Of A Lifetime

I spent twenty minutes today looking for the keys in my pocket, and now I can’t remember where I was going to go.

CALL NOW FOR THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME!

ARE YOU OR A LOVED ONE ABOUT TO BE PUT IN A BORING, STERILE RETIREMENT HOME UNTIL THEY DIE?

DON’T DELAY, CALL CHRONOCRUISE NOW AND RETIRE TO ANYWHERE IN THE PAST, OR GO ON A TOUR OF THE MOST FAMOUS MOMENTS IN HUMAN HISTORY FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS!

THE WONDERS OF TIME TRAVEL CAN BE YOURS, BUT ONLY FOR A LIMITED TIME!

Today my parents told me and my brother that our grandmother had forgotten who our grandfather was while they were in a movie theater, and began panicking, and did not recognize him until after he’d managed to drive her home.

WELCOME ABOARD THE CHRONOCRUISE FLAGSHIP, PLEASE FOLLOW THE SIGNS TO THE AUDITORIUM FOR YOUR ORIENTATION!

One of my coworkers brought his dog to work every day. It was the middle of summer and the inside of the warehouse was over a hundred degrees. The smoke from the melting wire in the solar panel I was modifying made me cough and I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

“Dogs must experience time very differently.”

“Well yeah, because they don’t notice it at all.”

“Obviously I don’t mean consciously.”

“How do you mean then?”

“Well, their primary sense is their crazy sense of smell, right? That means they’re primarily experiencing where things used to be, or what they are giving off, nothing’s immediate with scent.”

Jack looked up at us with his guilty brown eyes from where he was curled up on the floor.

“Uh-oh, Jack knows we’re talking about him.”

NOW ARRIVING AT OUR NEXT DESTINATION! IF YOU LOOK OUT THE WINDOW OR ON YOUR SCREENS, YOU’LL WITNESS THE FINAL STONE BEING PLACED ON TOP OF THE FIRST OF THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA!

I gaze out the window and see dozens of frail men collapse as their work is finally completed, only to be whipped for their weakness. They scramble to their feet, no time to reflect on what they have accomplished. They have more pyramids to build, after all.

My grandfather finally admitted he needed help taking care of my grandmother and had bought a house near ours, and so I had to drive with them across a state and a half to their new home. My grandmother gazed lazily out the window, watching the trees zoom by faster than she could comprehend them.

“Do you remember when…?”

I could see her struggling to grasp the memory as it fled from her, like smoke between her mind’s fingers.

“No, Grandmommy, I don’t.”

“Neither do I!”

She laughed heartily and continued smiling out the window at the trees.

I’m not quite sure how long I’ve been on this ship. I’m also not sure it matters. I don’t remember much anymore.

When am I?

She hasn’t recognized me the last few times, but at least she’s always been friendly before. She won’t even look at me.

FOR THE NEXT PART OF OUR ORIENTATION, WE’LL BE COVERING PERMANENT RETIREMENT IN THE PAST! IF YOU HAVE A DESTINATION IN MIND TO RETIRE PERMANENTLY TO, YOU CAN REGISTER AT ANY TIME DURING THE CRUISE. YOU’LL BE OUTFITTED WITH NEURAL IMPLANTS THAT WILL PREVENT YOU FROM DISCUSSING THE FUTURE OR FROM MAKING DECISIONS THAT WILL AFFECT THE COURSE OF HISTORY. YOU’LL BE ABLE TO LIVE BUT WON’T BE ABLE TO CHANGE ANYTHING.

The library of Alexandria is burning right before my eyes. History and memory and experience of countless faceless authors turned to smoke and spewed into the night sky. Things we’ll never know we knew, forgotten.

She spent the whole of Christmas Day yelling at us. She couldn’t form sentences anymore, but that didn’t stop her from loudly trying. My dad and grandfather were putting her to bed when I talked to my mother.

“This may seem like a selfish question, but is her disease hereditary?”

“Scientists don’t know yet. Her uncle had it, but there isn’t any history otherwise.”

“I see.”

I went into her bedroom to tell my grandmother goodnight.

“Merry Christmas, Grandmommy.”

“Merry Christmas.”

How many stops have I been on? How long have I been on this ship? Does time affect me at all anymore? Nothing makes sense anymore. I just want to stop. When do I stop?

“I met an old man in the park today who claimed to be on a cruise of the timestream, and told me of all his travels, and how he was headed to Egypt again. He talked to me for a while. Well, more at me than to me. He seemed like he was just talking to anything that would listen. I think I might write a story about it. What do you think, Grandmommy?”

She was looking up through the branches of the trees in the backyard, and motioned absently to the sky.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes, it is.”

DON’T MISS YOUR ONCE IN A LIFETIME CHANCE TO SEE THE PAST! CALL NOW!

Prologue: Questions

The gunshot echoed for an eternity, violating the desert's silence and stirring her gods. It had been a long time since they'd heard that noise, but the gods of the desert knew what it meant: it meant death, and no one is more acquainted with death the the gods of the desert.

They appeared as if from nothing, the first god. They circled in perfect unison, the three-as-one, in the sky. Heads withered and red as blood, great horrible wings the of the darkest shadows--as if even the sun itself was afraid to touch their feathers with its scalding rays. This first God of the Desert Skies circled slowly, for time was no object to them.

The second god always arrived next, for he always saw the first gods in the sky, and they showed him the way. He was thin and frail, this god. His ribs were visible through his skin and his fur was brittle and rough from the sun's unending assault. He had a madness in his eye--the one that still worked--that came from only the deepest of hungers. He skittered on his four bony legs, sniffing and cackling to himself about nothing in particular. His ears twitched back and forth, listening to the dim scratching of tiny reptilian claws and insect legs against scalding dirt and rock. This second God of the Desert earth rushed across the hot ground, for he hungered.

Coyote, God of the Desert Earth arrived at the body mere seconds before Vulture, Gods of the Desert Sky landed silently upon it. Both gods stopped and looked at each other. The first Vulture was blind in his left eye, the second had two good eyes, and the third was blind in his right eye. All four of those eyes stared with a terrifying calm into the starved eyes of Coyote as their talons dug into the corpse, as if to claim it.

"Aaagh!" the corpse moaned in pain at the Vulture's grasps.

"Loosen your grip, Sky God," Coyote yelped. "His soul is not yours yet."

"It wasn't." "It isn't." "But it will be," said the Gods of the Desert Sky.

"We both know even your powers don't let you see that."

"What's going on?" the corpse said without moving its mouth. It was an adult man with the tanned face of a ranch hand, and wore jeans, a vest with circuitry running through it, form-fitting body armor, and a black cowboy  hat with a blood-soaked bullet hole torn through it.

"You died," Coyote cackled. "In a way we haven't seen for a long time."

"He had a bulletgun. Why did he use bullets?" said the corpse.

"That was." "That is." "That will be an interesting question." "Journey." "Answer," the Vulture said.

"But there's another more important question that we must ask," Coyote hissed.

"Your answer determines whether you come with us," Vulture crooned.

"Or with me," said Coyote.

The spirit of the man moaned. Flies began to emerge from the shadowy wings of Vultures and buzz about the sweltering corpse, already rancid in the desert heat. They sniffed and nibble and babbled at the flesh, in anticipation. His spirit listened and could hear all of the saguaros around him quietly shrieking as their skeletons slowly stretched out as they reached in futility toward the sky.

"What question?" the spirit whispered in pain.

"Not so fast," said the first of the Vultures, who was followed immediately by the third, "first we must know your name."

"Ganymede Kel."

"Well then, Ganymede, you may know one," said the second Vulture.

"Would you like to know how the world began?" asked the Gods of the Desert Sky. The flies screamed in warning at the spirit, not wishing their fate upon him.

"Or would you like to know how the world ends?" asked the God of the Desert Earth. The cries of the saguaros joined those of the flies.

Ganymede's mind raced, thinking of what he'd been asked, and trying in vain to ignore quiet, deafening screams of the desert. He tried to block it out, thinking one last time of his brothers and father.

"Neither," he said finally.

"What do you mean, neither?" Coyote howled in anger.

"My father always told me that those questions don't matter. All that matters is how to make the world better."

"Interesting," the Vultures said in unison. Their wings flapped in thunderous shadows, and everything went black for Ganymede.

The Trickster's Nightmare

I inhale slowly.

Drip.

She talks to me between my screams.

Drip.

I believe it to be a she, the serpent; though I can not see her, for it is darker than the deadest of nights.

Drip.

Or am I blind?

Drip.

"They've forgotten you, treacherous one." Her words slither into my ears and bite as if they themselves had venomous fangs.

Drip.

I do not respond to her. It seems an eternity since I last knew how to respond.

Drip.

Is her voice the serpent's or the woman's?

Drip.

"The world ended long ago and left you here to rot with me."

Drip.

Is the woman still there?

Drip.

Who was she?

Drip.

"You deserve every sweet drop of pain I bless you with, and deep down, you know it."

Drip.

I do. But what did I do?

Drip.

What good is a punishment that lasts longer than the memory of the crime?

Drip.

"I wonder, when time ends, will you taste as good as your wife? Will you taste like sweet, useless self-sacrifice, like she did?"

Drip.

"No, I think you'll taste more like pain and loathing. Self-hatred so bitter, sprinkled with the salts of illusory grandeur?"

Drip.

The pause is always long enough for me to want the pain, so that I may actually feel something.

Drip.

My screams break mountains and my writhing create chasms.

There is always another pause, so that I may savor her blessing.

Drip.

She talks to me between my screams.

Drip.

"Your sons, your wife. None of them remember you."

Drip.

I know lies when I hear them.

Drip.

I know they're all dead. I don't recall how, and I don't recall their names, but I know.

Drip.

The splash of poison against stone is as loud as a hammer's strike.


Drip.

"Have you no will to break free? Are your son's entrails too strong a bond? You have always been so weak."


Drip.

I hate hammers.

Drip.

"What is that spark I see?"

Drip.

I dream briefly of blood and mistletoe.

Drip.

And of a wolf devouring the sun.

Drip.

I hear the serpent's scales scratching against the stone uneasily.

Drip.

"What is it that you've remembered? What stirs inside of you?"

Drip.

"Hate."

I tremble beneath my bonds.

Drip.

"Impossible!" she screams.

The restraints snap and I sit up on the three stones.

"You'll be but the first of many," I say as I reach out into the darkness.

Drip.

It was no longer venom, but blood that echoed in the endless caverns.

I stand and feel bones shatter and splinter beneath my feet.

Stones fell from the ceiling and smashed upon the ground.

I have made the world new.

Drip.

I exhale.

Drip.

The rock is jagged upon my back, and the restraints wet and raw against my chest.

Drip.

She talks to me between my screams.