Damn it, retiring to Total Television Heaven before either of them was sixty-five had been Edna's idea in the first place, John told himself, though a part of him knew that wasn't exactly totally true. With the kids at the other end of the continent and the economy in such bad shape and nothing interesting going on in their real-time lives, it was only his job that had kept them from trading in their Social Security equity for a two-hundred-year annuity to Total Television Heaven. He figured that if he could work another ten years and save at the same rate, it would enable them to buy an extra fifty years of Heaven. But when the cost of living rose to the point where he wasn't saving anything . . . well, at that point he hadn't really needed that much convincing, especially since there was a rumor that Social Security was about to go bust and the smart thing to do was get into Heaven while you could.
But what good was two hundred and ten years in Total Television Heaven if your wife insisted on living in her tape loops of the past? How much fun could you have if all you had to rely on was the broadcast programmers and your own imagination?
Making love to a fair rescued damsel on the steaming corpse of a slain dragon. The image began to flicker. Diving out of an airplane, spreading his arms
and flying like a bird; the air seemed to turn to a thick, choking fluid. Tarzan of the Apes, making love to an appreciative lioness, felt an uncomfortable pressure against his eyeballs.
Oh, God, it was happening again! For some time now something had been corroding John Rogers. He could feel it happening. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that he didn't want to know what it was.
I'm just sick and tired of having to fill every time slot in my programming day with something I have to choose myself, he told himself nervously. Sure, he could time-share with Edna and let her fill some time slots for him, but her idea of programming made him want to puke.
In fact, the lover of the insatiable Catherine the Great felt a bubble of nausea rising within him even as the beautiful czarina crawled all over him. Napoleon's mind felt a nameless dread even as he led the triumphal march through Paris. Because the thought that had intruded unbidden into his mind was, What would happen if he didn't choose anything to fill the time slot? Was it possible? Would he still be there? Where was there?
And questions like those brought on the leading edge of an immense, formless, shapeless, choking dread that took him out of the viewpoint character and made him see the whole thing as if through the eyes of a video camera: lines of dots, pressure against his eyeballs . . .
He shuddered inwardly. Convulsively he switched to a domestic porno tape of himself and Edna making love in the grass on the slope of a roaring volcano. She screamed and cursed and moaned as he
stuck it to her, but . . . but . . .
Edna, I've got to get out of here!
But what can I possibly mean by that?
Frantically he voiced her over. "Edna, I've got to real-time-share with you," he said shrilly. "Now!"
"I'm tuned in to China Clipper now, and it's my favorite historical X," her voice-over whined as he continued to pound at her under the volcano.
"Please, Edna, porn channel Eight, real-time-share with me now, if you don't . . . if you don't . . ." A wave of molten lava roared and foamed down the mountain toward them as Edna moaned and swore toward climax beneath him.
"Not now, I'm enjoying my program," her distant voice-over said.
"Edna! Edna! Edna!" John shrieked, overcome with a terror he didn't understand, didn't want to understand.
"John!" There was finally concern in her voice, and it seemed to come from the Edna who thrashed and moaned beneath him in orgasm as the wave of lava enfolded them in painless fire.
"John, you're disgusting!" she said at the height of the moment. "If you want to time-share with me, we'll have to go to a domestic tape now. Loop E."
Raging with fear, anger, and self-loathing, he followed her to the domestic tape. They were sitting on the back porch of their summer cabin at the lake, overlooking the swimming raft, where the kids were playing a ragtag game of water polo. Oh, Jesus . . .
"Now what's got you all upset, John?" Edna said primly, pouring him a glass of lemonade.
John didn't know what to say. He didn't know how
to deal with it. He didn't even want to know what he was dealing with. He was talking to a ghost. He was talking to his wife talking to a ghost. He . . . he . . .
"We've got to do more real-time-sharing, Edna," he finally said. "It's important. We shouldn't be alone in here all the time."
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're babbling about," Edna said nervously. "As for more real-timesharing, I'm perfectly willing to share mealtimes with you on a regular basis if you behave yourself. Here. At the house. On our honeymoon. Even in a good restaurant. But not in any of your disgusting programming, John, and that goes double for the porn channels. I don't understand you, John. You've become some kind of pervert. Sometimes I think you're going crazy."
A burst of multicolored snow flickered the old tape. Edna sipped her lemonade. His eyes ached. He was choking.
"1'm going crazy?" John cried thickly. "What about you, Edna, living back here and trying to pretend we're really still alive back then, instead of here in . . . in-"
"In Total Television Heaven, John," Edna said sharply. "Where we're free to program all our time slots to suit ourselves. And if you don't like my programming, you don't have to time-share it. As for your programming, I don't know how you stand it."
"But I can't stand it!" John shouted as a waterskier was drawn by a roaring speedboat past their porch. "That's what's driving me crazy." From somewhere came the sounds of a softball game. A 747 glided by overhead.
"Daddy! Daddy!" the kids waved at him.
"But this is worse!" he screamed at Edna, young and trim in her two-piece-bathing suit. A neighbor's dog came up, wagging its tail, and she gave it her hand to lick. "This isn't real, and it's not even an honest fantasy; you're dead inside of here, Edna, living through your old tape loops, floating in . . . floating in . . ."
He gagged. An image of a fetus faded in, faded out, faded in again. He felt something pressing against his face like an ocean of time drowning him, pulling him under. Nothing was real. Nothing but whatever Edna had become speaking through her long-dead simulacrum near the lake.
"Stop it, John! I won't listen to such filth!"
"Oh, Jesus, Edna, we're dead, don't you see? We're dead and drifting forever in our own tape loops, and only -"
"Good-bye, John," Edna said frostily, taking another sip of lemonade. "I much prefer the way you were to this!"
"Edna! Edna! Don't break the time-share! You're all that's left!"
Edna: Say, honey, why don't we go inside and
make a little love in the afternoon.
A thunderclap rends the sky. It begins to rain. Edna laughs and undoes the halter of her swimsuit.
Edna: Oh, I'm getting wet. Why don't you grab
a towel and dry me off.
She gets up, giggling, takes John's hand, and leads him inside.
"Oh, no, no!" John shouted as his viewpoint followed her. For she was no longer there, and he remembered every scene, every angle, every special effect of this program. Something inside him snapped. He had to get out of here. He switched his videx to rapid random scan, unable to think of choosing a program to fill his time slot.
Getting head from Marilyn Monroe sailing the Spanish Main-fetus floating in the eternal amnion - a giant gorilla chasing dusky natives from dinner with Edna and the kids in the dining room of their house-a million flickering electronic dots against his eyeballs-flying like a bird through the towers of New York around the Eiffel Tower-choking in the sea of time-leading the cavalry charge to plant the flag on Iwo Jima-lungs straining for a surface that wasn't there-stepping out of the air lock under triple suns-trapped in syrupy quicksand forever-arriving at the sultan's harem in King Arthur's squad car-
Awake, aware, alive for a long, horribly lucid moment-floating and choking in the amniotic quicksand with meaningless images attacking his eyeballs-waking up from a long suffocation dream into a long suffocation dream that wouldn't go away, couldn't go away, or there'd be-
Dueling with the musketeers swinging on a vine through the jungle of the Great Barrier Reef with
Edna in a hammock screaming orgasm in- the harem
with a dozen houris soaring through space screaming
I
around great ringed Saturn screaming against the dead cold black phosphor-dotted everlasting void drowning choking screaming god oh god oh oh oh-
