Lance Olsen - Calendar of Regrets

WT. That is correct.

PD. Like you've lost control of things?

WT. …

PD. Well, maybe you can help me understand, Bill, and maybe I can, you know, I can help you in return.

WT. I don't think so.

PD. Why is that?

WT. How can you help me?

PD. It may take some time, but I'm optimistic. How about, uh, how about we go back to the beginning? Would you do that for me? How about we take it from the beginning?

WT. Again?

PD. Let's see… My records… they show you were born on November 9, 1947. But you say that is inaccurate.

WT. November 9, 2265.

PD. 2265?

WT. That is correct.

PD. And it shows here you were born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Do you believe that is incorrect as well?

WT. Yes.

PD. Where do you believe you were born?

WT. New York. Staten Island. We've already had this conversation.

PD. It's just, uh, I guess it's just taking some time for what you have to say to sink in. How do you account for the discrepancy in your record?

WT. Connect the dots.

PD. You believe you're from the future.

WT. Belief has zero to do with it.

PD. How would you say it, then?

WT. I would say: William Tager is from a future .

PD. From a future?

WT. That is correct.

PD. Not ours?

WT. A different Staten Island. A different earth.

PD. I'm sorry, Bill, but I'm having a hard time understanding what you're telling me. What do you mean when you say: A different earth ?

WT. That's not the right question.

PD. What would the right question be?

WT. The right question would be: Where is William Tager's earth?

PD. What would the answer to that question be?

WT. Right here, all around us.

PD. Isn't that saying, uh, isn't that saying the same thing?

WT. Only in a different brane.

PD. A different brain?

WT. Brane. B-R-A-N-E. Membrane .

PD. Membrane?

WT. Your physicists already know this. They already know reality is composed of multiple vibrating membranes. You can travel between them, but when they touch it's The Catastrophe.

PD. The catastrophe?

WT. You call it The Big Bang. We call it The Catastrophe. You see it as a beginning. We see it as an ending.

PD. So let me get this straight. You believe you come from an alternate dimension and in that dimension it's the future.

WT. That is correct, minus the belief.

PD. I would think even in 2265 time travel to alternate dimensions would be a very difficult concept to put into practice.

WT. I'm no physicist. I dropped out of high school. Only I know it has to do with a warp in the space-time continuum. The World Government has been experimenting in this area for a hundred and fifty years.

PD. The World Government?

WT. I'm a test pilot, you could say. Chuck Yeager. Howard Hughes.

PD. That sounds like a real honor, Bill.

WT. It's a punishment.

PD. A punishment?

WT. That's how I met the Vice President.

PD. As a test pilot?

WT. Yes.

PD. Why don't you tell me about that.

WT. I was in prison.

PD. In the alternate future, you mean.

WT. Yes.

PD. And what were you, you know…

WT. Murder.

PD. You killed someone?

WT. They said I killed someone.

PD. Did you?

WT. My hands did.

PD. Who did your hands kill?

WT. They set fire to my girlfriend's house. In Newark, New Jersey. I didn't know that's what they were planning.

PD. Why did you kill your girlfriend?

WT. She was cheating on me. Her name was Estelle. She denied everything. But you could tell she was lying and lying, the liar. She told me to go fuck myself. She kicked me out of her house.

PD. What did you do?

WT. I came back at two that morning with a can of kerosene and a pack of matches.

PD. Estelle died in the fire?

WT. Her kids and her. That is correct.

PD. How many children did she have?

WT. Three. Two girls, one boy.

PD. They were yours?

WT. One, maybe. The boy.

PD. How did that make you feel — knowing, I mean, that you were responsible for those four deaths?

WT. Hands do what hands do.

PD. You're telling me you felt guilt.

WT. Someone had to. Then that changed.

PD. They sent you to prison?

WT. Death row. Public beheading.

PD. Beheading?

WT. By sword. That is correct. The World Government looks to The Qur'an for guidance. Praise be to Allah. Et cetera.

PD. How long had you been there? In prison, I mean.

WT. They had already taken my measurements. The imam had already begun visiting in earnest.

PD. And that's where you met the Vice President for the first time.

WT. One afternoon this suit shows up outside my cell. I'm reading a comic book. They allow you comic books. They're not like yours. They're about events in The Qur'an . The astounding of the sleepers. The fallen angel of Babil. They come on a single sheet of thin translucent plastic and they move.

PD. Like movies?

WT. Only in three dimensions with floating thought-bubbles.

PD. And the suit?

WT. He goes he's from the government and he has this deal for me. What kind of deal? I go. He goes if I volunteer for this project and return safely, I get a full pardon.

PD. What sort of thoughts did you have when you lit the match?

WT. What match?

PD. At Estelle's house.

WT. There was this match. There was this can of kerosene. That's pretty much it.

PD. You weren't thinking anything else?

WT. I'm not what you might call a deep thinker.

PD. What did you tell the government official?

WT. Next day I'm in the travel chamber. It looks like one of your tanning booths. All this brightness inside a steel coffin. They've strapped me in. They've begun the countdown.

PD. That's when Burrows showed up?

WT. I'm lying there, squinting into this really bright light, waiting. Then all of a sudden he's leaning over me. He's leaning over so close I can smell his aftershave. It's Old Spice.

PD. What did he say?

WT. He's smiling really wide… like, um, like a cartoon shark smiles. He asks me, smiling and all, if I slept well last night. I tell him yeah, I did, as a matter of fact. Do I remember any of my dreams? he goes. I go no. He keeps smiling really wide. Try harder, he goes. I look at him a couple seconds, then it comes to me. Actually, I do remember a dream.

PD. Tell me about it.

WT. I'm woke up by these suits, five or six of them, in the middle of the night. They carry me by my arms and legs to the hospital ward. I'm struggling. I remember the sounds. It's that kind of dream. The clumping their feet make as we're going down the hall. The clatter of the, what do you call them. Of the gurneys around me. And when I finish recounting my dream, you know what Burrows goes?

PD. What's that, Bill?

WT. He goes, smiling and all: It wasn't a dream, Bill .

PD. You're saying they really took you to the hospital ward?

WT. For the operation. That is correct.

PD. What operation?

WT. The kind to implant a transmitter inside my head.

PD. Why did they do that?

WT. He goes the transmitter will start barraging me with messages to return if I try to remain in this time and place past when I'm supposed to.

PD. The transmitter will broadcast every twenty minutes in your head.

WT. Till I return and file a report on the mission. That's when they'll take it out.

PD. So you obviously crossed branes successfully.

WT. What do you think about what happened last month?

PD. Pardon?

WT. What happened last month. In Oklahoma City.

PD. Why, uh, why are we talking about that at this point in our conversation, Bill?

WT. 5,000 pounds of fertilizer and nitromethane mixture packed into the back of a rental truck. It makes you think.