Altering the Apocalypse: and Other Short Stories About Humans and Time Travel
Page 9
“Well shit, that’s the weirdest sex I ever had. I had this incredibly weird vision or dream or something. And,as weird as this sounds, you shared it. You saw my vision. Are we psychically compatible or something? I don’t even know what to call it. I don’t even believe it.”
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
There were no ways to describe or decipher it. Like seeing the aurora borealis on a crisp winter night and trying to explain it to your colorblind friend, there was no way to describe what we saw or experienced.
Neither of us slept for the rest of the night. We chatted, we wondered, we chatted some more. We were mystified. At sunrise, barely able to keep my eyes open but incapable of closing them, I told her I had to get home and get ready for work. As I stood at the open door, I looked back at her. “Should we do this again?”
It took two weeks for us to find the time or the courage to get together again. After dinner at a local Italian restaurant, I walked Lynn to her door and gave her a light kiss on the cheek and was about to say goodnight, but she pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “I can’t forget what happened last time.”
“I was that good, huh?” I said, half-joking and half fishing for a compliment.
She neither confirmed or denied, only laughed.
Inside her apartment, after a drink, she gave me that compliment. “You know. I’m not used to first-date sex. I’m not some choir girl, but one-night stands aren’t my style. So, the sex was welcome since it had certainly been awhile. But, I-I don’t always, you know, finish. In fact, I don’t usually finish. And I finished, you know, had an orgasm, so yes, the sex was good, I guess.”
“I’ll remember the sex was good part of that statement and forget the I guess part.”
Like a woman, she remained mysterious, and only snickered.
Well, I guess the sex was good enough because I was invited to her bedroom and we jumped into bed for round two. I gave it the old college try, but I don’t think she finished. I did and I was off to another land. Not the usual post-coitus after-glow, but another trip back in time. I was there, I swear to God, in the living room of my childhood home. My dad was sitting in his La-Z Boy, remote in hand, and my mom in her chair, reading the paper. I sat cross-legged on the floor playing with some unidentifiable board game. I listened to the television and watched my mom and dad in silence for a few moments, and then I was back to Lynn’s bed. She turned her head and looked at me, her eyes boring a hole through my skull. “Your parents – dad had brown hair, receding hairline, a brown La-Z boy. Your mom a pretty, petite blonde wearing some sweat pants and a tee shirt reading the paper. Did I see that correctly?”
I was speechless – literally speechless. I didn’t say anything, my breath the only sound I could make, still heavy in post-coitus cool down.
“You were there as a little kid, right? I saw it. You experienced it, right?” She looked more intensely in my eyes and she knew – I didn’t have to say a word or nod in agreement. “Jesus. We’re in each other’s dreams or something. God, that puts a whole new meaning to amazing sex. Instead of finishing together, we are actually, um, dreaming together, or something like that. But, I-I didn’t, um finish this time.” She looked at me and batted her eyes. “No offense – the sex was good. Really. Even better than last time, but you did, um, finish.” She smiled, and the smile softened my heart and hardened a different rather tired body part. “And we went to your childhood. Your dream. Your vision. Don’t you think that means something?”
I’m not sure what it meant, but Lynn was right – it meant something. It was possible that we explored the dream or the past of whomever reached orgasm first. We had sex two more times that day and both times Lynn won the race, if you could call it that. I guess going back to your childhood is a real aphrodisiac to her as she had no trouble finishing each time. If I had put a stopwatch on her, it would have told me less than two minutes.
Two more times inside her body and inside her head. Two more times watching Lynn’s childhood like two perplexed flies on the wall. After each session, we could only lay motionless in her bed, unsure of what had just happened but certain that we had experienced something extraordinary.
Lasting relationships aren’t supposed to be built around sex. Yes, sex is usually integral to a happy, loving coupling, but not the principle activity or the glue that keeps a couple together. However, it was our raison d’etre – it’s why we started dating, why we moved in together, and why we’re still a couple. Did we like each other? Certainly. Did we have some fun times together? No doubt. But, after six months of cohabitation, can we say that we have fallen in love? Unfortunately, no. Now I know that a relationship based on sex might sound like a perfect situation for a man – sex, sex, and more sex without the confines and expectations of love. However, you would be surprised at how romantic and desirous of love men are. I was one of those men. I could certainly be Neanderthal at times, and agitated if I couldn’t locate the remote, but a little cuddling, a candle-lit dinner, and the sweet smell of a woman’s perfume were some of the most enjoyable pleasures in life. Like most men, we crave a little romance. We just don’t want to ever admit it.
Sex is almost like a sprint now. It’s fun, tiring, and often sweaty, but there is a finish line that needs to be crossed. In fact, it resembles a fixed race. She wins and then I win, she wins, and then I win again. We usually know the winner before we begin. Sometimes, as a man, I win when I’m not supposed to, if you gather my meaning. Mostly the standings are even and parity dominates in our sex games.
I estimate that we’ve had sex two hundred times in the six months we’ve been living together, maybe more. If I didn’t know better, I’d worry she was a nymphomaniac since it’s almost always Lynn who initiates our sex play. But, I know better. It’s not the tactile sensations of sex she’s lusting after, it’s the travels through time she craves.
It’s ostensibly time travel now. At least, that’s what it feels like. That’s what we call it.
We no longer call them dreams. We are going back in time. I think. We have set foot in the past instead of just existing as floating, disembodied voyeurs. I’m almost certain of it. We walked around, stepped outside our childhood homes, strolled into town, and Lynn even left a snow angel in the powdery white stuff that fell some thirty years earlier.
No one in the past has ever seen us, but the last time I think my mother sensed that we were there. She stopped watching TV for a moment, looked up in our direction, and asked my dad, “Did you feel something. Like a wind. Maybe air is getting in somewhere, dear.” My dad answered in his usual monotone, “I’ll take a look at it tomorrow, honey.” Mother’s intuition you know, and my mother had the best intuition of all. If I did something wrong, she knew it before I did. I guess if I did return from the future as a ghost, she would be the first to know.
So, we’re scheduled to go to Lynn’s childhood next time. I’d prefer to stop our fun at foreplay from now on because I’m kind of scared. Each time is more real. Each time feels more like time travel.
Each time we have sex is time travel.
We’ve decided, or Lynn decided and I didn’t feel like contesting her decision, to touch something or move something; we’re planning to attempt to change something in the past. Will it work? I don’t know. Will it create some type of paradox you hear about in science fiction books? Possibly. Lynn suggested we take the cars keys off the counter and see if we can drive away in the blue 1984 Buick LeSabre sitting in her parents’ driveway, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. What if we hit someone or run over a dog? What if our being on the road causes someone to be late for a meeting, work, or a date and the entire future collapses because of our seemingly innocuous interactions with the past?
To tell you the truth, this relationship is starting to creep me out. Lynn is obsessed with it, and though the sex is good, I’m thinking it would be nice to be in a normal relationship again. Without the time travel.
It’s a Dog Life
“C’mon here, boy. Wanna a treat?”
Excuse me for a moment.
Dogs don't care where the food they eat comes from, they don't care if their toys cost twenty bucks or were found abandoned at the park. They don't need blankets or clothing or even downy soft beds. It's an uncomplicated life, one devoid of conceit, arrogance, and the meanderings of ego.
It's a simple life, one without fear of the unknown, anxiety about health, and dread about mortality. The toys provide pleasure and play, the bed and blanket rest and recovery, the bowls sustenance and satisfaction. The house provides a place, nothing more, and nothing less. Life is about enjoyment rather than specific things. At first glance, it seems more primitive and elementary. But, with patience comes understanding and enlightenment about the meaning of existence, something humans seem to lack as a collective group.
Dogs have more going on in their brains than humans can imagine.
When you think about time as it relates to dogs, what do you think about? That they don’t know the difference between five minutes or five hours? That their internal clocks can’t process anything longer than a short walk or a quick meal? That they miss you just as much if you leave the house for ten minutes as they do when you leave for ten hours? That one human year is equal to seven dog years?
But, my kind, us canines, we understand way more about time than we let on. Especially those of us who were once human. Yes, time travel and reincarnation wrapped up into one incomprehensible treat.
Dogs have far more complex thoughts than you would think, yet we live uncomplicated and worry-fee lives. Go figure.
Each day is a simple story, unconnected to the next or the previous one. It's not an unending series of dramas or comedies, interconnected and relying on the previous day to create the scene for the next.
But, it takes living in both worlds to understand what is missing in one.
Here’s the hard part for humans to grasp. I’ve been a human and now I’m a dog. I was once something else, I’m sure of it. There are humans who were once dogs, but they have forgotten their canine past and the effortless grasp of time and space they once had. I don’t know why dogs remember and humans forget – perhaps because the arrogance of believing you sit atop the food chain clouds your mind and consciousness.
Their bigger brains got in the way of clarity and understanding.
Yes, what I just described is called reincarnation. But, that’s not the difficult concept for humans to grasp. There are many of the human species who subscribe to some variation of that belief. No, the concept that puzzles those at the top of the food chain is circular time.
Dogs that have also once been human can understand the juxtaposition of time and space and the transference of souls. We kind of get the mechanics of it as dogs, that’s why we are carless and free. That’s why we don’t need to know the difference between five minutes and five hours. We can’t explain it – we don’t have some secret dog language in which we bark out high level Euclidean mathematics and quantum theory as we sniff butts at the park. But, we get it.
That’s why we don’t worry about our mortality; we understand our own immortality.
Humans have brought philosophy, religion, and science in to muddy up the waters. Men have created religions, gods, and messiahs to explain the unknown. Philosophers have tried to speculate on life, death, and the meaning of existence. Scientists have created theories to dissect the known and to explain the unknown.
Humans have a need to explain every damn thing; dogs just enjoy it.
As a dog, I’ll try to explain it to you. Time isn’t a line – it’s a circle, or better yet, it’s many circles. It’s like a spiral. Yes, the topology of space and time is a spiral. Dogs understand the flow of unending and directionless flow of time. It goes forward and backward; it spins like a top and it circles around and bites itself, like a dog going in circles until it can reach and chomp on its tail.
We can also smell time.
If you see your dog trying to catch its tail, that intelligent canine is trying to teach you something about time. Don’t laugh at your pet – learn from it.
If your dog is sniffing around the house after someone leaves, they are checking the time. As that odor dissipates, it’s like the ticking of a clock. When that odor completely disappears, they don’t know what time the clock reads, but they do know it’s time for someone to get home.
But, their sense of smell only detects linear time, it’s their uncluttered brains that can comprehend the nature of curved time.
Whether I'm running around the dog park or doing tricks for a treat I know time is a circle, I may look like a circus animal, but I’m hiding my understanding of time. I know that I'll be back again one day as something else. I may take different paths to get to different times, but they are all one in the same. I don't need a book or an old man with a beard or a mathematical formula to tell me that. Dogs who have once been human understand the meaning of life, even if we don’t have the language to tell you. A few barks, a couple of low growls – you wouldn’t understand us anyway.
I’m a dog now, but I’ve been a human before. I can sniff it out on other dogs, the few who have also been human before, like me. Though memories are indistinct and vague, names and faces blurred beyond recognition, just a collection of voices and scents, I can tell. I can almost hear their voices in each individual bark – voices of understanding and knowledge.
Some of us were probably dinosaurs at one time. Or Neanderthals.
Nietzsche said, “the voice of beauty speaks in hushed tones: it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls.” Yes, Nietzsche is one of the things I remember from my past. Here, in the world of canines, the voice of recollection speaks softly and it only creeps into the souls who have been in the human world.
I was once one of them and they someday may become one of me. I was once human and came back as a dog, perhaps a step down, but if you’ve understood what I’ve said here, you know it’s ostensibly a step up.
Dogs are better because they don't waste words, yet communication is interactive and true. They are preferable because it's easier to tell when they are crazy; with homo sapiens it's a bit of a guessing game. I prefer being a dog because I don’t worry about time; I realize it’s circular in nature and I’m bound to ride the circle back again, just the same as when I spin in circles trying to catch my tail.
Is it time travel? I can’t truly say, and to be honest, I don’t honestly care.
It's a dog's life and I have everything I need, sustenance, activity, tranquility, and a place to sleep. You would think, in the next life, I would desire to move up the evolutionary scale, where grandiose ideas and bigger possibilities exist. You would think.
“Rover, here boy! C'mon boy! Wanna go for a walk?”
That’s my owner again. I need to go, though I kind of obey at my own speed now unless there’s a treat involved. Nietzsche was also right that everything begins and ends with self-enjoyment and I’m sure as hell enjoying myself here. A dog’s life is sweet.
But the name – Rover? It’s a cliché at best and an abomination at worst. You would think someone at the top of the evolutionary ladder, a species that produced Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain would be able to give me a more creative name than Rover, but I think you can see what I mean about humans. They’ll never understand circular time, spirals, time travel, and the truth about reincarnation. They can’t even figure out why I sit and stare at them sometimes.
“You want a treat? I’ll get you a treat.” That’s what they say.
To tell you the truth, I’m just sitting there wondering why they hell my human doesn’t get it. It seems so clear to me – the advantage of a less cluttered, less complex brain, I suppose. But, I’m not complaining – those bacon-flavored treats are damn delicious, and I probably know more Nietzsche than most humans do.
Time Travel Rides
“I don’t know nothing about what to do with it,” he said in his best public school English. Having been an English minor in college, I flinched at his grammatical blunder. “I thought I’d just sell it. I don’t want it no more.” Max Quarryman was a genius even though he spoke at a fifth-grade level. He could do anything and everything with his hands, an attribute to which several ladies in our fair city could attest. Besides pleasing the ladies with his geeky, boy-band looks and his skillful and his adept hands, he also used those hands to build things weird, eccentric and ahead of our time: a cell phone with legs so that it can walk to you when you misplace it, a TV remote/electric razor combination, and a uranium-powered golf cart, to name a just a few of them. When he showed me his current project, I saw what looked like the skeleton of some bizarre virtual reality machine.
“What is it?” I asked.
With a glint in his pale blue eyes, “It’s a time machine. What does it look like?”
“Really,” I said, with more than the usual skepticism hard on my face. “What are you gonna do with that?”
“Well, I just listed it for sale on Craigslist and I have six hundred and twenty responses-” He quickly glanced down at his iPhone. “Um, make that six hundred and twenty-two now. I priced it at $100. I think I may have underestimated its worth.”
What did I know about time travel machines? Hell, I could barely get through high school science class. If it hadn’t been for Laura Goodman letting me cheat off her paper in biology, I’d probably still be in high school. Still, I did know a few things about business. I wasn’t a billionaire or even close to it, but I had successfully started two companies and sold them for a handsome profit.