The Time Traveler's Almanac

“Oh, hi,” Rick says and walks over to Genie, gives her a kiss, walks over to Max, ruffles his thin blonde hair.

I’m out of the door and on the landing, but Genie follows me. “I love him,” she says, “and he treats me well. Better than you ever did.”

“Yeah,” I say, still walking, my teeth clenched like a vice.

“What did you come back for?” Her voice is suddenly shrill. “Did you come back to fuck me?”

Another shuttle burns overhead, and I wonder where it’s going. The Towers no doubt.

“Come back and visit Max, though,” she says suddenly, hopefully, “He needs his father. You of all people should know that.”

*   *   *

Later that evening I’m in the small unit I can afford, out in the vast expanse of houses and apartments that encircle the Towers. The suburbs are like a sea surrounding a chain of islands, running all the way to the City. It’s a nothing space, each section interchangeable with another. The view from a shuttle would be of one infinitely repeating series of buildings and roads. It’s how I like it. You can get lost here; you can feel hidden and safe. It allows me to write my music in peace, away from all the demands of the world: partners and children and work. Still, I don’t compose much. All my creativity gets drained by the soundscapes I’m forced to design for the Towers. All my originality is sucked away into those.

Tonight, for some reason, I’m agitated, disturbed even. It’s August twenty-eighth.

The phone buzzes. I press the button and my older sister Leila appears on the screen. Though she doesn’t really like me, we keep in touch. Even now her hair is sculpted, like a blonde helmet. Not a hair out of place.

“I can’t sleep,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to see Dany.”

“Right.”

“I don’t want anything to do with him.” Leila clenches her jaw (we both inherited that from mum) and crosses her arms emphatically.

“Do you think that Mum was happy in her last years?”

“Christ, Marek, you’ve always been introspective. That’s your problem.”

“I think she was. I think finally, after everything, she found some happiness.”

Leila brushes her hair back with her hand, but it bounces back to its perfect shape. “So if you talk to him, tell him I don’t want to see him.”

“Someone’s got to be there when he comes back.”

“Well it’s not going to be me. And Marek, what good is it going to do if you show up? Huh?”

“She wanted to hold on, didn’t she? Just another year, just one more year. But she couldn’t.”

Someone is crying behind Leila. Must be her kid, whose name I can’t, for the life of me, remember. Leila turns from the phone to look over her shoulder, then back. “Look Marek, I gotta go.”

“It’s been all over the news,” I say, but she’s gone.

*   *   *

August thirtieth arrives and I’m in McArthur Tower: the procession has finished, the speeches are over; there have been medals and descriptions and hologram footage and everything else. I saw him on stage with the others, in their uniforms, but I could barely make it out from up the back. Now I’m sitting at the exit to the conference centre and people in suits are milling about being official and I wonder if I should go in and look around for him, but no, I stay put. Secretly I don’t want to see him. I think of leaving, eyeing the lifts far away down the corridor, but something makes me stay. It must have been a hell of a thing, after all, out there in space. The government made a fuss of Dany and the rest of the crew, that’s for sure.

A soundscape full of triumphant brass and rolling drums plays in the background.

I notice the captain walk out, officials surrounding him, talking in hushed, respectful tones.

To my right, windows open out to the evening. The vast bulk of another Tower stands opposite, its own windows appearing tiny in the gigantic structure. I struggle to see if I can make out figures, but all I can see is flickering, and that’s probably just my eyes playing up.

I look away and suddenly Dany’s there, with another of the crew, and they’re coming past me. It hits me like a physical blow: he looks in his early twenties. His light hair is short and jagged, his eyes slightly too close together, spoiling his otherwise beautiful looks. It hits me again: he looks just like I once did.

“See you soon then, Dan,” the other one says.

He nods and grins like a little boy, runs his hands through his hair and then says, “Yep.”

He walks towards the lift as the other one turns back.

“Hey,” I say weakly, and then stronger, embarrassed by the strain in my voice, “Dany.”

He turns and looks at me and my breath is suddenly taken away. He cocks his head and frowns for a minute. Then says, “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” I say, and am struck by the banality of it, “Marek.”

He grins uncomfortably, cocks his head to the other side and raises his hands as if to say: well, imagine that.

I stand up from my chair, take a few steps and say again, “It’s me, Marek.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“She died.”

A look of confusion crosses his face and then passes. “Well, come on then,” he says.