Lucius Shepard
Green Eyes
I have no more desire to express
The old relationships of love fulfilled
Or stultified, capacity for pain,
Nor to say gracefully all that poets have said
Of one or other of the old compulsions.
For now the times are gathered for confession.
Alun Lewis
Prologue
BIAP Interview No 1251
Host Name: Paul Pelizzarro
BIAP Name: Frank Juskit
Length of Interview: fifty-seven minutes
Interpretation: None. See video.
Comments/Personal Reactions/Other: I am, as usual, both saddened by the death and repelled by the patient’s actions, by my dutiful response; in fact, by the nature of the work: the tricks we play and the patients themselves, comic in their weakness, horrible in their desire for life and the flash of ardor that ends them… Green fireballs lodged in their eye sockets, their minds going nova with the joy of a lifetime crammed into a few minutes. Still, I find that the patients in their compressed, excited states are far more interesting than any of my acquaintances, and I believe that even relative failures such as Mr Juskit would - had they lived a full span at this accelerated pace - have accomplished a great deal more than they have related. Their repellent aspects, in my opinion, are outweighed by the intensity of their expression. For this reason I wish to withdraw my resignation tendered yesterday, October 24, 1986.
Therapist’s Signature: Jocundra Verret
Staff Evaluation: Let’s assign Verret to a slow-burner as soon as possible, but not just the first one that comes along. I’d like to see a photograph and data sheet on each new slow-burner, and from that material I’ll make an appropriate selection.
A. Edman
Chapter 1
From Conjure Men: My Work With Ezawa at Tulane by Anthony Edman, MD, PhD.
… I did not see my first ‘zombie’ until my second day at Tulane when Ezawa permitted me to witness an interview. He ushered me into a cubicle occupied by several folding chairs and switched on a two-way mirror. The room beyond the mirror was decorated in the style of a turn-of-the-century bordello: red velvet chairs and sofa perched on clawed feet, their walnut frames carved into filigree; brass urns holding peacock plumes; burgundy drapes and maroon-striped wallpaper; a branching chandelier upheld by a spider of black iron. The light was as bright as a photographer’s stage. Though ‘zombies’ - at least the short-termers - do not see clearly until the end, they react to the color and the glare, and ultimately the decor serves to amplify the therapist’s persuasive powers.
In passing, I should mention that I considered the lack of a suitable chair within the observation cubicle a personal affront. Being a compactly built man himself, it might be assumed Ezawa had simply committed an oversight and not taken my girth into account; but I cannot accept the proposal that this meticulous and polite gentleman would overlook any detail unless by design. He had exerted all his influence to block my approval as psychiatric chief of the project, considering my approach too radical, and I believe he enjoyed watching me perch with one ham on, the other off, for the better part of an hour. Truthfully, though, what I was to see beyond the mirror banished all thought of my discomfort, and had it been necessary to balance on a shooting stick and peer between the shoulders of a crowd, I would still have felt myself privileged.
The therapist, Jocundra Verret, sat on the edge of the sofa, her hands folded in her lap. She was a shade under six feet tall, slender, impassively beautiful (therapists are chosen, in part, on the basis of physical attractiveness), and dressed in a nurse’s white tunic and slacks. She looked younger than her twenty-five years, long-limbed, solemn and large-eyed. Dark brown hair wound through by strands of gold fell to her shoulders, and her skin had the pale olive cast of a Renaissance figure. The most notable feature of her appearance, though, was the extent of her makeup. Lipstick, eyeliner and mascara had been applied so as to transform her face into an exotic mask, one which evoked the symmetry of design upon a butterfly’s wing. This gilding the lily was an essential part of the therapist’s visual presentation, and similar makeup was utilized during the early stages of a slow-burner’s existence, gradually being minimized as their perceptions sharpened.
Jocundra’a movements were graceful and unhurried, and her expressions developed slowly into distant smiles and contemplative frowns, giving the impression of a calm and controlled personality. I later learned in my work with her that this impression was half a lie. Indeed, she viewed the world as a system of orderly processes through which one must maneuvre by reducing experience to its logical minimum and analyzing it; but her logical bias, her sense of orderliness, her passivity in engaging life - these traits were counterbalanced by a deep romantic strain which caused her to be high-strung and, as has been publicized, occasioned her to acts of recklessness.
I asked Ezawa whether it was difficult to recruit therapists, and he replied that though the combination of physical beauty, lack of squeamishness, and a scientific background was uncommon, the turnover rate was low and there was a waiting list of applicants. I further asked if he had observed a general similarity of history or personality among the therapists, and he said with a trace of embarrassment that many had a history of checkered academic careers and interest in the occult. Jocundra was fairly typical in this regard. She had done undergraduate work in physics, switched to anthropology in graduate school, and had been involved in a study of voodoo cults before joining the project. Ezawa, for whom the truth appeared to consist of microbiological data, exhibited little interest in the psychological puzzles posed by our subjects, none whatsoever in the therapists, and constantly sought to downplay the mysterious aspects of the project. In light of this, I found curious his use of the term ‘zombie’ rather than the official ‘Bacterially Induced Artificial Personality’ or its acronym: it signalled some backsliding from his position of scientific rigor.
‘I must admit,’ he said, ‘the process has elements in common with a voodoo recipe. We do isolate the bacteria from dirt taken from the old slave graveyards, but that’s simply because of the biodegradable coffins… They permit the decomposing tissues to interact with microorganisms in the soil.’
Once the bacteria was isolated, Ezawa explained, a DNA extract from goat’s rue was introduced into the growth medium and the bacteria was then induced to take up chromosomes and DNA fragments from the goat’s rue, thereby mediating recombination between the two types of DNA. The resultant strain was injected via a heart pump into the cerebellum and temporal lobes of a corpse less than an hour dead, whereupon the bacteria began pre-transcriptional processing of the corpse’s genetic complement, bringing the body sufficiently alive so it could begin the post-transcriptional processing. Twenty-four hours after injection the ‘zombie’ was ready for the therapist.
An orderly entered the room beyond the mirror, pushing a pale, heavy-set man in a wheelchair: jowly, middle-aged, with receding brown hair and a five o’clock shadow. He wore a green hospital gown. The orderly assisted him onto the sofa, and the man struggled feebly to rise, kicking aside the coffee table. His name, I saw from Ezawa’s clipboard, had been Paul Pelizzarro, a vagrant, though he would soon begin to recall a different name, a different history. Random fragments of the transforming DNA in the recombinant bacteria coded for an entirely new personality, or so Ezawa expressed it. When I suggested that the personality might not be entirely new, that we might be observing wish-fulfilment on the cellular level, he gave me a startled look, as if suddenly suspecting -I was addled - or so I characterized it at the time, though in retrospect it is clear he knew far more than I about the nature of our subjects and could not possibly have been surprised by my obvious interpretation. Perhaps he was simply reacting to my perspicacity.