First Person Peculiar by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online Page A

lie?”
    “More to the point,” I said, “what if she is right?”
    I could tell both of them had been thinking the same thing.
    “If she is,” said Milt as if trying to make himself believe it, “I expect to see you both in temple next week.”
    “Church,” said Patrick. And then he added softly, “I hope.”
    The elevator arrived, the doors slid open, but none of us got on. We just stood there, each lost in his own thoughts.
    Finally Milt said, “You know, I think perhaps we should see her one more time before we leave.”
    “I agree,” I said promptly.
    “Me, too,” added Patrick.
    We weren’t there long, maybe two or three minutes. Then we signaled for the nurse.
    “What happened?” the nurse asked, as we stood back and let her approach Helen’s bed.
    “She suddenly moaned and seemed to have trouble breathing,” said Patrick, as the nurse signaled a Code Blue, summoning what I like to call the Resurrection Squad. We stuck around, but it was obvious that this time her death was permanent.
    Finally they covered her face, and the three of us walked slowly to the door.
    “To come back from drowning, just to die again when she seemed on the road to health,” said Milt to the nurse. “Such a shame.”
    “A tragedy,” added Patrick, as the three of us headed back to the elevator.
    “A pity,” I agreed.
    ***

I wrote this in 1984, for a chapbook collection titled Unauthorized Autobiographies. It was the first of my stories to be selected for a Best of the Year anthology (by Jerry Pournelle, if you need someone to blame).

    Me and My Shadow
    It all began when—
    No. Strike that.
    I don’t know when it all began. Probably I never will.
    But it began the second time when a truck backfired and I hit the sidewalk with the speed and grace of an athlete, which surprised the hell out of me since I’ve been a very un athletic businessman ever since the day I was born—or born again, depending on your point of view.
    I got up, brushed myself off, and looked around. About a dozen pedestrians (though it felt like a hundred) were staring at me, and I could tell what each of them was thinking: Is this guy just some kind of nut, or has he maybe been Erased? And if he’s been Erased, have I ever met him before? Do I owe him?
    Of course, even if we had met before, they couldn’t recognize me now. I know. I’ve spent almost three years trying to find out who I was before I got Erased—but along with what they did to my brain, they gave me a new face and wiped my fingerprints clean. I’m a brand new man: two years, eleven months, and seventeen days old. I am (fanfare and trumpets, please!) ***William Jordan***. Not a real catchy name, I’ll admit, but it’s the only one I’ve got these days.
    I had another name once. They told me not to worry about it, that all my memories had been expunged and that I couldn’t dredge up a single fact no matter how hard I tried, not even if I took a little Sodium-P from a hypnotist, and after a few weeks I had to agree with them—which didn’t mean that I stopped trying.
    Erasures never stop trying.
    Maybe the doctors and technicians at the Institute are right. Maybe I’m better off not knowing. Maybe the knowledge of what I did would drive the New Improved Me to suicide. But let me tell you: whatever I did, whatever any of us did (oh, yes, I speak to other Erasures; we spent a lot of time hanging around the newsdisk morgues and Missing Persons Bureaus and aren’t all that hard to spot), it would be easier to live with the details than the uncertainty.
    Example:
    “Good day to you, Madam. Lovely weather we’re having. Please excuse a delicate inquiry, but did I rape your infant daughter four years ago? Sodomize your sons? Slit your husband open from crotch to chin? Oh, no reason in particular; I was just curious.”
    Do you begin to see the problem?
    Of course, they tell us that we’re special, that we’re not simply run-of-the-mill criminals and fiends; the jails are