Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

THE UNIVERSE WILL SURPRISE US

Jen fa Ti: Ti fa Tsien T'sien fa Too; Too fa tzu-jan

–LAO-TsE, Too Te Ching

Tall, skinny palm trees, twisted to bizarre angles by dozens of Florida hurricanes, stood black against a cinnamon-streaked sky as the sun rose majestically in the west.

"We stop here," Mavis said, as he had known she would; as was, perhaps, inevitable now.

This must be the Gulf of Mexico, Dashwood thought. They could now load him with chains and drop him in the drink, as criminals said, letting him sink slowly down amid the sharks and barracudas, down where, after the sharks were finished, the King Crabs would pick what was left on his bones, down, down, down, full fathom five.

And, as was inevitable now, Mavis motioned him out of the car, stepping out behind him (still holding that damned tommy gun, as if quietly toying with it) like the ghoats in hammelts.

"We wait here," she said. "The others go back."

"What are we waiting for?" Dashwood asked.

"Don't be a dummy, George. We rescued you, remember? Like the gauds in ambers."

Dashwood took a deep breath, counting to ten. "Why do you keep calling me George? You know my name is Frank, dammit."

Mavis opened her eyes wide, pretending astonishment. "You really don't remember," she said sadly.

A woodpecker landed wearily on the nearest palm, as if he had flown more missions than Yossarian and never intended to go up again.

"I'm Frank Dashwood," he said. "Dr. Francis R. Dashwood. I'm a member of the American Psychiatric Association. I'm in Who's Who. Goddamnit," he added, irrelevantly but heatedly.

"You're George Dorn," she said. "You work for Confrontation magazine. Your boss is named Justin Case."

"Oh, balls," Dashwood said.

The woodpecker turned his head, as perhaps was sure to happen now, and watched them suspiciously, like a paranoid old man.

And Dashwood noticed, as for the first time, an unfinished building on the beach, probably a new condo, with girders going off at strange cubist angles. Skeletons in hard hats stood frozen like statues, and a giant squid reached up from the ocean to wrap its tentacles around the pylons.

The sun was as hot as Gunga Din's loincloth.

A vine-colored plaque at the gate said: