The Signal, a short story

The Signal

“You don’t really exist though, do you?”

“Well,” he said, pulling at his long beard with a gnarled little hand, his booted little feet barely reaching the edge of the seat and showing dark leather soles scratched and patterned by years and miles, “that depends on who’s looking.”

He didn’t exist, of course.

“Can I touch you?” I asked, if for no other reason than to break the spell.

He hesitated, but answered as if he had not, “Of course.”

I stood up and walked across to where he sat. What was it we call these things back home? Tomte. Yes, that’s it. A brownie, a gnome. And so real.

I’ve had them before, these hallucinations, but never as strong, and not in a very long time. Now to make him vanish.

I took him in as I approached. His beard slithered down his chest like a little river, down to his knees where it came to a curly rest. He was probably all of two feet. And look at those little hands. Resting now on top of his cap in each other’s company. They reminded me of carpenter hands, in miniature. Tawny, knotted. Too vivid to be true. I almost giggled.

I should have been terrified, and would have, if I was new to this, but I had seen them before. And I knew that this one would, just like the others, vanish before I could reach him. Just like that one on the boulder, back in Sweden. Years ago.

On the large boulder near the marsh.

The spring sunshine made the gray and black of the stone and lichen shimmer. He sat on top of it, quite still. Just sat there and watched me approach. Not friendly, not unfriendly, just an old gnome, pointed cap, tiny, and watching. The wind played with his long, gray beard and tried to rob him of his cap. He grabbed it with one hand while still looking at me. Very, very real.

I was too young (or too dumb) to be scared and I made straight for the boulder to take a closer look. What I actually meant to do was to talk to him (to hear my mother tell it, I would talk to anyone, or—apparently—anything). I waded through the marshy grass and I soon reached the foot of boulder, the gnome still there, and I looked down briefly to find the crevice (I knew just where to look for it, I had used it many times) to plant a foot in to climb up. I found it easily enough and then looked up for the usual hand hold to grasp, and there was only air where the gnome had been. Gone. A fast and bright April cloud shot out over the edge of the rock, so very white against so very blue that gnomes couldn’t possibly exist. They always told me I had fantasy to spare. And the air was so fresh and the trees were just budding and you could smell the entire world as the wood rustled and sighed and last of the snow, gray now instead of white, lingered in the shadows. A wonderful, gnomeless world.

I’ve thought about that bouldery morning on and off through the years, and there are times I’m pretty certain the little guy had actually been there, on top of the stone, looking down at me. Impossible of course, but you have to go with your senses. I know what I saw, and I don’t think the wind can play with hallucinations, can it? He had been as real as trees, just as there and just as alive. At other times, of course, I shake my head at the power of my imagination.

That was twenty years ago and half a world away.

And here he was again, calm as anything, even talking. The same one?

As real as trees, I thought, although trees were not so real anymore, not in the city of hype and freeway shootings. Pretty real though with his dark eyes, big nose, long ears, gold earrings, white hair, and thick little lips. And now to make him vanish.

The little guy had not moved, had not taken his eyes off mine during my short journey. He just sat there, looking. Looking and waiting for me to arrive. I got there, looked down. He had to bend his head back to maintain eye contact. Then I slowly kneeled by the armchair and placed my right hand on his left knee, expecting—no, knowing—that all I would feel would be the smooth fabric of the chair cushion.

Not so. What I touched was coarse homespun cloth covering a sharp little knee, tensing under my touch, otherwise still. The little guy did not move, looked straight at me.

“Satisfied?” he said.

My hand jerked back of its own volition. Scared. Somehow I brought it under control and made to touch him again. In a dream now, not real at all.

“Hey, once enough.”

He squirmed aside and over on his stomach, then slid down from the chair. Put his hat on. “We don’t have much time.”

“Are, are . . .”

“Come on. Get your car keys, we have a long drive.”

“Wait, what . . .”

“We can talk in the car.”

From outside and above—yes, it was as if somebody had kicked me right out of my skull, and now I was floating—I watched myself collect my key ring from its hook by the door, grab my jacked, wait while the little one reach up on tip toe to open the door and finally head out of my apartment after my two foot guide. The door slammed shut behind us, echoing down the stairwell. The little one was running down the stairs ahead of me.

“Hey, wait up,” I heard myself say.

He neither turned nor slowed down, he just kept running, no, jumping’s more the word, down each stair, cap bopping and bouncing and threatening to fall off his head at any moment. Myself, I had to take the stairs two at a time to catch up. At the bottom, by the front door, he stopped, looked up, expecting to be let out. Just like a dog, I thought, an intelligent and determined dog, unable to handle the big door himself but expecting you to get on with it, and I mean now.

Now were on the street, two feet of green and gray and read ahead of me darting between and around legs and feet heading for my car by the curb down the street. How did he know that was my car? I wonder. No one else can see him, not a soul. Even the old lady he collided with didn’t see him. She looked down, confused, slowed and looked behind her then set off again with a frown. So obviously I’m dreaming like crazy.

But the dog saw him though. Big gray thing, all hair and teeth, and ten feet away, barking. Luckily on a leash. Shut up said the owner, a trim looking guy in a sweat suit, straining to keep the dog in check. He barked again. Be quiet, said the guy, louder now. He yanked the leash and the dog yelped—a little pathetically for his size—the resumed his barking. He barked like Can’t you see him? Look, look, there he is, look, look. See? He strained the leash as he lunged for the little one. At this point my guide apparently said something to the dog, something the dog must have understood, for it stopped short and simply stared with its mouth open, if a dog can stare. Then a new yank on the leash by the annoyed, by now perplexed owner, and another yelp. The little one looked back at me, Hurry up said his face, but he didn’t speak that I could hear. He rushed on for my car, avoiding ignorant legs.

I opened the door for him and he jumped in and made himself comfortable in the passenger seat.

Clearly, reality had not caught up yet for I was still doing this. Following, opening doors, both front and car, and now I was going for a ride with an apparition, an apparition in a hurry. But as I walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side I lost sight of him and then, as if some connection had finally been severed, I knew, just knew, that when I opened the driver’s side door I would look in and he would be gone. And that was a relief.

Not so. The two foot bundle of impatience was firmly planted in the passenger seat, arms akimbo. Cap still on.

“We don’t have all day.”

I climbed in and shut the door. Looked over and down at him. Would he need the seat belt? I wondered. And then reality finally caught up. I could feel the hair stand on my arms, my mouth suddenly went dry: I returned to my head. This was happening, in fact.

“What are you waiting for, start the car,” he said.

“What?”

“Start the car, take the five north.”

“What?”

I must have looked at him with eyes wider by far than normal for he tilted his head a bit, sympathetically almost, patted me softly on my thigh and said, “It’s OK, don’t worry.”

But I was worried.

Had a hard time finding neutral. Tried it while pressing down the clutch. Better. Turned the ignition key. That’s right, do the normal, like always. Keep the clutched down, find first gear, there it is, blinker on, check rear view, look over my shoulder. The routine was soothing, a cool glass a water. I was still alive, could feel myself doing these things. Pull out, into traffic. Now what?

My friend couldn’t see out the window where he sat, too short. So he stood up in the seat.

“Careful,” I said.

He cast me a glance, what did I mean?

I reached over and strapped the seat belt across him.

“There.”

“Thanks.”

Suddenly I was back at the boulder by the marsh. So that had actually happened. He had been there, but slipped away as I looked for footing. And what about my other visions, my other hallucinations, been there too? I braked for a pedestrian who should not be crossing the street here.

“Take the five north.”

I looked over at him. He was intent on the street in front of us. A bearded thing willing me on. Two blocks farther down I stopped at the light. Looked over at him again, but he didn’t seem to notice. The light turned green and I swung left toward the on-ramp.

Heading down the ramp I wondered idly whether his company qualified us for the car pool lane. With one of those giggles you normally associate with folks that are locked up for their own safety I decided Yes, it does, and I sped past the line of driver-only cars waiting for green. Heading north. Shaking my head. Fearing for my sanity.

“Ansgar,” he said then.

“What?”

“My name.”

“Ah.”

He remained standing, strapped tightly against the back of the seat, looking more like an ancient child on a wild amusement park ride than something out of my past. He would not reconcile. My only grip on reality was the wheel in front of me. And I hung on to it, knuckles turning white. Sweating. Seventy miles per hour, seventy-five. Through Burbank. Through San Fernando, north. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“We have about two hours,” he said.

“Two hours for what,” I heard myself asking.

“You need to do something for us. In two hours. Seven o’clock.”

Us? But instead I asked, “What?”

“It’s not hard. You’ll manage.”

“Yes, but what?” I said.

“A signal.”

We were now approaching the Fourteen North. Do we stay on the Five? I looked over at him. He knew where he was going.

“Head for Palmdale,” he said.

I eased over to the right hand lane and took the Fourteen. We were heading for the high desert.

“What kind of signal?” I asked.

His eyes were on mine as I turned to him. They struck me as, if not sinister, then at least calculating, but maybe only because I could not read his face at all. I have always thought myself a pretty good judge of character, but how do you read a goblin. I glanced back at the road ahead, then back to him still looking at me. “A very important signal,” he said as if answering a question. Then he too looked out at the road. “Very important,” he added, more to himself.

We were climbing. My old car felt the strain. Something occurred to me. “Have you ever been to Sweden?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s where I come from.”

“So, what are you doing here?”

“You were supposed to stay put,” he answered.

“So we have met?” It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes.”

“By a big rock?”

“Yes.”

Funny, but confirming this gave me strength. That April moment, his sitting there in the sunshine looking at me looking at him really had taken place. And so naturally then. Nothing impossible about it. And some of that feasibility—odd use of the word, I thought—bubbled up and leaked into the present and into the car and onto the Fourteen North and I found that I could allow that this was actually happening. As a natural event, occurring in the real, not simply as some chemical imbalance.

By impulse I reached out to touch him again, just to make sure. He pulled back within his straps to avoid my hand.

“You don’t like being touched?”

“Not particularly.”

“But you asked me to, back in the apartment.”

“You had to be sure.”

Then he took my large hand in his two little ones and gave it back to me. Keep this to yourself, it what they said. But my purpose was served, I felt his rough and quite warm hands upon mine, felt his strength, ancient and rocklike, in the motion. I was assured. Years of knowing better simply evaporated and I was back by the rock, spring in the air and now I wanted to talk to him.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Ansgar,” he said. Obviously not given to elaboration.

“OK, well what are you then?” I said.

“Original.”

Well, that went without saying, I thought. “An original what?”

“Caretaker.”

“Of what?”

“Of the Earth.”

“The Earth? As in dirt or as in third planet from the sun?”

He looked at me as if I, or my kind and our questions, had never occurred to him before. “The Earth,” he said, and he meant the planet.

I took in the onrushing pavement and drove on in silence.

“Turn right at the next exit,” he said.

“I thought you said we were going to Palmdale.”

“I didn’t say to Palmdale, I said toward Palmdale.”

“Okay.”

We left the Fourteen for a well paved road heading up into the mountains. I tried him again.

“What does a caretaker do?”

He didn’t answer at once, but I felt that he was considering my question, how to tell me.

“We keep it alive,” he said finally.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Our job is to keep you from destroying the Earth.”

“You? You mean us, us people. Us humans?”

“Yes.”

I have a flippant streak in me which I can only suppress for so long, no matter what the circumstances, and this is where it resurfaced. “Not doing too good a job of it though?”

I wasn’t sure I had actually said that. Until he answered. First he sighed. Then said, unoffended, “You’re not an easy race.” A statement of fact.

“So how do you actually do this care taking?”

“We keep her strong, make her endure you.” It sounded like an accusation at first, but I realized that it was just another of his laconic declarations.

Keeping her strong: I am back by the marsh, by the brilliant April, by the caretaker on top of a stone. Earth is strong and he makes perfect sense.

“They didn’t see you back there,” I said after a while.

“Of course not,” he answered. “Can you imagine what would happen if they could?”

I could imagine.

“But the dog did.”

“Oh, they’re harmless.”

“That one didn’t look too harmless to me.”

“How about obedient, then?”

Good point. Then I could think of nothing else to say.

“Turn here,” he says. Pointing.

To a dirt road heading off to the right, up and into the higher hills. I comply.

It hasn’t rained for months and we’re stirring up a cloud of dust behind us. The road, not much traveled by the looks of it, is uneven and it sounds like my worn suspension is about to give up. Ansgar, caretaker and passenger, has grabbed hold of the seat belt to keep himself upright. He is intent on the road ahead.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I say. “Where, exactly, are we going?”

“As high up as we can get,” he answers. “And we don’t have much time.”

How long ago did we leave the city? Well over an hour ago, maybe an hour and a half. By seven, he said. The car clock displays: 6:28. Thirty-two minutes then. Which is what I say.

“I know,” he answers.

“What happens at seven?”

“You send a signal.”

“To whom?”

He doesn’t answer. “To whom?” I repeat. He seems to have gone deaf by an act of will and I remain none the wiser.

We drive on. This road demands my focus. The old strangeness to my right seemingly intent on the road as well.

“Left here.” He points.

It’s a small road, a path more than anything else, and I’m about to protest, when I find myself turning nonetheless. I’ve come this far, I have to find out what this is all about.

My car begs to differ. Doesn’t like this at all. I scrape the bottom twice with a sickening sound that I fear must have drawn blood. Then we hit what sounded like a rock. I can tell the car is hurting.

We’re rising steeply now. The engine works hard in low gear. The road seems a little bit better. No major obstacles for a while. But it’s getting darker. I’m about to turn on the headlights but his hand on my arm stops me. “No,” he says.

“Why not?”

Deaf again.

6:39. The road winds steeply upward. Then, to my left, in the half-light I think I see a face. Another ancient child, dark eyes low. Then it’s gone, we’re past it or it was never there.

6:41. The path is cresting up ahead among boulders and small pines. A minute or two ahead.

But the path says no. Suddenly my poor car is caught on what I assume is a stone. Whatever it is, I didn’t see it. And this time, I’m sure, we’re going nowhere. Even so, I try the accelerator again, the engine moans, and the wheels spin. But there’s no purchase. We’re resting on whatever it is, like on a pivot. To stay.

Ansgar is already climbing out of the seatbelt and opening the door. Without a word he is outside, heading up the path on small quick legs, stirring up dust. He turns and says something to me which I can’t hear too clearly, but it means that I’m to hurry up and follow.

I see another face, another set of eyes. At least I think so, but it’s hard to tell in the duskier by the minute light. The sky, orange and red to the west and streaked with high clouds casts deep shadows to the east of stones and rocks and trees, and I sense movement in those shadows, but I can’t be sure. I yank my car door open and rush out to catch Ansgar.

He stands at the summit, waiting, not even breathing hard. I reach him with my heart in my ears. I’m not used to exercise like this, besides we’ve reached quite an altitude.

The sun has set now. Orange is fading into brown into black and you can see the first stars out east.

I’m about to ask, Now what? when my doubts vanish: The shadows materialize and several, too many to easily count, Ansgars appear. Someone says, We have two minutes, quite clearly, and Ansgar, my Ansgar, nods.

Then my Ansgar looks up at me with eyes that for the first time appear a little friendly—if I read them right in the falling light—and says, “I’m sorry.”

I mean to ask, Sorry about what? but I never get the chance, because next I know I’m fighting for my life.

Ansgar is not taking part in this, but he looks on as five, seven, eight, I don’t know how many of these guys literally jump me, and wrestle me to the ground. For their size they are incredibly strong, and unaccountably heavy. The two that hold my legs in their vice grips are impossible to kick off—it’s like having a pair of lead boots, and after four or five attempts my legs give up, fatigued. I fall onto my knees and then they bring me on my back by pulling my arms and hair.

At this point I’m no match for them, if I ever were. The ground is hard and rocky against my back and someone says, One minute now.

Ansgar looks down on me, a dark giant now against the fading sky. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “But, you see, at this point it has to be you. You are our signal. It’s your pattern, your light, that’s what we must send.”

If I answer anything at this point I am not aware of it. I’m pinned to the ground and I know that something terrible is about to happen. That’s all I’m really aware of. And of Ansgar speaking again.

“They’ll be looking for a signal, and it is you we have to send.”

I finally manage, “What signal?”

“We need reinforcements.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Your light, your life-light,” he says.

Someone else says, “We have thirty seconds.” It’s a deep voice from behind me.

“It’s the light you bear. It’s your heart. It will tell them what they need to know.”

Suddenly I know that I have less than a minute to live. In desperation, “You don’t have radio or something?”

“Afraid not,” he said.

“Shine,” says another voice.

“Shine,” several additional deep voices.

Their grip on my limbs tightens as Ansgar reaches down for my heart.

“Shine,” he says as steel fingers pierce my chest and seize the light.

I rose in pain, floated up and over the little scene below, over the little person holding up my surprised heart to the heavens. And as it ceased to beat it turned to light, the brightest light I have ever seen. It was day again, a small brilliant sun drowning the darkness for miles. Had I had hands I would have shielded my eyes, had I had eyes.

Coming out briefly from the cover of the moon, and exactly on time, the mother ship saw the signal. It was as they had feared. More caretakers were indeed needed. They eased onto a course for Earth and the Utah desert.

Thoughts? I'd like to hear them.
Ulf Wolf

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