the right eye, the one on our left, there’s the tiniest streak of moisture coming out of the corner and sliding about halfway down the side of his nose. Look very carefully because this is the last information we get. Soon the action starts again and he turns his head away and that’s it. Can everybody see?

  <>

  * * * *