Category: Writing

As you know my father was a novelist. He called me into his study one day, it was raining, the air in the house smelled of cinnamon and walnuts. I had just come home from school, a typical Tuesday for a high school student. I had ran the mile in second period, so my clothes all had the latent stink hanging about them as if I had suddenly discovered homelessness that day. My girlfriend at the time was out of town with her parents for their Thanksgiving holiday already, and my best friend had marching band practice, so I had come home immediately after sixth period. There was no reason to stay at school hanging out in my own cloud of old perspiration fighting the mutually exhaustive battles of hormones and skin bacteria.

“Adam is that you?” My father yelled from his study. His voice carried a slight edge of panic. Just enough for me to notice.

“Hey, Dad. Yeah, just me.”

“What are you doing home?”

A scramble behind a closed door, papers shuffling, a hastily closed drawer. I set my bag down, oddly paying attention to my dad when a normal day would have me focused inwards, thinking about what snack to grab or what video game I should play as I ignored my homework.

“Are you ok?” I called out. Walking the stairs timidly. Would I find my father having a secret girlfriend over? My mom had died years ago, and as far as I knew, my dad did not date. Or would it be something worse? Drugs? Would I find my dad tripping balls or staring at invisible dragons only he could see? He was an artist after all. An artist of words, but an artist all the same. Creative people were known to do that sort of thing. I wasn’t creative myself, so I wouldn’t know how that felt.

“Oh, fine. Come in, come in. You just surprised me that’s all.” His voice was timid now, like he had made a decision that he was afraid of. Hindsight is 20/20. Now as I sit here, writing this down, I remember it so vividly. I remember the sounds, the smells, the touch of my fingers at his door, and his face. It was going to be the last time I would see his face that year, and I remember every detail of it. The harsh gray of his beard against the salt and pepper long hair that he would pull into a messy ponytail. His eyes lined and creased against the tops of his cheekbones, the hidden smile lines underneath belying of a life well lived and well loved. At least before mom died. I remember the cut on his hand, at the edge of this wrist. Not an attempt at suicide, just a clumsy fumble with the cheese grater on taco night. His shirt was plaid, under a light gray coat, lined with a contrary color that made him look like he was about to hop on a motorcycle at any moment and ride off. He looked at me over his glasses, still shuffling the papers back and forth, tossing them in drawers without really looking where they were landing. In front of his desk was a duffle bag, packed. The zipper was taut against the contents fighting to be free.

“Going on a trip?” I asked.

“Yes. You are going to stay with your Aunt Laurie for a while. I am going out of town.”

“Last minute book tour? I thought your agent promised not to do that anymore,” I sighed. Aunt Laurie was my dad’s sister and she was awesome. Some people say they had cool aunts, but I actually did. Probably what made me so accepting of my father’s erratic schedule.

“No… actually… something that I have been meaning to talk to you about,” he pushed his glasses up on his face and sniffed like he was about to cry. I had only seen him cry a couple times, and none of them were good.

“Uh… you ok?”

“I already said yes to that, son,” My dad said, grabbing a couple pens and a stack of moleskine field journals from his supply stash in the big folder drawer behind him.

“What’s going on then?” I felt a sense of exasperation already, and had only been in his office thirty seconds.

“So you have read my books right?”

That was the strangest question he had ever asked me. Ever. Like in my entire life, the strangest by far. “Of course I have. All of them. Not every kid has a bestselling fantasy author for a dad.”

He waved his hand. “Uh. So the first book… about Todd. The beginning with him falling into another world…”

“Yeah, Dad. I read it, as you know. You read it to me yourself when I was little.”

“What if I told you that it was all real?” He stopped, as if the world had shifted sideways, and everything was on pause. I felt like the rain outside the window had stopped falling, the drops hanging in the air around this moment. “All of it… all of it was real.”

My face scrunched up in response, my eyebrows meeting each other over the bridge of my nose in confusion. “What do you mean its real?”

My first thought was that my dad had finally hit the brilliant artist’s inevitable mental breakdown or he was having a crisis of another sort that I would not be able to understand.

“I mean it’s autobiographical, not fiction,” my Dad let his shoulders loosen, as if a great weight had just been released. His back looked straighter.

“Hold up. You are telling me that Mokokia the Wise, the greatest magician of the Esti tribes of Ux, transported YOU to their planet to counter the forces of evil that your father brought into their world accidentally?” I said incredulously. “Dad, I have met Pop-Pop. He is in a nursing home downtown, barely able to function since his stroke when I was little. I mean come on… What is really going on?”

My dad stood straighter, appearing to gain resolve in his words and his physical form at the same time. “It was all real. I came back for you and for your mom. I had to be a dad.”

“So Pop-Pop, my grandpa, is an evil villain?” I laughed at the thought of the infirm man in a wheelchair who had a hard time not drooling being an evil magician. In my dad’s bestselling debut, ‘The Tides of Ux’, a young man is transported to Ux to fight the Fury, a dark magician of woeful power and destruction seeking to dominate all intelligent life across the planet of Ux. The Fury is the villain of all villains, acting both in secret and in the open to control every aspect of life on the beautiful and amazing world of Ux. A world full of life, intelligent races, and magic. The magic was awe inspiring. The young hero learns this deep magic from the Esti wizard that brings him to the world, and uses it through trial and tribulation to unknowingly fight his father, and set everything right.

“Yes. I did that to your Pop-Pop. I… struck him down and made him that way. I brought him back to care for him… and you, and your mom. And I have done all that. You are graduating this year, I have set aside a trust fund for you, you are all set. I am proud of you, Adam.”

“Dad, where are you going?”

My father sighed and shoved his journals and pens into his messenger bag. “I am going back to Ux. They need me.”

“Bullshit!” I yelled. My anger came from nowhere.

My dad grabbed his floor lamp in the corner. It was a custom made lamp that looked like his main character’s staff of power, a limb of the Alltree, a branch of the cosmic force that held the universe together. In the story, the staff served as the focal point for a magician’s power. A person that was trained and could harness the raw power of the Alltree could manipulate space, time, and matter as long as they had the focus, the understanding, the will, and the energy to do so. My dad curled his hand around it, and yanked the lampshade from the top, pulling the cord and light bulb assembly from it. I had never noticed but the cord did not go up through the staff, it had been cleverly taped to be hidden behind. “Maybe in time, you can come visit. But you should finish your school first. Laurie will take care of you in the meantime.”

“Why do you think you can just leave!?” I continued, ignoring the weirdness unfolding as my dad picked the sticky tape dietrus that represented the real world off his staff.

A throat being cleared sounded from behind me. I turned my head in fear, coming to the realization that we were not alone. The door to the study swung shut slowly, the hinges creaking, squealing, as the door headed towards its frame. A small creature, which would not even reach my waist bowed carefully, keeping its large expressive purple eyes on me.

“Adam,” the creature said, it’s voice deeper than it should have been. “I am Mokokia, and I have been sent by the Council to bring your father back.”

My eyes were wider than saucers, and if my eyelids could go any higher, they would push my eyeballs clean out of their sockets. “Holy shit.”

Mokokia rose from his bow, placing his hands on his own diminutive Alltree staff that stood before him. “I need your father’s help.”

Nevermind. I thought at the time that this is where I suffer my mental breakdown and a crisis of a different sort myself. Mokokia approached me calmly, his bald head was the hue of a bluebird’s wing, shifting from blue at his ears to white around his mouth and nose. He simultaneously was entirely contrary to what I imagined the great Mokokia to look like, yet at the same time, matched my father’s description to the letter. He laid his blue three fingered hand on my shaking arm.

“Adam, you can visit. I will ensure you see your father again. Perhaps you will have his gifts for the Alltree Speech. Perhaps you can sing to the bones of the mountains and the wings of the sky, and come to know the spirit of Ux personally. Perhaps?”

“Your english is very good,” I squeaked.

“Much practice. But your father, is good teacher. Walter, are you ready to go?” Mokokia asked my father.

“So you were… you are… Todd the Worldbreaker?” I finally understood what my dad had been telling me.

He walked around the desk, tossing his duffle over one shoulder and his messenger over that. He grabbed his Alltree staff and laid a single hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye.

“Actually, the title is Walt the Worldbreaker. Be strong. I will send for you later.”

Mokokia touched his staff to the ground, said a word, and as if nothing had ever happened, I was standing alone in my dad’s study, with the destroyed bits of the corner lamp strewn across his desk.

---

“Wow that is quite the story, mister,” my girlfriend Amie laughed.

I shrugged, trying to keep the jest going. It was my nineteenth birthday and we were eating alone at my Aunt Laurie’s place on the west side.

“Your dad has been on his tour for a year now… he should be back any day,” Amie continued. “You should write that down and let him read it when he gets back.”

“Well that is why I wanted to have dinner with you actually,” I paused. I pulled an Alltree seed from my pocket and set it on the table.

Amie’s eyes sparkled with the light of the seed pulsing in the dim light of her dining room. “Wow. Did you get that at Comic-con? It looks just like what I imagined an Alltree seed would look like!”

“Uh. No. This was on my pillow went I got home from work.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And this.” I handed over the note.

“Prepare? Tomorrow.” Amie looked over the simple parchment and flipped it over in her hands to look at it from every direction. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that I think I am about to go on a trip,” I grinned.

“Oh my god. You are kidding right?”

I shook my head. “I have been packed for months…”

“And you have obsessed over rereading all your dad’s books… I thought you were just a loving son who missed his dad.”

I shrugged again, admitting it plainly. “I did. My dad is Todd! I can’t wait to see the Citadel of the Thousand Wings and the Water Spouts of the Arcan Sea. I can’t wait.”

“Wait,” Amie said deadpan.

“Yeah?” I responded.

“You wanted this dinner… not for your birthday… You are breaking up with me.”

“I figured I might not come back,” I nodded furtively. I took the Alltree seed and shoved it back in my pocket. “And it is not like I can email you from Ux.”

Amie crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. I could tell she was either deciding this was the most elaborate break-up ever imagined or that I was telling the truth.

From my bedroom, I heard the clearing of a throat and then a familiar voice ask, “Ready to go?”

Mokokia stepped out from the dark doorway of my bedroom.

And of course, Amie fainted.

“You know, I dream of dying,” the bleary-eyed stranger said, leaning over into the aisle between the seats. He had woken suddenly as if the plane had hit a pocket of turbulence, but so far the red-eye flight from Chicago had been a smooth flight.

Beverly held her folded magazine to her chest, smiling patiently at the strange little man. She had been a social worker and nurse for most of her career, so she intuitively knew how to talk to people. Especially people that carried a hint of instability about them, like a reek of body odor. “Oh do you now?”

The bald stranger ducked his quickly in a nod. “All the time. Just now in fact.”

“It was just a dream,” Beverly said in her best comforting tone.

The stranger shook his head slowly. “No, it is always the same. I have the dream about dying, wake up and tell someone. Then I fall back asleep again… somehow I avoid the death. I wake up somewhere else, in some other place, in some other time.”

“Time?” Beverly responded flatly, as she was only half listening, already focusing on the People article about Johnny Depp’s recent divorce.

“Yes. I think it is another timeline actually. I am not sure.”

Beverly was fully ignoring him now. “Oh, that’s nice dear.”

The stranger cocked his head listening for something. He touched Beverly’s armrest, but did not reach far enough to make contact with her directly. “Did you ever watch that movie Sliding Doors?”

“I’m sorry?” She replied.

“I think that was the name of it. Sliding Doors? Something like that. It was about how a single choice is made and completely changes a person’s life. They live this one life, and then see how this other life is better, and that is the moral of the movie. Bunch of movies have a similar premise. Exploring how a single choice affects everything.”

“I suppose I have seen something like that,” Beverly conceded. No one around them noticed the conversation, as almost all of them were sleeping.

“I will be honest with you, I think that is how my life is.”

Beverly folded her magazine into her lap. If this strange man wanted to have a conversation, there was no stopping him. “Why do you think that?”

The man leaned closer, whispering. “Did you hear about that railroad derailment in Jersey last year? That train took a curve and double the speed and everyone aboard died?”

“Yes, I remember something about that.”

“I was on that train. I fell asleep, had the dream, woke up to find everyone around me safe and sound. I fell back asleep, and then woke up in my bed. That version of me had not set the alarm, so I had accidentally slept in. But that is not what I remember. I remember getting a cab to the rail station, buying a ticket into the city, boarding the commuter, and the people around me. I remember my seat number, even.”

“That is a strange dream, I suppose. Have you seen a doctor?” Beverly tried.

“Like a therapist?” The man made a face.

“Maybe. It sounds like it was upsetting, perhaps talking to someone about it would help?”

“I have talked to people about it.”

“But not a therapist.”

The man shook his head. “No.”

Beverly looked at her lap, to the window with a black sky beyond, only the blinking glow of the wing light was visible. A thought popped into her head. “Why do you remember the seat number?”

“Because I remember looking at my ticket. The crazy thing is that when I did a bunch of digging with the transit authority, they had no record of selling that seat. It was empty.”

Beverly smiled. “That makes perfect sense though, since you never bought it. You weren’t there, and it only was a strange coincidence.”

“If the one time, maybe,” the man crossed his arms and tucked his hands against his sides. “But that is not the only time.”

Beverly felt a chill run up her arms. “How many times?”

“At least thirty that I can remember. I have started keeping a diary, but I cannot remember all of them. Some of the events happened inside of other events, so the choices I made to get to other choices were all negated. I remember a ferry sinking in the Sound, but that never happened, because the turnpike had a massive pile-up, but since I died in the pile-up too, I woke up at my kitchen table, a puddle of drool under my cheek. The pile-up happened, but the Ferry didn’t. I never found out why.”

“And in the ones that did happen in your real life?”

“I was supposed to be there, but I wasn’t. I was always in the time when I was late, or spilled something, or ran into an old friend. Sometimes being early saved me. I would wake up on the other side of the event, thinking I had died, but in reality, it happened afterwards.”

“You have the quite the imagination, Mister?”

“Jerry Katchowski.”

“Beverly Waterson. Nice to meet you Jerry.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Beverly inwardly rolled a pair of imaginary eyes and went back to her magazine. Another hour passed before she looked over to see Mr. Katchowski sleeping soundly again, his head lolling downwards, chin pressed firmly against her chest.

“Hello everyone, this is the Captain,” the overhead PA stated calmly. “I just wanted to let you know that we have some turbulence coming up, so I am going to turn on the overhead signs to fasten your belt when you are sitting in your seats.”

The panels above made their ding noise, and Beverly looked back at Mr. Katchowski to make sure his seatbelt was fastened. He was no longer in his seat. Beverly bit her bottom lip, wondering how the gentleman could get up and go to the lavatory without her noticing. She felt her years, realizing that a man sneaking from his seat could go unnoticed.

The flight attendant pushed the drink cart past slowly, and Beverly made eye contact.

“Yes, Ma’am?” The attendant smiled graciously, albeit tiredly.

“The gentleman that was sitting here, did you happen to see him get up?”

The flight attendant tilted her head questioningly. “No, Ma’am. That seat has been empty. This was not a full flight.”

Beverly felt her stomach drop for a moment. Perhaps she was going senile after all. “I must have made a mistake.”

There was a pop from behind, and then the sound of a roar from a dinosaur, immediately all the pressure in the cabin was gone, and the floor buckled and tipped violently. Beverly put a hand to her bleeding head from the sharp impact against the now missing drink cart. As her head cleared of the flashing, Beverly realized the scream she had heard wasn’t her own voice but that of the young attendant being sucked out of the plane. The cockpit skewed wildly to left, as the roof tore above her like a giant was pulling it a part like a sandwich The air rushing around her was a malevolent, living thing, tearing at her face and her clothes and her hair, as her seat spun freely through the air, the burning chunks of her plane going brightly in all directions of the bottomless night sky.

Her last thought was of a strange little man waking up in his bed, safe and sound.

“Are you married?” Doctor Walden inquired. “Now that you are employed, I can actually ask that. As you know, we are colleagues and all.”

“She, uh… passed a while ago,” Gerald replied, using his carefully constructed response to such a question. He had designed it years ago to stay away from the pain.

“Ah. Well that is good, then. This place can suck up time, so to speak,” the Doctor explained, his face changing as he realized his mistake and attempted to backpedal. “Of course, I don’t mean it that…”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. So what are the current cases?” Gerald asked matter-of-factly, trying his hardest to shift the conversation.

“Good question… and a little difficult to answer here in my office,” Doctor Walden explained, a hand slowly unwinding the cellophane from his new package of cigarettes. “We should probably perform rounds and meet some of the, uh, guests we serve here. Shall we?”

“Yes sir… I am glad to have the opportunity and all, I just…” Gerald explained in a rush, hoping he did not offend the head doctor of the facility. It was hard for an ex-con to get a job, even if he did have his medical residency finished. Stupid mistakes made as a kid would take his entire adult life to fix.

“No, of course, Gerald. Curiosity is a good thing to have. It does not kill cats here at least,” the Doctor laughed heartily before it lead to a hacking cough. “My wife told me that I have to quit, but alas, I don’t have the time.”

Gerald smiled, understanding. “I was an addict myself when I was in high school, took my mom dying for me to ditch them.”

“At the time, you thought it wouldn’t catch up with you, right?”

Gerald nodded, remembering the day his mom had told him about the cancer.

“Irony, right? Death and cancer waving at you from another person’s eyes. I get it myself, although that has not reduced the amount I smoke at all. You should see my wife. Such looks of disapproval! Makes the milk curdle if it is on the counter behind me,” Dr. Walden laughed again, and again it carried over to a phlegmy cough. “Now. DR! Gerald. I should use the title in front of the staff and guests, shouldn’t I?”

Gerald smiled again, finding the old doctor’s manner pleasant even with the lung dropping coughing fits. Dr. Walden stood, grabbing a stack of clipboards from the nearby mail basket, its edges of folded plastic forming darker shadows within. Above it, a small double handled electronic device covered in ornate carvings hung from the wall, nestled within a gilded frame.

“These are the notes from the staff, updated twice a day. Part of your job is to interpret where necessary, and add your own notes for me to review. Since you and I will be working opposite shifts, your notes and my notes in these patient files is one of the primary ways we will communicate.”

“Of course,” Gerald nodded. He grabbed one of the offered clipboards from Walden’s hand and they both walked from the brightly lit office. “Is there anyone that dictates these into a computer somewhere?”

“No computers here. They don’t behave well,” Walden shrugged, leading Gerald down the hallway. “I am not sure if you have noticed, but everything here is analog. Clocks, locks, and pencils.”

Gerald thought about his time so far spent in the Bluejay Lane Memorial Hospital since his arrival. Mentally he had noted the lack of modern medical equipment and the unusual absence of the ubiquitous flat screened TVs found in so many places these days. But until it was pointed out explicitly, it didn’t register.

“Crazy huh?” Doctor Walden continued. “When I started the TVs were these massive tube monstrosities… huge! Like a TV would weigh a hundred pounds easy. Not like the little flatscreens these days. You pick them up with one hand! But even back then, with all the shielding, and all the insulation, even those big behemoths blew out. These little screens don’t stand a chance!”

“Bad wiring around here?” Gerald inquired.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so. Just the nature of the place.” Doctor Walden waved at the guard behind the multiple layers of bonded acrylic glass, and the barred prison gate buzzed open. “This right here is probably the highest tech thing we have in our little facility, and half the time, the buzzers fail. The doors get stuck in the locked position. Thankfully no fire marshal has stuck their heads in to question why our prisoners would burn to death in an emergency.”

“That sounds horrible,” Gerald grimaced.

“Yes it would be,” Doctor Walden smirked wryly.

They passed through the gates and entered the long white hallway of Section A. Gerald knew it was called that because of the full story height red letters painted on the far wall where the hallway opened into some sort of common room.

Doctor Walden continued, “This where the majority of our guests reside. We do have a Section B and C, but those wards are shut down for now. Not enough guests to fill the beds.”

“That is a bad thing?”

“It can be. So are you familiar with asymptomatic linear and nonlinear chronopathic disease?”

“I was with you up to asymptomatic…” Gerald admitted as they walked up to the first heavy metal door, inset with a glazed wire reinforced chunk of heavy acrylic glass. Behind it a young woman sat an easel painting a landscape. She appeared to be quite gifted from where Gerald was standing.

“Yes, yes… I understand that our course of study and treatment here is not well known, but as a lead physician, you will have to come up to speed quickly. First lets start with Chronopathy. Do you know what that is?”

“Time… an affliction with their sense of time?” Gerald tried.

“Yes, to an extent. Specifically, Chronopathy is a deep innate sense of time. All temporal things understand time, because we are in the flow of it. The river of time flows around us, if you will, and us with it,” Doctor Walden sounded excited to have a new listener in Gerald. “Human beings are especially prone to this sense of time. So having a disease or natural defect in that innate wiring causes a wide range of disorders on a spectrum, not unlike psychosis.”

“Interesting,” Gerald admitted as he watched the young lady make precise brushstrokes of oil on canvas. It was hypnotic almost.

“This patient is Moonstone. No last name. No documented birth record. She is one of our oldest patients… been here since the early 1970’s.”

“She doesn’t look a day over sixteen,” Gerald commented.

Doctor Walden agreed emphatically, “And she believes it is 1972. In fact, she believes it so fiercely that her body has not aged a single day since then. Her blood and marrow tests, spinal fluid and nervous system sampling all comes back with the same markers day after day for decades. She paints the same picture every day as well,” Doctor Walden sighed heavily. “We have to switch out the canvas and make every single thing the same in her room. She resets every night when she falls asleep.”

“Resets?”

“Just what it sounds like. I think Moonstone’s short term memory fails to be committed and her neural pathways reset to the morning of April 4th, 1972 every day. My predecessor believed a series of government-led drug testing resulted in her current condition, but we have no proof.”

“Every day?”

“Every day. Come, come. Next room,” Doctor Walden lead Gerald to the next door, again, inlaid with the heavy glass. “This is Bruno Viskolov, he is our chimera.”

Gerald peered into the glass to see a man sitting on a chair, watching his hands. Gerald leaned closer to get a better look, and the man grew hazy for a moment and then popped back into focus. He was no longer a man, but a small boy. In another moment, he grew hazy again and an elderly man sat stooped, ravaged by the affects of time. “What the hell?!”

“Bruno is physically manifesting within his own time stream. His corporeal and temporal forms are not aligned. We can control some of it with medication, but Bruno is clever. He is able to control his phasing to some extent, so he is able to flush anything we give him in moments. Thank god he is gentle. His adult form is very muscular and he could do some real damage during treatment.”

“My god, his right arm is that of a baby but it is attached to the body of a grown man,” Gerald exclaimed.

“That is the proof I have that he is in more control than he leads on… and why I call him our chimera. He is able to shift specific parts of his body to other points in his time stream. It is bizarre to see a grown man waddle around on baby legs, or a small child’s head attached to a muscle bound Russian. Ironically, the mental capacity is always there, and it does not affect his reasoning or emotional state. You can carry on a very lengthy complicated discussion with Bruno in the form of a baby and he will sound like the thirty eight year old he is. He is quite intelligent; loves to read.”

Doctor Walden strolled languidly on to the next door, as if surveying a sparse bookcase at the local library.

“… And this guest is our most recent addition and happens to be the star of the ward. Our very own Thomas Mayweather, a real bonafide Chronopath.”

“Chronopath?” Gerald raised his eyebrow.

“Colloquially known as a Time Traveler. The irony is he believes he is a scientist.”

“Why is that ironic?”

“Because, Mr. Mayweather here believes that he created a time machine to travel through time. When in reality, he didn’t use a machine at all. He is a Chronopath… he can travel through time, and space for that matter, at will. He just doesn’t believe it. He is so wrapped up in his delusion of being a mad scientist, that he is effectively stuck. He could literally pop out of here anytime he wanted, if would only accept the truth.”

Gerald nodded, trying to mentally accept the possibility of someone being able to travel through time anytime they wanted. It sounded like hogwash… but after seeing Bruno next door, his capability to accept the impossible seemed to have increased in a short amount of time. “So, where is his machine?”

“It’s in my office actually. I hung it on the wall.”

“Ah. I saw that,” Gerald recalled. “I wondered what it was.”

“Yes, it is a Time Machine,” Doctor Walden used air quotes. “Covered in dials and buttons and all sorts of other lights and batteries… all of it just a focal point for Mr. Mayweather to pour his mental energy into… and BAM!” Doctor Walden slapped his palm, “He is fifty years in the past to get caught by police for breaking and entering into a private residence, foolishly claimed he was a time traveler, and consequently, becoming our guest here.”

“Wait… he actually is from the future?”

“Yes, as far as I can tell medically. Higher amount of radio isotopes in his body. Some form of a nuclear event must occur between now and then… I rather not think about it. Quite well mentally, except for the delusion, of course.”

“You think he came back to avert a disaster or something?” Gerald tried.

“He won’t tell us. Claims he would corrupt the past or something silly like that. Very emphatic about it.”

Gerald looked in to see a mousy brown-haired man strapped to a bed, drooling.

“Drugged and restrained,” Doctor Walden observed. “Thorazine, if you were curious.”

“I wasn’t,” Gerald said, watching the mad scientist roll his head over sleepily.

“He is very agitated when he is not drugged. We keep him sedated for his own protection,” Doctor Walden concluded.

“Of course.”

“I have thought about it often, actually… what I would do if I could travel anywhere and anytime. The possibilities are endless right?” Doctor Walden mused.

Gerald thought of Mara and the night that led him to prison. “Yeah… I could think of a few things.”

“Well don’t. Not healthy to feed their delusions,” Doctor Walden replied as if he was closing a book. He turned on his heel and headed back the way they had come. “Let’s head to the Nurse’s station and I will introduce you.”

Gerald mentally filed it away anyway. Something to think about. The life he had built was a life, but it wasn’t the same life he could have had with Mara. He took one last lingering look into the Chronopath’s cell, and followed Doctor Walden with his mind swirling with all the potential futures and pasts.

All he had to do was be patient. And with a grin, he realized that here, he had all the time he would ever need to think it through.

I met Death when I was sixteen. I knew who he was the moment I laid eyes on him. It was like seeing God. You just knew who it was.

He stood over the body of my mother, her face blank, her eyes unfocused, staring at the saucepan that had fallen from her hand and splashed its contents across the floor. I was a teenager, taking in a scene that my mind could not understand, refused to understand, rejecting it outright in every way. The scene was only a picture, a thing to view and dismiss, and set aside into the empty void of forgotten memory. Yet it stayed. It was burned indelibly into my memory. My mother, splayed across the floor, spaghetti sauce flung across the vinyl, a wooden stirring spoon undulating slowly like a teeter totter in a storm. And then the man, standing next to her body, his face saddened, but slowly shifting to jubilant as he watched my face change slowly from shock to horror.

“You see me?” He asked softly, his hand pointing at my chest.

“I… my mom?”

Death looked down to survey the scene again. “Aneurysm.”

“Did she…”

“She is already gone. She did not suffer, if that is what you are asking.” Death shrugged and stepped over my mother’s body. He was barefoot. “She is not here, so you can’t talk to her.”

“Am I about to die too?” I asked.

“Of course not. Not your time.”

I swallowed heavily and watched his face carefully. He was a cosmic force embodied into that of a middle-age, yet ageless, white man. Bald, a soft face with a square jaw, and small freckles across his cheekbones and crossing the arch of his nose in between.

“Did she go to heaven?”

“She moved on.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Look at you, Ms. Intelligent,” Death chuckled. “Debate team?”

“Maybe,” I retorted.

“Fair enough. Are you angry with me?”

His brow furrowed slightly, and he appeared to actually care. I wasn’t, strangely enough. “No. I guess not. Worried.”

“Oh?”

“Just me now,” I sniffed, a forgotten magazine clutched in my hand. “Dad is long gone.”

“He is in Singapore. Sleeping right now,” Death grinned. “You want to see him?”

“Not really.”

Death’s eyebrow went up. “Why?”

“Not much of a father, just a sperm donor,” I admitted frankly.

“And funny too,” Death said to himself more than to me. “Strange day.”

I still felt the heavy pressure of tears camping out the back of eye sockets. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see my mom’s hand stretched out across the fake tile floor as if still stretching for the fallen spoon.

“It is ok if you cry,” Death said consolingly. “I don’t mind.”

“Don’t you have other people to take?”

“Who says I am not?”

“But you are here,” I pointed out matter-of-factly.

“And I am there…” Death pointed at himself standing in the living room. “And there…” Death pointed at himself looking in through the kitchen window. “And there.” Death waved at me from the kitchen table, reading the newspaper as if the suburban domestic dream was very much alive.

“Ah. Neat,” I murmured.

“You seem smart. But not that smart.” Death winked at me.

“Why do you say that?”

“You haven’t figured out…”

“Why I can see you?”

Death’s eyes went wide fractionally. “I retract my previous statement. Smart as a whip.”

“So…” I said.

“So?”

“Why can I see you?”

“The powers that be have finally granted me an apprentice,” Death declared proudly.

“Shit.” My stomach felt like it was made of knots that wanted to be regurgitated violently.

“No, truly.”

I dropped the magazine, and it fell to floor with raspy crinkle noise that only laminated glossy fashion magazines can make. I put both of my hands to my temples and rubbed in exasperation. “So you are telling me that I just literally just came in on my mother dying at the hands of my new boss? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”

“Says the young lady carrying a conversation with Greche.”

“Greshag?” I frowned. “What kind of name is Greshag? Grease hag?”

“Greche. Gray-cheegk. Very old tongue. No longer spoken on this Earth,” Greche paused thoughtfully. “For about five thousand years or so. Maybe longer. I assure you, it was spoken in fear at one time.”

“Death too hard? Grim Reaper not applicable?”

Greche scratched his chin absently. “Oh, I suppose they work, but Greche works so much better. It is one of those words that had a bunch of meanings. Death means no longer alive, and Grim Reaper makes it sound like a boring harvester of wheat, frowning at the scything work. I have never used a scythe, but it looks fun. At least the Youtube videos make it look oddly satisfying.”

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.”

“No, Grim Reaper is a horrible name.”

“Not that. Youtube?” I exclaimed.

Death pulled out a battered phone, and flicked his thumb upwards across the screen. “Sure, its a website that shows videos…”

“I know what youtube is!”

“Oh. Then what I am kidding you about?” Greche had a confused face at the interaction.

“That you watch youtube videos,” I said, incredulous. “You are a timeless being, right?”

“Yes.”

“You are everywhere?”

“Yes.”

“You know everything?”

“Oh god no. Hardly anything actually. That is why I love the Internet. I used to have to hang out in libraries in my spare time.”

“But you are timeless!” I rolled my eyes in a huff.

“So?” Greche defended. “I do not understand why you are getting so upset.”

“Because my mother is dead on the floor behind you, and I am talking to the GRIM REAPER, and he watches YOUTUBE.”

“Ah. Yes. Well. There is that,” Greche nodded. “A little unconventional I suppose. But I assure you I am a very good boss. And I am sorry about your mother.”

I felt a tear well of its own accord and drop down my cheek. “Yeah.”

“Do you need a good cry? I can wait and watch some TV.”

“Wait?” I said, my brain had already spaced the fact that I talking to Death. “Why are you waiting?”

Greche grinned again. “I am not leaving without my apprentice…”

“That again,” I paused and ran a hand through my long brown hair to get it out of my face. “How am I supposed to waltz out of here with my… Mom! Laying! Right! There!”

“I knew you were angry,” Greche commented more to himself than I. “Go ahead and have a cry. An ugly one. You can get blubbery and sniffy and all that if you need to.”

I sighed. “And just what does being your apprentice even mean?”

“It means I show you the ropes. Fight some, live some, save some. That sort of thing.”

“Fight? Fight what? People refusing to die?”

Greche shook his head as if it was obvious. “Oh, no, young lady. Actual fighting. Bad things roam the Earth. Souls rot. Greater powers interfere. Its a mess out there. And so far… we are woefully understaffed.”

“Oh please. How can you be understaffed when you just proved, most dramatically, that you can be in multiple places at once?”

“Because even when I can be in multiple places at once, I may not be able to act in all those places. It takes effort, man. Cut me a break,” Greche rolled his eyes in a perfect imitation of a valley girl. “Just imagine that if I can be in multiple places at once and I am STILL falling short, how big of mess it is! I need an apprentice, hell, I need three. And it will probably take you a couple hundred years to figure out the whole splitting your observation space thing as it is. So if we are going to argue about the semantics of what the hell I deal with every day, you are going to lose, because I am on this side…” Greche drew an invisible line between the two of them, “…And you… are on that side!”

“Because I am alive?”

“God no. I am alive too. Do I look like a corpse?” Greche grimaced through a thin frown. “I meant that I am the guy that knows the pool of shit he is standing in, and you can only see the fence surrounding it from the parking lot.”

“Gross,” I returned.

“Apt.” Greche reached out to take my hand. “See for yourself. Warm skin, heartbeat, all the signs of life.”

I tentatively reached out and ran my finger across his very solid palm. “You said you were thousands of years old.”

“I am. Older than most religions,” Greche winked.

“So if you are alive, and older than anything, and can be in multiple places at once, and are invisible… and you are a grim reaper…” My brain started to whirl and twirl about in my skull, the impossibility of the reality wrapping me up, unleashing me fiercely like a top, only to spin in place, it gave me a goddamn righteous headache. I put my hands to my temples and exhaled heavily.

“Just Greche,” he corrected. “All of the other stuff is parlor tricks.”

“So as an assistant…”

“Apprentice. You would be my right hand man, er, woman,” Greche corrected quickly.

“I am sixteen!”

“And homeless now. You are a minor, and that means that state can do with you what you wish, Rachel. With no family, your options are slim.”

“Shit.” I furrowed my brow and tried to think it through. The headache was not decreasing any. “And you are expecting me to waltz off into the sunset with you? I don’t even know you!”

“Yeah you do. My name is Greche. I introduced myself.”

I shook my head and grinned at the comment against my best judgment. “Yeah, you did. But its just a name.”

“A name can mean a lot.”

I didn’t respond right. I looked over to my mother, laying so still, as if she had become a rug or accessory to the kitchen decor.

“There are perks. Being an apprentice means you can live a life that you can barely imagine. It means seeing things that 99% of humanity never knows about… it means being a part of something so much larger that it actually makes our little planet and all of its people seem insignificant. It is a big opportunity.”

“Yeah?” I sniffed.

“Yeah… plus its not really optional. You have been recruited. Whether or not you come right now, you will come eventually.”

“I will?”

“Guaranteed,” Greche stated, as if no other option existed.

“Why do you say that? Maybe I wanted to grow up, finish school…”

Greche interrupted, “…find a boy, go to college, get married, have two and half kids, a dog, a cat, a quiet life, and then have me show up on a Monday night when you are 89 years old, and you say ‘Hey, I know you.’ And I say, ‘Yep. I introduced myself to already, it’s Greche, remember?’ But you will be an old bat with a bit of alzheimers and dementia, and you will say ‘Nice to meet you, Greche.’ And then I will laugh and tell you to stop being an old bitty, you have to be an apprentice. But you will be dead already. So opportunity lost.”

“You can see all that? Oddly specific,” I said in a whisper.

“Or you can save us both the trouble and you ditch your lame excuse of a quiet life and come see what you can see, with me. Greche.”

At the time, I remember thinking to myself: fuck it. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Any goodbyes to this place?”

“Do I need anything?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then what do I need to say goodbye to?”

“See, Rachel. You were meant to be an Apprentice. Great minds think alike!” Greche winked.

“We will see,” I shot back.

“Right now in fact. Let’s go take care of the demon down the street. The bastard owes me money.”

What can I say? Hell of a first day on the job.