The Time Traveler's Almanac

Or maybe the letters mean nothing at all. Maybe all this focus on a single day and a single note from a future self is as meaningless as this year’s celebration of the Fourth of July. Just a day like any other, only we add a ceremony and call it important.

I don’t know.

I’ll never know.

Not if I live two more weeks or two more years.

Either way, J.J. will still be dead and Lizbet will be alive, and my future – whatever it is – will be the mystery it always was.

The mystery it should be.

The mystery it will always be.

DOMINE

Rjurik Davidson

Rjurik Davidson has written short stories, essays, reviews, and screenplays, and has been short-listed for and won a number of awards. Davidson’s collection The Library of Forgotten Books was published in 2010 by PS Publishing. His novel Unwrapped Sky will be published in early 2014. His script The Uncertainty Principle (cowritten with Ben Chessell) is currently in development with Lailaps films and Neon Park films. “Domine” was first published in Aurealis in 2007.

I’m off the monorail and through streets littered with cigarette packets and strips of last month’s posters, peeled from the yellow and grey chipped walls. The air smells of rubbish and urine. A breeze would only blow the odour away for a moment; I’m in the City.

Genie and I moved into the place temporarily, with the hope of shifting farther out a few months later, where there might be a park for Max to play in, neighbours to help out, a house with a separate dining room and kitchen. Genie remained after I moved out, so every now and then I’m back in the old neighbourhood, with light rain misting through the little inner-city streets, trying not to look past the pavement in front of me in case I see one of the real things that happen here.

A shuttle slashes the sky overhead, taking someone rich to meet other rich people somewhere else. They don’t bother with travelling by land – easier to skip over the city like a stone over water. The deep red of the shuttle’s burners gives the illusion of warmth.

“Hey Mister, hey!”

One of the boys; there are a million around here.

“Hey Mister, bliss, bliss?”

I shake my head and keep my eyes on the stained pavement. No need to encourage them.

“Hey Mister, you come back.”

I’m there, at the old five-storey yellow apartment building. Bars on every window, so people don’t get in and others don’t throw themselves out. It’s a fair balance.

The city is still all stairs and four, five, six-storey buildings. Everything new or important happens out in the Towers, little islands of commerce in the suburbs, where things are clean and fresh and everyone’s teeth are white and gleaming and the girls in all the shops remind you of your hopes when you were young.

I’m into the stairwell and up. Three sets of stairs, four doors along the walkway. I knock.

I hear scrabbling from behind the door and wait for a while, noticing that my hands seem wrinkled. I am only thirty-eight but I’m getting old.

“Don’t you ever call?” I can see one side of Genie’s face through the partly opened door, her lank, colourless hair falling across her forehead. She has that look of exhaustion as usual, as if the world has worn her out and everything now is an effort.

“Hi Genie.”

“Look, it’s not a good time.”

“I brought something for Max.”

The door opens and I’m inside. The place is tiny: one bedroom, a one-room lounge and kitchen, a bathroom and toilet.

“He doesn’t even know who you are.” Genie starts picking up odd bits and pieces of junk from the lounge room floor: some socks, a fluffy toy bird, opened envelopes with their contents still inside. She always starts cleaning when I arrive. Max is playing by a water-filled bucket in the corner. The smell of something rotten floats from the bin in the kitchen.

“Hey, Maxy,” I say, and my one-year-old son looks up at me, his face round with splotchy, rosy cheeks, and his mouth open. A line of dribble runs from his mouth to his chest.

I walk over to him and squat next to him. “Hey Maxy.” Should I reach out to him? I’m not sure. It’s hard with children: they’re strange things. He looks at me and I’m scared he’ll start crying. At the moment he’s just frowning.

“So what did you bring him?”

I have no present so I change the subject. “Dany’s coming back you know.” I say. “Really soon. August thirtieth.”

“I know the date, Marek, but I don’t care. It’s too late for me to care,” Genie says. “You should concentrate on your own stuff. Think about Max for once.”

“But what am I going to do?” I reach forward and touch Max on the arm. But he senses my tension and tries to pull away, still frowning at me as if I’m an impostor.

A key rattles in the door and a big brawny man, his body too big for his legs, wanders in. He wears baggy khaki work-shorts and a blue singlet over a too-tanned body.

“I told you this was a bad time,” Genie says to me. “Oh well, this is Rick. Rick, this is Marek.”