Chapter 24

Face to Face

“Well,” I said, keen to break the heavy silence, “I guess I’m going to have to find some less hi-tech way of waking up.”

No one responded, all looked worried.

“Perhaps,” I said, “one of you would care to throw a glass of water in my face.”

“That won’t work,” came a voice from behind us.

All four of us turned.

An old man stood in the doorway, smiling broadly, staring straight at me. He gave me a nagging sense of vague familiarity, yet I was sure I did not know him.

He turned his gaze to the others. “Good to see you again, Wilbur. Ernest. Yvette. It’s been a long time.”

Wilbur—expression uncharacteristically perplexed—said nothing. Ernest and Yvette also remained silent, clearly unaware of the newcomer’s identity.

“You called me,” said the old man to Wilbur, “three days ago. Remember?”

Wilbur’s perplexity mounted… then was suddenly replaced by understanding and relief. “At last you’re here,” he said. “I had hoped you would turn up earlier.”

“Couldn’t,” said the old man. “Had to turn up exactly when I remembered doing so.”

Wilbur nodded slowly.

But the stranger’s words made no sense to me. “Care to let us all in on this,” I said, making little effort to restrain myself. “Or do you two enjoy being the only ones to know what you’re talking about?” To the old man: “Who are you?”

He smiled, shook his head. “Tsk, tsk. I was headstrong, wasn’t I? Manners, young boy, manners.”

More confused than ever, I ignored him, turned to Wilbur. “All right, you tell me who he is.”

“Steven,” said Wilbur, with a hint of a smile, “meet Steven Stone.”

A small gasp—from Yvette.

I ignored her, fixed my attention on the old man. Another of Wilbur’s inept jokes? What the hell did he mean?

A sudden memory of a photo from the Citizens’ Database website finally made me realise why the old man seemed familiar. “You mean…?”

He nodded, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Got it at last, Junior.”

His voice suddenly became familiar—the one I heard when I called the Wunsa Pond Stones.

Me! Myself and I!

I backed off a step, into the desk supporting the viewer.

“Don’t worry,” he said, stepping closer. “We don’t annihilate each other.” He extended a hand. “Not even when we touch.”

I turned to the others. Yvette’s face was a mixture of surprise and wonder. Ernest seemed utterly confused. Wilbur, struggling to keep his eyelids from closing, yawned just as his face momentarily shifted and blurred; he was so tired, I realised, he was finding it hard not to revert to his true shape.

Meanwhile, the old man continued to smile. It was too much to resist. If I could not trust him, a more experienced, hopefully wiser version of myself, who could I trust? Hesitantly, I took his hand.

We did not mutually annihilate.

“That call I made Thursday,” said Wilbur, his eyes fixed on me, “the one I said was answered by your house sitter—your future self’s house sitter…” He indicated the old man. “…his house sitter. Well, I actually reached him—you.”

“You mean,” flabbergasted Ernest, as the penny finally dropped, “this is Steven as well? An older Steven?!”

“Exactly,” said the old man—me—the older me. “And when Wilbur rang me, I told him I’d been waiting for his call. And that the person in the room with him at the time was a younger version of myself, who really was from the past, and telling the complete truth—as the DNA test would verify. I also gave Wilbur the cover story about me being out of the country.” He turned his gaze at me. “And I told him not to worry about you learning about the present time, your future.”

“You also said I wasn’t to try to contact you again,” said Wilbur, “but that you’d be in touch when the time was right.”

“You couldn’t have been here sooner?” I whined.

“Not without changing history,” said my older self, his eyes locked on mine. “I witnessed all this forty years ago. Remember? And I’ve turned up now, exactly when I did back then.” He sighed. “Forty years!” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s hope I remember it all properly.” He smiled suddenly. “That’s a good sign! I remember saying that. And that! And then this: I’m your ticket home, Junior.”

Confused, I looked to Wilbur—he shrugged his shoulders as response, lowered his eyelids without realising, then started awake with a jolt.

“Trust me,” said my older self, “I know it works. I don’t know how, but maybe Wilbur will be able to explain it later.”

I turned again to Wilbur, but he was barely awake. Unlike me! My mind was reeling. It had taken me less time than I might have expected to grow used to sharing a room with Ernest, my mirror image, but now I also shared it with myself—aged seventy-nine—claiming to know what had already happened to me before I’d experienced it! Maybe Jung thought dream characters are different manifestations of the inner self, but I was beginning to think my subconscious was pathological.

I grabbed my head and muttered, “This is too much.”

My older self smiled. “I have the strongest sense of déjà vu.”

The room lit up with a particularly bright flash of lightning.

“O, and I forgot,” said the older me, “I’ll be just one moment.” He (I) left the room and returned almost at once, with an old woman I’d never met but who gave me the same haunting sense of familiarity.

She studied the room’s occupants, then turned to my older self. “So you really were telling the truth,” she said.

Different in appearance, but not in voice. Closer scrutiny confirmed it. Yvette—my wife. My legs almost slipped from under me.

“It’s all right, Steven,” she said, facing me with a steady gaze. “You told me everything. Even about my namesake.” She turned to the other Yvette, who was uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “Don’t worry—it has been forty years. An understandable misunderstanding, given the circumstances. Not that I’m not glad for Steven’s narcolepsy. Still, I admire your taste in men.”

A brief nervous laugh came from the younger Yvette, before she gradually relaxed.

Wilbur yawned again, longer and wider than before. For a few moments, the surface of his face wavered, his hair all but disappeared, and stubby horns sprouted from his forehead.

“Don’t you think you should be making a move,” said the older Yvette to me. “You have a wife and young family waiting for you.” She smiled—that too hadn’t changed over forty years.

It was my wake-up call. “You’re right,” I said, realising I had little choice but to go with the flow. “Let’s get it over with. Before another me arrives.”

“I knew you’d say that,” said the old man. “And what I said in response was: for you to be sent back, you can’t be here in this room.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, resolve floundering, the course of action now uncertain.

“You have to be in the place you arrived,” said my older self, “lying on the grass, just as you were when you transported here.”

“But then how can he touch the screen?” said Ernest.

“He doesn’t,” said the older me. “I do.”

“Makes sense,” said Wilbur, after a moment’s contemplation. “I think.” He yawned again, and his face fluttered.

I sighed with frustration. “Well, all right, I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

“I’ll drive you there,” said Yvette.

“I’ll go too,” said Ernest.

My older self left the room.

“But I’ll need directions,” said Yvette.

Wilbur, between yawns, told her which roads to take. “Call me when you get there.”

Ernest nodded, and left the room. With a backward glance and tentative smile at her namesake, the younger Yvette followed.

“Make sure you take these,” suggested me senior, returning with a torch and a large umbrella. “You’ll need them.”

“You are prepared,” I said to my older self, taking the proffered items.

“Yes,” the old man replied. “You are. Go on. It’s time.”

I wanted to say yet another, hopefully final, goodbye to Wilbur, but he was slumped asleep across the desk—wearing not his familiar face, but that of an Orlani demon. Now, however, I felt no fear or revulsion. Too many other things to occupy my mind, no doubt. Too many other shocks to the system to deal with.

“Don’t worry,” said the older me, “it’s all set up, and we can wake him if we need him. I’ll give him your goodbyes. Get going.”

I was lost for words. I substituted steady gazes. “Be seeing you,” I said, finally, leaving the room.

“Yes you will,” said the older me.

“Weird bloody dream this one,” I muttered as I moved to catch up with Yvette and Ernest.

“He still thinks it’s a dream,” came the older Yvette’s voice behind me.

“Yes, I did,” he (I) said, just before I exited the front door.

After almost tripping over a large umbrella draining on the porch—like the car parked in front of the house, it must have belonged to the older me—I found Ernest and Yvette already in the car they had driven to Wilbur’s. She drove off the moment I took a seat.

The residential speed limit and teeming rain combined to make the drive almost unbearably slow and frustrating.

“There was a roundabout here,” said Ernest when we were a few blocks from Wilbur’s. “Wasn’t there?” He was clearly confused, surprised.

“You’re right,” said Yvette, “Must be another effect of timeline re-balancing.”

“I hope this all works,” said Ernest. “That we get things back the way they were.”

“Scared of another moustache?” I said.

“I could live with that,” said Ernest. “If I had to. But what if changes are more severe? What if we lose our free lunch society? Yvette and I would find that the hardest to deal with. No one else would be even aware it had ever existed.”

“We might be unaware too,” said Yvette, “once Steven’s gone.”

“I had not thought of that,” said Ernest, more worried than ever.

I tried to reassure them. “It isn’t likely, is it? From what I said before—the older me—it sounds like all of what’s happening is what he remembered. And if he’s here now, then I must have gotten home—and everything must have returned to normal.”

“Maybe you get home safe,” said Yvette, “but the timeline stays as it is when you leave—whatever state it’s in.”

“Anything is possible,” said Ernest. “Wilbur said so, more or less. Although another possibility suddenly occurs to me: it may sound paradoxical, but what if the world Yvette and I know has only existed because Steven does manage to return home?”

“What are you talking about?” I said, sensing another unwelcome piece of information.

“Maybe,” said Ernest, “it has been your visit here—to your future—that brought it about. Perhaps, you return and cause freelunchism to be invented.”

“O, you have got to be joking,” I said, biting back anger.

“No,” said Yvette. “There’s a logic to it. It might even explain why no one’s been able to figure out who first put enufism on the Net.”

“Exactly,” said Ernest. “If it was Steven, you would have wanted to avoid us knowing, so we wouldn’t treat you differently than what you’ve actually experienced.”

“This is all hot air,” I said, losing patience. “I have my own life to return to, a quiet unassuming one free of the responsibility of creating your future. I do not create it.”

“If I’m right,” said Ernest, “you have already created it.”

“Well, you’re wrong. My life is not predestined. I have a free will of my own. I can choose what I do. What am I saying! This is just a dream, damn it.”

“Well, I guess we will see,” said Ernest. “The time viewer will disclose what you actually do after you get back.”

“Don’t you ever feel like a voyeur?” I said.

“I stay out of bedrooms.”

“Make sure you stay away from thunderstorms too. As much as I’ve enjoyed your company, when I get back, I want to stay there. If I get back.”

We said no more. To my relief, we finally reached the traffain and our pace increased, as did my desire and hope of shortly—at last—seeing my wife and family again.

Minutes later, having turned onto the narrower road, we reached the point to stop the car. It was still raining, though not as heavily, but apart from gradually diminishing lightning flashes, it was almost completely dark. The three of us managed to stay fairly dry, huddling together under the umbrella my older self had provided, trekking through the bush, his torch lighting our path.

I panicked when I could not immediately find the right spot. It was more difficult at night, in the rain. Finally, after several minutes of disappointed scanning with the torch, a sudden lightning flash revealed one of the white-barked trees. Sighing with relief, I hurried forward out of reach of the umbrella, and located the singed grass outline. The rain, by then, had eased to a few scattered if rather large drops—which worried me that the storm might move away and take its lightning with it before we could do anything.

“We have arrived,” said Yvette, speaking into her Babel, the umbrella in her other hand.

“Good,” came a thin voice over the Babel. My voice. Me senior. “Right on schedule, if memory serves. You had better get a move on, before the storm passes. Get undressed, Steven.”

“What?!” I erupted.

“You have to be lying naked on the grass,” said my older self, “just like when you arrived.”

Irritated by this latest requirement, I hesitated. I looked at Yvette, under the umbrella, her face dim in light reflecting from the torch beam Ernest beside her was pointing at the white-barked tree. I thought she was doing her best to avoid grinning.

“Come on,” she said, “this is no time for excessive modesty.”

“Would you mind looking away?” I said, very uncomfortable. "Both of you."

“Ordinarily not,” said Yvette, eyes glinting. “But seeing as how the other night you gave me plenty of tease, I think now you can give me a little strip. It’ll help balance the timeline, I’m sure.”

My annoyance increased for a moment, then diminished as I decided she had a point. I had no one to blame for her attitude but myself. Besides, there was an urgency to the situation that brooked no delay. It was all just a dream anyway, I reminded myself. “This is why you came along,” I said, kicking off shoes and removing my top. “Isn’t it? I should have guessed.” I handed the top to Ernest—it was his after all, and the ground was wet.

“What are you worrying about?” said Yvette. “It’s dark, isn’t it?”

“Not dark enough,” I replied.

I removed my socks, shirt and trousers without a further word, then my older self spoke over the Babel. “Am I undressed yet?”

“Almost,” said Yvette.

It was muggy because of the storm, so I was not cold as I stood there in just underpants, hesitating to remove them. Ernest and Yvette kept their eyes on mine.

“Come on, Steven,” she said. “At least you don’t have to have sex like we thought earlier.”

I took a deep breath. There was nothing for it. I slipped out of the pants and dangled them in front of Ernest. “You two had your thrills now?”

A sudden very bright lightning flash erupted—Ernest’s and Yvette’s eyes turned downwards.

“So,” said Ernest, looking me again in the eyes, “we are not quite identical after all.” With a wry smile, he put the torch under the proffered underpants and gingerly transferred them to the top of the pile of clothes draped over his other arm.

Yvette, with a very straight face except for one raised eyebrow, said nothing to me, but soon spoke to her Babel: “He’s undressed.”

“Okay,” said the older me, “now make sure I am lying precisely in the outline.”

I kept my eyes on Yvette and Ernest. The annoyance I had felt at their behaviour of the last few minutes vanished when I realised I was—hopefully—about to see them for the last time. I could not leave them in anger.

Ernest’s hands were encumbered with the torch and clothes, so rather than offering a hand to shake, I lightly grabbed one of his shoulders, and said, “Ordinarily, I’d say keep in touch. But…”

“How about, be seeing you,” he suggested. “Every time you look in a mirror.”

I smiled, and said, “Thanks for everything.” Then, to Yvette: “And thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “Almost.” She moved forward, kissed me on the lips, gently but too long for me not to return it. “Have a happy healthy prosperous life.”

“Am I in position?” said my older self.

“Not yet,” said Yvette.

I hastily lay down on the grass. Ernest shone the torch along my perimeter so I could wriggle precisely into the outline. Soon, I was ready, my arms stretched behind my head.

“He’s all set,” said Yvette.

“Okay,” said my older self. “Ernest and Yvette, you should probably stand back from me a bit. A few metres at least.” They backed off as instructed. “I’m going to touch the time viewer screen now, but nothing should happen until the next lightning bolt arrives. Just don’t move until then… Bon voyage, Junior.”

So there I was: lying naked on wet grass, occasional large raindrops falling on bare skin, Ernest and Yvette a short distance away under an umbrella, the torch pointing at the tree behind me—waiting, waiting for a bolt from the blue (or the black to be more precise) to take me back through time to my wife and family and the life I’d known.

Five seconds went past without lightning. Then ten.

“O come on,” I said, exasperated beyond restraint. “How bloody frustrating can a dream be?”

Another few seconds drifted by. A dim distant bolt of lightning flashed, but nothing happened.

“Sadistic sonofabitch subconscious!”

“A case,” said Yvette, grimly, “of all undressed and nowhere to go.”

The instant she said the word ‘go’, the weather altered. I had no idea at the time what had happened, but another timeline balancing act must have resurrected the storm, or created another. It erupted upon us like a blow. My skin was assaulted by a torrential downpour, my ears by thunder as loud as any I’d heard. What seemed like dozens of simultaneous lightning flashes blinded me.

For a moment.

Then, dazed and visionless, everything ceased: the noise, the rain, the sensation of grass beneath me. I felt suspended in mid-air, or in a sensory deprivation tank. I heard, smelled, tasted, felt nothing, and could see only white noise.

I waited for the white noise to fade, for my vision and other senses to return.

Then I waited some more.

White noise remained. My senses did not return.

I had escaped from the future, only to be trapped in some incorporeal limbo state. I was not even sure if I was alive.