As Yourself Read online

“As Yourself”

  By Kenny Jackson

  Copyright 2015 Kenny Jackson, all rights reserved

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Story

  More Stories and Contact Information

  Hedwig Jordan stopped and looked up at the pure white sky. His eyes squinted and his neck craned. Some of it seemed to be falling at him. That was wrong. This part of the sky should be secure. Hedwig turned to his friend Otto and opened his mouth. The ice cream cone hit him in the head.

  “You’ve stopped,” said Otto Bamberg.

  Otto reared up on his hind legs to see. He couldn’t otherwise; his head pointed at the ground when he was on all fours. Hedwig had his shirt cuff balled in his right hand to pull the sleeve taut. He was bent over, raking the sleeve across his thinning hair.

  “Urh,” said Hedwig. Such is the price of rediscovering byrds.”

  Otto reared back farther. He searched the surface of the sky and saw the highway, directly above them.

  “Did you see who it was?” said Otto.

  “Who? I think it was an E. gull-byrd,” said Hedwig. “But I don’t know his name and, you know, I’m an archaeologist, not a cryptozoologist.”

  “I’ll ask in the station. There won’t be many people using the highway this early.”

  “Listen,” said Hedwig, “It’s fine. Don’t bother. Today, it doesn’t bother me.”

  “It happened because you’re with me,” said Otto.

  “Let’s just go,” said Hedwig.

  “It was different back when people had working rools,” said Otto.

  “Rools, huh?” said Hedwig. “You and your technological tall tales.”

  Otto and Hedwig walked into the highway station and waited at the safety line for the next bench to come around, and for the operator to say it was safe to go. The operator gave the signal. Otto and Hedwig speed-walked alongside and in front of the bench. They hopped on.

  The bench rode the wire up into the air and Hedwig surveyed his friend, sitting only a little awkwardly beside him.

  “The thing isn’t exactly made for humoles,” Hedwig said.

  “It beats walking,” said Otto.

  “Well, I think they should make the benches bigger,” said Hedwig. “Or it could be a big basket-like thing, with human seats and humole seats.

  “I’d settle for a law against dropping frozen treats on people,” said Otto.

  “Today,” said Hedwig, “I’m too excited to care. I hear they’ve gone six levels up with this Neishoe building we’re going to.”

  “They’re up more levels than six,” said Otto. “Why call an archeologist and a cryptotechnologist for six? They’d have their own people look into it.”

  “Then, how many?” said Hedwig.

  “My guess is no better than yours. Only whatever they found, they think it’s valuable.”

  “I’d settle for six,” said Hedwig. “I uh, like this patch of sky.”

  Otto looked up. Where the sky had been white, it was now unpainted rock. With his eyes, he followed the track of the highway. The sky would be painted again in a minute.

  “It’s more honest,” said Hedwig. “And, you know, more archaeologically interesting. If I can see the rock, I can tell what’s above it. But it’s blue skies from here on in.”

  As the highway moved into the city, the buildings grew taller and the people more frequent. Before long, Otto and Hedwig neared city center station. Here, every other building stretched up to meet or reach above the surface of the sky. The city was busy, but nowhere near so busy as it would become in a couple hours’ time.

  The highway wire carried Otto and Hedwig down from the sky and into the station. As the bench leveled off they dropped to the ground and hurried to the side, out of the way of the next bench. A man from the Neishoe company was there to meet them. He shook Hedwig’s hand, then tried to hide his surprise as Otto reared up and stuck out his paw.

  “They didn’t tell,” he said, and changed his mind. “Follow me. You can call me Mr. Shuman.”

  “Can I, uh, ask how high you’ve gone?” said Hedwig.

  “Shh,” said the man. He looked around at the sleepy, early morning crowd to see if anyone had been listening. “You and I know it’s ridiculous. But they,” he gave a little sweep with his arm, “they still think if you dig too high, everybody gets sucked into nothingness. The Neishoe Corporation never reveals the height of a building until it is completed and no one has been sucked into nothingness.”

  “But, can you tell us how many levels?” said Hedwig.

  “Quietly?” said Otto.

  “I’m only public relations,” Mr. Shuman said. “My job is to walk you from the station to the building. I don’t know how many levels up the building goes, and I don’t have the slightest idea what it is they’ve found up there.”

  Mr. Shuman stopped. Otto and Hedwig looked up. The Neishoe building was a metallic rectangle that reached up into and past the sky. Here on ground level it had windows.

  “You are to go inside, and up the stairs,” said Mr. Shuman. “Just keep going up. You’ll know when you get there. A man is waiting at the top to help you. And I’m supposed to tell you good luck. So, good luck.”

  “How kind,” said Otto.

  He and Hedwig walked in through a revolving glass door. Otto had to stand on his hind legs to fit through. Inside, everything was covered with construction dust. It would be impressive when they were done, but for now the ground level was all dry fountains and huge unfinished reception desks. Otto and Hedwig made for the steps and started climbing.

  Beyond the ground level, each floor of the Neishoe building was airtight, windowless, and dark. The overheads weren’t installed yet. The only light came from an occasional work light, clamped to a sawhorse. Hedwig removed a small flashlight from his pack and switched it on. Otto did the same with a piece of headgear that clamped a light to his head. The building was empty, except for the odd tarp and pile of construction equipment. Eventually there would be cubicles and hanging ceilings. Now each floor was its own ghost town.

  “This,” said Hedwig, “I love this. Every level we go up, it’s exactly like we’re going back in time. Now, outside, the world is how it was before we moved down to this level. Everything, the, the streets, the homes, the buildings, is how it was two hundred years ago. And, every time we climb these stairs past another layer of rock and into the level above, the world outside gets older.”

  “If we find any dead technology,” said Otto. “I’m going to fix it.”

  “Fix it?” said Hedwig. “You can’t fix dead technology, that’s why they call it dead technology. It’s dead. Some poor unfortunate soul was caught napping and the fire went out, as it were. If we can, uh, find some live technology: great. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time; no one, you know, leaves live technology lying around.”

  “Wait and see,” said Otto.

  Otto and Hedwig stepped up and up the squared spiral, looking in at each dusty floor as they passed by. There were many floors to each level of the world. Hedwig excitedly kept track of their progress into the past, estimating when they crossed into each new level, and just how old the world outside was.

  “I think,” said Hedwig, “I really do understand why they don’t have windows open all the time, you know, on these floors above the sky. I imagine looking out on yesterday’s deserted world makes the typical office worker feel, um, for instance the way I do in a supermarket.

  “But why not have closable, openable windows for people like me? Not every single office worker is typical. And I uh, think there must be some people whose work would benefit from a, we’ll call it a unique view. The more, maybe, creative types. Like an advertising department.”

  Otto and Hedwig ha
d to stop often to catch their breaths; the stairs were not designed for humoles and Hedwig was not in the greatest shape. They climbed, and the Neishoe building became taller and taller in their imaginations. Hedwig and Otto, and especially Hedwig, became almost frightened with excitement. Otto called for a rest break and Hedwig pressed his ear to the wall of the stairwell, listening for the past.

  Hedwig estimated them as in the fourth level, then, climbing higher, the fifth, the sixth. Too good to be true was what Hedwig called his own judgment as he declared the world outside the seventh level, and then the eighth. Otto and Hedwig had never climbed so many stairs before, or even heard of this many stairs all in a row, anywhere.

  “Uh, well,” said Hedwig, “It sounds ridiculous. I know it does, but we should be coming up into the ninth level now.”

  “I-” said Otto.

  He stopped.

  “What is it?” said Hedwig.

  “Shh.”

  Hedwig held his breath and listened. From above, he heard a dim echoing. Hedwig shined his flashlight, but he couldn’t see anything. Up the stairs quietly Otto and Hedwig walked until they could hear the sound louder. It was a man’s voice, singing:

  Yo, I want to be in the Cups of Dixie

  Ride there now, my feathered horsie

  Macaro, macaro, macaro, doodle nee

  The stairway stopped. Otto and Hedwig spilled into the top floor. In the middle of a dark expanse there was a ladder, lit only by a work light hanging from the side. Sitting on the bottom step of the ladder was a man in coveralls, now whistling. Above the man and the ladder on the ceiling,