Chapter 8

“The rules,” said the Seven.

Fuck! I thought.

“You keep out of this,” they said.

“Yeah,” said Wendy.

I stuck my tongue out and shot her a raspberry. I got one in return.

“Twenty two thousand years in the future,” they said.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes ... but ONLY twenty two thousand in the future,” they said.

“What, exactly, does that mean?” I asked.

“You can’t do tomorrow,” they explained.

“Shit!”

“As far back as you want ... no limits,” they said. “Although, as you might have figured out through your little experiment, the past can have unexpected consequences.”

“I see ... saw...” I said.

They did it again.

“Marjorie Daw,” they sang.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

So, they finished it:

See-saw, Margery Daw,
Sold her bed and lay on the straw;
Sold her bed and lay upon hay
And pisky came and carried her away.
For wasn’t she a dirty slut
To sell her bed and lie in the dirt?

What the hell? I thought.

Not a clue, people are strange, they thought back at me.

“You’re one to talk,” I suggested.

“Not! We’re seven,” they said.

“Bullshit!” I said.

I wanna tell you right now ... when the gods disassemble it is positively disgusting.

You’ll get used to it, they said.

“What makes you think we’ll be around each other very often?”

“Your wife has a watch.”

“We’re not married!”

“We’re time travelers. We know what you do next.”

“Oh,” I said. “It’s inevitable?”

“Yup,” they assembled.

Assembly is almost as disgusting.

“So ... what do we do tomorrow?”

“Wendy is going to read Paris Match, ” they said.

“What about me?”

“You’re going to get coffee,” they said.