The corpuscles … that rise from the Minerals, entering the rod,
determine it to bow down, in order to render it parallel to the
vertical lines which the effluvia describe in their rise.
William Pryce
Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 1778
“Fred Johansson, what in the hell are you up to this time?”
The voice was distant, but I recognized without hesitation the mostly jovial but always slightly cynical tone of my neighbor from two farms over, Rogers Manning. He was easy to spot as he made his way across the field, being of far-greater-than-average girth and being, as well, clad in a nearly glowing red shirt. The combination of these attributes created the appearance, if one squinted, of a large crimson beach ball rolling toward me through the freshly cut grass. Prior to his exhortation, I had been languishing against the wood fence that delineated my yard proper from my twenty-acre north field. My arms were crossed and resting upon the top rail of the fence and I had been engaged in the surprisingly engrossing pastime of watching a man as he walked slowly around my back field holding extended before him a long Y-shaped stick, looking for all the world as though he was leading an invisible horse. The walking man was quite some way away from me in the field, which made him as yet extremely far away from Manning. My neighbor was, however, possessed of exquisite eyesight and astute enough to realize that something odd was indeed afoot out there in my north twenty.
I did not acknowledge Manning’s comment, but merely watched as he traversed the remaining distance to the fence where I stood, which he did with more alacrity than one might reasonably expect from one of such enormity. He at last reached the fence and stood for a moment catching his breath, looking out in the direction I had been prior to his arrival. He turned to me for a second but immediately returned his gaze to the man who was still walking around my back pasture in what seemed an utterly random manner. The man continued to hold the stick before him and he did not acknowledge our surveillance. Indeed, he appeared lost in concentration.
“Fred,” Manning said after a lengthy pause, “I have known you these many years and I know you to be a man of integrity and common sense. Which is why I know that that fellow out there in your back field cannot possibly be dowsing for water, unless, that is, he is doing so without your consent.”
Manning was not like the other farm owners who lived in our part of the county. Truth be told, he wasn’t a proper farmer at all. He was the fortunate benefactor of a father who had for many years owned a large property near my own, a father who had had the good manners to pass on the farm to his only son upon his own passing some five years earlier. Manning had spent his entire previous life ensconced in the concrete and chaos of New York City, working as a book editor for one of the larger publishing houses. When the call had come regarding his father’s passing, he had been squarely ensconced in the midst of his own mid-life crisis and found captivating the unexpected prospect of abandoning his high-pressure career for what he supposed to be a leisurely life in the country.
Needless to say, coming from such a background he had encountered some initial difficulty ingratiating himself with the other land owners in the area, all of whom had spent their lives here. But for reasons I have never quite put my finger on, he and I hit it off from our very first meeting. Among other endearing attributes, I have found his easy manner and not-at-all-agrarian elocution to be a continuing source of amusement and education. Among his other unusual characteristics, he was the sort of fellow perfectly capable of carrying on an extended conversation with himself, this perhaps a consequence of a long career spent reading and editing in solitude. I had seen him perform this incongruous act on more than one occasion, with my function being no more than to insert the occasional “Really?” or “You don’t say!” at certain strategic moments in his otherwise uninterrupted diatribe. As an experiment some months ago, I had answered his phone call and, following the initial formalities, simply set the phone down on the kitchen counter and watched a half-hour television show, at the conclusion of which I returned to the phone to find him continuing his discussion unabated. On this occasion, however, it seemed that a reply was in order.
“Rogers,” I replied with what I felt was a knowing smile, “why are you so quick to dismiss the inexplicable?”
He returned my gaze with an expression suspended somewhere between incredulity and dismissiveness. This look, though, slowly morphed into one that suggested a realization that he was being let in on some sort of private joke. After a few more seconds of silence it became clear he was looking for confirmation that he had, in fact, correctly interpreted the situation.
“He’s a relative, right?” Rogers said. “Someone whose lunacy you are obliged to indulge in the interest of domestic tranquility. I completely understand. My wife has an aunt who believes that she is a lost heir to the throne of England. My wife insists that we acknowledge her as such whenever she visits. Damnable thing, but entertaining in its own way.”
“No, Rogers, he’s no relative. In fact, I only met the man yesterday, down at the tractor shop.”
“And he, no doubt, overheard you talking with Sherman about the new well you’re commencing to dig out here.”
“Astute as ever, Rogers. It was—”
“Oh no, Fred, kindly allow me to complete the story, for I can see it clear as the stick in his hands.”
I stopped in mid-sentence and stood with arms crossed, encouraging Rogers to infer how the previous day’s conversation had transpired, a pastime he enjoyed deeply and one in which he had demonstrated some ability in past conversations.
“You were no doubt discussing with Sherman the relative merits of various auger types in anticipation of drilling your new well, a worthy undertaking necessitated by our incessant drought and subsequent depletion of the water level in your current one. Your new friend,” he said, gesturing with his chin at the man walking across the field, “overheard this conversation and, without invitation, volunteered that he was possessed of a unique and prescient ability to identify for you the precise spot in which you should drill your new well, and in so doing, to save you a good deal of wasted time and money in determining the optimal location.”
He paused for a moment, clearly satisfied with himself despite my failure thus far to validate the accuracy of his account.
“Fred, as God is my witness, please tell me you haven’t given this charlatan money.”
I did my best to muster a reassuring smile as I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Rogers, your gift for clairvoyance has suffered no diminution at all despite your advancing age. The conversation at Sherman’s was nearly exactly as you describe it. It’s as though you were a proverbial fly on the wall. And no, no cash has changed hands. I am merely intrigued to see in action a lost art about which I have heard plenty over the years but which I have never actually witnessed in person.”
“Fred, I am relieved that your wallet remains intact, but—trust me when I say this—all you are seeing here is a strange man walking about at random in your north field, holding before him a bifurcated tree branch. Forgive my crassness, but I could as reliably locate the water beneath your field by walking out there fifty paces in any direction and pissing on the ground.”
“And a fine well it would be, Rogers, of that I have no doubt.”
“You are, of course, aware, Fred, that they maintain a comprehensive library of reservoir maps down at the survey office.”
“I am aware,” I replied, gesturing to the bit of paper protruding from my shirt pocket. “Chalk this up to an afternoon’s entertainment for a bored man. I am keen to see if he comes up with anything that bears resemblance to what the map reveals. Besides which, he is a surpassingly curious individual to converse with, perhaps even more so than your wife’s royal aunt.”
“You mean curious beyond the fact that he spends his days walking about in fields practicing the black arts.”
“Oh, you have no idea, my friend, no idea at all.” I turned and cupped my hands around my mouth, shouting to the man. “Mister Blackstone!”
Blackstone turned in response to my call. After a moment of hesitation, he lowered the dowsing stick with some apparent reluctance, and began making his way toward Manning and I.
“And just what is it,” Manning asked, “aside from his affinity for walking about in fields, that makes this individual so different from you and I?”
“Well,” I replied, “he is convinced that neither he nor any of us is real.” I gestured expansively so as to suggest not just my neighbor and I, but rather the entirety of humanity. Manning extended his lower lip a bit and nodded as though he judged this notion to be a perfectly ordinary thing. Blackstone arrived at our position by the fence and stood in silence, anticipating whatever reason I might have had for distracting him from his search.
“Mister Blackstone, allow me to present my neighbor, Rogers Manning.”
Blackstone wiped his right hand across his shirt and extended it in Manning’s direction, while his other hand retained a firm grasp on the dowsing rod. He proffered a smile.
“Averill Blackstone, sir, and a fine day to you.”
“You as well,” Manning returned, shaking the man’s hand. I knew my neighbor well enough to know that he was not one to brook anything he perceived as nonsense and that he would waste no time in challenging someone—even a perfect stranger—who he felt was a purveyor of such. He did not disappoint.
“My colleague here,” Manning gestured in my direction, “tells me you mean to determine for him the optimal location in which he should drill his new water well.”
Blackstone made the face of one who is less than keen to be challenged about his chosen field of expertise. “I made no promises, sir, but only offered to provide an opinion based on my many years of experience in this endeavor.” He raised his left hand slightly, the one still holding the branch.
“And it is your intent to divine this location using no implement other than this thin bit of willow.”
“Hazel actually, sir. Though there are some who have come to prefer, as you say, willow, I am a bit of a traditionalist about these things. And yes, I mean to determine whatever I am able using nothing more than this divining rod and the feel of my hands and forearms.”
I knew Manning well enough to know that he could easily spend the remainder of the afternoon trifling with this man. What I did not know was to what degree Blackstone would endure his jibes without taking affront. In any event, it was worth a bit of my time to find out.
“Would you mind terribly if I had a closer look?” Manning asked, looking down at the branch in Blackstone’s hand. Blackstone looked uncertain for a moment, but then handed over the diviner with no small measure of uncertainty.
“Hazel, you say?” Manning asked, turning the rod around and passing it from one hand to the other. “Can you cast any light on just how it works?”
“Ah, Mister Manning, therein lies the rub. I don’t know how it works any more than I know how the grass grows or the sun shines.” He paused for a moment, uncertain how much detail he ought to volunteer.
“By any chance, sir,” he continued, “have you heard of a German by the name of Otto von Graeve?”
“Indeed I have not, Mister Blackstone,” Manning said. “Early practitioner of the art, I presume?”
“You presume correctly, sir. Also a great uncle on my mother’s side and good friend of my own uncle Carl, also an accomplished dowser. It was he—Carl—who introduced the practice of dowsing into my life.”
“And what then did these distinguished progenitors of yours have to say about the science underlying this pursuit?” Manning was taking on an increasingly condescending tone and language, though Blackstone either did not yet discern it or chose to ignore it in the interest of civility.
“There’s the thing, Mister Manning. My uncles offered no insight into the underlying mechanics of dowsing, nor have I heard any offered by the several individuals I’ve encountered in my life who engage in the activity. I know only how to go about it, but can say little indeed about why it works.”
“So do you suppose it be magic, Mister Blackstone?”
“Oh, quite the contrary. You see, magic is only illusion. The magician is no miracle worker. Rather he engages in various forms of subterfuge and misdirection for the purpose of entertaining his audience.”
“Whereas you, Mister Blackstone…”
Manning allowed the unfinished phrase to hang in the air for a moment, suggestive of far more by its incompletion than any words he might have appended to it.
“Mister Manning, I can certainly appreciate your skepticism, and you will know, of course, that you are by no means alone in the low regard you have for my skills. I will be the first to acknowledge that it is an imperfect art, Mister Johansson here being an excellent example of a case in which I can, thus far, arrive at no concrete conclusion.
Manning apparently determined that he had exhausted the topic of dowsing, at least for the moment, and so he embarked upon a rather abrupt non sequitor.
“I am led to believe, Mister Blackstone, you are convinced that you do not, in fact, exist. Do I understand this correctly?”
Blackstone glanced for a moment toward me, since it was abundantly clear that I was the only person who might have plausibly provided Manning with this intriguing bit of intelligence. I affected a very subtle shrug, as though encouraging him to expound upon what he had shared with me earlier.
“That may be a bit of a mischaracterization, sir. What I indicated to Mister Johansson,” he glanced my way again, “is that I am increasingly of a mind that none of us are real, rather that we are fabrications of an external and unseen power.”
Manning, ever given to discourse concerning the abstract, seized upon this with verve.
“Seems to me all you are describing is a straightforward interpretation of religious theology, that we are all the products of a divine creator.”
“No, no, sir. It’s different than that. What I have determined is that we—myself as well as anyone with whom I happen to interact—are simply characters in a story being written by an unseen author.”
It is a surpassingly rare thing to witness Manning at a genuine loss for words, but he stood gazing at Blackstone for several seconds before turning to face me. I said nothing but offered only a palms-raised what-did-I-tell-you gesture.
“So, Mister Blackstone, let me understand this.” He paused again, collecting his thoughts. “You, and for the moment at least the two of us, as well, are merely characters in a story being crafted by someone … somewhere. That our actions, our dialog—these very words I utter now—are the creations of …”
He paused again before—I swear it to be true—actually glancing for a brief second up to the sky as though in search of someone. I had known Manning long enough so that he had to work quite hard to surprise me anymore. But his reaction to Blackstone’s absurd hypothesis caught me utterly unawares.
“Let me say, sir, that may be the most profound and disturbing notion I’ve heard in a very very long time.”
Blackstone too seemed taken aback, as he had by now discerned that Manning thought him to be a charlatan in the dowsing department, which reasonably led him to conclude that anything else he uttered would be dismissed as well.
“I should add, Mister Manning, that this is only a recent revelation of mine and still bears a good deal of consideration. I confess that I agree with you as to its profundity, for the more I reflect upon the idea, the more it explains. Why, though, do you find it disturbing?”
Manning, having had a few moments to ponder Blackstone’s bizarre assertion, was clearly rising to the occasion.
“I find it disturbing on several levels, Mister Blackstone. Let’s start with the fact that what you propose cannot be in any way disproven. Meaning that even if I felt you to be an utter fool in this regard, I cannot definitively tell you that you are mistaken. That is merely bothersome. What’s truly troubling, though, is that if you are right, then you have, at a stroke, eliminated free will from any of us. We, all of us standing here, are capable of no more than what your writer decides we will do or say next. That, sir, is a terrifying prospect, so much so that I may not sleep tonight.”
“Unless, of course, our invisible author wills it to be so.” I interjected. Manning turned quickly my way but did not respond.
“Just to clarify, Mister Blackstone,” Manning said, “is it your assertion that it is only yourself who is the subject of this mysterious writer, or do you believe this concept applies to all of humanity?”
“Best I can determine so far, it applies only to myself … and anyone else I happen to interact with as I traverse this life. It seems to me that this author would be a busy fellow indeed if he had to manage the lives of everyone on earth.”
“But what then do you suppose happens to Fred and I when you move on from here? Do we simply vanish into the ether or are we now somehow inextricably tied to your … story for the remainder of time?”
“You raise a question to which I’m afraid I have no definitive answer, though logic would suggest the latter. The way I envision it, we have met, we have conversed, there has been, if you will, an interchange of narrative energy, for lack of a better term. I do not comprehend how that can be extinguished simply by my turning and walking off down the road, whether or not we ever encounter one another again.”
“Ah,” Manning said, “so we will still be obliged to get up tomorrow morning as always—plow the fields, pay our bills.”
“Surely, sir, that is preferable to the alternative.”
“And presumably I will still need to dig a new well.” I added with a wry smile.
“Then we’d better let the man get back to his work,” Manning said, handing back to Blackstone the divining rod he had been holding throughout the surreal conversation. And the odd thing was that the way in which he said ‘work’ almost suggested a measure of respect, as though his opinion of the stranger had somehow risen in the few minutes that we had been speaking. Blackstone accepted the hazel branch, tipped his hat, and began walking back out into the field where he recommenced dowsing in precisely the same spot whence I had summoned him earlier. As Manning and I stood in silence by the fence, Blackstone removed his cap, wiped his brow, and for the briefest of moments, glanced once more up to the clouds before rejoining his search.