8. The Bird Tester (D1)

__ Ardy was floating naked in a twisting, churning sea of stars. She knew she was dead because she was weightless and unashamed of her nakedness. Though she drifted through space, she was calm and warm, and awash in loving feelings.
__ Where is the light? She wondered. Isn't there supposed to be a shaft of light?
__ Maybe not. Maybe I just float here for eternity, not knowing--
__ "--To talk to her this time."
__ What was that? Ardy strained. A disembodied voice, but not her mind's voice, had spoken. She wasn't sure, but it may have been a man, a gentle man's voice. Not Munson's. Not the psychotic killer with the family issues. I wonder--.
__ "Oh, Ardelene. How am I gonna say this?"
__ The voice was familiar, but she couldn't place it. And suddenly she didn't feel like she had died anymore. She was alive, but deeply unconscious, and somehow in the mind of yet another person in their future or their deepest thoughts.
__ As she floated, the stars around her condensed and coalesced into a streaming blurry vision. At first, the vortex of dark orange light appeared to rush toward her, around her. Then the image divided: orange and blue on top, dark gray below with green on either side, rushing toward her, spreading around her.
__ Her naked body drifted downward and tilted back slightly. She could feel clothes form on her, but not her nightshirt. Her legs were sliding into jeans and sneakers, her chest flattened to fit into a Polo shirt. She could feel the itch of the logo on her left breast and she could feel the weight of a heavy watch on her left wrist.
__ Douglas?
__ Her vision began to clear -- well, as much as it could. The eyes she was seeing through were not that good, even with the thick glasses. What she could see through Douglas's eyes was framed by the convex distortion of the lenses and the wide rectangle beyond. Ardy felt her right foot move to the left and press down on something. Her body shifted slightly with the deceleration.
__ A car.
__ Even as she realized she was inside the man's mind, her vision cleared more and she saw that he was driving somewhere. The road stretched out before her and the waning sun burned the blue sky and began to turn it orange.
__ Douglas. It was him all right. But why? How?
__ While it was true Ardy didn't have many friends -- actually, none really at all -- she knew you couldn't go through life without meeting a person here or there, or even dealing with people on a daily basis if you had to. Sometimes you interacted with the same person repeatedly, a veritable stranger converted into a friend or acquaintance over time, simply by applying a title: teacher, boss, partner, vendor, assistant, supervisor.
__ In this case, Douglas -- she couldn't recall his last name -- was the owner of the Covert General Store. Ardy did all her shopping there because it was close, had just what she needed, and there were never any crouds or lines. She even spent a lot of time making small talk with the bespectacled man. He was always friendly, though she often suspected Douglas was a little mentally challenged. No one could be that friendly, or that interested in popular TV shows. Douglas always struggled to chat with her about Lost or Heroes, Desperate Housewives, or 24. She had heard of them, but Ardy hadn't seen TV since Cheers was on. He always squirmed when he talked, crinkled up his face to push up his heavy glasses, and made bizarre groaning sounds in his throat when he was disappointed. Douglas was always disappointed when Ardy confessed she didn't know anything about Jack's relationship with the president, or about the Tail People, or whether or not some housewife was interested in some gardener, and she really knew nothing about Hiro's dad being the captain of something called Excelsior.
__ But now she knew it all.
__ All of what Douglas was was now apart of her. Much deeper than the swim through R. Lee Munson's mind, Ardy had an instantaneous grasp of who Douglas was and what his loves and fears were. He considered himself a "Trekkie," not a "Trekker," whatever that was. He felt a deep connection, almost a kinship, with characters from TV shows. He wept when Keith was killed on One Tree Hill. He shouted in anger every time Cancerman bested Mulder and Scully. He laughed through tears when Ross finally confronted Rachel and told her he loved her, and he repeated the performance when Chandler proposed to Monica.
__ But he could never laugh, nor even smile, whenever Drew Carey was on TV, because the comedic actor looked too much like Douglas's father.
__ Sometimes it's the little things, the little bizarre things, that you only know yourself. Douglas would never tell anyone about his avoidance of all things Carey, not even a friend.
__ Which was something -- like Ardy -- that Douglas didn't have.
__ He was tops of all his subjects in school, Covert Junior High and East Maple 394 High School. But he never had time for pursuits beyond what labeled him a "geek" and a "nerd." Always too skinny and gawky for sports, Douglas avoided the athletic crowd. He found one friend named Kenny who invited him into the Geek Realm of Star Trek, Speech and Debate, Chess Club, and computers. By the time he was 20 he had built his own computer and was well on his way to establishing his own local network -- before anyone knew what a LAN was.
__ The pace at which Douglas's mind uploaded into Ardy's consciousness was dizzying, but it didn't seem to be harmful. Facts and figures, both real and imaginary, swarmed into her head. Visions streamed by like the road beneath the car (a six-cylinder 1997 Dodge Intrepid, maroon with gray interior. The transmission catches sometimes, but only in extreme cold. If I could have any car I'd have a Corvette Stingray). Lines of dialogue from TV or movies traced lines from ear to ear like Morse code (Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father. He told me enough. He told me you killed him. No.... I am your father). And tiny factoids stuck to mental synapses like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth (I'm allergic to walnuts. I love dogs, but cats make me sneeze. I wonder if Ardelene likes dogs or cats. I miss my gram. I wish football wasn't pre-empting my show tonight. I wonder if I should've washed the car before driving out here. I want to order that new video card, but the store needs an overhaul on the freezer unit in back. I could let the payment on the bait supplier go one more week. I need to pay the beer guy first).
__ The sound of her name in Douglas's mind conjured pictures of her own smiling face: with her hair pulled back and her tan lines showing on her shoulders; with her hair pasted down by torrents of rain; trying desperately to carry too much without a cart; looking confused as Douglas tells her about an old Twilight Zone episode that wasn't in the movie from the 80's.
__ Oh, my God. He has a crush on me.
__ True enough, particularly by the thoughts racing through Douglas's mind, but nothing like the bizarre David Lynchian visions of R. Lee Munson. Douglas had no delusions about marrying Ardy. In fact, he was on his way to see her at the Psychic Parlor to return the sunglasses she'd left on the counter last week. He had been wrestling with the notion for some time and finally got up the courage -- and formulated the plan -- to use the sunglasses as an excuse to visit, rouse conversation, and eventually ask her on a date. Nothing more. He just wanted a friend to talk to and she was the only one who ever gave him the time of day in the store.
__ Sweet. That was the word to describe it. Sweet. And, despite herself, Ardy couldn't help but think that's what any girl with a big heart would say, just before she let him down easy: "Oh, you're sweet, but I can't because... I'm a loser too but feel superior to you because I'm not a geek!" That had happened to him countless times in the past, and why he deeply feared not only that he would die a virgin, but that he would die alone. Alone with every episode of The X Files on DVD, and no one to watch it with. With Douglas's every thought, every hope and dream, every recalled television moment in pixelated clarity, his only fear was... fear of rejection.
__ Wait a minute. On his way? Here?
__ Ardy felt herself swirl out of his head. She felt her own body coming back into form as the vision blackened and left her in cold darkness again. Then, the pain. Throbbing at first, then sharp, she felt the sting in her side and now the pulsing hell on the side of her head. Opening her eyes slowly, she pulled herself onto her side, resting on an elbow.
__ She was in her bedroom, lying on top of the covers, still wearing her nightshirt and panties. Listening intently, her ear cocked toward the doorway, she heard rustling but no conversation. No gunshots. No shink of a knife blade and crumple of a body Douglas's size.
__ Then Ardy realized something that made her feel Douglas would be okay after all. In the vision, it was sunny and late in the afternoon. It was earlier than that now, and raining like cats and d--.
__ She looked toward the window, then the clock. Sunset was only an hour away, and the sky had cleared to a fading umber. "Oh, my God," she whispered through a burning throat, and rolled out of bed as quietly as she could.
__ Stepping lightly into the doorway to the main chamber and Psychic Reader Parlor, Ardy braced herself on the door jamb. Through the window, orange sunlight glinted dully off the windshield of a maroon Intrepid.
__ "Oh, Ardelene. Hi."
__ Douglas, previously hidden behind the reading table, stood from his crouch. He was holding a sodden rag stained with cola. He motioned weakly toward the other door in the room, the one leading to the kitchen. "I was helping your brother, R. Lee, clean up the mess he made."
__ Dazed. Stunned. She could only stare and look confused.
__ R. Lee Munson came to the kitchen doorway, a fresh towel in his hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. "Hiya, sis. Dougie here was just helpin' me with my little mishap. Hope we didn't wake ya. We was talkin' for seems like hours before he offered to help."
__ "Well, I-Ida jumped in right away, but I didn't, d-didn't know if you m-minded."
__ Sweet. Was all she could think. Her mind was slow to draw the points together, and her head pounded too hard to define the scene before her.
__ After a moment of awkward silence, Douglas exchanged the wet rag for the towel R. Lee handed him. He said, "Oh. Sorry. It's me, you know? Douglas Testerbird from the General Store."
__ When she didn't respond right off, Douglas turned red and dropped slowly to his hands and knees to finish mopping up. He made a soft groaning sound in his throat.
__ Ardy's face slowly turned toward Munson's. He was smiling broadly.
__ As she watched, he reached behind his back to pull something from the small of his back.
__ His dark eyes glinted. He mouthed the words, "Watch me kill him," and produced the gun.