Biblical by Christopher Galt Read Free Book Online Page A

the observed. Did you know that?”
    “I’m not here just to observe, Gabriel, I’m here to help.”
    “To stop me jumping.”
    “To help you,” repeated Corbin. “Help you find a way out of this.”
    “Like I said: to stop me jumping. We live in a superpositional universe of infinite possibilities, so you’ll get the outcome you want: I won’t jump. And I will jump. I’ll jump and survive. I’ll jump and be killed. It’s not a choice. All of these things will happen. And none of them will.”
    “Why are you on the roof, Gabriel? Why are you here?”
    “I’m not here. I don’t exist.”
    “That’s a strange thing to say. Of course you’re here.”
    “Strange? Not really. I know I’m not here.”
    “Have you taken drugs tonight, Gabriel?”
    “The K-hole?” Gabriel laughed quietly. “No, Peter, I haven’t taken Ketamine or anything else. I’m not suffering from drug-induced depersonalization. I’m just really not here.”
    “I see you, Gabriel. That means you’re here.”
    “Does it?” Gabriel said, then gasped suddenly, swaying forward slightly. Everyone looked to see what had startled him. There was nothing. For a moment the young naked man stood frozen, then the tension eased from his pose.
    “Does it?” he repeated, still as if Corbin was distracting him from watching some event unfold on some vast TV screen visible only to him. “I’m here because you see me here, is that it? Does that mean if you look away, I won’t be?”
    “You were here before I came up onto the roof, Gabriel. You were here fifteen minutes ago when the police called me. You were here fifteen minutes before that when the security guard called the police. I couldn’t see you then, but you were here, weren’t you?”
    And before that, thought Macbeth, remembering the taxi driver’s account of the distracted passenger he’d taken to Christian Science Plaza.
    The young man frowned. “I remember
being
here fifteen minutes ago. I remember
being
before you looked at me. But I am remembering that now. That memory of existence has been generated in this moment. Maybe it’s the present memory that’s real, not the past existence. Because I
remember
being here fifteen minutes ago doesn’t mean I really was here fifteen minutes ago.”
    “Do you know something, Gabriel?” said Corbin. “I don’t like heights. I mean, I
really
don’t like heights. Never have. Why don’t you step back from the edge? Just a little bit …” Corbin glanced meaningfully over to the cops standing beside Macbeth. “No one is going to come close. It’s just so that we can talk. You know, without me being all scared about the height.”
    “Height is a dimension, a measure. It isn’t the measure you’rescared of, you’re afraid of the force the measure exerts on your mass. Gravity. And gravity is nothing to be afraid of.”
    “I don’t know about that, Gabriel,” said Corbin, “I’ve seen gravity make a real mess of people falling from a height lower than this.”
    “Of the four fundamental forces of the universe, gravity is the weakest. By far the weakest. The other three forces push it around. Bend it and twist it and fuck it up. If you want to be afraid of a force, Doc, be afraid of electromagnetism, or the strong nuclear force. Be afraid of the forces you can’t see or feel but hold you together and can tear you apart. Not gravity.” Gabriel sighed. “If you don’t like heights, you can step farther back. I like it here. Is Father Mullachy still here?”
    “I am still here, my son.” The priest stood up, casting a nervous eye over the building’s edge.
    “What’s your name, Father? I mean your first name.”
    “Paul,” said the priest. “My name is Paul.”
    The naked man laughed. “Peter, Paul and Gabriel … two saints and an angel. Do you believe in angels, Father?”
    “I believe God is manifest in many ways, Gabriel. Many ways to many people.”
    “I didn’t ask if you believed in God. I didn’t ask