Architects are constantly concocting ways to expand the building, and construction workers are constantly implementing those plans. Some people say the building looks like it's growing right before your eyes."
Betty makes a left turn into the Registry parking lot. She stops the car in front of one of the building's multiple entrances. "Do you want me to walk you inside? It can get kind of confusing in there," Betty says.
"No, I'd rather go myself, if you don't mind," Liz replies.
Betty nods. "I'll pick you up around five, then. Try to have a good day, doll."
A Circle and a Line
Although Liz has arrived at the Registry fifteen minutes early, it takes her nearly twentyfive minutes to find the Office of Acclimation. The maps posted at the elevator shaft are long outdated, and no one who works at the building seems able to give proper directions. When Liz attempts to retrace her footsteps, she keeps finding new doorways that she could swear weren't there five minutes earlier.
At random (for she now believes in the power of randomness as only the suddenly deceased can), Liz decides to give one of the new doorways a try. She finds a hallway and, at the end of the hallway, another door. An unofficial-looking cardboard sign indicates that behind this door lies the temporary home of the Office of Acclimation.
Liz opens the door. Inside, she finds a busy, perfectly ordinary-looking reception area. (As Betty had said, many people are still wearing white pajamas.) If not for a faded, rather macabre poster hanging on the wall, Liz might have thought she was at her doctor's office. The poster depicts a smiling gray-haired woman sitting up in a mahogany coffin. Printed on the poster are the following words:
SO YOU'RE DEAD, NOW WHAT?
The Office of Acclimation is here to help.
The peevish-looking woman at the front desk reminds Liz of the poster; she, too, is faded, dated, and grim. She wears her hair in a 1960s beehive and her skin has a greenish tint. A name-plate on her desk reads yetta brown.
"Excuse me," Liz says, "I have an appointment at "
Yetta Brown clears her throat and nods her head in the direction of a bell that sits on the desk. A sign by the bell reads, please ring for assistance!!!
Liz obeys. Yetta Brown clears her throat again and plasters a broad fake smile across her face.
"Yes, how may I help you?"
"I have an appointment at eight "
Yetta's fake smile turns into a definitive frown. "Why didn't you say so? You're five minutes late for the video! Make haste, make haste, make haste!"
"I'm sorry," Liz apologizes, "I couldn't find "
Yetta interrupts Liz again. "I have no time for your apologies."
Liz dislikes being interrupted. "You shouldn't inter "
"I have no time for small talk."
Yetta deposits Liz in a dusty, darkened room with a battered VCR and TV The room, which is more like a supply closet, barely has enough space for its one chair. "I will return for you when the video is over," Yetta says. "Oh yes, enjoy the film," she adds in a perfunctory manner as she walks out the door.
Liz sits in the lone chair. The video is like the dry informational videos that Liz occasionally watched for health in ninth grade or driver's ed in tenth grade on subjects like "Sexual Education"
and "Traffic Safety."
The video begins with a talking cartoon parrot. "I'm Polly," says the parrot. "If you're watching this video, that means you're dead dead dead! Greetings and salutations, dead people!" Liz finds the animation primitive and Polly annoying.
With the detestable Polly as guide, the video covers some of what Liz and Betty have already discussed: how everyone in Elsewhere ages backward and becomes a baby, and how the babies are sent down the River when they are seven days old, back to Earth. "On Earth," Polly squawks, "man ages from the time he is born to an indeterminate point in the future, when he will die die die." The video shows a cartoon baby becoming a boy, then a man, then an old man, then dead.
"On Elsewhere," Polly continues, "a life is more finite: man dies, and ages backward until he is a baby." The cartoon old man becomes a man, then a boy, then a baby. "When man becomes a baby again, he is ready to be sent back to Earth, where the process begins again." The cartoon baby becomes a boy, becomes a man, becomes an old man. Liz imagines her life depicted on a cartoon time line. I would only make it somewhere between cartoon boy and cartoon man, she thinks. And then she wonders if boys are always boys, and if girls are always girls, and if dogs are always dogs.
The video also ventures into subject matter that Liz and Betty had not discussed in much detail.
Liz learns the proper way to state her age: your current age followed by the number of years you have been in Elsewhere. Liz's current age is fifteen-zero. She also learns that her new "birthday"
is January 4. It is a somewhat confusing calculation that involves adding the number of days past one's last birthday to the day one died.
She learns that no one new is born in Elsewhere, but no one dies either. People get sick and hurt, but with time, everyone eventually heals. Consequently, sickness isn't much of an issue here.
She learns that you are forbidden to make Contact with people on Earth ("Contact is a no-no! It's a no-no!" squawks Polly, waving his yellow beak furiously from side to side), but that you could view Earth from the Observation Decks anytime. Observation Decks, like the one on the SS Nile, aren't just for funerals. They are also located on docked boats and lighthouses scattered throughout Elsewhere. For the price of just one eternim, Liz could view whoever or whatever she wants back on Earth for five minutes. Liz decides right then to ask Betty to drive her to the nearest Observation Deck tonight.
She learns that everyone has to choose an avocation. From what Liz could tell, an avocation is basically like a job, except you are actually supposed to like doing it. Liz shakes her head at that part. How does she know what she wants to do? Not to mention, at her age, what is she even trained for?
She learns the official definition of acclimation. "Acclimation," yells Polly, "is the process by which the newly deceased become residents of Elsewhere. So welcome welcome welcome, dead people!"
She learns many, many, many other things that she is sure she will probably forget.
The end of the video deals more with metaphysical issues on Elsewhere. It talks about how human existence is like a circle and a line at the same time. It is a circle, because everything that was old would be new and everything that was new became old. It is a line because the circle stretched out indefinitely, infinitely even. People die. People are born. People die again. Each birth and death is a little circle, and the sum of all those little circles is a life and a line. During this discussion of human existence, Liz finds herself drifting off to sleep.
She wakes several minutes later to the sound of Yetta Brown admonishing her. "I hope you didn't sleep through the whole thing! Get up! Get up now!"
Liz jumps to her feet. "I'm sorry. I'm just really exhausted from dying, and "
Yetta Brown interrupts. "It doesn't matter to me; your behavior only hurts yourself." Yetta Brown sighs. "You have your meeting with your acclimation counselor, Aldous Ghent, now. Mr. Ghent is a very important man. So, you know, it wouldn't do for you to fall asleep during your meeting with him."
"I honestly don't think I missed much," Liz apologizes.
"All right. Tell me why human existence is like a circle and a line," Yetta demands.
Liz racks her brain. "It's a circle because, um . . . Earth is a sphere, which is kind of like a, um, three-dimensional circle?"
Yetta shakes her head in disgust. "Exactly as I thought!"
"Look, I'm sorry about falling asleep." Liz speaks very quickly to avoid being interrupted. "Maybe I can watch the end of the video again?"