Variation on a Theme

By Thomas Watson

On a bitterly cold night under the stars, an old man willingly embraces the end of his life. Illness and a revelation of betrayal have convinced him that the time has come. But in dying, Gregory Williamson discovers that time is not what he believes it to be, and neither are life and death. By the shadowy being who calls herself Lucy, he is given a new awareness of the complexity of existence and offered the chance to live another life. A life that will show him the powerful truth of love. A life that could make the world a better place.

Better, that is, from a certain point of view.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Watson
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201940706

Thomas Watson

I am a writer, amateur astronomer, and long-time fan of science fiction living in Tucson, AZ. I'm a transplanted desert rat, having come to the Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest many years ago from my childhood home in Illinois. I have a B.S. in plant biology from the University of Arizona, and have in the past worked as a laboratory technician for that institution. Among many other things, I am also a student of history, natural history, and backyard horticulture.  I also cook a pretty good green chili pork stew. But most of all, I'm a writer. The art of writing is one of those matters that I find difficult to trace to a single source of inspiration in my life. Instead of an "Aha! This is it!" moment, I would say my desire to write is the cumulative effect of my life-long print addiction. My parents once teased me by claiming I learned to read before I could tie my own shoelaces. Whether or not that's true, I learned to read very early in life, and have as a reader always cast a very wide net. My bookshelves are crowded and eclectic, with fiction by C.J. Cherryh, Isaac Asimov, and Tony Hillerman, and nonfiction by Annie Dillard, Stephen Jay Gould, and Ron Chernow, among many others. It's no doubt due to my eclectic reading habits that I have an equal interest in writing both fiction and nonfiction. The experience of reading, of feeling what a writer could do to my head and my heart with their words, eventually moved me to see if I could do the same thing for others. I'm still trying to answer that question.

Book preview

Any Time Now

1

GREGORY WILLIAMSON reclines in a battered old chaise lounge, set on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere. He is aware of the biting cold, but somehow no longer really feels it. He doesn’t care. It’s news from a distant land, one he is leaving behind. He is quite sure the feeling of distance means he is close to the end, and he is at peace with this. It’s according to plan, after all. Like the night around him, time seems frozen, locking him into the present and endless moment. It’s a comfortable fit. It feels familiar.

The stars of winter over him are as cold and hard as the air he breathes, clearly seen in the black sky until he exhales, and then briefly obscured by the steam of his breath. The clouds of steam are appearing less often. Orion fills his vision; the pale streamer of the winter Milky Way crosses the sky to the east. Sirius blazes down and to his left, twinkling with mad rainbow colors, a matter for peripheral vision. He can’t turn his gaze directly toward it. He is mildly puzzled that the stars remain so clear and undimmed. Greg thinks his vision should be fading by now, but the stars are bright. That his last sight might be such a starry sky, a thing for which he has a fondness he’s never been able to explain, is pleasing. It is also surprising that he can still appreciate the view, and feel that fondness, in that endless moment of his ending.

What the hell do I know? he mumbles to the stars. First time for everything, even the last thing.

The pills are in him, washed down by expensive vodka. His coat is open to the bitter cold night air. The pills and the alcohol are surely doing their work, and because of them Greg feels perfectly comfortable, ironically numb to the winter air. He imagines that each time he exhales, another degree or two of body temperature is shed. He sighs deeply and bids farewell to a few more degrees. An overpowering urge to sleep wells up from deep within. He will be free soon. No more cancer, no more creaking old age, no more bitter undercurrent of betrayal. Greg looks up at the blaze of frosty stars and smiles. And drifts away into that sightless sleep that will soon be so much deeper. He can feel it happening, and a sense of comfort and ease fills him. And it does all feel very familiar. One last flicker of déjà vu.

He opens his eyes and realizes that he is no longer alone. Greg turns his head, expecting vertigo but feeling none, surprised that he can move at all. Who the hell are you? And how did you find me? Damn it, they found the note too soon.

Call me Lucy, replies the tall woman standing beside him. I didn’t find you, exactly. We’re all here together, after all.

I didn’t put even the merest hint of where I was going in that note.

Lucy shrugs and says, That doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen your note.

Who sent you? he demands.

No one, Lucy replies in a matter-of-fact tone. Your daughters have no idea that you’re out here. They haven’t read your note either.

Now, how the hell would you know that?

Same way I knew where to find you. Now Lucy wears a patient smile. It’s all a matter of awareness, and let’s just say mine provides a unique perspective on your reality, compared with what you’re accustomed to.

In the soft light of the stars it’s hard to see much of the woman. Greg has the impression that she is tall and slender, with long dark hair and a face that implies Asian ancestry. She wears a long, dark coat, tied closed around her waist with a sash. Her arms are crossed over her chest, hands bare, and she seems entirely unaffected by the cold night air.

She gives him a speculative look. Yes, you’re definitely the one I need.

You were looking for me? Confusion rises through the swiftly diminishing urge to sleep. Greg feels more clear-headed than he has in many years. Why?

That’s going to take some of what you call time to answer, she replies.

Time is something I don’t have, lady. Not tonight. You’ll need to explain yourself and quickly. Gregory looks back up to the stars. I was just about gone when you butted in. Sound asleep for good and all.

You’re not sleepy, she points out.

Greg sits up, swinging his legs around and planting his bare feet on the ground. He doesn’t feel his feet. What the hell is up with that? He looks down and sees his shirt hanging open over a scrawny, bare chest. The numbing buzz that lured him into one last sleep is quite gone, but he still doesn’t feel the cold. He looks up at Lucy, who smiles down at him. "Who the hell are you? he demands again. What’s happening to me?"

That’s part of what’s going to take some time to explain, she replies, lowering herself to sit beside him, on the foot end of the lounge chair. All part of the same story, Greg. But trust me, you have all the time you need to hear me out.

He isn’t cold, the urge to sleep has completely vanished, and he doesn’t feel any of the effects of drugs and alcohol. Greg exhales; his breath doesn’t turn to steam. She knows his name, and knew where he was. But Greg is absolutely certain they’ve never met, even as he realizes she seems somehow – familiar.

What the hell? he whispers to himself, bewildered.

Well, to start with, rest assured none of this has anything to do with any mythology you know about. All of those are vague impressions of the true reality. What the hell? What in god’s name? Trust me, none of that applies.

If that was supposed to make things any clearer...

We have a ways to go, yet, she replies. A little patience will be well rewarded.

Okay, I’ll shut up and you start talking.

Fair enough. She seems to be gathering her thoughts for a moment, then nods and says, You’re familiar with the concept of time’s arrow?

Sure, he replies. Time flows one way, past to present, and into the future.

That’s an illusion, one you experience because most of your consciousness exists in the linear realm, Lucy says.

The what?

Reality is vastly more complicated than you realize, she tells him.

I’ve – often thought so.

You’d still be quite surprised. She laughs quietly. Assuming you could truly comprehend that complexity enough to react with surprise. Still, I’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting it for linear perceptions.

In that case, please continue. Greg is torn between annoyance and bafflement. Why am I not cold? I can’t see my breath turn to steam.

You and yours experience reality in a particular way, as a sequence of events strung out between what you call birth, and what you think is death. But there’s more to it than that, so much more that your concept of eternity is a paltry thing by comparison. She is nodding as she speaks, as if pleased with herself. "My perspective is completely different. I experience all of reality in its vast diversity as a single thing, one that always exists right now. No past, no future, just – now. And all of its infinite aspects mesh together in a way that seeks a perfect balance or harmony."

And the life I’ve lived and am about to end is a part of all that? Greg asks.

An infinitely tiny, and yet vital note in that desired harmony.

Desired?

It’s a work in progress, she admits with a shrug. That’s why I’m here with you.

You know, he says, I’d have thought even a hallucination in my last heartbeats would make at least a little more sense.

I am not a figment of neurons giving their last and all, Lucy replies patiently. I’m quite real, in my own particular way.

Okay, you can see all of eternity at once, he says. What does that make you? A god?

What you call eternity is just another part of the whole, she replies. And in some of your linear mythologies, I’d qualify as a deity, though not in the sense of being the creative principle. There is such a thing, and I’m part of what it laid out when this reality came into existence. I’m sort of an emergent property, and the role I play could be roughly considered analogous to a conductor running an orchestra through the mother of all rehearsals, one that neither begins nor ends, although it certainly changes. I’m fond of what you would call musical metaphors, so you could think of it in terms of an infinity of variations on a theme.

During the rehearsal?

I did say it’s a work in progress.

Okay, pardon the impatience of an old man, and never mind that nothing you’ve said makes a bit of sense, what does any of this have to do with me?

The work in progress is reality, all of it, she says patiently. The rehearsal is forever revealing, well, call them off notes and instruments out of tune. My existence is defined and given purpose by tweaking these things, nudging the whole ever closer to the perfect performance. The linear reality you call life is a source for many disharmonies. To work on that aspect of it, I need to manipulate the existence of such as yourself.

Right, he grunts in reply, slowly shaking his head. So, any moment now, I’ll actually be dead, and you’ll be as gone as I am. And I should be dead by now, with the pills I took. To say nothing of being well on the way to freezing solid.

"Oh, you are quite dead, Greg, she assures him. At least, you are in the linear sense of your perception. But in the true nature of reality, the symphony I conduct, you are an unerasable part of the score. So you’re anything but dead, and never can be."

She rises to her feet and holds one hand down to him. He takes that offered hand out of habit, rising from a seated position having become, for him, an often challenging maneuver. But as he stands, he feels pretty spry for an eighty-seven-year-old cancer victim, full of pills and booze. To say nothing of being frozen stiff. Lucy nods in a way to direct his attention to the chaise lounge. Greg is there, sprawled on the chair, coat open, lifeless eyes turned to the stars.

Well, I’ll be damned, he whispers.

That doesn’t really happen, she assures him. Damnation, I mean. One of your weirder myths, in my humble opinion.

So, what am I? Some sort of ghost?

No, not the way linear folk think of such things, she replies. "What you really are exists as a single thing in that eternal moment that is the work in progress. You’re just limited to perceiving it as time arrowing from past to future. Beyond that perception, you’re one sound in the music, a tone without beginning or end, even though you can’t be conscious of it, dominated as you are by the linear experience. That’s what makes it possible for me to do what I need to do to refine the composition. Because you are one note, sounding in one moment, I can see all of you in that now. And I can change that note, manipulate it in ways that improve the overall performance. Ever experienced déjà vu?"

Quite often, as a matter of fact. Recently.

Now you know why.

Uh... If you say so.

Lucy shakes her head. "It always seems so obvious to me. Well, this is usually the hard part. Let’s try again. Remember what I said about my perceiving everything, all of existence, as something whole, a single now, and not a flow of events? Your motivating force, that thing you might call spirit, exists that way, as well. So your current awareness of an end isn’t really that at all, even if you experience it that way. You still exist, right here, in plain view – well, for me, anyway. You exist along every point of your linear existence because that existence is just an aspect of your note in the composition. Something about having a linear aspect prevents you from sharing that perspective, except for a tiny flash of perception now and again. You fold within what you consider to be the current moment and experience awareness of some other bit of the whole of your being. And, of course, it feels familiar, because it’s you, and it always is."

So – déjà vu?

That’s right.

You know, even for a hallucination, you aren’t very original, Greg says. There’s no few belief systems out there saying similar things.

Get enough monkeys banging away on enough typewriters, long enough, and sooner or later something comes through that makes sense. Lucy shrugs, ignoring his comment about hallucinations. There’s a lot of linear reality banging away in the composition.

Greg looks down at himself again and feels a pang of sympathy for the old man sprawled there before remembering that he is the old man. He remains convinced that what he sees and hears is the last fading whisper of his imagination. All right, I’ve got nothing to lose, so I’ll play along. You need me to do something?

I need your cooperation, Lucy says, looking him in the eye. Hers are somehow both bright and dark at the same time. I need to fold your linear awareness, but this time it won’t be random, and I’ll leave you fully aware of what has happened. You’ll be in what for you is an earlier episode in your life, with your accumulated memories and experience intact.

That almost makes sense.

Progress! And she laughs.

The smile has an effect. You know, you’re rather attractive for a hallucination.

Am I? She’s still smiling. I’ll bet you perceive me as female, don’t you?

Yes. Um, aren’t you?

Gender is a meaningless concept for me, she says. How you perceive me is your own doing.

Oh.

There’s a movement in the symphony that includes you, and it isn’t quite right, Lucy continues. One of the things I need to do to create a new variation, one that corrects this flaw, is to have you re-experience part of your linearity.

You’re saying I need to relive my life?

From a particular point in your linear perspective, she replies.

"Okay, now I know I’m dreaming all of this."

In a way, you’ve always been dreaming, Lucy tells him. And awake. It’s really the same thing. And from your responses, I’m getting a good feeling about this choice.

What makes me stand out in the, ah, linear crowd? Greg asks.

Things I can’t explain in terms that fit your frame of reference, Lucy replies. Not just any one note will do. I have to fold just the right one back to the desired point. For instance, I can’t work with the ones who think I’m some sort of angelic being, here to carry them home. Or worse, believe that I’m the composer.

I imagine they would have certain expectations, finding themselves experiencing this – whatever this is.

That’s for sure. Lucy gives a humorless laugh, shaking her head. No, you seem free of certain preconceptions, in addition to being conveniently placed. You should do nicely.

Okay, so, I’m about to relive some part of my life and do what exactly?

Live it, knowing what you know now about how life works, Lucy replies. Those experiences, your memories and awareness of them, and how they guide your decisions, will change that part of the composition. And the changes will ripple out from you and alter other circumstances. Some other circumstances, that is. Not all.

Living part of my life over again, he says with another head shake. He realizes, without being at all surprised, that the chair with the corpse, his car parked on the frozen grass, and the cold, hard stars are all gone. Greg is alone with Lucy. There is nothing else. I’m afraid that isn’t as appealing as some might expect. Of course, that might depend on where you, um, fold me.

Things didn’t turn out the way you hoped, I know, Lucy says, looking and sounding sympathetic.

I was far too trusting of the wrong person, Greg says. I’d do that over, at least, if I could. Which is why I can’t believe this is real. It’s too – appealing.

You were not aware of any reason to doubt her, Lucy says. You had every reason to love her without question.

Everything’s clear in hindsight, he mutters. And then it doesn’t matter.

Oh, it matters, she says. At least in the context of what I need to ask of you. All your experiences, even the ones that hurt, will allow you to make a very important difference.

I’d say you’ve lost me, but I don’t believe you ever had me.

When we finish here, you will regain awareness at a specific point in your linear experience of life, during high school as a matter of fact, possessed of all the memories and experiences you carried within you when you took those pills.

With the idea that the experience will allow me to live differently? he asks.

Yes, she replies. See? You’re catching on.

Just when I thought this dream was as weird as it could get, he mutters.

No dream.

Greg is standing in the nursery looking down at his new daughter, holding his first-born against his chest, wrapped in his arms. The older girl, four-year-old Annie, stares at her new sister with wide blue eyes, as if either baffled or appalled. Greg decides it’s a little of both.

Will she like me? Annie wants to know.

This isn’t a memory, but somehow both now and then, past and present, all at once. He is living it, now, not merely remembering, and can feel that this is so. Just as he feels the weight and warmth of the child in his arms. His child. Except – she isn’t, not really.

Uncanny. And yet he fits in that moment as if nothing at all unusual is happening.

And then, memories cascade that have not yet happened. Déjà vu with a vengeance. Recollections of his daughters’ happy playful childhoods, sisters and best friends, a bond broken in conflict over a man who ultimately rejected them both. That schism rocked the family and they were never quite whole again, never really sisters. And then he would learn that they had never been a family, really, at least not as he thought of it. He was not the biological father of either of these girls, who had held his heart in their hands all the days of their lives. His wife had foolishly kept letters, years of letters, to and from the man she always wished she could have married, whose children she actually wanted to bear, except for the inconvenient fact that he was married when they met.

That hadn’t mattered in the long run. She’d gotten what she wanted, both ways, since Greg, always horribly insecure around attractive women in his younger days, had been so easy to convince of her love for him. And maybe she did love him, in her own twisted way.

The girls would grow up and it would all go horribly wrong. Then his wife Claire would die, and he would find the letters. He’d burn those letters. Only he knows the truth, that he is not father to his daughters in the biological sense. Of course he still thinks of them that way, as daughters. How can he not?

It shakes him then, a hard, sharp shock to his system, straight to his core, that he knows all of this, as if it already happened. Because it has. Or it will. The girls will become estranged and he will be powerless to do more than watch – and grieve.

Daddy?

Sorry, sweetie, he says, kissing her cheek. I was thinking about something.

She is real. He is holding her, both of them gazing down at newborn Ruth in her crib, here and now, even though all of what is to come is nestled in his mind and memory. It had been real or would be real. Just as real as pancreatic cancer and cold winter stars.

Lucy.

Yes, she will like you, he says, suddenly determined to do – something. "You will be best friends forever, and nothing will ever drive you apart. Because you won’t let it, no matter what. You’ll love each other more than anyone or anything else in the whole world."

Even you and Mommy?

Well, maybe just as much as that. His heart skips a beat. "Annie, there will be things that happen that might pull you and your sister apart. You mustn’t let that happen, ever."

I won’t. Said with an emphatic head shake.

Promise, he says, suddenly fighting back tears. This is very important.

Promise, Annie says, shaping an X over her heart. She peers down at her sister. She kinda looks funny. Was I all scrunched up like that?

Sonofabitch! He can still feel the warmth of his daughter in his empty arms. He would weep, but the sense of sudden loss doesn’t include tears.

Real enough for you?

It doesn’t happen that way, Gregory insists bitterly.

Yes, it does.

This is really all – real, he whispers.

In the ultimate sense of the word, Lucy replies.

He turns from her, hand over his mouth as if to keep himself from screaming. Which he is very much of a mind to do. Greg struggles to control his breathing, but realizes he isn’t breathing.

So, now that you’ve accepted what I’ve tried to tell you, are you willing?

Willing to go through all of that again? You can’t be serious!

It’s a shock to the system, I grant you, Lucy admits. But worth it, when you consider the result.

What result?

Those girls you raised, what do they think about each other these days?

Hell, they haven’t spoken in years... The shock of realization stops him cold. No, wait, they were both visiting me in the hospital. And they held each other and cried at their mother’s funeral.

But they’d done no such thing. A man had come into Annie’s life in college, and through her met her sister, and turned out to be the worst sort of manipulative bastard, taking perverse pleasure in trying to play one against the other. He left them heartbroken, each blaming the other. God, it had been ugly.

Or, no – they’d seen through the charade, discovered the bastard was a married man, and had revealed his infidelities to his wife. The subsequent divorce ruined him, and the sisters went on with their lives and enjoyed happy, satisfying marriages of their own.

Which one is real? he whispers. How can I remember both as if they actually happened?

They both happen, although in the long run they won’t matter for the variation I have in mind, says Lucy. "I nudged you into full awareness of that moment in your life, current memories intact, and those memories prompted you to say a simple thing to your daughter that guided her life from that day forward. Think of what just happened as a proof of concept."

You sent me back, and...

No, not back, she says. "You are there now. You are always there now, just as you are buying your first camera, and being conceived, and swallowing that last pill. All of it, now. You aren’t able to perceive it that way, but every aspect of your existence is now, in terms of the note you represent in this composition. But I can perceive it, which allows me to shift your awareness of now a little bit, and create a new variation on the theme."

As insane as it all is, Gregory can no longer maintain his disbelief. He remembers how his little family shattered, but he remembers his daughters taking on the home-wrecker and winning in the end. It had happened that way, and only that way, whatever his memory might hold now. He’d been there and played witness; had watched the girls hatch their plan and execute it. All because of something he’d said many years before. Such a tiny effort to generate such a huge change. This is nuts.

But a useful madness.

So, what exactly is it you want me to do?

"I can’t tell you exactly, without risking a big mess, she replies. What I can safely tell you is that the chance you didn’t take, in your senior year of high school, is the point of departure. Take that chance, however it ultimately presents itself, and go with the flow that develops from that choice. The rest should follow."

What chance didn’t I take? His adolescent years being full of regrets, Greg is at a loss to single one out.

The girl on the bus, who made such an impression on you by reading that book. The first book of your favorite trilogy.

"The first book of – oh!"

Greg suddenly knows what she means, although he hasn’t thought of the incident in decades. He doesn’t need to be folded back to it to be sure. It had been the beginning of his senior year in high school, a part of his life he does not recall fondly. What, indeed, might have changed in his life if he’d been able to summon the nerve to make small talk? She sat down next to him on the bus with a smile and a quiet good morning that stopped his heart. One of those girls all the guys, and a few of the girls, truth be told, wanted to be with. Gregory had admired her in hallways and classrooms, but being as shy as he was in high school, had never dared make eye contact. And suddenly she was sitting beside him and that book had been right there in her lap. A well-worn and presumably reread copy at that. A book he knew well, and would have been the perfect opening for conversation. But his tongue had glued itself to the top of his mouth and he’d spent that bus ride to school, eyes out the window. He had never been that close to her before, and never was again.

Of course, being the skinny, less than social nerd that he was, it was far more likely he’d have made a fool of himself. The boy he’d been then would not have been up for the challenge.

The man he has grown to be?

If this really is real, and not his final dying dream...

How can this be real? Gregory mutters. Can’t be real. And if this is a dream, it’s the cruelest one I’ve ever experienced.

You are not dreaming.

So, you want to fold me back to that morning on the bus? You’re not serious. That skinny nerd I was at the time might have had a polite conversation with her, but that would have been the end of it.

If you really knew her, you’d think differently, Lucy says.

So, I’m going to so charm her with my eight decades of hard-won maturity that how I appear won’t matter? He laughs, unable to help himself. The idea is that absurd.

Lucy actually laughs with him, and puts her arm around his shoulder. Something about her touch leaves him light-headed. No, it won’t be that easy, and there will be certain challenges to overcome. You’ll need to change yourself in a few ways, to be sure. So you’ll be folded back to a point well before that meeting. Plenty of time to become what you wish you’d been, to employ the past tense in the way you’d understand.

Changes?

Lucy tightens her arm around his shoulders. Trust me, it’ll be pretty obvious what you need to do.

Actually, says Gregory, thinking of his comment regarding a skinny nerd, I can think of one thing right off.

Well, there you go, then. Lucy smiles at him, dropping her arm from his shoulders. "Let all your hard-won experience come into play. Just try to remember that everyone around you sees a seventeen-year-old kid standing there. It won’t help matters to sound too world-weary and wise." This last is said with a chuckle.

Okay, he says, still baffled and not quite believing, but going with the flow as much to see what would happen as anything. What have I got to lose? If this is just my last brain cell fizzling out, I’ll never be disappointed. I won’t be anything.

"Well, that’s not quite the attitude I was hoping for, but we’ll do this anyway. That way the truth will be inescapable."

A sudden thought brings a frown to Greg’s face. "Wait a moment. What happens to the girls if their mother and I don’t get together? They may not really be my kids, but, hell, I was Daddy so far as they knew."

Not to worry, Lucy replies. They’ll be born, and grow up to be just as beautiful as you saw them. And they will never suffer the estrangement you saw. I can make sure it still works out just as well without you. And as you live through the new variation, the memory of the other will change.

I’ll forget them?

No, not forget, exactly, Lucy assures him. But it won’t carry the weight of real memories.

Greg tries to think of how to ask for clarification, but fails and gives it up. Well, so long as they’re okay.

They will be, I promise. Just leave it to me.

So, how do we do this? You’re right that if I wake up back then and act like my current self, it’s going to cause problems. I’m not sure I can fake being that teenage nerd. Spent too many years getting past him.

Lucy laughs quietly and says, Leave the details to me. I’m rather good at this, you know. You’ll have cause for plausible deniability. That car crash you were in, the winter of ’78? It’ll do more than shake you up a bit. But don’t worry, you’ll recover completely, and any differences in your behavior can be attributed to the trauma of the wreck and the injuries you endure.

Injuries? That – sounds unpleasant.

I’m afraid it will be, she says, with a shrug. "But you won’t remember much of it at first. By the way, some of the changes that spread out around you may have consequences not exactly to your liking, even if they suit my purposes. And they will happen just because you make choices or take actions that you could not make as that teenager."

That sounds ominous.

You might think so, when it comes to it, Lucy replies. Something else to keep in mind. Don’t dwell on the previous variation, especially in times of high emotion. Stay focused on the here and now. The division between variations is not airtight. You might slip away into the original. That’s a distraction you can live without, believe me.

You’ll be doing what, exactly, while all this is going on?

Everything, Lucy says. And nothing. I can perceive all the linear realm as one thing, but I am not able to be a part of it. That’s why I need someone like you to effect a change. This doesn’t mean I’m without influence there. I’m waving my metaphorical baton over absolutely everything, after all. I think you’ll see what I mean, eventually.

If you say so, Greg says, shaking his head.

One last thing, and now Lucy seems in deadly earnest. This is not about giving you a do-over, a chance at the opportunity of a lifetime. This is about the girl. About making sure her life changes in a fundamental way. That’s what you’ll be there for. No other reason.

Well, okay, then, Greg says, moved abruptly to laugh at her grave expression. He senses immediately that he has failed to lighten the tone. No pressure. Let’s get it done.

You still think this is all a dream, don’t you? Lucy asks with a knowing smile.

Can you blame me?

"I won’t take it personally. After all, I know you will believe it."

Lucy fades away until only her face can be seen in a darkness that isn’t really dark, but something altogether different. Then the bottom drops out. At least, it feels like falling. Greg is immediately unsure of whether he’s falling up or down. His shout of surprise is felt but not uttered. There is nothing to shout with or into. Everything changes and everything is achingly familiar. His sense of sense bends out and in and elsewhere, and if he thinks he knows what’s going on, he doesn’t, not really. There’s only Greg and he isn’t alone, and for some reason that just makes sense. His thoughts chase each other around corners and meet others coming around the other way. Some of them are the same. It’s all questions and answers and contradictions. And music. A music that isn’t music, but an infinity of tiny things vibrating and almost in tune with each other. He feels it. In a way, it’s him.

And then he spins, utterly helpless, when a tremendous impact sends him whirling through a cold so intense it’s shocking and painful and terrifying. He has to hang on, and hang on tight. To something.

No – to someone.

The Good Old Summertime

2

SURPRISED TO FIND HE possessed such organs, Greg opened his eyes.

He blinked and squinted, even though it was obvious the light level in the room was low. The air in his nose smelled odd, a combination of disinfectant and something unpleasantly organic. There was a horrible taste in his mouth, like something had crawled in there and died. It was still there. He decided to spit it out, but it was his own tongue, after all. Although he was just waking up, Greg was pressed into the bed that held him by the leaden weight of exhaustion. He was anything but relaxed, just too weak to move. And he had a headache.

He wasn’t alone in the room. Whoever was there left in a hurry. A moment later someone else came in. He felt his right arm rise up slightly. Greg blinked several times, trying to focus his eyes. Someone in a white coat, holding his arm by the wrist. Taking his pulse, of course; the man was a doctor.

Welcome back, Gregory, said the doctor. I’m Dr. Ellis. He turned away, and spoke to someone behind him. A nurse. Words for concepts were moving in Greg’s mind, but slowly. Have someone contact his family. Let them know he’s awake.

What the hell happened? Greg asked, or tried to. What he heard come out of his mouth was a choking rasp. He coughed and cleared his throat. That made little difference.

Easy does it, Dr. Ellis said. Your vocal cords haven’t had any work to do in a while. But your voice should come back soon. Just don’t force it. Let’s sit you up. He reached down and pulled on a lever, and the bed slowly bent up, putting Greg in a comfortably seated position. There was the soft sound of water being poured. Here. Dr. Ellis held out a glass of water with a bent straw stuck in it. Take a sip of this. It’ll help.

Greg complied and grimaced at the vile taste. Wha...? Instinct took over, and he swallowed anyway.

Just water, Dr. Ellis said. Everything will taste terrible for a while. That’ll pass.

Thirst overrode his reaction to the dead taste in his mouth. Greg pulled on the straw twice more, then nodded. Dr. Ellis set the glass aside on the small table by the bed.

You’ve been out for almost a month, Dr. Ellis said. Everything is going to feel odd, look strange, and taste terrible for a while. And you’re weak as a kitten. But you’re going to be okay now which, all things considered, is something of a surprise.

Greg tried to