Numbers Don't Lie by Terry Bisson Page B

said.”
    I waited until Hoppy was busy before I took the camera out into the corner lot and photographed the beaded seat cushion. I didn’t want him to think I was nuts. I printed the picture and put the camera away, then hurried back to the office and placed the new photo next to the old one in the wicker OUT bin of Whipper Will’s ancient upright fax machine. If I had ever doubted my own eyes (and who doesn’t, from time to time?), I was convinced now. I had photographic evidence. The beaded seat cushion was in much better shape in the second photo than in the first, even though they were less than twenty-four hours apart. It was un-decaying right before my eyes.
    I kept having these horrible thoughts.
    At least there were no messages on the answering machine. Nothing from Buzzer.
    Even though I couldn’t concentrate, I knew I needed to study. I opened a Caffeine-Free Diet Cherry Coke and spread my Corcoran’s on the windowsill. When I woke up it was almost noon and the floor was shaking; the fax machine was huffing and puffing, creaking and groaning, rattling and whining. It stopped and started again, louder than ever. A sheet of paper fluttered down from the IN bin. I caught it, still warm, before it hit the floor:
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    While I was still trying to decipher it, I realized the phone was ringing.
    I picked it up with dread; I whispered, “Buzzer?” assuming the worst.
    â€œBuzzer?” It was Wu. “Are you impersonating a device, Irving? But never mind that, I have a more important question. Which one of these Polaroids is number one?”
    â€œWhat Polaroids? You got them? That’s impossible. I never faxed them. I don’t have outgoing!”
    â€œSeems you do now,” Wu said. “I was faxing you my newest calculations, just now, and as soon as I finished, here came your Polaroids, riding through on the self-checking backspin from the handshake protocol, I guess. You forgot to number them, though.”
    â€œThe crummy one is number two,” I said. “The crummier one is number one.”
    â€œSo you were right!” Wu said. “It’s going from worse to bad. Even in downtown Huntsville, light years from the Edge, the Universe is already shrinking in isolated anti-entropic bubble fields. Anomalous harmonic superstring overtones. The formula I just faxed through, as I’m sure you can see, confirms the theoretical possibility of a linear axis of the Anti-Entropic Reversal Field following a superstring fold from the Edge of the Universe to downtown Huntsville. But observation is the soul of science, and by using your Polaroids, now I will be able to mathematically calculate the . . .”
    â€œWu!” I broke in. Sometimes with Wu you have to break in. “What about people?
    â€œPeople?”
    â€œPeople,” I said. “You know. Humans. Like ourselves. Bipeds with cars, for Christ’s sake!” Sometimes Wu was impossible.
    â€œOh, people ,” he said. “Well, people are made of the same stuff as the rest of the Universe, aren’t they? I mean, we . The Anti-Entropic Reversal means that we will live backward, from the grave to the cradle. People will get younger instead of older.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œWhen? When the Anti-Entropic Reversal Wave spreads back, from the Edge through the rest of the Universe. Like the changing tide. Could be several thousand years; could be just a few hundred. Though, as your seat cushion experiment demonstrates, there may be isolated bubbles along the linear axis where . . . Whoops! Here comes my boss,” Wu whispered. “I have to get off. Give my best to Candy. How’s her dad, by the way?”
    Wu often signs off with a question, often unanswerable. But this one was more unanswerable than most.
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    * * *
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    Lunch at the Bonny Bag was strange. I had a whole booth to myself. Plus a lot on my mind. “Where’s