Chapter 33: Walk Like a Man

Saturday, November 10, 2012 6am

He was in his bed, but not the one he expected. It was the bed in Eve’s apartment.

“Oh, fuck, no!” he groaned in despair and frustration, slamming his hands on the bed.

It had happened again. He was back in the future. How? Why? Was this his future life ... bouncing back and forth between then and now? And when was now? He rolled over and glanced at the clock radio. Six-oh-seven. But what day ... or month for that matter? Which year? He was almost overcome with despair. This wasn’t much different from when he first awoke in the hospital and no one knew who he was.

He lay on his back, his mind drifting now. Where did he belong? Which reality was his ... or was it neither of them? Gradually, he pulled himself out of bed and moved to his laptop. There was one piece of information he needed. He looked at the lower right corner of the screen as it booted up.

6:11 11/10/2012

There it was, in black and white. He moved the mouse over the date and saw it was Saturday. He searched his memory of his previous time in the future and thought his last time there might have been a Friday. This must be the next day. His insides were boiling with tension. He needed to talk to Eve ... and soon. He headed for the bathroom, allowing his morning routine to distract him before returning to the bedroom to dress. Every action he took was deliberate and careful. At times he wondered where things were, but that information came back to him quickly enough.

He wandered out to the living room and looked through the curtains at the darkened city. It hadn’t changed. The pavement was wet with fresh rain and the lights of the downtown reflected off the shiny surfaces adding to their intensity. Vehicles moved down streets silently, their sounds muffled by the heavy glass windows. It would be another dreary late-fall day in Vancouver. He struggled to remember if he was working that day, but a question to Eve would clear that up. It had been months since he was here, and yet the evidence before him said it was only a few hours. How was he supposed to cope with this?

He heard the door of the Gustafson’s apartment close and he almost went to see if he could catch Kirsten before she entered the elevator. A glance at his watch told him she was late that morning. She knew of his time travel, but knew nothing of this latest shift. As far as anyone here knew, he’d never left. Was it all imaginary? No ... the people and places and circumstances were all too real, just as they had been in this timeline. He remembered thinking that he planned to drive to Mountainside Cemetery to see if his grave was still there. It couldn’t be, of course. He had changed history and didn’t die. But what about now? It was there when he first arrived in the future. Would it still be there now that he knew he hadn’t died in 1961?

He started the coffee maker and poured a glass of juice while he waited for the first brew. He found a fresh Danish pastry and ate it, hoping to quiet his stomach. He was restless waiting for Eve to appear. The sooner the better; he had to tell her what had happened. Maybe she could make some sense of what it meant. Was this all some huge hallucination?

Jesse fidgeted and paced around the living room, unable to concentrate on anything. He almost decided to head down to the exercise room, but knew he wanted to talk to Eve at the earliest possible moment. The clock seemed to have stopped at times as he waited for her. It was after seven when she appeared from her bedroom, wearing her robe but obviously having had a shower.

“Good morning, Jesse. How are you this morning?” she smiled.

“Eve ... I went back ... back to before,” Jesse announced nervously as she poured her coffee.

She turned and looked at the young man in surprise. “Back? You mean ... to 1961? You went back there?”

He nodded. “Yes. I was there for seven months, then ... I was here again. I don’t know how I can handle this, Eve. I don’t know who and where I am any more.

“Calm down, Jesse,” she said quietly. “We’ll talk about this. This was unexpected ... completely unexpected. I want to hear all about it.”

“It’s crazier than that, Eve. Candice and Kirsten were there ... back then.”

“Oh ... that is ... strange. Eve was equally surprised and confused. This was not something she had even considered. Her main thoughts, however, were for her patient. She could see that Jesse was approaching losing his grip. He was very agitated and almost incoherent.

“Take a deep breath, Jesse,” she said calmly, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Just breathe, Jesse, just breathe.”

Gradually, following her advice, he began to calm down. She recognized his “thousand yard stare” and it worried her. He was on the edge she knew, and she continued to hold him, hoping it would restore him to something approximating his normal self. It didn’t happen right away, but over the next ten minutes or so, Jesse appeared to gain possession of more of his faculties and began to behave as Eve was accustomed to seeing him behave.

“What am I going to do, Eve. I’m lost. I don’t know where I am any more. I’m almost afraid to go to bed, not knowing where I’ll wake up.”

“Steady, Jesse. I understand how you can be upset, but so far, no harm has come to you ... or to any of your friends. What I can’t understand is why you can spend months in one time place and return to the other without that passage of time taking place. That just doesn’t make any sense. But then ... nothing about what is happening to you is making sense. I think you and I should spend some time with hypnosis again and see if anything has changed. Then, we need to sit down and see how you can survive what is happening to you. Do you agree?”

Jesse nodded solemnly. “Okay ... I don’t know what else to do. I know I have to find a way to endure this, Eve. You’re the only person I can think of who can help. I’m in your hands.”

“Good,” she smiled in relief. “I’m glad you feel that way. As soon as Mica is on his way this morning, we can sit down and discuss what kind of action will make a difference for you.”

Saturday, November 10, 2012 10:35am

There is a certain durability built into the youth of the twenty-first century. In the past several generations, the advances and complexity of society would easily overwhelm someone arriving from fifty years in the past. In fact, it almost overwhelmed those who were born in the mid-twentieth century just with the sheer velocity of change. The foundation of what they could expect from the future had been warped to something they barely recognized. From the 1930’s onward, not just science had advanced at a spectacular rate, but society and social order had changed dramatically. Who of those born in that era would believe in general public acceptance of behaviour that would have been outrageous in their earlier lives. To many, it seemed like a deterioration of societal norms, challenging everything they were ever taught in their youth. Many would shake their heads and wonder aloud at what the world ... and their future ... was coming to.

Into this was thrust Jesse Michael Peterson, age nineteen now, and a visitor to the future for the second time. His mentor and guide in this new world, Doctor Eve Mikeska, was a patient tutor and a supportive friend. She assured him that like most educated humans, he would adapt. Jesse was not quite so confident. There was nothing predictable about his prospects. Would he remain in the future, or be cast back to his origins? Would these time-shifts he was experiencing continue unpredictably?

The hypnosis revealed nothing that Eve had not already discovered about her young patient. In every respect, he was a normal, healthy, intelligent young man ... except ... he was also a time traveller. There was nothing in any text book or any record of any such situation ever having taken place in the history of recorded medicine. There was plenty of theory of how it might be done, but no examples of it ever having happened. She had no guidebook to help her deal with this phenomenon.

Frustrated, she woke Jesse slowly from his state and let him get accustomed to being conscious again.

“Did you find out anything?” he asked.

Eve shook her head slowly. “No ... nothing that I did not already know. I was just taking a flyer on maybe something that was different that might reveal what was happening. All I can tell you is that you remain a perfectly normal nineteen-year-old in every respect except what has happened to you. There is nothing in your subconscious that indicates what this is all about,” she sighed.

“All I can do is to try to help you cope with whatever is happening. As I said, no harm has come to you or anyone around you. How Kirsten and Candice came to be in both time lines is even more baffling.”

“Do you think that this is how I’m going to be ... for the rest of my life?” he asked in a halting voice.

She sighed again. “Possibly. I can’t say for sure, of course. There is just too much we don’t know about this. I can tell you that you will have to be careful to guard yourself against revealing this situation any more than you already have. I have no idea what might happen to you if the wrong people discovered your secret.”

“Eve ... I have to tell Kirsten. She’s the only one besides you that I can trust completely.”

Eve didn’t agree or disagree with Jesse’s decision. He was an adult now, she realized, and was capable of and inclined to make his own decisions. She might not agree and could probably get him to listen to her concerns, but in the end, it was his decision on how to live this strange life he in which he found himself.

She had spent numerous hours researching the phenomenon of time travel, coming up empty of course. It was a figment of writers’ imagination, with no basis in science whatsoever. Oh, there were hypotheses by theoretical physicists that it might be possible, but the concept was vague and beyond anyone’s current ability to recreate. We had yet to travel faster than the speed of light, which seemed to be a fundamental in many of these theories.

But Eve was a scientist too, and she began to look inward at the human race. We knew some of what went on in our brains, but not as much as we would like to know. There were living examples of extraordinary people who had unusual capabilities, far beyond normal humans. Could the answer to Jesse’s situation lie in the brain? Could he be suffering, or perhaps had he been gifted, with some bizarre power that allowed him to live two separate existences? She could find nothing that would lead her to think there were other examples of this, but nonetheless, that’s where her research was leading her. It would be easy to write him off as bi-polar, but she knew the typical symptoms bore no resemblance to his situation.

She began to look at every example recorded of unique behaviour or talent in humans. It was looking like a monumental task, but it was something she felt compelled to do. MRI or CT scans didn’t exist back in the 1960’s, and she wondered if one or the other would reveal some clues to Jesse’s state. She could easily order them for a patient, so that would be step one. The hospital lacked the equipment for a MEG scan, but she knew there was a unit in Seattle at the UW Center. She’d have a lot more trouble getting that scan authorized, and couldn’t think of how she could justify it without revealing Jesse’s secret.

Saturday, November 10, 2012 4pm

Jesse’s depression was relatively short lived, thanks to a certain young lady who came calling that Saturday afternoon. Jesse was in his usual location, Grant’s Books, quietly going about his customer interactions with efficiency and politeness. In every respect, he was acting normally in Grant’s eyes, but there was an undercurrent that Jesse’s boss and friend detected that caused him to wonder. Later that afternoon, Jesse was putting some new additions to the used book supply in their proper shelf locations. It was quiet in the store and he heard the bell on the front door ring as someone entered.

He could hear Grant’s quiet greeting and a female voice, but couldn’t tell what was being said. The conversation went on for a minute or so before he was aware of someone coming toward the back of the store. He looked up and broke into a smile. He shook his head as Kirsten approached him, looking like a fashion model in her winter wear. How did he get so blessed as to have her for a girlfriend?

“Hi,” she smiled, approaching him and wrapping her arms around him before giving him a warm kiss.

“Hi, what brings you here?” he wondered, still holding her in his arms.

“You, of course. I had nothing to do this afternoon, so I thought I would come to visit my special man,” she said quietly before kissing him once more.

“I’m a lucky guy,” he said as they broke. “I was thinking of you. Did you have something you wanted to do this evening?”

“Yes, but I do not think we will have enough private time for it,” she giggled. “However, I do have some news for you.”

“News? Tell me.”

“Momma and Papa are going to a big trade show in Las Vegas next week. I will be all alone in the apartment. What should I do to keep from being lonely?”

Her fake frown was a dead giveaway.

“We’ll talk about it this evening,” he smiled. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

It was amazing how a smile and a kiss from the big blonde could wipe away all his doubts and worries. He could feel the energy coursing through him at the thought of Kirsten alone in her apartment for several days. Opportunities didn’t come that often and this one was too good to pass up; particularly since she’d made it obvious how she thought the time could be spent.

He didn’t see Eve as an obstacle to his plan. She understood he was an adult now and could make adult decisions. She would undoubtedly remind him that Kirsten told her parents what she and Jesse had planned on their night at the hotel. He wondered if she would tell them what she planned this time. His plan to purchase an apartment was still on hold. When he discussed it with Eve, she was upset and felt it was premature. She had no plans to have Kent move into the apartment, and like a mother, she wondered how he would cope on his own.

Jesse didn’t bother to mention that Kirsten would be his roommate. Kirsten hadn’t said anything to her parents about Jesse’s plan, so how they would react was an unknown. In addition, Jesse had decided to tell Kirsten about his recent trip back through time. He felt that he owed it to her to be completely honest about what was happening to him.

Monday, November 12, 2012 6:15pm

“Hi Honey, I’m home,” Jesse grinned, barely suppressing a laugh as he was welcomed by Kirsten into the Gustafson apartment.

“Did you have a nice day?” she asked after a warm kiss that lasted some time.

“As of this moment, it has been a very nice day,” he grinned. “What can I help you with?”

“I think almost everything is ready to be cooked,” she said with a smile, “so we can sit and wait in the living room for a while.”

“It was quiet at the bookstore today. I had some time to do some homework. That’s what Sue used to do when it was like that.”

“What were you studying?” she asked.

“Computers. Actually, I was studying computer applications; especially robotics. It’s an amazing topic.”

“Do you think that is something you would like to do as a career?”

“I’m not sure. I saw an item on TV on the weekend about young teenagers who were already building robots to do complicated things. There was some kind of competition for them and these kids were only thirteen or so. A girl team was the winner. Imagine that,” Jesse said, oblivious to the implications.

“So,” Kirsten said with a stern look, “You are surprised that girls can make robots too?”

“Oh ... shit ... sorry, Kirsten. That was thoughtless of me. I apologize for being so stupid ... and for swearing. Please forgive me. I’m still caught in 1960’s think.”

She smiled at his discomfort. He seldom swore, almost never in her presence, a pleasant difference between him and his contemporaries. He was still adjusting to the idea that females could perform highly technical feats on their own, a drastic change from his previous life.