John Wray: The Lost Time Accidents

We backed into each other on Masarykovo Square, returned the pages to Artur and regressed to Vienna, growing more confident and loving by the hour. I knew each event of my duration before it occurred — I saw it ever more clearly as it came hurtling toward me — but as soon as it happened my mind was flushed clean. Haven didn’t matter, Menügayan didn’t matter, because soon they’d be erased from the record, swept clear of the field, exactly as if they had never been. I drifted through Manhattan alone, just as desperate and dejected as before, though I knew our separate time lines were converging. It was terrible, Mrs. Haven, to have such definite knowledge, and to have it confirmed with each recurring scene. You were with me at the Xanthia, in the James A. Farley Post Office, at West Tenth Street and in my own bed. The silver book returned itself to sender and I followed it down to your basement apartment. I helped you put your clothes on, Mrs. Haven, growing more nervous with each button I did up. You pursued me back uptown to Union Square, never once turning your head to see where you were going. People fled from you on University, smiling and deferential, happy just to see you pass them by.

There was no stopping any of it, Mrs. Haven — no stopping it or altering its course. You were gone from me for a cloudy, leaden month, then you were mine: as close to mine as you would ever be. You lay down with me on the corkwood floor of Van’s bedroom and your backside chased me down his spiral stairs. We reached the kitchen door and slipped under the counter. You let go of my hand. The smile left your face as I left you behind. You covered your upper lip with your ring finger. Then all trace of you was gone, even from my memory, and I was free.

Time passed more slowly the farther I traveled. The music of the spheres grew louder by the day, by the hour, by the second, though like everyone else on earth I barely heard it. I was a man, then a teen, then a child, then a fertilized egg. That vast sepulchral symphony was all there ever was.

Then it ended, Mrs. Haven, because I’d come to the beginning of my dream.

Dear Mrs. Haven—

This morning, at 08:47 EST, I woke up to find myself excused from time.

I can picture you perfectly, reading this letter. You’ll be telling yourself I’ve gone stupid with grief, or that I’ve lost my mind — but my thinking has never been clearer. Believe me, Mrs. Haven, when I tell you that this is no joke. Time moves freely around me, gurgling like a whirlpool, fluxing like a quantum field, spinning like a galaxy around its focal hub — at the hub, however, everything is quiet.

Kathleen Alcott, Jin Auh, Francis Bickmore, Charles Buchan, Eric Chinski, Ronald W. Clark, Brooke Costello, Elizabeth Costello, Kathy Daneman, Doug Dibbern, Joanna Dingley, Matt Dojny, J. W. Dunne, Marion Duvert, Nathan Englander, Alexander Fest, Adam Foulds, Jessica Friedman, Laird Gallagher, J. Richard Gott, Sophie Gudenus, Bill Hall, Barbara W. Henderson, Edward Henderson, Corin Hewitt, Heinrich Höhne, Allan S. Janik, James Jeans, Christy-Claire Katien, Kirsten Kearse, Frank Kendig, Ursula LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, Vladimir Ouspensky, Gary Panter, Sara Poirier, Sarah Sarchin, Akhil Sharma, Adrian Tomine, Thomas Überhoff, Jared Whitham, Nicolas Williams, Anni Wünschmann, Peter Wünschmann, Andrew Wylie.

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the American Academy in Berlin, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Santa Maddalena Foundation for invaluable assistance in the completion of this book.

John Wray is the author of Lowboy, Canaan’s Tongue , and The Right Hand of Sleep . The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, he was named one of Granta ’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007. A citizen of both the United States and Austria, he lives in New York City. You can sign up for email updates here.