Jim and the Flims Read Online Free PDF Page A

she said.
    And then they wheeled her down the hall.
    I sat in the waiting room. I’d look away from the clock for as long as I could stand it, and when I looked back, the minute hand wouldn’t have moved at all. I prayed, wanting to connect to the one mind I’ve always imagined to be glowing behind the scenes. But what if Val and the baby died? I looked back at the clock. It still hadn’t moved. Hundreds of people came and went, hundreds of names were called. And then, all at once, it was my turn.
    Dr. Nguyen looked shaken, unsure. “I’m very sorry,” she said. “Val’s gone.”
    â€œBut—”
    Dr. Nguyen led me into a windowless office off the waiting room and got me to sit down.
    â€œIt was a very aggressive cancer,” said the doctor, slowly rubbing her hands together—as if wanting to wash them. “A florid pathology.”
    â€œBut where’s Val? Can I see her? And what about the baby?”
    â€œIncinerated,” said Dr. Nguyen, pausing after the word. “As a biohazard measure. I’m very sorry, Mr. Oster. I know this is difficult for you.”
    â€œIncinerated? Like trash? Val and our baby?” I was on my feet. “My whole life? Incinerated?”
    â€œPlease, Mr. Oster. We’ll get you a relaxant. You should call someone to help get you home.”
    I threw back my head and howled.
    Three days later, I had a funeral for Val. Chang and Droog helped me dig a hole for Val’s ashes in the sandy soil of a bluff above Four Mile Beach where she and I had camped. One of Val’s friends was studying to be a rabbi, and she said some traditional words. I filled the hole and set a little pyramid-shaped rock on top. And then the mourners came to my cottage for a reception. My landlords, Dick and Diane Simly, stayed away, even though I’d invited them.
    I served bread and lentil soup, the same as the meal I’d had with Val the night she’d gotten pregnant. And Val’s friends brought some other stuff, like cold cuts and roast chicken. Funeral meats. I absolutely couldn’t believe this was happening.
    We sat in my back yard, drinking and smoking a little pot, with the guests chatting, and me not saying much. Whenever I tried to talk, my voice broke. To try and keep it together, I kept focusing on tiny visual details like a pebble or a twig, imagining that God and maybe Val were hiding inside.
    And then Skeeves, of all people, showed up. With the barest of nods, he walked past me, got himself a beer in my kitchen, and started nosing around on the side porch where I kept my defunct scanning-tunneling microscope. I could dimly see him through the screen, touching things, picking things up. Skeeves rarely held still.
    A minute later he was back outside, with his beer in one hand and his other hand in the pocket of his baggy shorts.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” I asked him in a low voice as he came near. “You didn’t know Val.”
    â€œBut I’m involved,” said Skeeves. “I told Ira to get you that sharp tip. Chang told me about the sad outcome.” He turned his head like a bird, fixing me with one of his oddly flat eyes. “Did you get a chance to see the thing that was growing inside her?”
    â€œWhat the fuck kind of question is that?” I yelled. I didn’t like being reminded that my half-assed experiments might have caused Val’s death. I started up out of my chair, meaning to throttle Skeeves into silence.
    â€œJim!” Val’s rabbi friend caught hold of my arm.
    â€œTouchy guy,” said Skeeves, and ambled back out to the street.
    The guilt train was running in my head, and I couldn’t make it stop. The doctors said the growth in Val was cancer—but I’d seen that glowing dot on the night the lightning had struck. My overamped STM machine had made some kind of hole in the fabric of real-ity—and an evil parasite had drifted through.