Barkley Bohner, Celebrity Philosopher

Chapter Twenty

I scooped up our globskas and dumped them in the sink. "How do you get toast falling up in 44 hours?" I asked.

Moosh gave me a surprise look. "Quincy told me," he said. "You mean I forgot to tell you?"

Well, yes. Quincy, you will recall, is the quantum Bohnerologist who tried to kill me.

WATCH OUT FOR THE AIR CONDITIONER!

Air conditioners, like potted plants, also serve as meteor-magnets. I executed a midair course correction and made it back to the table without arousing Moosh's suspicions.

"About Quincy," I said. "How's he doing?"

"Before you sit down, can you put on some coffee?"

"No problem." This time, I headed toward the middle of the floor, away from the air conditioner.

I got the coffee going. Moosh swiveled his chair toward me. "Quincy's fine," he said. "I visited him at Bellevue before stopping here. He was on the phone to Sweden. He wants an advance on all six Nobel Prizes they're going to give him, one in each category, plus the six million they owe him for being King of Reality."

"And you call that fine?" I said.

"He was very gracious when they told him they never heard of him. Only blamed Barkley Bohner once. Then he told all the people on the ward that toast is about to fall up in 45 hours and six seconds."

"You told him all about the falling up toast, I take it."

Moosh leaned toward me and froze, mouth open, as if performing his own internal systems check. He unfroze. "Well, no," he said, "come to think of it. As a matter of fact, I didn't."

"You mean he came up with toast falling up all by himself?"

"Well, you came up with toast falling up all by yourself."

"That's only because I saw it with my own eyes."

"Well he didn't see it with his own eyes. He had to figure it out. That makes him smarter than you."

Okay, I'll go with that. I fixed our coffees and headed back. I zig-zagged away from the air conditioner, not a moment too soon. Only a little coffee spilled to the floor.

"What else did he say?" I asked, once I had safely seated myself.

Moosh reached across for his cup. To my horror, I realized the bottom was wet. "Watch the doily," I said.

"No problem," said Moosh. He got up from the table with his cup, and took up a standing position by the stove. 

It was my turn to swivel my chair. "So, what else did Quincy say?"

Moosh took a slow gulp of his coffee. "Once toast starts falling up," he began, "the whole reality field will unravel pretty fast. That's what Qunicy said. He gives it maybe four weeks. Then we're toast."

"Did he say anything about being able to fix it?"

"He said the only man who can fix it died seventy years ago."

"That's a lot of help. I bet he impressed everyone on the psych ward. 

Moosh found some crackers in a cabinet and began munching. "In a manner of speaking," he said.

"In a manner of speaking," I repeated.

"Well, one of the guys there wanted to know that if toast falls up, will they have to redesign toasters so the toast pops down? Quincy got all insulted. A state of high dudgeon, that's how he put it. Now you've done it, he told the guy. I am officially in a state of high dudgeon."

"So now the hospital staff figures he's about to have a melt-down."

Moosh found some peanut butter to put on his crackers. "First they have to look up what high dudgeon means. Meanwhile, Quincy – he's telling anyone who will listen that toasters and everything else will realign with the reality field. Instantaneously. Automatically, just like that. That it's so fucking obvious even Barkley Bohner can figure it out. Not only that, we won't even know toast is falling in the wrong direction."

"That sounds about right," I said.

"It does? Really? Should I tell you what he said next?"

"By all means."

"He said our memories will realign. He said history will realign, right down to the print on the pages. He said Newton's Laws will realign. We won't even know it's happening. Just wait, he said. Just wait. You'll see."

"But if we don't know it's happening …"

"Yeh, I get you. Poor guy. But the gist of it …"

"Makes perfect sense," I acknowledged.

"So we're fucked."

"Not necessarily. Reality simply finds a new normal."

"But Quincy says all reality is going to unravel."

"Very improbable."

"So we're really fucked."

"No, we have forty-four hours."

 Forty-four hours to save the world. Talk about pressure.