The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Wesley almost told him to mind his business, peddle his papers, put an egg in his shoe and beat it, but then the terrified part of him that had been cowering in the farthest corner of his brain, insisting that the pink Kindle was a prank or the opening gambit of some elaborate con, decided to stop hiding and start acting.

If you really refuse to go mad, you better do something about this, it said. So how about it?

‘What’s your first name, Mr Henderson? It’s entirely slipped my mind.’

The kid smiled. A pleasant smile, but the concern was still in his eyes. ‘Robert, sir. Robbie.’

‘Well, Robbie, I’m Wes. And I want to show you something. Either you will see nothing – which means I’m deluded, and very likely suffering a nervous breakdown – or you will see something that completely blows your mind. Come to my office, would you?’

Henderson tried to ask questions as they crossed Moore’s mediocre quad. Wesley shook them off, but he was glad Robbie Henderson had come back, and relieved that the terrified part of his mind had taken the initiative and spoken up. He felt better about the Kindle – safer – than at any time since discovering the hidden menus. In a story, Robbie Henderson would see nothing and the protagonist would decide he was going insane. Or had already gone. Wesley almost hoped for that, because …

Because I want it to be a delusion. If it is, and if with this young man’s help I can recognize it as such, I’m sure I can avoid going mad. And I refuse to go mad.

‘You’re muttering, Mr Smith,’ Robbie said. ‘Wes, I mean.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You’re scaring me a little.’

‘I’m also scaring me a little.’

Don Allman was in the office, wearing headphones, correcting papers, and singing about Jeremiah the bullfrog in a voice that went beyond the borders of tuneless and into the unexplored country of the truly execrable. He shut off his iPod when he saw Wesley.

‘I thought you had class.’

‘Canceled it. This is Robert Henderson, one of my American Lit students.’

‘Robbie,’ Henderson said, extending his hand.

‘Hello, Robbie. I’m Don Allman. One of the lesser-known Allman brothers. I play a mean tuba.’

Robbie laughed politely and shook Don Allman’s hand. Until that moment, Wesley had planned on asking Don to leave, thinking one witness to his mental collapse would be enough. But maybe this was that rare case where more really was merrier.

‘Need some privacy?’ Don asked.

‘No,’ Wesley said. ‘Stay. I want to show you guys something. And if you see nothing and I see something, I’ll be delighted to check into Central State Psychiatric.’ He opened his briefcase.

‘Whoa!’ Robbie exclaimed. ‘A pink Kindle! Sweet! I’ve never seen one of those before!’

‘Now I’m going to show you something else that you’ve never seen before,’ Wesley said. ‘At least, I think I am.’

He plugged in the Kindle and turned it on.

What convinced Don Allman was the Collected Works of William Shakespeare from Ur 17000. After downloading it at Don’s request – because in this particular Ur, Shakespeare had died in 1620 instead of 1616 – the three men discovered two new plays. One was titled Two Ladies of Hampshire, a comedy that seemed to have been written soon after Julius Caesar. The other was a tragedy called A Black Fellow in London, written in 1619. Wesley opened this one and then (with some reluctance) handed Don the Kindle.

Don Allman was ordinarily a ruddy-cheeked guy who smiled a lot, but as he paged through Acts I and II of A Black Fellow in London, he lost both his smile and his color. After twenty minutes, during which Wesley and Robbie sat watching him silently, he pushed the Kindle back to Wesley. He did it with the tips of his fingers, as if he really didn’t want to touch it at all.

‘So?’ Wesley asked. ‘What’s the verdict?’

‘It could be an imitation,’ Don said, ‘but of course there have always been scholars who claimed that Shakespeare’s plays weren’t written by Shakespeare. There are supporters of Christopher Marlowe … Francis Bacon … even the Earl of Derby …’

‘Yeah, and James Frey wrote Macbeth,’ Wesley said. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think this could be authentic Willie,’ Don said. He sounded on the verge of tears. Or laughter. Maybe both. ‘I think it’s far too elaborate to be a joke. And if it’s a hoax, I have no idea how it works.’ He reached a finger to the Kindle, touched it lightly, then pulled it away. ‘I’d have to study both plays closely, with reference works at hand, to be more definite, but … it’s got his lilt.’