Flashes

Marilyn was perhaps ten years younger than her husband had been, and had light brown hair and a round, moonlike face. The student wanted more time to finish an essay on the novels of Robert Charles Wilson; Marilyn capitulated after a few wheedling arguments.

The kid left, and Marilyn turned to me, her smile thanking me for waiting. “The humanities,” she said. “Aptly named, no? At least English literature is something that we’re the foremost authorities on. It’s nice that there are a couple of areas left like that.”

“I suppose,” I said. I was always after my own son to do his homework on time; didn’t teachers know that if they weren’t firm in their deadlines they were just making a parent’s job more difficult? Ah, well. At least this kid had gone to university; I doubted my boy ever would.

“Are you Professor Marilyn Maslankowski?” I asked.

She nodded. “What can I do for you?”

I didn’t extend my hand; we weren’t allowed to make any sort of overture to physical contact anymore. “Professor Maslankowski, my name is Andrew Walker. I’m a detective with the Toronto Police.” I showed her my badge.

Her brown eyes narrowed. “Yes? What is it?”

I looked behind me to make sure we were still alone. “It’s about your husband.”

Her voice quavered slightly. “Ethan? My God, has something happened?”

There was never any easy way to do this. I took a deep breath, then: “Professor Maslankowski, your husband is dead.”

Her eyes went wide and she staggered back a half-step, bumping up against the smartboard that covered the wall behind her.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I said.

“What—what happened?” Marilyn asked at last, her voice reduced to a whisper.

I lifted my shoulders slightly. “He killed himself.”

“Killed himself?” repeated Marilyn, as if the words were ones she’d never heard before.

I nodded. “We’ll need you to positively identify the body, as next of kin, but the security guard says it’s him.”

“My God,” said Marilyn again. Her eyes were still wide. “My God …”

“I understand your husband was a physicist,” I said.

Marilyn didn’t seem to hear. “My poor Ethan …” she said softly. She looked like she might collapse. If I thought she was actually in danger of hurting herself with a fall, I could surge in and grab her; otherwise, regulations said I had to keep my distance. “My poor, poor Ethan …”

“Had your husband been showing signs of depression?” I asked.

Suddenly Marilyn’s tone was sharp. “Of course he had! Damn it, wouldn’t you?”

I didn’t say anything. I was used to this by now.

“Those aliens,” Marilyn said, closing her eyes. “Those goddamned aliens.”

* * *

Demand-Rebound Equilibrium:Although countless economic systems have been tried by various cultures, all but one prove inadequate in the face of the essentially limitless material resources made possible through low-cost reconfiguration of subatomic particles. The only successful system, commonly known as Demand-Rebound Equilibrium, although also occasionally called [Untranslatable proper name]’s Forge, after its principal chronicler, works because it responds to market forces that operate independently from individual psychology, thus …

* * *

By the time we returned to Ethans office, he’d been cut down and laid out on the floor, a sheet the coroner had brought covering his face and body. Marilyn had cried continuously as we’d made our way across the campus. It was early January, but global warming meant that the snowfalls I’d known as a boy didn’t occur much in Toronto anymore. Most of the ozone was gone, too, letting ultraviolet pound down. We weren’t even shielded against our own sun; how could we expect to be protected from stuff coming from the stars ?

I knelt down and pulled back the sheet. Now that the noose was gone, we could see the severe bruising where Ethan’s neck had snapped. Marilyn made a sharp intake of breath, brought her hand to her mouth, closed her eyes tightly, and looked away.

“Is that your husband?” I asked, feeling like an ass for even having to pose the question.

She managed a small, almost imperceptible nod.

It was now well into the evening. I could come back tomorrow to ask Ethan McCharles’s colleagues the questions I needed answered for my report, but, well, Marilyn was right here, and, even though her field was literature rather than physics, she must have some sense of what her husband had been working on. I repositioned the sheet over his dead face and stood up. “Can you tell me what Ethan’s specialty was ?”