Glimmering

He began to laugh. For the first time in forty-two years, he realized that Free Will and Free Fall could feel very much the same.

I love the sound of breaking glass, he thought.

And hurried to find Larry Muso.

It took him forever to find Electric Avenue. Threading his way among partygoers and fire-eaters, little people, a woman whose body was a mosaic of video-circuitry reflecting the faces of those gawping at her—pausing now and then to take in one of the stage shows. Overhead, corporate logos flamed like Roman candles, their reflections trailing across faces and masks. An orchestra played “Begin the Beguine.” The Jayne County Dance Theater performed excerpts from Elektra. There was a survey of the Broadway musical from its vaudeville origins to Assassins; the Kronos Quartet, halfway through Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2. Palm readers, an onychomancer. Clocks, analog and digital, that showed the time here in New York—9:48 P.M.—as well as the hour in every time zone across the world.

And food—acres and acres of food, more food than Jack had dreamed was left in the world. He bypassed the McDonald’s World Market, stopped to eat some caviar and a gummy slice of nova that tasted of petroleum, washed down with more champagne. The alcohol seemed to intensify the effects of the fusarium, if that’s what was causing the flares that pulsed just beyond his vision, the sense of a burgeoning rapture that, like the phantom lights, was just beyond his full comprehension.

He walked unsteadily through what had become a huge crowd. People mobbed the food tents as though they held celebrities. He saw one man filling the pockets of his morning coat with triangles of toast and foie gras. Scuffles broke out, to be immediately put down by security police in flak jackets. Immense video displays showed scenes of millennial revels around the globe: blue-faced dancers in Delhi, drunken parties in Queensland, an ominously quiet Tehran street. The green silence of vanilla farms on Tafahi in the Kingdom of Tonga, the first place on earth where the new millennium would break. Now and then, glimpses of the crowd below. Screaming would erupt then, and cheers. He glanced overhead to see if the Fougas were still there, saw only the shimmer of false stars and the glow of reflected lights within the dome.

BONG.

A thunderous gong: more cheers. Ten o’clock. The snow had stopped—he overheard someone say the hydraulic system was clogged, dredging up God knows what from the New York City water supply—and what was on the ground had melted, making it sloppy going underfoot. He began to think about finding a quiet place to sit, maybe even trying to figure out a way home, when he saw the marquee.

ELECTRIC AVENUE

Blazing neon against a background of video confetti and flaking brick: a pavilion designed to look like a decrepit apartment building—an icehouse. He hurried through the entrance, pushing past three ragged teenagers with pincushion faces and retro crew cuts and eyes like mill wheels, sprawled in the mud against the building’s facade.

“Spare change?” one croaked.

Jack stepped over her. Inside was a warren of dank hallways and crumbling rooms, emblazoned with video screens that were doors into sunlight, ocean, mountaintop, sky. A few people milled about, a Japanese businessman, more stoned kids, an elderly woman whose plasmer lenses matched her cropped violet hair. It wasn’t until he wandered into the same rubble-strewn corridor for the third time that Jack realized the elderly violet-haired woman was turning her head in the exact same way she had before. He sucked his breath in; the woman continued to stare at a tape loop of erupting volcanoes. He stood, trying to find the lie to the illusion; finally approached her.

“Hello?” he said.

The woman ignored him. He moved his hand—it should have brushed the sleeve of her satin sheath. There was nothing there. When he jabbed at her his hand momentarily flickered from view; and then he could see it again, floating disembodied within the folds of her dress.

“Jack? Jack Finnegan?”

Someone grabbed his elbow.

“It is Jack, isn’t it!” Delighted laughter. “I thought I’d missed you, or you’d missed me—”

It was Larry Muso, looking extremely pleased. He wore a happi coat embroidered with sea animals—cuttlefish, octopuses, sea horses—over a black tunic and loose black trousers. His hair had been coiffed into a chambered nautilus threaded with gold and blue wire, tiny seashells, gilt starfish. Gold dust powdered his cheeks. His eyes were carefully edged in kohl.

“I know, I look like the Sea Hag!” he went on. “Were you here earlier? Did I miss you? Are you okay?”

He peered up into Jack’s face. “Jack? You don’t look very well, perhaps you should sit down?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jack ran a hand across his forehead. “Actually, I am a little hot—this exhibit, I just figured out—”