Some words of explanation

For example, six years ago, or maybe it was seven, a whole shipload of people died in a series of hospital accidents. It was in the news, some of them had been pulled off of respirators by mistake, others were given blood thinners when they should have had thrombin applied to their wounds, still others were just left in the back corners of emergency rooms. It was quite a sensation.j

But the problem is, none of it made any sense. Not only did all the accidents seem unrelated, but they happened all over the country on the same day, in some cases down to the same fifteen minutes. That was just too much, and like other things that don't make any sense, people forgot about it.

Only I didn't forget about it, because my mother was one of the ones that died. She'd gone in for a stomach ache, and after she almost bled to death, a lung collapsed, and then her emphysema did the rest. Our family went to a lawyer, but we just didn't have the heart to pursue a long expensive legal battle.

I was the only one in my family who knew what had really happened. I still have a picture of her that I took at the funeral home, clearly showing her right hand. It's been itching under my skin for seven years and I just finally had to talk about it. Only I can't talk to a shrink, and if I talk to the wrong people, it would be pretty bad. So I've decided to tell the whole world about it, and probably then I can forget about it. Every last bit of it.

And just who is Norton Mansfield?

Why do you insist that you're a paranoid, the doctor asked me. Just because you don't use quotation marks?

Quotes would mark me as 20th Century, doctor, I said. Isn't that proof enough? But you don't want proof, do you. No matter what I might say, you're going to have me uncommited.

It's just that you couldn't be a paranoid and also have the mindset that you do. I'm convinced that it's all a facade, a misdirection of sorts. What bothers me, is I can't figure out a reason for it.

Have you ever read Heinlein? I asked. He was good at putting a finger on it. Never live in a country that requires ID cards, he wrote. So I do the next best thing, I have so many passwords and personalities that they'll never find me. And even when they do, they'll just think I'm a fictional character, not realizing that the character has to have an author.

That may be, said the doctor, but I still insist that you're faking. Right down to the absence of quotation marks.

It was enough. My time was up anyway, so I shook his hand and found my way out, all the time thinking that he probably wasn't one of them.

I know what you're thinking, that this is another one of those novels about a nutcase who thinks there are all sorts of folks out to get him and then sooner or later it turns out he's right. Well, if I wanted to make a buck or two, that might work. The old formulas are pretty reliable. But what if I don't want to make a buck or two? What if I just want this out there and what if I told you that's the best place to hide, in the bowels of a fictional disaster, a novel without a plot and certainly no characters that you would ever want to identify with?

You see, that doctor, the one I just left, shaking his head, he's right where I need for all of you to be. To him, I'm just barely between existing and not existing. In fact, ten minutes from now, he'll probably forget all about me, because he can't pigeonhole me into either a crazy or a normal.

But there's no time for that now, I have to make a plane.

Update: Still Living below the radar

The Hive Mind hasn't found me yet. I hope they never do. They would kill me if they did.

I'm sending this to you as a story because they DON'T READ. The Hive has no need for stories, they thrive instead on the multiple realities of all their members.

An Isolated like myself wouldn't stand a chance, but so far I don't think they're looking for us.

Virginia, I know this sounds like Paranoia, I KNOW you don't need to hear it, but be very careful what you say and who you say it to, especially in Airports and taxis. I went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie and all I could think about it was poor George C. Scott and what he had to put up with to make "They Might Be Giants". THAT is what we're up against. But none of the Hive has ever seen that movie...

Now the Hive is opening up legal marijuana use and you know what THAT means. Those of us who don't need it will begin to stand out, because WE'VE known for years how to induce the mind into going other places than the Hive. I'm thinking maybe I can hide behind this ridiculous paranoic facade for another few months before I'll have to go up against the Cuckoo's Nest machine, you know, the one that Big Chief Bromden told Ken Kesey about and that he wrote about. Last month they gave me an Asian surprise when I found out my new password was identical to the name of their first leader. Was it autosuggestion? Certainly it couldn't have been coincidence.

When someone gets inside your head the first time, it can be terrifying. But now I just change all my background profiles and move on.

So, my dear, consider this the first installment in a novel that probably won't find a publisher until mabye twenty years from now. By the way, there's a storehouse of bad novels in my attic, the hidden one that is behind the little doorway in my old upstairs bedroom. Look behind the water heater. Be careful not to fall through the rafters. In particular, check out 'the Coming Self-Destruction of the United States of America.' It was published under a pseudonym, and the author was recently swept up into the Hive.

Take care, and keep me in plain sight. That's the best way for me to survive.

Norton

It's just a robot

Two of these old Talon robots have been stolen from a military base in Afganistan. Look for them somewhere on Microsofts new auction site, MBay.

Avatar

I saw Avatar. It's good. Overhyped, but good. Go see it. Make sure you see the 3D version .