Morning

Pain. Pain and a bright light. And some god awful racket, a droning noise intermittently mixed with grinding. Oh my god the smell, like the dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant, cooking in the late afternoon sun. Opening my eyes I saw the ceiling of my bedroom slowly spinning around me. Closing my eyes I reached out with my arms to reaffirm my belief in gravity, it was indeed still pulling me towards my bed.

Opening my eyes I found the room had come to rest. I could feel the wind blowing faintly through the open window and across my body. The cool breeze felt good, but it was also reacquainting my olfactory senses with the stench rising from my body. On the plus side I was finally able to discern the source of the “god awful racket” as my neighbor came around the side of his house with his lawnmower. I listened as the sound waxed and waned as he circled his house. Finally I had enough and sat up to see what time it was.

I sat up much too quickly, so much so that I am now sitting on the side of my bed with my head between my knees trying desperately to keep down whatever bio-sludge is in my stomach. Presently my stomach decided to retain its contents and I was able to slowly sit upright. Glancing over at the clock I realized that it was mid-afternoon. Having no memory of events following the fifth, no sixth round of drinks I didn’t know whether I had slept too long or not enough, but I was leaning towards the not enough.

I was all set to lie back down and go back to sleep when my bladder announced that I had a new, and more pressing, problem. Standing up was tricky, for whatever reason there was a lengthy delay in the passage of signals from my brain to my muscles. Fortunately my brain was working slow enough that timing was not crucial, I just had to give the command and then wait for my legs to respond.

I walked slowly to the bathroom, my eyes closed to enjoy the brief moments of sleep that occurred between steps. Upon reaching my destination in front of the throne I opened one eye to aim properly and caught sight of myself in the mirror. I was a mess, my shirt was stained with sweat and blood and what appeared to be the remains of several meals. I also realized that aside from my shirt, and the socks I was wriggling my toes in, I wasn’t wearing a stitch of anything else.

But my bladder reasserted its need. I took hold of my equipment and proceeded to let fly. What should have happened was my urine should have traveled and on a nice ballistic trajectory and landed in the bowl. What actually happened was two streams were emitted in opposite directions, neither one of which landed anywhere near the bowl. Thankfully at this point my central nervous system picked this moment to swing into action and closed off the flow from my bladder. I took the momentary reprieve to adjust my equipment, and then eased open the valve. Confident that my plumbing was working correctly I closed my eyes and allowed my bladder to drain.

I almost fell asleep standing there, but was revived as the sound of water splashing changed to the sound of water hitting porcelain. I cracked my eye open and adjusted my aim as the pressure from my bladder slowly let off. I shook hands with the man, flushed and as I stepped out of the bathroom I found a girl lying on the floor beside my bed. She was wearing a pair of my underwear, and not a stitch else. Judging from the stains, there was at least some time where my shirt and that pair of underwear had been on the same body during the previous night, and judging by the smell that body was mine. I stepped back into the bathroom and took a good long look at myself in the mirror. Maybe going back to bed wasn’t a good idea, I needed time to work shit out, and I needed a shower.

After starting the water I held my breath and pulled my shirt over my head. Throwing it in the hamper I placed the heel of my left foot on the toe of my right sock. Leaning on the door jamb for balance I admired the girl lying next to my bed as I pulled my foot out of the sock. I repeated the operation with my other foot, and finding no memory of the girl, I tossed my socks in with my shirt and stepped into the shower. I must have had a hell of a night.

Chronology

You never think you are going to meet yourself coming back the other way. You are traveling down this highway of life, you may have some inkling of your destination, but you never expect to come across the you that has been to the end of the road. I sure as hell didn’t, it didn’t even occur to me until I saw myself walk through the door of that coffee house.

The Locutory wasn’t extraordinarily busy for a Tuesday afternoon. Graduation had been the previous weekend, and the town had lost half its winter population to the freedom of summer. I was sitting with Ashley at a table near the door. We were playing Go and philosophizing the nature of existence. Our summer teaching assitantships wouldn’t start for another week and we looking at a wide open summer filled with opportunity. I was contemplating the next stone placement and riffing off Kant when Ashley gasped.

I looked up from the board and then turned to see what she was gapping at. And there I was standing at the door, shaking the rain off of a well worn leather coat.

“Oh my god, is that your dad? He looks just like you. I thought he died when you were a kid?”

I turned back to her and slouched in my chair, “he’s not my dad. It’s hard to explain.” It was hard to explain, there was no reason it could be me, but I knew instinctively that I was looking at myself 30 years down the line.

“He’s coming over here,” Ashley hissed at me.

She made it sound like I had time to something about him, but he took two steps and was standing next to the table looking down at us. “Peter I need to talk to you.”

Ashley looked from me to him and back again, “Peter aren’t you going to introduce us?”

The older me smiled, “Allow me. You’re Ashley right?” He offered his hand at her nodding accent, “You can call me Simon.”

Ashley shook his hand, “Simon. Peter has mentioned me?”

“You’ve come up a time or two. Do you mind if I have a few moments with Peter?”

“Not at all,” rising she picked her purse off the table, “I have to use the restroom anyway.”

Simon watched her walk away, smiling as if reviewing a fond memory he took her chair. Looking down at the board he picked up a white stone and started rolling it around his palm, “If I remember correctly it’s your move.”

Picking a stone up between my index and middle fingers I resumed my contemplation of the board. “You’ve played this game before?”

“Yes, only once. I was sitting where you are now.”

Placing my stone to cut off his advancement towards the edge of the board I asked, “You mean that literally don’t you?”

He thought a moment before placing his white stone in an undeveloped area of the board, “Quite literally.”

I looked up from the board into his eyes, “so did you chose where to put that stone, or are you just doing what you saw yourself do before?”

When he smiled his face bunched up and I almost touched my own face to trace the lines where those wrinkles began. “I don’t know that it really matters. One of us had to come up with where to put the stone at some point. Maybe I just chose some random intersection of lines, the placement was determined by the quantum mechanical probabilities of our brain. It’s your move.”

Looking back down at the board I picked up a stone and placed it without really giving thought to why, “You didn’t come all this way for a tautology of chronological paradoxes, so why are you here.”

He quickly placed a stone cutting off one of my lines. “Now that’s a mystery. I had hoped by the time I had come to the point where I’m sitting on this side of the table I would know why I came here in the first place.”

I stopped half way to picking up a new stone, “so when you were sitting in my chair, the you that’s sitting in your chair never told you why he was here?”

Simon sighed, “The timeline of this event has progressed the same as when I was sitting in your chair. I have no further light to shed on the matter.” Placing his hand on the board he messed up the game we were playing, “Ashley is coming back, and it’s time for me to go.”

Ashley returned as Simon stood to leave, “Leaving so soon Simon?”

Turning toward her he touched her arm lightly, “I am afraid my time here was destined to be short. I enjoyed seeing you.” Looking down at me he shrugged, “I’m sorry Peter, I wish there was more I could say or do.”

I nodded, “I know. Will I see you again?”

He smiled, “obviously,” patted me on the shoulder and walked out.

Ashley regained her seat across from me, “Who was that?”

Turning behind me to look at the door I had just walked out of I said, “Just a guy that knew me when he was younger.” I looked back at her and then down at the board, “looks like our game is messed up, want to start a new one?”