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“Gather what?” I asked, and thought of stories I’d read (and seen on TV) about aliens kidnapping folks and sticking probes up their asses. “People?”
“No. Other things. Items. But not like this.” He reached into his bag and showed us his empty beer can. “This is special to me and means nothing. There’s a good word for it, perhaps French. A venir?”
“Souvenir,” I said.
“Yes. It is my souvenir of this remarkable night. We visit yard sales.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
“They are called different things in different places. In Italy, vendita in cantiere. Samoan, fanua fa’tau. We take some of these things to remember, some to study. We have film of your Kennedy’s death from rifleshot. We have an autographed picture of Juhjudi.”
“Wait.” Butch was frowning. “Are you talking about Judge Judy?”
“Yes, Juhjudi. We have a picture of Emmett Till, a young man with his face gone. Mickey Mouse and his Club. We have a jet engine. That came from a repository of discarded objects.”
They’re dump pickers, I thought. Not much different from Rennie Lacasse.
“We take these things to remember your world, which will be gone soon. We do the same on other worlds, but there aren’t many. The universe is cold. Intelligent life is rare.”
I didn’t care how rare it was. “How soon will ours be gone? Do you know, or are you only guessing?” And before he could reply: “You can’t know. Not for sure.”
“It may be what you call a century, if you are, as you say, ‘lucky.’ Which is only an eyeblink in the sweep of time.”
“I don’t believe that,” Butch said flatly. “We’ve got our problems, but we’re not suicidal.” Then, perhaps thinking of Buddhist monks who had been setting themselves on fire in Vietnam not so long ago: “Not most of us.”
“It’s inevitable,” the young man said. He looked regretful. Maybe he was thinking of the Mona Lisa, or the pyramids. Or maybe just of no more beer cans, no more autographed pictures of Juhjudi. “When intelligence outraces emotional stability, it’s always just a matter of time.” He pointed to the corner of the cabin. “You’re children, playing with weapons.” He stood up. “I must go. This is for you. A gift. Our way of saying thank you for saving Ylla.”
He held out the gray case. Butch took it and looked it over. “I don’t see how to open it.”
I took it. He was right. There was no hinge and no lid.
“Breathe on the wave,” the young man said. “Not now, after I’ve gone. We give you a key of breath because you gave Ylla yours. You gave her part of your life.”
“This is for both of us?” I asked. Only Butch had given the woman mouth-to-mouth, after all.
“Yes.”
“What does it actually do?”
“There is no word for what it does except primal. A way to use what you are not using, because of…” He bent forward, brow furrowed, then looked up. “Because of the noise in your lives. Because of your thoughts. Thoughts are pointless. Worse, dangerous.”
I was bemused. “Does it grant wishes? Like in a fairy tale?”
He laughed, then looked surprised… as if he hadn’t known he could laugh. “Nothing can give you what isn’t already there. This is axiomatic.”
He went to the door, then looked back.
“I’m sorry for you. Your world is a living breath in a universe that is mostly filled with deadlights.”
He left. I waited for the light to flood in, but it didn’t. Except for the gray case Butch was now holding, the whole interlude might never have occurred.
“Lare, did that actually happen?”
I pointed to the case.
He smiled, the reckless one that went right back to when we were kids, racing up and down the Suicide Stairs in Castle Rock, feeling them shake beneath our pounding sneakers. “Want to try it?”
“There’s an old saying, beware of Greeks bearing gifts…”
