Wednesday, November 20, 2002
This is now the fifth day of this cold. I have a strange, detatched sort of fascination with this illness, that I can't recall ever having had before — as if I'm watching it the way I'd watch a documentary, or conduct an experiment. My body become a highjacked ecosystem for some unwelcomed, exotic microbe. Rogue and Jessica swore I would curse them should I contract the dreaded Crüx-flu, but I have not cursed them, as of yet. I'd say maybe that will come later, but I do seem to be getting better and I did promise them that I wouldn't (curse them, that is). It is, however, slowing the packing down considerably and the days are slipping by quickly. Moving day is December 2nd, so we only have ten days left (not counting today or Thanksgiving). Other than a truly horrible cough, it hasn't been an especially awful sickness. I did a little work yesterday (which included finally signing the contracts on LRM and Untitled and getting them back in the mail to my agent), until my fever went up and I had to lie down again. I spent the evening watching Buffy, The Vampire Slayer (three episodes straight) and a Sergio Leone marathon on TCM (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly; I finally fell asleep partway through the latter). Sorry this is all turning into one big paragraph; I don't think I can spare the energy for paragraph breaks right now. Not when that energy can be spent on the laborious task of breathing. Jennifer is packing like mad, but is starting to show symptoms, too. I have to get well before she gets sick. Did anyone else catch the bit on CNN yesterday about the discovery of two black holes trapped in a decaying orbit about each other? Aeons hence, they'll collide, releasing unimaginable energies and sending shockwaves across the universe. Imagine the unfortunate galaxies in the immediate vicinity, the shattered solar systems, the civilizations that will simply cease to exist in that moment. It gave me pause, but then lots of things give me pause. What happens, exactly, when two singularities collide, when event horizons touch? Two vicious, loving gods, or daemons, brushing fingertips after hundreds of millions of years of wary circling, each glutted on the light and matter trapped in their infinitely small, infinitely vast bellies, vomiting or imploding. Exploding, perhaps, or collapsing to become something more dense, a super black hole, maybe. The cgi in the news report passed long ages in a few seconds and rendered the collision no more than a beautiful waltz; and it will be beautiful, of that I have precious little doubt. If there are eyes to see it, in the instant before annihilation. I think my fever must be back. Oh, yesterday I also got my comp copies of Steve Jones' really spectacular anthology, Keep Out the Night (PS Publishing, UK; website at PS Publishing. Each of the twelve authors who contributed stories was asked to choose a piece he or she felt had not received the attention it deserved, for whatever reason. I chose "Spindleshanks (New Orleans, 1956)," which I think is one of the two or three very best things I've written to date. There are also stories by Poppy Z. Brite, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Neil Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith, and, well, six others. Great book, beautifully designed, with art by Randy Broecker. Now I must go cough up part of the aforementioned ecosystem and try to get some work done.
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