Kitman Versus The Squirrels
A novel. With some squirrels in.
In Which We Let Sleeping Ducks Lie.
Confronted with his own sleeping form, Noel did what you might expect: he tried to shake himself awake.
This did not work either way he tried it.
"Hm," said Kitman. "Excuse me a second, please, Noel." He reached out and took both Noels by their respective wrists, and looked pensive.
I took the opportunity to do the sort of surreptitious nosey glancing around you do when you unexpectedly find yourself in someone else's bedroom.
It was certainly the neatest bedroom I'd ever been in. To be sure, Noel had an unfair advantage in the socks and underwear department since he didn't have any to leave lying around, but the blue carpet was like new, the blue satin wallpaper was unpocked by pushpin holes, and the contents of pressed wood bookcases were neatly alphabetized. Despite all this abnormality, though, I still had a peculiar feeling of deja vu.
"Hm," said Kitman again, releasing the wrists he was holding. "Synchronized pulses." He lifted up the sheets and laid his ear on the belly of Noel2.
"What are you doing?" said Noel with the squinting curiosity you develop in such situations.
"Just checking," said Kitman. "When did you — he — go to bed, exactly?"
Noel looked to the clock-radio next to the lamp. "Nine o'clock last night. Why?"
Kitman frowned at the digital display. "Three in the afternoon now. Raise the windowshade, would you, Williams? Just to be sure. Not too high, though."
I followed his pointing finger and turned to the window. It had blue curtains at its sides and a matching blue shade. The shade was taped down to keep the light out, and I had to rip it loose before I could get anywhere with it, but eventually I raised it about a pane's worth, allowing afternoon sun to stream in.
"Interesting," said Kitman, still listening intently. "After eighteen hours without food I'd expect some gurgling going on in there, but it's silent." He straightened up, while I got down on one knee to have a peek at the world outside. "I observe no signs of hunger or thirst or...well, you know. He's in perfect repose. I wouldn't be."
I certainly wasn't, because my deja vu had increased tenfold. Up to a point, the aforementioned world outside was Abelton Park. The view was very nearly the view from my own bedroom window. There were more trees, but not many more. The houses were smaller, but not spectacularly. There were no sidewalks — carefully maintained, very lush grass ran all the way from the houses to the curb — but the driveways and streets were just like those at home...
...except for the gutters, which I gradually realized were completely clean. The distinctive sparkle of little bits of broken glass from carelessly discarded bottles was missing.
A wavelet of alienness washed around my feet. This wasn't quite a human world; it was a little bit...eyrie.
"What do you think?" said Noel.
"I'll let you know when I start," I said. A movement from down the street caught my eye, and I saw that there was a small, barefoot duck walking from house to house delivering newspapers. "Afternoon delivery on weekends? Lucky duck."
I stood up and turned around, noted the placement of the closed doors to the hallway and closet, and decided that the reason for my deja vu was simply that except for the improbable tidiness and monochromatic color scheme the room was familiar because it was very nearly mine. Scaled down, but still a Cape Hatteras style bedroom.
"I'm concerned," announced Kitman.
"About — me?" said Noel.
"In a word, yes," said Kitman, and pointed at the nightstand. It was ordinary enough, being mostly legs with two shelves, one on top and another a few inches above the floor. Stacked neatly on the lower shelf were a few books, and it was these that Kitman was drawing attention to.
Lucid Dreaming: A Practical How-To Guide
The Universal Unconscious And You
The Intelligent Person's Guide To Self-Hypnosis
"I think maybe you overindulged," said Kitman.
"They never worked before!" said Noel.
"Even so," replied Kitman. "I'm no doctor, but the you in the bed is pretty clearly in some approximation of a coma, apparently because you — well, exist, I suppose. He seems stable enough, but is anyone likely to look in on you? Notice that you're out of commission?"
"Um," said Noel. "I rent this room from my parents, but they're on vacation in Key West. I was alone in the house."
"What about your brother?"
"He lives in Michigan. Only comes by on holidays." Noel snapped his bill a few times. "Tonight I was going to go to the movies with my friend Robin from work. He might come by if I don't show up."
"You might want to postpone," said Kitman.
"I'll go call him," said Noel, and left the room to use the phone.
"Is there a plan, Kitman?" I asked.
He raised the vaxillator. "Further investigation is clearly required," he said, and fell to watching Noel2 sleep.
I turned my attention to the contents of Noel's bookshelves, which proved to be a testimony to his endurance and dedication in the pursuit of mystic trash.
The intriguingly titled Osiris Realized was the hypnotically transcribed dictation of the god in question, but he had apparently come down with logorrhea since his retirement as it took him a two pages just to say that spirit is immaterial.
Pyramid Storm: The Emperor's Return promised to be the revelations of a former ruler of Atlantis, but if the section I read was any indication it was more of a collection of complaints about how staff members of the post-reincarnation organization he had founded had forced him off the board of directors in a managerial coup.
I Remember Anuria was about how to escape from the material world to the Urethral Plane of Catheteria, but wasn't clear on why anyone would want to.
I had just picked up a book on the zodiac out of sheer desperation when Noel returned.
"You can keep that one," he said. "My brother gave it to me."
"Astrology's not your cup of tea?"
"If astrology were valid," said Kitman, "Isaac Newton would have been the Isaac Newton of astrology."
"What he said," said Noel.
I returned the book to the shelf, idly thinking that Newton Blackspring could clean up with a distribution deal on this planet, and something bubbled up in my mind. "Kitman," I said, "do you know the term 'tao dreamer'?"
"Thankfully, no. Why do you?"
"I read it in one of the books in your third-floor bathroom. Blackspring's Compendium of Esoteric Jargon and Appalling Neologisms, or something like that. A tao dreamer is a shaman who dreams a second shaman into physical existence, only to find that the second shaman was dreaming him all along. Think of the yin-yang symbol."
"Eliminate the middleman! " said Noel. "I'm not hungry because I'm in my own dream."
Kitman sighed. "Could we have a moment of science, please?"
"Okay," we said.
"Good," said Kitman, getting to his feet, and proceeded to count off on his fingers. "Inference, reference, conference. Observe the facts, go to the books, ask the experts. We need to do more of all three, preferably now. Did you get hold of Robin?"
"Yes I did, " said Noel. "That's why I took so long. I, um, sort of blabbed the whole story."
"Oboy," said Kitman. "Bet that went over well."
"No, it's all right," said Noel happily. "Robin will be holding the fort here and all that sort of thing while I'm...out. Robin's very understanding. And helpful." He paused and grinned. "And jealous."
•
"And so, in the fullness of time, we returned to the land of sock-molesters," I said.
"And then things got odd," said Kitman, staggering into the room with an armload of quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore.
"Why," said Kathleen, "do you two keep saying that?"
Kitman dumped the books in a stack on the coffee table. "Because it keeps being true. Don't believe me? You wait until you see the basement." He picked a copy of Oblique Zoology off the top of the stack and blew on it. Dust clouds failed to appear.
"Should I, in fact, go see the basement?" inquired Kathleen. "If it's odd, and so on."
"Yes, go ahead," said Kitman. "I'll do all the hard work, you go on and enjoy yourself."
"Okay," said Kathleen.
