The Man Who Folded Himself

I read the news every day. I don’t like seeing tragedies. I don’t like plane crashes and murders and kidnappings and bizarre accidents. So, they don’t happen anymore. I go and I see and I fix.

Planes that might have crashed get delayed for odd reasons. One of my insurance companies watchdogs the airlines, demanding fixes of things that might not be discovered until after a plane goes down.

Murderers and kidnappers disappear. Missing children are found. Terrorists have their bombs blow up in their faces. Rapists — never mind, you don’t want to know. Serial killers never get a chance to start. Devastating building fires don’t happen without warning. People who start accidental forest fires get caught. Famous actors do not die in car crashes. Great rock stars don’t lose their talent to drugs. Sometimes it’s tricky, but I like the challenges. I like making things better. And I never leave any evidence.

I can’t fix it all, but I do my part.

The odd thing is, I don’t do it because I care. I can’t care. These people aren’t real to me. They’re pieces on the playing board. I just do it because it satisfies my sense of rightness.

Because it makes me feel a little bit more like a god to be doing something useful.

And because I want my son to have a reason to respect me.

The fifties are a great time to live. They are close enough to the nations adventurous past to still bear the same strident idealism, yet they also bear the shape of the developing future and the promise of the technological wonders to come. Transistor radios are still marvelous devices and color television is a delicious miracle, but blue skies are commonplace and the wind blows with a freshness from the north that hints at something wild — and suggests that the city is only a temporary illusion, a mirage glowing against a western desert.

Brave highways crisscross the state — and (I thank myself again) with a minimum of billboards. The roads are still new; they are the foundation for the great freeways of the future. This is the threshold of that era, but it is still too soon for them to be overburdened with traffic and ugliness. Driving is still an adventure.

The hills around Los Angeles are still uncut and green with the city’s own special color of vegetation. The dark trees hover, the dry grass smell permeates the cool days. The fifties are a peaceful time, a quiet sleeping time between two noisy bursts of years, a blue and white time filled with sweet yellow days, innocent music, and bright popcorn memories…

It is 1961 as I write this. The fifties have ended and their magic is fading quickly. A young President has stamped a new dream on the nation and the frenetic stamp and click of the seventies can already be heard rustling in the distance. The years are impatient; they tumble over each other like children, each rushing eagerly for its turn — and each in turn tumbling inexorably into the black whirlpool of forevertime lost. Well, not forever lost, not to me.

I have watched the fading of the fifties three times now, and perhaps I shall return again for a fourth.

Perhaps…

Last week, in a mood of wistfulness for times lost, I went jaunting again. I went back to the past, to the house where Diane and I lived for such a short, short, long time.

One of the walls had collapsed and the wind blew through the rooms. A fine layer of clean, dry dust covered everything. The pillars and drapes stood alone on the cold plain.

My own doing, of course. I had not come back far enough, but I was afraid if I journeyed too far back, I would see her again.

And yet — I do want to see her again.

Just a little bit farther back…

And this time, the house was not ruined. Just abandoned. It stood alone, empty and waiting. My footsteps echoed hollowly across the marble floors.

Was she here? Had she been here at all?

There was no way of knowing.

I found my way to her rooms. Despite the acrid sunlight, her chambers were cold. I opened closets at random, pulled out drawers. Many of her silks were still here. Forgotten? Or just discarded?

A shimmering dress, ice-cream pastel and deep forest-green — I pressed my nose into the sleek shining material, seeking a long-remembered smell, a sweetlemony fragrance with an undertone of musk. The clean smell of a woman…

Her smell is there, but faint. I dropped the dress. I am touched with incredible sadness.

And then a sound, a step—

I ran for the other room, calling.

Perhaps, perhaps, just a little bit farther back.

The day after the last day I was there. So many years ago…

The air conditioner hums. The house is alive again.

And my Diane is beautiful, even prettier than I remembered. Her auburn hair shimmers in the sunlight. She moves with the grace of a goddess, and she wears even less, a filmy thing of lace and silk. I can see the sweet pinkness of her skin.

She hasn’t seen me yet. I am here in the shadows, deep within the house. It has been too long. It hurts too much to watch.

Abruptly, puzzlement clouds her face. She comes rushing in from the patio. “Danny? Is that you?” Eagerness. “Are you back?”

And then she saw me.

“Danny? What’s happened? Are you all right? You look” — and then she realized — “old.”

“Diane,” I blurted. “I came back because I loved you too much to stay away anymore.”

She was too startled to answer. She dropped her eyes and whispered, “I loved you too, Danny.” Then she looked at me again. “But you’re not Danny anymore. You’re someone else.”

“But I am Danny—” I insisted.

She shook her head. “You’re not the same one.”

I took a step forward. I reached as if to embrace her.

She took a quick step back. “No, please, don’t.”

“Diane, what’s the matter?”

“Danny—” There were tears running down her cheeks. “Danny, why did you stay away so long? Look what you’ve done to yourself. You’ve gotten old. You’re not my Danny anymore. You’re — you’re not young.” She sniffled and wiped quickly. “I came back, Dan. I couldn’t stay away either. I came back to wait for you and hope that you’d come back too. But look at you. You waited too long to come back.”

“Diane, you loved me once. I’m still me. I’m still Danny. I have the same memories. Remember how you cried in my arms the last night we were together? Re-

member how we used to fix dinner together in the kitchen? Remember the—”

“Stop. Oh, stop. Please—” And suddenly she was in my arms. Crying. “I loved you so much. So much. But you went away. How could you — how could you stay away so long? I thought you loved me too.”

“Oh, sweetheart, yes. I did. I do. I love you too much. That’s why I came back—” I held her tightly to me. She was so warm.

“But why not sooner? Why did you stay so long?”

“I was stupid. Forgive me. Let me be with you, please. That’s all that’s important.” My hands could feel the tender silkiness of her skin. I remembered how I used to caress her and I slid into the motions almost automatically. Her breasts were soft. Her hips were boyish. Her skin was so smooth—

“What are you doing?” She made as if to pull away.

“Oh, baby, baby, please—”

“Oh, no — not now, I couldn’t. Please don’t make me.”

“Diane, I still love you—” The youthfulness of her body…

“Oh, no. It’s only words. You’re only saying them as if they’re some, kind of magic charm to get me into bed.” She backed away, wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry, Danny, I really did love you, but I can’t anymore. You’ve” — she hesitated here — “changed. You’re someone else. You don’t really care about me anymore, do you?” She grabbed a robe and pulled it about her. “No, don’t come any closer. Just listen a moment. There’s a poem. It goes, ‘Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made…’ I had thought — hoped — that was how it would be for us.” Her voice caught. “But you’ve ruined it. It only took you a day to destroy both of our lives.”

“No.” I shook my head. “It didn’t take a day. It took years. Diane, I’m sorry! Couldn’t we … ?”

But she was gone. She had fled into the bedroom.

“Diane—”

And then the gentle pop! of air rushing in to fill an empty space told me how completely she was gone. How far she-had fled.

Oh God. What have I done?

I could try again. All I need to do is go back just a little earlier. I wouldn’t make the same mistake this time.

I want my Diane. I must have my Diane.

I will have my Diane.

He’s tried to talk me out of it, but I’m not going to let him stop me.

I know why he wants to keep me from going back. He’s jealous of her. Because she’ll have me and he won’t.

But his way is wrong. I know that now. A man should have a woman. A real man needs a real woman.

Diane, sweet Diane. Please don’t reject me again. I’m not old. I’m not. And you’re so young…

Oh God, why?

Am I really that old and ugly?

No. I can’t be. I can’t be.

Do I dare go back and try again?

And again he tries to talk me out of it. Damn him anyway!

Somewhere there is a Dan who is getting older and older. And he’s working his way back through time, chasing Diane.

And each time Diane is that much younger and he’s that much older. The gulf between them widens.

Oh, my poor, poor Dan. But he won’t listen. He just won’t listen.

I’m afraid to think of where he is heading. He’ll work his way back through all the days of Diane, and every day she’ll reject him. And Dan, poor Dan, he’ll experience them all. Each time she rejects him will be the last day she’ll spend in the fading past. So every day he’ll go back one more day, and every day he’ll be too old for her—

Until he gets back to the very first day. And then she’ll be gone. There won’t be any Diane at all. Just a memory.

And, in the end, he’ll be there waiting for her — even before the first Danny. Waiting patiently for her first appearance, trying to re-create his lost love. But she won’t show up. No, she’ll have warned herself. Don’t go back in time looking for a variant Diane. A grizzled old ghoul waits for you. No, she’ll never come back at all. Poor Dan. Poor, poor Dan.

And yet, the one I feel sorriest for is young Dan. He’ll never know what he’s missing.

Because, when he gets there, there won’t be anyone there at all.

He’ll never have a Diane. Ever. Old Dan will have chased them all away.

I wish I could change it all. I wish I could.

But I can’t.

Dammit.

Now I know what it’s like to have an indelible past — one that can’t be erased and changed at will. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening. And it makes me wish I had been more careful and thoughtful.

But when you can erase your mistakes in a minute, you tend to get careless.

Until you make one you can’t erase.

I feel uneasy because I think I didn’t try hard enough, and yet, I can’t think of anything I didn’t do. I tried everything I could do to stop old Danny.

But it wasn’t enough, and now I’m left with the results of what he’s done.

We’re all left with those results.

I could find young Danny in a minute, and I could warn him to go back to Diane right away, before it’s too late, before he gets too old; but it wouldn’t do any good. All he would find would be old Danny, sitting and waiting. Sitting and waiting.

Diane is gone. Forever. There’s no way we can reach her. Old Danny has seen to that.

And there’s no other place to look for her.

Any time. Any place. Any when that Diane might have thought to visit, there’s an old Danny. Sitting and waiting.

I’ll never see my Diane again.

(Can I content myself with Danny? My Danny? I’ll have to.)

And yet, I wonder…

Perhaps somewhere there is an older Diane, one who has aged like me…

I wonder how I might find her.

Ah, but that way lies old Danny and madness.

It’s not the answer.

There is a party at my house, the big place in 1999.

A hundred and fifty-three acres of forest, lake, and meadow. I don’t know how many me’s there are. The number varies.

The party is spread out across the whole summer. Several days in April and May, quite a few in June and July, and also some in August. I think there may be a few in September too. Generally it starts about ten in the morning and lasts until I don’t know when. It seems as if there’s always a constant number of Dans and Dons arriving and leaving.

It’s like Grand Central Terminal, with passengers arriving and departing all the time, to and from destinations all over the world. Only, all the passengers are all me and all the destinations are the same place, only years removed.

The younger Dans show up in May and June. They like the swimming and water-skiing and motorcycling. They like the company of each other.

I prefer July. Most of the younger versions have faded by then. They’re too nervous for me and they remind me too much of — Diane. They’re too active, I can’t keep up with them, and sometimes I think they’re talking on a different plane. I prefer the men of July; they’re more my age, they’re more comfortable, and they’re more moderate. We still do a lot of swimming and riding; I remember, I used to enjoy that very much; but most of the time we just like to take it easy.

I don’t like the men of August. I’ve been there a few times, and they’re too sedentary. No, they’re too old.

They just sit around and drink. And talk. And drink some more. Some of them look positively wasted.

Actually, it’s the men of late August I really don’t like. The men of early August aren’t that bad. It’s just the old ones that bother me. Some of them are — filthy. Their minds, their mouths, their bodies. They want to touch me too much. And they call me their Danny, their little boy. (Several of them even seem senile.)

The men of early August are all right. They make me a little uncomfortable, but lately I’ve been visiting them more and more. Partly because it seems as if the younger men are taking over July and partly because I’m in August enough now to compensate for the older ones.

Several of them are very nice though. Very understanding. We’ve had some interesting talks. (And that surprises me too — that there are still things I can talk about with myself. I had thought I would have exhausted all subjects of conversation long ago. Apparently not.)

In the evenings we go indoors (there’s a pool inside too) and listen to music (I have several different listening rooms) or play poker, or billiards, or chess.

When I get tired (and when I want to sleep alone), there’s a chart on the wall indicating which days and which beds are still unused. (The chart covers a span of several years. Well, I have to sleep somewhere… ) I make a mark in any space still blank and that closes that date. Then I bounce to that point in time. (Generally I try and use those days in serial order. I have servants in the house then and it wouldn’t do to confuse them.)

I’m still doing most of my living in the fifties, but when I’m in the mood for a party — and that’s been more and more lately — I know where to find one. The poker games, for instance, are marathons. Or maybe it’s only one poker game that’s been going on since the party started. Whenever I get tired and want to quit, there’s always a later me waiting for the seat.

But my endurance isn’t what it used to be. I get tired too fast these days. That’s why I find the men of August so restful.

On August 13 a very strange thing happens. Has happened. Will happen.

I’d known about it for some time — that is, I’d known that something happens, because I don’t attend the party linearly. I stay in a range of a week or two and bounce around within it. There’s more variety that way.

After August 13 the mood of the party is changed. Subdued. Almost morbid. Most of me seem to know why, but they don’t refer to it very often.

The last time something like this happened was just before I met Diane — when all the other versions of me had disappeared. I knew something was about to happen, but I didn’t know what until I got there.

I have that same kind of feeling now. Too many of the older me’s are acting strange. Very strange. The more I hang around them, the more I see it.

I’m going to have to investigate August 13.

Is this it?

Three or four of the youngest Dannys are here.

They’re in a quieter mood than usual though, almost grim.

A couple of us frowned at them — they really weren’t welcome here; they should have stayed in their own part of the party; but most of the rest of us tried at least to tolerate them, hoping that they would lose interest soon and go back to their own time. “They’re here to gape at us,” complained one of me.

“Well, some of us are gaping right back,” snapped another.

“God,” whispered a third. “Were we ever really that young?”

And then there was a pop! as another me appeared. It was a common enough sound. Somebody was always appearing or disappearing at any given moment. But this one was different. A hush fell over the room. I turned and saw two of me reaching to support a third who had suddenly appeared between them. He was pale and gray. He was half slumped and holding his heart.

Apparently the jump-shock had been too much for him; that sudden burst of temporal energy that jolts you sharply every time you bounce through time. They helped him to a chair. Somebody was already there with a glass of water, somebody who had been through this before, I guess. And the younger Dans were murmuring among themselves; was this what they had come to see?

“Are you all right, old fellow?” someone asked the newcomer.

He grunted. He was old. He was very old. His hands were thin and weak. His forearms were parchment-covered bones, so were his legs. The skin of his face hung in folds and he was mottled with liver spots.

“Aaah,” he gasped. “What day is it?”

“August thirteenth.”

“Thirteenth?” Slowly he pulled his features into a grimace. “Then I’m too soon. It’s the twenty-third I want. I must have made the wrong setting.”

“Take it easy. Just relax.”

The oldster did so. It wasn’t a matter of recognizing the wisdom of their words; he simply knew that he didn’t have to hurry. A timebelt is a very forgiving device. Besides, he was too exhausted to move.

“What were you looking for?” asked one of the younger Dans. (They weren’t me. I didn’t remember ever having done this before, so they must have been variations from another timeline.)

The fragile gray man peered at them, abruptly frowning. “No,” he croaked. “Too young. Too young. Got to talk to someone older. Those are just — just children.”

Some of us shouldered the younger ones aside then. “What is it?” they asked. (Others hung back; had they heard it before? The room seemed emptier now. There were less than ten of me remaining. Several of us had left.)

’Too tired,” he gasped. “Came to warn you, but I’m too tired to talk. Let me rest …”

“Hey, have a heart, you guys. Don’t press him.” That was one of the quieter ones of us. I recognized him by his business suit; he had been hanging back and just watching most of the evening. “Take him in the bedroom and let him lie down for a while.” He shoved through and picked up the frail old man — God, was he that light? — and carried him off to the downstairs bedroom. “You can talk to him later,” he promised.

Out of curiosity, I followed. I helped him put the old man to bed, then he led me out. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer, just got himself a chair and a book, and stationed himself in front of the door. “It might be too soon for you to worry about this,” he said to me. “Why don’t you go back to your party?” He opened the book and proceeded to ignore me.

There was nothing else to do, so I shrugged and went back into the other room. A little later a couple of other me’s tried to see how the old man was doing, but the business-suit-me wouldn’t let them. He sat outside the room all night.

The party was considerably dampened by this incident. Most of the Dans faded away and the house became strangely deserted. Here and there, one or two of me were picking up dirty glasses and empty potato-chip dishes, but they only served to heighten the emptiness. They were like caretakers in a mausoleum.

I bounced forward to the morning, but the bedroom was empty and the business suit was gone too.

So I bounced back an hour. Then another. This time he was there, still outside the door, still reading. When I appeared, he glanced up without interest. “Hmm? Is it that late already?” He opened his belt to check the time.

I started to ask him something, but he cut me off. “Wait a minute.” He was resetting his belt. Before I could stop him he had tapped it twice and vanished.

I opened the bedroom door; the old man had vanished too.

My curiosity was too much. I bounced back fifteen minutes. Then fifteen minutes more. He was sleeping quietly on the bed. His breath rasped slowly in and out.

I felt no guilt as I woke him; he’d had more than six hours undisturbed. I wanted to know what was so important. He came awake suddenly. “Where am I?” he demanded.

“August fourteenth,” I told him.

That seemed to satisfy him, but he frowned at me in suspicion. “What do you want? Why’d you wake me?”

“What was supposed to happen last night?

“Last night?”

“The thirteenth. You came to warn us of something. …” I prompted.

“The thirteenth? That was a mistake. I wanted the twenty-third.”

“Why? What happens on the twenty-third?”

He peered at me again. “You’re too young.” He pushed himself off the bed and stood unsteadily. And tapped his belt and vanished.

Damn.

Naturally, I went straight to the twenty-third.

My old man was there, of course. A dozen times over. Wrinkled, gnarled, and white. Their hands hovered in the air, or scrabbled across their laps like spiders. They clawed, they plucked.

But not all of them were that old. There were one or two that even looked familiar.

“Don?” I asked one who was wearing a faded shirt. If I remembered correctly, he had gotten that ketchup stain on it just a few hours ago at the poker table of the thirteenth.

He looked at me, startled. “Dan? You shouldn’t be here. You’re still too young. I mean, let us take care of this for now. You go back to the party.”

“Huh?” I tried to draw him aside. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t,” he whispered. “It wouldn’t be a good idea—”

Abruptly, a familiar business suit was standing before us. Was it the same one? Probably. “I’ll take over,” he said to Don.

“Thanks,” Don said, and fled in relief.

I looked at the other. “What’s going on here?”

He looked at the clock in his timebelt. “In a few more minutes you’ll find out.” He took me by the arm and led me across the room. “Stand here. I’ll stay right by you the whole time. Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. Just watch, this time around.”

I shut my mouth and watched.

The air in the room was heavy. The few conversations still going on were the merest of whispers. The supposedly silent hum of the air conditioner was deafening. Almost all of these wrinkled faces, pale faces, were deathly. The few tan ones stood out like spotlights. They were grim too.

The old men, their eyes were like holes in lampshade faces, but nothing glowed within. Their expressions were bleary. Uniform. Frightened.

And there were so many of them. More and more; the room was filling up. This house, so often a happy place, was now a cloister house of the infirm. The laughter of youth had shaded into the garish cackling of se-

nility. What had been a firm grip on life had degenerated into a plucking and desperate claw, scratching on the edge of terror.

Who were these men — why could I not accept what I was seeing? And what drove them together here?

How old am I? (And here is the fear — ) I don’t know. I don’t know.

Am I one of the tan faces or the pale ones? Does my skin hang in pale folds, bleached by age? (I touch my cheek hesitantly.)

As the air pops! softly—

—and the body that crumples to the floor is me.

Of course.

It was the jump-shock that killed him. Will kill me.

He was old. The oldest of them all. (But not so old as to be distinguishable from the rest. He could have been any of them. Us.)

There was silence in the room. Then a soft shadowed sigh, almost a sound of relief, as too many ancient lungs released their burden of breaths held too long.

They’d been expecting this, waiting for it — eagerly? — the curiosity of the morbid draws them again and again until the room is crowded with fearful old men. Each praying that, somehow, this time it won’t happen. And each terrified that it will.

And perhaps — perhaps each is most afraid that the next time he comes to this moment, he will not be a witness, but the guest of honor himself…

Two of the younger men (younger? They were older than I — or were they?) moved to the body. It was still warm. One of them clicked the belt open; the last setting on it was 5:30, March 16, 1975. (Meaningless, of course. He could have come from there, or it could have been a date held in storage. There was no way of knowing.)

They took charge efficiently, as if they had done this before. Many times before. (And in a way, they had.) They slung the body between them, tapped their belts and vanished.

“What’re they going to do with him?” I asked the Don in the business suit,

“Take him back to his own time, to a place where he can be buried.”

“Where?”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. When the time comes youll know. Right now it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“But the funeral—”

“Listen to me.” He gripped my arm firmly. “You cannot go to the funeral. None of us can.”

“But why?”

“There’ll be others there,” he said. “Others. A man should attend his own funeral only once. Do you understand?”

After I thought about it awhile, I guessed I did.

As for me…

I’m almost afraid to use the timebelt now.

But now I know who I am.

I guess I’ve known for some time. I’m not sure when I realized; it was a gradual dawning, not a sudden flash of aha. I just sort of slipped into it as if it had been waiting for me all my life. I’d been heading toward it without ever once stopping to consider how or why.

And even if I had, would it have changed anything?

I don’t think so.

At first I tried to ignore the events of August 23. I went back to the earlier days of the party, but burdened as I was with the knowledge of what lurked only a few weeks ahead, I could not recapture the mood. (And that was sensed by the others; I was shunned as being an irritable and temperamental old variant. Nor was I the only one; there were several of us. We put a damper on the party wherever we went.)

For a while I brooded by myself. For a while I was terribly scared. In fact, I still am.

I don’t want to die. But I’ve seen my own dead body. I’ve seen myself in the act of dying. Death comes black and hard, rushing down on me from the future, with no possible chance of escape. I wake up cold and shuddering in the middle of the night, and were it not for the fact that I am always there to hold and comfort myself, I would go mad. (And I still may do so — )

Uncle Jim once told me that a man must learn to live with he fact of his own mortality. A man must accept the fact of death.

But does that mean he must welcome it?

I’d thought that the measure of the success of any life form was its ability to survive in its ecological niche. But I’d been wrong. That doesn’t apply to individuals, not at all — only to a species as a whole.

If you want to think in terms of individuals, you have to qualify that statement. The measure of the success of any individual animal is based on its ability to survive long enough to reproduce. And care for the young until they are able to care for themselves.

I have met half that requirement. I’ve reproduced.

(It’s said that the only immortality a man can achieve is through his children. I understand that now.)

I went back to 1956 to bring up my son. He was right where I had left him.

I named him Daniel Jamieson Eakins, and I told him I was his uncle. His Uncle Jim.

Yes. That’s who I am.

In many ways, Danny is a great joy to me. I am learning as much from him as he is learning from me. He is a beautiful child and I relish every moment of his youth. I relive it by watching it. Sometimes I stand above his crib and just watch him sleep. I yearn to pick him up and hug him and tell him how much I love him — but I let him sleep. I must avoid smothering him. I must let him be his own man.

I yearn to leap ahead into the future and meet the young man he will become. It will be me, of course, starting all over again. Wondrously, I have come full circle. Once more I am in a timeline where I exist from birth to death. So I must avoid tangling it. I will try to live as. serially as possible for my child.

(No, that’s not entirely true. Several times I have bounced forward and observed him from a distance. But only from a distance.)

On occasion I still flee to the house in 1999. But I no longer do so desperately. I go only for short vacations. Very short. I know what awaits me there. But I also know that I will live to see my son reach manhood, so I am not as fearful as I once was. I know I have time; so death has lost its immediacy.

And the party has changed.too. The mood of it is no longer so morbid. Not even grim. Just quiet. Waiting. Yes, many of these men have come here to die. No — to await death in the company of others like themselves. They help each other. And that’s good. (I don’t need their help, not yet, so right now I can be objective about it. Maybe later, I won’t.)

So I’m relaxed. At ease with myself. Happy. Because I know who I am.

I’m Dan and Don and Diane and Donna.

And Uncle Jim too. And somewhere, Aunt Jane.

And little Danny. I diaper him; I powder his pink little fanny and wonder that my skin was ever that smooth. I clean up his messes. My messes. I’ve been doing that all my life. I’m my own mother and my own father. I’m the only person who exists in my world — but isn’t it that way for all of us? Me more than anyone.

How did this incredible circle get started?

(Or has it always existed? Could it have begun in the same way the timebelt began — in a world that I excised out of existence? In a place so far distant and so almostpossible that the traces of the might-have-been are buried completely in the already-is?)

Many years ago I pondered the reason for my own existence. (Why “me"? Why me as “me"? Why do I perceive myself — and why do I experience me as “me” and not somebody else? Why was I born at all? It could have been anyone!) It almost drove me mad. I had to have a meaning. I was sure I had to. Variants of me did go mad seeking that meaning — but only those of me who could accept the gift of life without questioning it too intensely would survive to find the answer.

I wrote in these pages that if there were an infinite number of variations of myself, then what meaning could any one of us have? I wondered about that then. I know the answer now. I know my answer.

I am the baseline.

I am the Danny from which all other Dannys will spring.

I am a circle, complete unto itself. I have brought life into this world, and that life is me.

And from this circle will spring an infinite number of tangents. All the other Dannys who have ever been and ever will be.

Who the others are, what they are — that is for each of them to decide. But as for me, I know who I am. I am the center of it all.

I am the end.

I am the beginning.

So, before it is over, I will have done it all and been it all.

I will take the body back to the summer of 1975 and lay it gently in my bed, to be discovered in the morning by the maid. I will take his timebelt and put it in a box, wrap it up for my nephew and take it back a month to give it to my lawyer, Biggs-or-Briggs-or-whatever-hisname-is. I will leave Danny the legacy of … our life.

Later I will go back in time and visit him again. This time, though, I will handle the situation properly. It’s not enough to just give him the timebelt after my death; I must visit him early in 1975 and explain to him how to use it wisely. Especially in the case of Diane.

I’ve already spoken to the nineteen-year-old Danny once, but I felt I mishandled it, so I went back and talked myself out of it. Later I will try again. Perhaps a little earlier. May of 1975. Or April. (I must be careful though. Each time I change my mind about how to tell Danny, I have to go back earlier and earlier. That way I excise the later tracks, the incorrect ones. But I must be careful not to go back too early — I must give him a chance to ma-

ture. I think of the old Dan who went chasing after the young Diane. I must be careful, careful.)

Perhaps I should just leave him this manuscript instead. These pages will tell the story better than I can.

Maybe that would be the best way.

There is just one last thing…

What is it like to die?

There is no Don to come back and tell me.

And I’m scared.

It’s the one thing I will have to face alone. Totally alone.

There will be absolutely no foreknowledge.

Nor will there be any hindknowledge. The terrible thing about death is that you don’t know you’ve died.

—Or is that the terrible thing? Maybe that’s the blessing.

It’s the jump-shock that will kill me. I know that. I will tap my belt twice — and I will cease to exist.

Cease to exist.

Cease to exist.

The words echo in my head.

Cease to exist.

Until they lose all meaning.

I try to imagine what it will be like.

No more me.

The end of Danny.

The end.

(What happens to the rest of the universe?)

I am afraid of it more than anything else in my life. Absence of — - me.

Dear Danny,

Time travel is not immortality.

It will allow you to experience all the possible variations of your life. But it is not an unlimited ticket.

There will be an end.

My body has not experienced its years in sequence. But it has experienced years. And it has aged. And my mind has been carried headlong with it — this lump of flesh travels through time its own way, in a way that no man has the power to change.

I’ve had to learn to accept that, Danny, in order to find peace within my mind.

My mind?

Perhaps I’m not a mind at all. Perhaps I’m only a body pretending the vanity of being something more. Perhaps it’s only the fact that language, which allows me to manipulate symbols, ideas, and concepts, also provides the awareness of self that precedes the inevitable analysis.

Hmm.

I have spent a lifetime analyzing my life. Living it. And rewriting it to suit me.

I once compared time travel to a subjective work of art. That was truer than I realized. I am the artist of time. I choose the scenes I wish to play. Even the last one.

And that scares me too. Just a little.

I don’t know when that body was coming from. It — he tapped the belt and came back to August 23 — Thinking he was going to witness the arrival of himself. Thinking he was going to witness his death.

Or maybe he was seeking it.

I don’t know when that body came from. I don’t know when it’s starting point is/was/will be.

I don’t know when I’m going to die. But I do know it will be soon. I admit it. I’m scared.

But perhaps it will be a gentle way to go.

I will never know what happened. I will never really know when. And I will die much as I lived — in the act of jumping across time. It will be a fitting way to go.

Danny, you cannot avoid mortality. But you can choose your way of meeting it. And that is the most that any man can hope for.

Live well, my son.

Maybe this will be the last page. I think I should add something to “Uncle Jim’s” diary.

Uncle Jim has given his life back to himself — that is, to me. Now that I know the directions in which I will go — no, can go — the decisions are mine.

I need do none of the things that Uncle Jim has described. (In fact, some of them shock me beyond words.) Or I could do all of them — I may change as I grow older. The point is, I know what I am beginning if I put on this belt.

I feel a strange empathy for that frightening old man. He was bizarre and perverse and lost. But he was me — and all those things he did and felt and wrote about echo profoundly in my own soul. I feel a terrible sadness at his loss, greater than I did before I knew who he was. And not just sadness; fear and horror too. I cannot be this person in this manuscript. This is too much to assimilate. Is this me? I am drawn to it and simultaneously repelled. It can’t be true.

But I know it is.

My god. What have I wrought? What will I?

I wish he were here now. I wish there were some way to reach him — punish him, scream at him, berate him. How dare he do this to me?

And … at the same time, I want to hug him and thank him and tell him how much he means to me. Even though I know he knows — knew.

I saw him in his coffin. I sat through his funeral. He’s dead. And he isn’t. I could go looking for him…

Should I?

I want to reassure him. And be reassured by him. And — the tears roll down my cheeks. I’m crying for myself now more than him because now I know how truly isolated I really am. I am abandoned by the universe. There is no god who can save me.

I am so alone I cannot bear the pain of it. Now I know how desperately isolated one human being can be. What have I done to deserve this?

I will surely go mad.

No. I will not.

I can’t escape that way either.

I know what choice I have. And it is no choice at all.

The decision is mine.

A world awaits me.

The future beckons.

All right, I accept.

I am going to put on the belt.