The woman’s eyes went glazed, tears of pure joy forming at the corners. “Yes.”
“You can start now.”
And of course, as instructed, she began to tell him how much she loved him. She dwelled on her love for him. She exulted in it, and labored at it, rattling off metaphors of astonishing poetic beauty that didn’t even begin to capture the infinite depths of her adoration for him, the perfect kind boy who deserved all her love because he had in his uncanny generosity given her the commandment to love. She grew so fervent that before her long her praise blossomed into song.
He listened, found satisfaction in it for a little while, and then frowned as he realized that it was still not even close to enough.
It was the worst of all sins in his own personal universe, in that it was boring.
Of course, she was only one woman. He supposed that he could take other people from the box if he wanted to; lining them up in rows, if he had to; forming armies of them, if he needed to; directing their praises until they all spoke in a unified voice millions or billions strong, shaking the empty ground with the force of their single-minded adoration. He could have them cry out for him, at a volume that could shake loose the very sky. But what kind of being would even want such a thing, forever? What kind of creature could not only demand that, but take pleasure in the same hollow compliments sung in the same voices, for as long as it took time itself to grow cold?
His own vision blurred, as he realized that he was not now personally capable of being such a thing. He could not be such a thing without first jettisoning every part of himself that knew the love to be both forced and false. He supposed he could easily put those things away in the box… but what was the point then? He’d be as empty, then, as she was.
So instead he opened the box and stepped in, descending only knee-deep before he became aware that the woman had stopped in mid-sentence, her adoring eyes registering only that he was engaged in some fresh activity, and waiting to discern what it was so she could proceed with telling him how deeply she approved.
He couldn’t pretend he cared enough to restore everything he’d taken from her, or to bring her down into the darkness with him. Instead, he said, “You might as well go back to what you’re doing and assume I can still hear you.”
She beamed with fresh ecstasy and returned to declaring her love.
He descended the rest of the way into the box, pausing just before he vanished completely, to bring the box itself into the box with him. It contracted to a point and then disappeared, all access to it eliminated.
This, of course, did not stop the singing.
Extro:
“Bad People Doing Evil Things”
You’ll find the letter, and my reply, in a May 2012 Brass Tacks, the letter column of Analog.
It came from a reader upset at a story you won’t find here, a tale that hinged on a horrific series of events on a far-future alien planet; he felt that the story didn’t jibe with his vision of science-fictional optimism, and complained, “I find Adam-Troy Castro to write uncomfortable stories. He writes about evil people doing evil things. I believe that this story is more appropriate for a horror magazine. What I want from a story is something that helps me be inspired and a science fiction escape with a happy ending.”
Given the chance to respond, I pontificated at far greater length than editor Stanley Schmidt ever expected, citing a number of classically dark stories that had appeared in that venue and arguing with great self-important eloquence, about fiction’s responsibility to embrace the uncomfortable… but, more to our current point, I also revealed my essential discomfort at being labeled an exclusive purveyor of visions nasty and reptilian with the following words: “You distort my own Analog record just a tad. My seven contributions to this magazine also include ‘The Astronaut From Wyoming’ (written with Jerry Oltion; a saga of a disfigured boy who stands up against all obstacles to defy the naysayers and join a manned mission to Mars), ‘Sunday Night Yams At Minnie and Earl’s’ (about a friendly couple who bring warmth and a taste of home to lonely early lunar pioneers), ‘Among The Tchi’ (a comic piece about a human writer who stands up for the value of our race’s prose), and ‘Gunfight on Farside’ (a tale about heroism, self-sacrifice, belief, miracles, and even redemption, whose murderous ‘villain’ was a fundamentally decent man suffering from madness brought on by exposure to a toxic substance, and was not only understood and forgiven but also ultimately granted a happy ending of his own). Not one of these stories hinges on authentic human evil. They all hinge on humanity’s virtues, and they’re so optimistic about the best of us that they’re downright giddy.”
Translation: whatever else I might be, I’m not just a sick bastard.
Further exploration of my collected short fiction will further bear out the existence of my soft side, as dedicated explorers will find oodles and oodles of gentle farces, heartfelt tributes to my writing heroes, and tales about heroes saving the day.
I’m a remarkably sweet guy. Honest. You know those TV commercials for the animal charity where that pop singer croons “Eyes of An Angel” over visuals of sad-eyed puppies and kittens in cages? The wife has taken to changing the channel upon the first few notes, to protect me. I don’t just weep when actually exposed to the damn thing, I mist up even now writing about it. One viewing of Born Free ruins me for the whole day. Don’t even think about exposing me to the soundtrack of Les Miz. I’m so sensitive to emotional appeals that I’m downright disgusting. You can destroy me with a manipulative McDonald’s commercial.
But then we have stories like the one that roused that reader’s ire, and the stories you’ll find in this collection, which was originally intended as a straight science fiction collection but, as works from recent years accrued, gradually developed a darker and more disturbing tone, up to and including the inclusion of some pretty extreme horror.
Where do they come from, if I’m such a sweet guy?
Well, in part they come from the awareness that the best fiction is about testing and in the process defining human nature, and that extreme circumstances tend to provide starker definitions.
They come from the knowledge that the human race is a corrupt animal and that the worst elements in our collective nature deserve just as much examination as the best.
They come from actually having experienced close encounters with a couple of sociopaths myself and trying to work out a rational explanation in my head.
Finally, they come from just paying attention, which isn’t hard in a town where, just a few days ago as I wrote this, a man achieved national tabloid headlines by going berserk and chewing off another man’s face.
Don’t worry. You won’t find that particular scene in any story here. But I will dwell on it long enough to note that a lot of the online reaction to that particular loveliness, and a similar incident from elsewhere in the country that went viral a few days afterward, involved jokes about it being the first manifestation of the oncoming zombie apocalypse. The part of me that loves zombie fiction and has written some (none of which appears here), did find resonance in that… but that joke actually diminishes the horror. The guy with the strange concept of chewing gum was not an undead thing, but a living and breathing if far from rational human being, who might have been an exceptionally cute baby, once. That’s a life arc, people. That’s a story, even if not necessarily an edifying one.