Side Effects from Killing Time

The day Time died, nobody noticed. Nor did they notice the second day--after all, happenings and memories kept lining up, one after the other; the Earth kept spinning, clockwork kept turning, precision measurements with nothing left to measure.

I knew, of course. I had always known, although perhaps I had only always known after the moment when I understood for the first time.
I suppose I thought it would be momentous? I thought, perhaps, the stars would sizzle and spark and wink out into a sea of black, or that perhaps the seas would freeze or boil over and all hell would break loose, the past and future colliding in some kind of horrific entanglement. At least, I mused at Time, there ought to be a glint of light on a quick-flicked knife and blood on my hands for the rest of my life. A poet. I fancied myself a poet.

But there was nothing to mark his death beyond the tinkle of glass on carpet.

I shut the door softly on my way out.

It was such a quick and simple thing, and now what was there left to do?

I killed Time. They'd lynch me if they could.

Like I said, though, nobody noticed, at least not at first. It wasn't until a day and night later that they began to realize something quite peculiar had happened. This is the record of the events that followed.

*

The man has no bones. His ribs are crushed when the building was, that which collapsed and became dust, dust that became glass in the heat of the inferno.

           Luis peels back the plates of glass, the cinderblocks, chips of rubble slicing stippled cuts across his arms and fingers; the blood cannot be seen beneath the coating of ash that turns his skin a steel grey, but he ignores the stinging. There is life beneath this pile, Luis knows. He hears the whimper, or maybe he doesn't, maybe he feels the heartbeat beneath the stones, maybe he knows too well the sinking chasm of despair, the chanting of too late, too late, and this isn't it. This isn't it. Rosary beads knock against his chest and he murmurs a prayer, and the angel of Guadeloupe who speaks to him reveals an eye peering out beneath the wreckage.

          Luis digs faster now, violently thrusting aside the ruins, to pull the man out. He is flat and bent, like a deflated balloon, and for a moment Luis thinks roadkill and begins to tremble, betrayed by his instincts. There is only one eye left in the face. It blinks.

         Luis throws his hand to his mouth, then jams both arms wildly in the air, waving. "We've got a live one! He's alive!" Brusquely, he makes the sign of the cross. Aleluya. Elogie ser a Lady Guadelupe. Elogie ser a Jesus Christ. He leans over the broken man, staring listlessly with his one eye. "You are blessed," he whispered. "Today is a miracle day."

*

Dr. Munroe lifts the squalling child carefully from the bloody mess and hands it to the young mother, Marlene.  "There'll be some scarring, but otherwise the procedure went fine. He's a lucky child, he is." The doctor smiles ruefully. "There've been quite a lot of those today, these troublesome births. But so far they seem to be doing okay." Marlene doesn't seem to hear him, pleasantly lost in the new eyes of her son. A pager beeps and the doctor furrows his brow. Another one. The urgency of the call suppresses his disturbance at the sheer number of problems in the maternity ward these past few days. Rushing out the door, he calls back distractedly, "A nurse will come in to check on you. If everything is alright, you'll have to go soon."

        The mother nods, still not looking up, the picture of serenity.

        Her sister Cora sits quietly, also with child, perhaps three or four months along. It's her second, her first son is almost five now. She smiles with her lips, but her eyes are wide and dark under the rims. Her reading glasses dangle from a chain around her neck.

"Sure hope they won't be this busy on my baby's birthday," she muses. Marlene laughs. "What's his name?" Cora asks, suddenly very intent.

"Arius."

"Hmm. Means immortal."

"Just liked the nickname Ari," Marlene says sleepily.

"Of course."


*

In my defense, nobody could've known what would happen. In fact, even afterward, most people refused to admit the obvious. It was whispered about, passed from person to person like a secret paranoia, because how could it possibly be true? And if it's a lie, how is it we believe unless we're losing our minds?

Eventually, though, it exploded.

It's official, in all the papers--no one can die, no one can be born. And rumored in fine print, "hypothesized," suspected by everyone: no one can age. Wrinkles can't deepen, hairs can't grey. Cancer stops.

Oddly enough, the animals continued in their cycles--birth, growth, reproduction, death. Like the orbits of the planets, or the laws of motion, they continue the way the had before, perhaps the way they always had. Why the human race had been severed from them is anybody's guess.

My secret.

There were two of them, you see. Father Time, whom I seduced and murdered, for reasons I'll divulge when I damn well please, and his lover. Our Mother.

Mother Earth is not some goddess of nature, she is the Mother, the world we walk upon and the soul inside it.

We are her children. We are also Time's children. We are important—were important—everything is so muddled now.  We are beyond body; we are mind and soul. We are arts and mathmatics. We are space and time. Were. We were.

I don't know how I might expect you to believe any of this. I sure as hell didn't when I'd first heard of it, just dismissed it as some new-age hippie bull, you know? Believe me, I didn't think it was true, I couldn't fathom it's reality, it's concrete truth…I had no idea what would happen…

I'm not even begging for your forgiveness. I'm not even going to ask. I'm just mentally counting out these words because sometime, somenow I'm going to write them. It must still matter. It…


*


If you could see me from the outside, this is what I look like:

Glassy eyed, I stare at the television, not really watching. It's some newsy talk show, with scientists debating The Stasis, as they're calling it nowadays. For the past five months, meaningless calendar months, no one on Earth has been born or died. One of the scientists insists that it must be due to cosmic rays, which ought to be deflected at all costs. "The end of death means the end of innovation!" he cries, shouting over the other scientist's objections. "Without death there is not natural selection, no evolution, no--"

I turn down the volume idly, the argument becoming a mesh of white noise. The distance between myself and the television is that of the entire kitchen, I myself propped up on a collapsable folding chair. On the floor, arrayed like chess pieces on tile, are empty plastic bottles. Black clinical type labels them: Vicodin, Oxycotin, Morphine, Codine. The first level of defense. Then, further out on the kitchen floor: arsenic, ricin, anthrax, cyanide. Each bottle is empty.

Through my daze the only thing I can fathom is that I am still in pain, and thus still alive. Or maybe not. Maybe Harold Camping was right and the apocalypse went down without the batting of an eye; this birthless, deathless Earth some kind of strange purgatory for the entire human race. These thoughts seduce me.

Somewhere in my mailbox I know there are piles of religious pamphlets, each group with their own comforting explanation of these strange times, hastily adjusting their doctrine so it fits with The Stasis and all its subsequent weirdnesses. It's all bullshit. The end is over, isn't it? This isn't some cosmic rays. This is hell, or purgatory, or some sick, sick heaven, and they'd better just make the best of it.

This is denial, ladies and gentlemen.

The picture on the television changes to some True Life medical show. The "this week on" preview flashes up on the screen. A pregnant woman, perhaps three months along, sits in a doctor's office, stroking her distended belly. Her husband grips her hand, pleading for a caesarean; he wants to be able to see the baby. But the baby isn't due. "Time," the woman murmurs, patting his hand. "Just give it time."

At one time I would've felt some pathetic urge to reach out to her, to apologize, to make it right. But now, with cyanide ripping through my veins, my nostrils enflamed with the stench of my own vomit, I feel nothing but loathing towards her. Her ignorance. Her hope.  


As it turns out, I do eventually find her. Cora. For my record. But I also don't. Time is funny that way.

*

"War becomes harder when no one can die," the monk says in low, harmonic tones. "But we forget; physical death is but one type of destruction. While there has been no dead we may mourn these past seven months, there have been deaths. Far more dangerous is the destruction of the soul. And while there have been no births we may celebrate with baptisms, there have been spiritual renewals. That is why we must continue to pray for peace. For the spiritual life of our brothers and sisters. Let us say the blessings of the saints."

Luis bowed his head and murmured the blessing with reverence.

"Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…" Heaven…

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted…" Lord? Luis prays. Give me the strength to mourn those who have not died, so I may be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." There are those who starve and do not die, oh God…

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." Have mercy on me oh Lord…

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." …for I cannot endure…

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." …Oh, God, give me faith…

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." …for I cannot endure your miracles.

Luis cries for hours. He cries for a moment. He cries for a day. It is hard to tell.

Every day he takes tea to the Man Without Bones, his healing static, erratic. His pain subdued to a dream, perhaps a nightmare, and though his words are garbled Luis is certain he shouts out for his beloved, and he knows what it's like for all the pain in the world to seem like but a pinprick against heartache. Two lonely men, needing companionship, but unable to speak or be heard without causing great pain. He is probably projecting.



I am probably projecting.

*

So this is how I ended up here: How I ended up never dying, writing the stories of the lives I sliced to pieces by getting to never dying.
It started with a girl.

You know the one.

You never noticed her until she smiled sort-of sideways and asked you for the time at the bus stop. Suddenly you realized you hadn't noticed how shitty the world must've been before you met her, because it's fantastic now, it's beautiful now, and it's all so terrifying.

She was a librarian. She listened to 70's music even though she was born in the 90s, and she loved her three dogs which had rhyming names. And even stuff you'd think is excruciating, stuff like dressing up dogs in clothes or always correcting your grammar, was awesome because she had this laugh that was quiet and true and cast a glow about her, about you.

She's the one who you finally trusted enough to show the soft spots of your heart, or maybe it happened without your permission, the tender bruises of a broken home, a brother who pushed you down the stairs and spayed hair spray in your eyes, a mother who stared off into space for days, forgetting, a father long gone. You showed her yours, she showed you hers, and you began to heal a little bit together.



And then one day you bought a ring.



And then one day she dies.



Overnight, she disappears from reality.



Overnight you're spending every night drinking in a bar until a mysterious man with golden eyes tells you a better way to kill your time.



Oh wait, that's just me.



I suppose I figured, in my addled mind, that if it worked, if it worked, I could simply demand to go back in time to be with her again. Tell her not to take that road. Or maybe, maybe if time stopped, all times would happen at once, and I could be with her again that way, or maybe life would freeze like a photograph, and if I couldn't be happy, at least I wouldn't have to…have to think anymore…

Now I can't stop thinking. I can't.



Stop.


I'm so sorry.



*

"Three years, and they're still trying to blame each other for The Stasis," Cora clucks. "But what'cha expect from politicians?" Marlene didn't answer, pretending to be enraptured by the choices of cereal. Ari squalls in the shopping cart. Marlene walks further down the aisle.
Cora looked back between her sister and the baby, then carefully picks up Ari and starts crooning. Her own belly sags, the weight in her abdomen normal now. Not natural, of course, but normal.   

"I suppose all that talk of the job crises, nobody retiring anymore, well, that oughta even itself out eventually, don't you think? I mean, eventually, young folk staying young folk, they just can't enter the workplace. Just too young." She glances up from the baby to Marlene, who still hadn't spoken a word, just traces letters on the nutrition facts panel with her finger.

"Marlene," Cora says, lowering her voice to a whisper, "if you need to take some time off, take a break, I could take care of Arius for a while. He and Clayton seem to get along fine."

Marlene turns slowly to look at Cora. When she speaks, her voice is heavy. "Cora. If I leave, I'm never going to come back."

Cora puts her hand on her sister's shoulder. "You don't know that. Never's a long time." Marlene nods.

At that moment, Her attention is ripped away as Clayton careens into his mother, jumping up and down in a frenzy over his latest obsession from the toy section. "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?"

"Yes, Clayton, what is it?"

"Can I have a Big-Wheel? Pleeeesase! The big yellow one?"

"Maybe for your birthday," she says.

"But mooom," he whines, squinching up his face. "No one celebrates birthdays anymore. That means I'll never get one."

"We still can," she says, tousling his hair. "No law against birthdays."

The boy strokes his chin, a gesture of contemplation beyond his years. "How old am I now?"

"Five."

"Five! Seems like just yesterday I was four."

The woman chuckles. Three years, yesterday. But who's counting anymore?


*

When Luis opens the flap of the tent, he's surprised to see an American woman. Sunburned and shy, she turns her eyes to the ground.

"Hola. Welcome to the Servants of Christ Church and Monestary."

"Hi." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "I…I've heard that you pray for the dead?"

"Yes, but—" he is stopped short by the look in her eyes. He knows in an instant who the prayer is for. "Yes. I do. Come in."

She doesn't enter. "Do you…believe in miracles?"

Luis opens his mouth to speak, but doesn't. Instead he nods, and turns to lead her inside, but stops. "I know for a certainty that miracles exist." He turns to look back at her. "In this moment I have the faith that we, through God's grace, may survive them. Is that enough for you?"

The woman shrugs. "It's better than what I got now."

Luis grins, and stretches out his hand. "Maravilloso. What is your name?"

"Marlene."

"Luis." They shake hands. For the first time in a long time, a smile tugs at the edges of her lips.

*