When he woke up in the morning, the boy was in the middle of the bed, alone. His pillow was under his head, as always. He raised himself slowly and looked around the room. At first glance, the room seemed unchanged. It had the same desk, the same bureau, the same closet, the same floor lamp. The hands of the wall clock pointed to six-twenty. But the boy knew something was strange. It might all look the same, but this was not the same place where he had gone to sleep the previous night. The air, the light, the sounds, the smells, were all just a little bit different from before. Other people might not notice, but the boy knew. He stripped off the covers and looked at himself. He held his hands up and moved each of his fingers in turn. They moved as they should. And his legs moved. He felt no pain or itching. He slipped out of bed and went to the toilet. When he was through peeing, he stood at the sink and looked at his face in the mirror. He pulled off his pajama top, stood on a chair, and looked at the reflection of his fair-skinned little body. He found nothing unusual.
Yet something was different. He felt as if his self had been put into a new container. He knew that he was still not fully accustomed to this new body of his. There was something about this one, he felt, that just didn't match his original self. A sudden feeling of helplessness overtook him, and he tried to call for his mother, but the word would not emerge from his throat. His vocal cords were unable to stir the air, as if the very word mother had disappeared from the world. Before long, the boy realized that the word was not what had disappeared.
12 Ms Secret Cure
SHOW BUSINESS WORLD TAINTED BY OCCULT [From The ---- Monthly, November] ... These occult cures, which have become a kind of craze among members of the entertainment world, are spread primarily by word of mouth, but in some cases they bear the mark of certain secret organizations.
Take, for example, M: 33, debuted ten years ago as supporting actress in a television dramatic series, well received, leading roles ever since in TV and films, six years ago married boy wonder real estate developer, no problems in first two years of marriage. His business did well, and she recorded some fine performances on film. But then the sideline dinner club and boutique he opened in her name ran into trouble and he started bouncing checks, for which she became liable. Never eager to go into business to begin with, M had more or less had her arm twisted by her husband, who wanted to expand. One view has it that the husband was taken in by a kind of scam. In addition, there had always been a serious rift between M and her in-laws.
Soon the gossip spread about the trouble M was having with her husband, and before long the two were living separately. They concluded formal divorce proceedings two years ago after an arbitrator helped them settle their debts, but after that M started showing signs of depression, and the need for therapy put her into virtual retirement. According to one source at the studio she worked for, M was regularly plagued by serious delusions after the divorce.
She ruined her health with antidepressants, and it got to the point where people were saying, Shes had it as an actress. Our source observed, She had lost the powers of concentration you need to act, and it was shocking what happened to her looks. It didn't help, either, that she was basically a serious person who would dwell on things to the point where it would affect her mentally. At least her financial settlement had left her in pretty good shape, so she could make it for a while without working.
One distant relative of Ms was the wife of a famous politician and former cabinet minister. M was practically a daughter to this person, who introduced her to a woman who practiced a form of spiritual healing for a very limited, upper-class clientele. M went to her for a year on a regular basis for treatment of her depression, but exactly what this treatment consisted of, no one knows. M herself kept it absolutely secret. Whatever it was, it seems to have worked. It wasn't long before M was able to stop taking anti-depressants, as a result of which she lost the strange puffiness the medicine had caused, her hair regained its fullness, and her beauty returned. She recovered mentally, as well, and gradually began acting again.
At that point, she stopped the treatments.
In October of this year, however, just as the memory of her nightmare was beginning to fade, M had one episode during which, for no apparent reason, her symptoms flared up again.
The timing couldn't have been worse: she had a major acting job just a few days ahead of her, something she could not have carried off in her present state. M contacted the woman and re- quested the usual treatment, but the woman told her that she was no longer in practice. I'm sorry, she said, but I cant do anything for you. I'm not qualified anymore. I've lost my powers. There is someone I can introduce you to, but you'll have to swear absolute secrecy. If you say one word about it to anyone, you'll be sorry. Is that clear?
M was supposedly instructed to go to a certain place, where she was brought into the presence of a man with a bluish mark on his face. The man,,around thirty, never spoke while she was there, but his treatment was incredibly effective. M refused to divulge what she paid for the session, but we can imagine that the consultation fee was quite substantial.
This is what we know about the mysterious treatment, as told by M to a trusted very close friend. She first had to go to a certain downtown hotel, where she met a young man whose job it was to guide her to the healer. They left from a special underground VIP parking lot in a big black car and went to the place where the treatment was performed. As far as the treatment itself is concerned, however, we have been able to learn nothing. M is said to have told her friend, Those people have awesome powers. Something terrible could happen to me if I broke my promise.
M paid only one visit to the place, and she has not since suffered any seizures. We tried approaching M directly for more information on the treatment and the mysterious woman, but as expected, she refused to see us. According to one well-informed source, this organization generally avoids contacts with the entertainment world and concentrates on the more secretive worlds of politics and finance. Our contacts in the performing arts have, so far, yielded no more information....
13 The Waiting Man
What Couldn't Be Shaken Off
No Man Is an Island
Eight o'clock went by and everything was dark when I opened the back gate and stepped out into the alley. I had to squeeze through sideways. Less than three feet high, the gate had been cleverly camouflaged in the corner of the fence so as to be undetectable from the outside. The alley emerged from the night, illuminated as always by the cold white light of the mercury lamp in the garden of May Kasahara's house.
I clicked the gate shut and slipped down the alley. Through one fence after another, I caught glimpses of people in their dining rooms and living rooms, eating and watching TV dramas. Food smells drifted into the alley through kitchen windows and exhaust fans. One teenage boy was practicing a fast passage on his electric guitar, with the volume turned down.
In a second-floor window, a tiny girl was studying at her desk, an earnest expression on her face. A married couple in a heated argument sent their voices out to the alley. A baby was screaming. A telephone rang. Reality spilled out into the alley like water from an overfilled bowl-as sound, as smell, as image, as plea, as response.
I wore my usual tennis shoes to keep my steps silent. My pace could be neither too fast nor too slow. The important thing was not to attract peoples attention, not to let that reality pick up on my passing presence. I knew all the corners, all the obstructions. Even in the dark I could slip down the alley without bumping into anything. When I finally reached the back of my house, I stopped, looked around, and climbed over the low wall.