Reasons Only Time Allows

by Micah Thomas

  “Cat.” Henry was still beaming.

  “Really original.”

  “Hush. Don’t listen to the grumpy man. Your momma is getting your kennel and you will ride with me.”

  “Is she serious?”

  “Yeah. She’s not leaving Cat behind.”

  “Forget the cat. Damn. You got Cassie to agree? What did you tell her?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.” Henry dropped his grin and gave Thelon a serious look.

  Thelon wasn’t sure whether he was kidding. “Did you promise her something?”

  “Dude, I’m not telling. She’s coming. That’s what’s important.”

  Thelon looked up to see Cassie muscle down the stairs with more stuff than Thelon thought he could carry on a good day: a kitty kennel, a huge suitcase, and a forty-pound bag of cat food over one shoulder and litter over the other.

  “Holy shit, you’re strong,” Henry marveled and raced to help her.

  “Moving dying people around deathbeds builds you up. Oh, and by the way, shotgun!”

  “Mother fucker,” Henry said with an easy laugh. “That’s fine by me. Gives me more time to get to know Miss Cat.”

  Cassie snorted as she laughed hard at Henry’s clowning. She climbed into the passenger seat and Henry sat in the back. Thelon shook his head, complacent and empty again. The moods came and went so fast, but when he was with them, everything was kind of more or less okay.

  “Right,” Thelon said. “Let’s get on the road.”

  “So, this is it. I’m getting out of Phoenix. Holy shit,” Cassie said.

  “Not going to be homesick?” Henry asked.

  “I hate it here.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?”

  “Jesus. Are you going to interrogate me the whole time?”

  “Um…” Henry leaned into the backseat, away from talking directly over Cassie’s shoulder.

  Thelon cringed, worried that Henry done fucked up as his Nana might have said and focused on the GPS and driving.

  A few moments passed and Cassie said, “Just fucking with you. No, I moved back here because my mom was here. Then she passed two years ago and I just kinda stayed. I had a job and, there’s no reason for you to give a shit, but I was depressed for a long time. Then a week ago, I woke up feeling different, you know?”

  Thelon perked up. “Different how?”

  “Oh, he talks!” Cassie nudged Thelon, who gave her a side-eye. She winked at him. “I don’t know. Different somehow. I’m not going to say I knew something was going to happen, but when I was a little kid, I pretended I was psychic. Sometimes, when my lucky guess was right, I really believed it. Enough shit happened when I grew up—you know all kids stop believing in magic one day, right? I wasn’t any different.”

  “Yeah.” Thelon nodded. He’d grown up, but he was on the fence about magic existing.

  “Well, I just felt that belief again a few days ago. Almost like I woke up into a happy dream and it just kept going and going. When you guys showed up, it was like Alice in Wonderland. You two are my white rabbit. I’ll follow you down this hole for now. Also, breaking up with Aaron was pretty much a good thing and I don’t really want to deal with his shit right now.”

  Yeah, right, girl. You felt something. Just like Henry did. You just aren’t ready to talk about it.

  “Something happened to all of us then,” Henry said.

  “What wasyours?” Thelon was nervous that Henry was about to tell Cassie about their adventure. He wished he’d had a code word for shut the fuck up. “You didn’t mention anything before.”

  They cruised on the highway now, passing signs and making fewer turns and no stops.

  Henry put Cat in the carrier, and she curled up to sleep. He leaned forward again, practically resting his head on Cassie’s shoulder. “Well, let me tell you. A couple days before you came for me, I had, I dunno. An encounter?. I guess I forgot in all the excitement. I’d call it, um…mistaken identity. I’d snuck into a show. The girl working the door owed me a favor and I wanted a free drink and to be out of the rain. It was at the Can-Can—a cool place underground. Literally. There are these little diamond skylights, just enough for a glow to come through, and that’s the sidewalk above your head. That’s not the important part. Sorry. Don’t know why I’m even mentioning it.”

  “It’s okay,” Cassie said.

  “So, it’s some sort of theme night and people are wearing masks. Everyone but me. I think it was part of the band’s gimmick. I dunno. I was hanging around the bar, sipping free water, hoping someone would buy me a drink and then this dude did. He just came up to me and put a drink in my hand. A whiskey, neat.”

  “What did he look like?” Thelon tried to focus on the road, but this seemed more important.

  “Dude, he was wearing a mask, like I said. I thought maybe I knew him until he talked. He sounded like something was fucked up in his throat. Like he had, um…not a speech impediment exactly, but you ever hear the musician Tricky Talk? Like that. Like a strangled cat. Or someone who has been smoking weed since they were ten years old. Scratchy-like.”

  “What did he say?” Thelon asked, unable to conceal the urgency in his voice.

  “Don’t rush me. It’s my story, damn it. I took the drink and swallowed it in one go. You never know if there’s another one coming and I said thanks. He said,” Henry tried his best guttural growl, “‘I wanted to see you one more time.’”

  “Then what happened?” Cassie asked.

  “Nothing. Dude bought me another drink and he left, but it was freaky. I have no idea who he was or who he thought I was.”

  Thelon knew. Nestor. Why did Nestor visit Henry and not me? “You didn’t see him again?”

  Henry laughed. “Well, no. But you know what? When I saw you coming for me that night? I thought maybe it was him and I wanted no part of it.”

  “Why would you even think that?”

  “I guess I was edgy but you two kinda had a similar build. I don’t know, man.”

  Thelon drove and drove. A meditative quiet fell over the strangers traveling together. Henry was right. Something strange had happened to all of them. The meaning of which was utterly lost on Thelon. The pieces simply did not fit any story he could make up to rationalize things. At the very least, he drew comfort from the fact that if he was going crazy, the whole lot of them were going together.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THELON PULLED OFF the highway into Albuquerque. Cassie still rode shotgun, Henry was quiet, and Thelon’s mind chattered like nonsense poet.

  And away we went. The new machine. The rumble and tumble of a new beginning and I’m the same as I ever was, and nothing is the same. All around me there is familiarity, but I am not myself. I am two sets of memories. I’m dead. I’m doomed. How I was…and how I am...

  “Hey, um, why don’t we get gas outside of town?” Henry asked.

  “Why?” Thelon pulled into the station, wondering if he should turn around onto the highway.

  “Albuquerque is known for meth heads.”

  “Your people?” Cassie joked.

  “Ha ha,” Henry replied dryly.

  Thelon shook his head at the two and pulled up to the tanks.

  “I have a confession,” Cassie said, staring out the window.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “And a request—and remember, you both agreed to do fun road trip stuff with me.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Henry said from the back, tossing the comic book he was reading to the cramped floor.

  “Today is my birthday,” she said.

  “Damn! Cassie, happy birthday,” Henry told her.

  “Yeah. Happy birthday,” Thelon said. “How old are you?”

  “Shut up, man. That’s not the important part. What do you want for your birthday?” Henry asked.

  “Thank you. At least one of you is a gentleman,” Cassie said and tapped the windshield. “That’s what I want.” She pointed to the mega cinema adjoining the shopping mart. “Since I wa
s a little girl, my mom took me to the movies for my birthday. This is the second year she’s been gone. Will you guys go to the movies with me?”

  “Hell yeah!” Henry shouted.

  Thelon sighed and held his head. “We still have five hours of driving today, unless you want to stay here in meth town.”

  “You can sleep through the movie and be rested to drive the second half,” Henry reasoned.

  Thelon rationally knew this was unhelpful, but fuck it, why the rush? His thoughts answered his own question: Because I’m going insane and getting to Black Star is the only thing I can think of that makes the noise stop. But he couldn’t tell them. No. Talk about Nestor and the plan and they all died. Fuck. “Fine. Any idea what’s playing?”

  “Does it matter?” Henry asked.

  “Yay!” Cassie cried.

  Thelon gassed up the car and took his party over to the mostly empty cinema lot. “What about Cat? Gonna leave her in the car?”

  “I’ve got this,” Henry said, and Cat put up no resistance as he slid her into his hoodie. “What cat? I don’t see any cat.”

  “Fine.”

  Inside, Cassie bought the snacks and Thelon kept a respectable distance. He thought the phone had vibrated, but it was a false sensation as the case rubbed against his leg.

  “Thanks for the extra-large,” Henry said.

  “It’s the least I can do for you losers.” She smiled as she said it.

  Thelon glanced up from the phone and crammed it back into his pocket as discretely as possible, worried they’d notice. He’d caught a moment in time where they were busy, and he laughed when he saw Cassie land a playful pinch to Henry’s narrow butt. Well, holy fucking shit. There’s already something between them. A strange emotion made itself known to Thelon. Don’t be jealous, man. But he was. The lovers were bonding in real time and he was cut out of that, a circle within their circle.

  Henry jumped at the pinch, sending popcorn flying, but he smiled back. Thelon noticed, once again, that ever since they’d met up with Cassie, his boy Henry hadn’t been jonesing for the bad stuff—or at least hadn’t said a single word about drugs. It’s super fucking impossible for love to cure addiction this fast. Then again, he’d seen the unimaginable happen several times lately. They were together and it was meant to be. On their way to an impossible place to do another impossible thing.

  Like the parking lot, the cinema was near empty at this early time of day. Maybe nothing good was playing. It didn’t matter. Not to Thelon. All he wanted was the AC, the plush seats, and a minute away from their quest. Away from the urgency. Especially away from the phone calls. He didn’t want T to dispense esoteric advice or for Nestor to call him. Not now.

  Near midway up the stadium rows, they found their seats.

  “These fuckers recline!” Henry announced joyfully.

  “Binch, of course they do,” Cassie said and plopped down. She began to divvy up the snacks and tossed Thelon a candy bar.

  Henry opened the neck of his hoodie to let Cat peek out. She purred and retreated inside.

  The advertisements started and Thelon heard Cassie and Henry joking about something in whispers. Good. Why do I still feel like shit? Going to Black Star. That’s it. In my timeline, they started all this shit. Why does Nestor want me to go to them now? Good guys, bad guys, and us clueless fucks in the middle.

  By the time the previews began, the theatre darkened, and Thelon was feeling the sugar from the candy bar and his coke. When he was stone cold sober, he could feel the rush like any other drug. The trip paused and time stopped in the cold theater. He thought about David Bowie lyrics as trailers for action films played. ‘There’s strong man beating up the wrong guy, uh oh, look at those cave men go!’ He didn’t recognize most of the actors and actresses. Despite the sugar, he became drowsy, deeply and profoundly comfortable. Man, I’m gonna fall asleep here. It was such a good feeling; his feet were propped up, nothing hurt, and nobody expected anything from him.

  The opening credits blared, and the music streamed down at them, clubby and industrial—something like what Thelon promoted back in Eden, when he’d thrown parties and was making a name for himself. That place doesn’t exist anymore. Me and Henry destroyed that whole fucking planet. That was the plan. To save it, we had to break it. Didn’t we? Isn’t that what we did?

  The movie didn’t make any sense to Thelon. He glanced at Henry and Cassie, at the three of them, legs up in recliner-style seats in an empty room. This should be fun. They could talk or laugh as loud as they wanted. Thelon, however, ran a whole different movie in his head. In the dream, T had wanted him to remember something important. Some piece of knowledge his body had absorbed out there in space with Henry. At the time, he’d only had rational, conscious memories of the event–visual facts. Now, the whole experience landed on him. Like a lyric to a song stuck on the tip of the tongue, Thelon knew the answer was close.

  While this emergent thought hovered, he became incredibly aware of his body—uncomfortably aware. The popcorn soured in his stomach, which rumbled noisily. His pulse beat too strong against the elastic in his socks. The large soft drink, too sweet and far too much, put a pressure on his bladder that could not be ignored. So much for sleeping.

  Thelon stood and went to the restrooms, unaware that Henry’s watchful eye saw, worried, and observed. The need to piss was so strong as Thelon darted to the bathroom that it was only once he was standing at a toilet that he paused to consider that he might have run into the women’s bathroom. Even though there were no other patrons, the potential embarrassment at this mistake caused him tremendous fear. He couldn’t piss with this going on in him. The pressure did not abate, but he couldn’t go. The discomfort was real, but so was that continued growing sense of nearly remembering.

  He stood at the toilet, penis in his hand, and thought hard. Henry and I in the bathtub. No. In the sensory deprivation tank. They’d been putting me in the tank and feeding me mind altering drugs. I was expanding and learning but not through words, not through seeing things; I was absorbing knowledge of the world. Henry could perceive the world directly with his elemental fire, and when he needed help because his vision was incomplete, it had been me who knew something more about the fundamental nature of reality.

  The memory o that arrived in his brain without the actual knowledge of the thing itself was frustrating. The more Thelon tried to grasp it, like a dream on waking, the more slippery the thought became. He gave up on the piss and put his penis away. That was when the cellphone vibrated against his thigh.

  For a split second, he saw the phone for what it was, and it was not a phone at all. The vision was not visual; it was more like understanding a math equation. The phone was attached to a hook on his body, trailed by a line of force extending beyond the horizon to the east. All objects—the cinema, buildings, and things between—were phantoms, less real than this crisscrossing network of lines connecting all people as they really were.

  Either this perception shift ended before Thelon could contemplate it, or the action of attempting to understand banished it from his mind. The phone buzzed. He needed to answer it. Still in the stall, he slipped the phone out of his pocket and pressed accept on the call as he brought the damned thing to his ear.

  He waited and listened to the low static. “Hello?” he said gently, hearing the fragility in his own voice.

  A rising wind cutting through the trees. It passed through his right ear and out his left. Buried beneath the wind, audible only as he focused on the sound, was a chorus of never-ending screams. Thelon’s eyes widened with fright and he wanted more than anything to put down the phone. Throw it in the toilet. However, he was inextricably caught in those wails. Oh, god. What is this?

  He became aware of two voices speaking an alien language in either ear. He welcomed the transition of attention from the screams and as he closed his eyes and willed himself to listen, they became louder and clearer. Though his words made no sense, in his right ear, the one with the pho
ne pressed tight to his head, he finally heard Nestor, who spoke slow and methodically.

  “The daily world collapses. Eidolon and Eikon. Ghost and image. Hesperus is Phosphorus. Sense and reference. Eidolon, ghost. The ghost is not the person. Eikon, image. The image is not the person,” Nestor rasped and continued repeating the almost lyrical nonsense. Thelon found he could barely swallow and was unable to speak.

  He began to sweat under the exertion. The other voice was quieter. It spoke faster, in a panic, into his left ear.

  “Thelon, wake up. Wake up. You must wake up. Thelon, wake up. Please wake up. I don’t know what to do. You must remember what we have to do.”

  As if both voices caught knowledge of each other, he heard them in unison, too loud for his ears to regulate the noise. The commotion broke with a click, and some gear slid into place within him, beyond the jolts and little knowings. The universe is alive and has two parts: the unknown and the unknowable. I’ve been to both. I exist in both. I am outside of existence. I am not a prize to be fought over, a bone between dogs. I am no longer human. When I wake up—truly wake up—there is nothing between the parts of the totality of everything I cannot alter to my direction.

  “Thelon!” In this final yell, he felt his body yanked backwards. Arm aching with the tension of holding the phone, he released it and the sound of the device clattering to the floor was a grounding reality.

  There was Henry. His lips were moving, but Thelon couldn’t hear anything except a ringing sound as if a gunshot had blown out his eardrums. He’s trying to get me to put my hands in the sink. Thelon laughed at the mime work.

  Henry doused Thelon as the latter stood silently smiling and accepting his baptism. The water cascaded around him, distant and detached as if his skin were thick as a whale’s blubber. It touched but did not penetrate. He wanted to address Henry’s worried expression, to tell him that everything was okay, but he still could not speak.

  Thelon watched in absolute confusion as Henry struggled with a door at the end of a long line of urinals. He seemed unable to open it.