way, I learned that only the children were there.
"Where is- everybody?" I asked.
"They are all out***," she said. It was like that: three sharp slaps on the chest with the fingers spread. Along with the finger configuration for "verb form, gerund," it meant that they were all out * * * ing. Needless to say, it didn't tell me much.
What did tell me something was her bodytalk as she said it. I read her better than I ever had. She was upset and sad. Her body said something like "Why can't I join them? Why can't I (smell-taste-touch-hear-see) sense with them?" That is exactly what she said. Again, I didn't trust my understand-_
ing enough to accept that interpretation. I was still trying to :i force my conceptions on the things I experienced there. I
was determined that she and the other children be resentful of their parents in some way, because I was sure they had to be. They must feel superior in some way, they must feel held back.
`'
I found the adults, after a short search of the area, out in the north pasture. All the parents, none of the children. ~7 They were standing in a group with no apparent pattern. It wasn't a circle, but it was almost round. If there was any..
organization, it was in the fact that everybody was about the a same distance from everybody Page 21
else.
The German shepherds and the Sheltie were out there, sitting on the cool grass facing the group of people. Their ears were perked up, but they were not moving.
I started to go up to the people. I stopped when I became y aware of the concentration.
They were touching, but their.:; hands were not moving. The silence of seeing all those permanently moving people standing that still was deafening to me.
I watched them for at least an hour. I sat with the dogs and scratched them behind the ears. They did that choplicking thing that dogs do when they appreciate it, but their full file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (17 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:30 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt attention was on the group.
It gradually dawned on me that the group was moving. It . was very slow, just a step here and another there, over many minutes. It was expanding in such a way that the distance'
' between any of the individuals was the same. Like the expending universe, where all galaxies move away from all others. Their arms were-extended now; they were touching :9 only with fingertips, in a crystal lattice arrangement.
Finally they were not touching at all. I saw their fingers v straining to cover distances that were too far to bridge. And still they expanded equilaterally. One of the shepherds began to whimper a little. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Chilly out here, I thought.
I closed my eyes, suddenly sleepy.
I opened them, shocked. Then I forced them shut. Crickets were chirping in the grass around me.
There was something in the darkness behind my eyeballs. I felt that if I could turn my eyes around I would see it easily, but it eluded me in a way that made peripheral vision seem like reading headlines. If there was ever anything impossible to pin down, much less describe, that was it. It tickled at me for a while as the dogs whimpered louder, but I could make nothing of it.
The best analogy I could think of was the sensation a blind person might feel from the sun on a cloudy day.
I opened my eyes again.
Pink was standing there beside me. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she was covering her ears with her hands. Her mouth was open and working silently. Behind her were several of the older children. They were all doing the same thing.
Some quality of the night changed. The people in the group were about a foot away from each other now, and suddenly the pattern broke. They all swayed for a moment, then laughed in that eerie, unselfconscious noise deaf people use for laughter. They fell in the grass and held their bellies, rolled over and over and roared.
Pink was
"Where is- everybody?" I asked.
"They are all out***," she said. It was like that: three sharp slaps on the chest with the fingers spread. Along with the finger configuration for "verb form, gerund," it meant that they were all out * * * ing. Needless to say, it didn't tell me much.
What did tell me something was her bodytalk as she said it. I read her better than I ever had. She was upset and sad. Her body said something like "Why can't I join them? Why can't I (smell-taste-touch-hear-see) sense with them?" That is exactly what she said. Again, I didn't trust my understand-_
ing enough to accept that interpretation. I was still trying to :i force my conceptions on the things I experienced there. I
was determined that she and the other children be resentful of their parents in some way, because I was sure they had to be. They must feel superior in some way, they must feel held back.
`'
I found the adults, after a short search of the area, out in the north pasture. All the parents, none of the children. ~7 They were standing in a group with no apparent pattern. It wasn't a circle, but it was almost round. If there was any..
organization, it was in the fact that everybody was about the a same distance from everybody Page 21
else.
The German shepherds and the Sheltie were out there, sitting on the cool grass facing the group of people. Their ears were perked up, but they were not moving.
I started to go up to the people. I stopped when I became y aware of the concentration.
They were touching, but their.:; hands were not moving. The silence of seeing all those permanently moving people standing that still was deafening to me.
I watched them for at least an hour. I sat with the dogs and scratched them behind the ears. They did that choplicking thing that dogs do when they appreciate it, but their full file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt (17 of 24)
[2/17/2004 11:43:30 AM]
file:///G|/rah/John%20Varley%20-%20Persistence%20Of%20Vision.txt attention was on the group.
It gradually dawned on me that the group was moving. It . was very slow, just a step here and another there, over many minutes. It was expanding in such a way that the distance'
' between any of the individuals was the same. Like the expending universe, where all galaxies move away from all others. Their arms were-extended now; they were touching :9 only with fingertips, in a crystal lattice arrangement.
Finally they were not touching at all. I saw their fingers v straining to cover distances that were too far to bridge. And still they expanded equilaterally. One of the shepherds began to whimper a little. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Chilly out here, I thought.
I closed my eyes, suddenly sleepy.
I opened them, shocked. Then I forced them shut. Crickets were chirping in the grass around me.
There was something in the darkness behind my eyeballs. I felt that if I could turn my eyes around I would see it easily, but it eluded me in a way that made peripheral vision seem like reading headlines. If there was ever anything impossible to pin down, much less describe, that was it. It tickled at me for a while as the dogs whimpered louder, but I could make nothing of it.
The best analogy I could think of was the sensation a blind person might feel from the sun on a cloudy day.
I opened my eyes again.
Pink was standing there beside me. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she was covering her ears with her hands. Her mouth was open and working silently. Behind her were several of the older children. They were all doing the same thing.
Some quality of the night changed. The people in the group were about a foot away from each other now, and suddenly the pattern broke. They all swayed for a moment, then laughed in that eerie, unselfconscious noise deaf people use for laughter. They fell in the grass and held their bellies, rolled over and over and roared.
Pink was
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