Once again, I found myself standing aimlessly in the apartment, blinking in surprise. No matter how many times it happened, loop closure was still a bizarre sensation. To put it in context, imagine that you’re a sprinter tensed for a race, feet pressed against the blocks, muscles primed to explode, but when the gun goes off, you instantly find yourself at the end of the course, relaxed and with no memory of running. It steals the wind right out of your sails in the strangest way. Anyhow, once the shock wore away, my normal thoughts resumed buzzing through my consciousness.
Well, not quite normal. There were foreign “cars” in my train of thought, odd little blips that seemed out of place with the others. The children’s song “Do Your Ears Hang Low” was bouncing its musical way around my head alongside fleeting images of large grey animals. I struggled to process. I knew this was important. Was that a hippo? No……not a hippo. I recognized a cartoon voice for a Disney movie among the bits and pieces, saying “Well, I’ve seen a horse fly; I’ve seen a dragon fly….”. What had started off as strange little interruptions in my imagination gained volume and grew more disjointed as I concentrated, louder and louder until I couldn’t handle it. I yanked my concentration off of the chaos and tried to think only about the apartment’s ugly furniture. Anything other than that fractured mess.
Elephants.
The word resonated in my head and vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. It wasn’t connected to anything; it was simply there by its lonesome self. I froze. Could this be?….I didn’t dare hope. I eased the envelope out of my pocket, the seal still intact. Bracing myself for disappointment, I scanned the single word written on the scrap of paper in a feminine hand: Elephants.
My heart pounded thunderously against my ribs as I read and re-read that wondrous, beautiful word again and again to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating.
“Elephants,” I muttered. “Elephants. Elephants.” I let the paper flutter out of my hands as my feet carried me around the room in shock. “Elephants.” Reality was still easing its way into my consciousness, but it was coming. An idiotic grin crept slowly across my face and my mumbling grew louder. “Elephants, elephants, ELEPHANTS!” I shouted joyfully. “I. Freaking. Love. Elephants!!”
“Hurray! Now shut the hell up!” my upstairs neighbor hollered back through the ceiling.
I dissolved in mad giggling, which quickly became full on, gut-busting laughter, the kind that just sweeps you clean of all fears and failures. It was liberating. The tension of the past weeks had been worth this one moment. Here’s why.
After I’d made sure that everything was in order for the experiment, I had jumped forward by four hours. Now I can only speculate what happened, but I imagine that once the continuum spit me back out, I opened the envelope and read what the girl had written down for me. Ten minutes was the window that I’d had to try to pass on the concept of elephants to the echo. Since I’d opened the envelope in the “future”, the echo still had no idea what she’d chosen for a random word. That was the crux of the test. Whatever I’d done in that missing chunk of time, whatever shenanigans I’d pulled to cement the word “elephants” into my past self’s memory had worked. It may not have been what I’d hoped for, and it definitely wasn’t precise, but it was a win and a place to start. That was good enough for me.
****
As May loomed on the horizon, I spent every waking hour trying to perfect the loop closure process. I created a massive selection of random words to gauge my success, everything from jukeboxes to Jeffrey Dahmer. Every attempt was a trial in patience, mostly because there was no way to record different methods. An ordinary experiment would involve careful notation of trial and error. Yeah, that would have been great, but no dice. My memory was steadily accumulating more holes than swiss cheese, and the only notes worth taking would have been from those missing minutes. Still, I kept at it, tracking progress by evaluating how clearly that I remembered the message at the tail end of the loop closure.
I noticed a few things. First off, the mind’s ability to remember specifics on the other side of a loop was spotty at best. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how it could recall anything at all. The best that I could figure was that the subconscious mind had something to do with it. It’s a non-answer, I know, but the science behind that was a Gordian Knot that I had no desire to untangle.
Second, there were certain methods to the madness left in my brain by the process. Excruciating as it was to concentrate on the mental fragments, I found that there were patterns as to what stuck with me after the loop was closed. For example, there were always visuals, and vivid ones at that. They were always accompanied by an incredible sense of déjà vu, as if I’d seen them before, rather than conjured them in my imagination. I had a theory that when I landed in the past as the jumper, I pulled up images on the computer to show the echo. And that was another thing: I still had no idea what interacting with myself was like. Some nights I’d stare idly at the ceiling, wondering how that conversation went down. On the evenings that I let it bother me, I wondered what it felt like when the jumper vanished. Was I killing myself over and over? Or was my consciousness simply fading into a different body? I didn’t have answers for these questions either, and I never would.
Third, some things were retained better than others. “Elephants” still rattles around in my noggin to this day. Others simply vanished from memory the second that I regained my equilibrium. I hated that; there were too many possible reasons why that might happen, and the more variables there were, the less likely it was that I’d be able to stop the echo successfully in May. I desperately hoped that it was a simple matter of poor communication. After all, if the jumper did a poor job prepping the echo, the chances of the subject sticking were slim to none. I chose to believe that, but when my guard was down, a creeping fear would slide into my gut, whispering all sorts of doubt.
Despite everything that I didn’t fully understand, I had more success than failure with loop closure. I learned that the relative amount of time between jumper and echo was extremely useful for more complex subjects. I crafted what I found was the most effective method of passing on information while in the gap. Most of all though, I wrote like a man possessed. Every detail that I could remember, every jump, counter jump, loop closure, theory, success, failure, and conundrum all found a home in the pages of my journal. Ever since my time with Chaplain, God bless him, I’d been in the habit and as the month of April wound to a close, I was rapidly approaching the last page of my 513th notebook.
May 15th rolled around. That night, after an aggressively long journal entry, I tossed the book aside and listened to the silence in the apartment. The Sandman must have taken the day off, because sleep wasn’t coming. After a few moments of listening to my heart beat, I angrily flipped on the light and snatched up the journal again. I hated these nights. My mind spun uselessly like a wheel on a fallen bike. Sometimes reading helped on occasions like this, so for the first time in forever, I flipped back through page after page of the last year journal entries. I was shocked at what I found.
It wasn’t that I didn’t remember what I had written; I didn’t even have to read more than a few words before I could sense the emotions from that entry drifting through me like an old dream that I’d once had. Every word carried my signature tone, for lack of a better word. Each scribbled note and run-on sentence was like a handshake from an old friend. Comfortable. Familiar. Surprisingly poetic at times. So why was it so shocking? Because I had never realized just how profoundly lonely I’d been when I wrote each entry.
I thought I’d been bled of emotion after all these years, or at least the hard ones, like sorrow, loneliness, or love. I’d learned how to function with a perpetual ache instead of the usual rollercoaster of feelings. This journal proved otherwise. Page after page was filled with disguised longing. Memories of Chaplain and Rachel graced a good chunk of the notebook, along with quotes from Momma Jean, wisecracks from Toby, and occasionally, the rarest jewel of
them all: a Tara reference. Those were always vague, since I didn’t dare put her name down on paper, but they were there, hidden randomly throughout the messy handwriting.
By the time that I’d reached the end of the book, the last few lines blurred and I rubbed my eyes angrily, frustrated that my vision could be affected by moisture so easily. Of course, I didn’t have any of the previous years recorded in this particular notebook, but I had a suspicion that I would’ve found a lot of the same sort of material in those too. I leaned my head back against the gritty plaster wall, staring at the soft shadowy shapes cast on the ceiling by my reading light. In less than ten hours, I would find myself staring at an all too familiar patch of forest, another repeat year looming over me. Despite all my work, I still had no idea how to overcome the pressure of the continuum and reach the echo. With no way to breach that wall, I would continue to loop. Forever.
A wave of despair threatened to overwhelm me, and I clawed for something positive to keep me afloat. I tried thinking about times that I’d been happy: The cabin. Travelling with Toby. The ranch. Those places and the people associated with them always brought a smile to my face, but tonight, I realized that while I’d been happy then, I hadn’t felt at peace. There’d always been a feeling of restlessness, and I’d always fought it, because I knew where I was supposed to be. I just couldn’t bear to be there.
Four centuries later, I knew that rare moments of happiness or contentment just wouldn’t cut it anymore. No one was meant to live like this; hell, no one was meant to live this long. I desperately wanted to hit my long overdue 21st birthday, but it was more than that. I wanted to celebrate it with her.
That was it. That was the moment that I decided how I wanted to spend the next year. It would hurt, more than I could put into words, but it was worth it to be whole again. I closed my eyes and waited for the sun to rise. Hours passed, and I didn’t move an inch. I savored every minute, every misbegotten second that I’d spent running scared from my own mistakes. I wandered through my memories, remembering everything and hiding from nothing. It all rushed past me; the good, the bad, the ridiculous, and the terrifying all paraded through my mind. When it all came to a stop, when I’d finally caught up to the present, I opened my eyes.
The apartment was glowing with early afternoon light. It was almost time. Normally, at this moment every year, I’d fought against the clock’s reversal, but I’d found something at the end of that stream of memories: acceptance. I was exhausted from all the spinning in circles that I’d done for over four hundred years. I was ready to move on.
So when reality tensed and shuddered in preparation for the slingshot back to August 2012, I let my arms dangle by my sides, hands open. With a silent twang, the world rushed toward me, ready to swallow me into the continuum.
And for the first time, I went without a fuss.
August 19 th, 2012
Year 401
Chapter 32
The woods of Ohio greeted me with its typical burst of late summer air and wafting scent of pine. An unfamiliar emotion coursed through me, a strange blend of nostalgia, homecoming, and melancholy that made me want to dash around the campus like a giddy five-year old while it simultaneously evoked a desire to just sit down and process what the year to come would bring.
I’m home.
The thought drifted through my head like a repeating song, but no matter how many times it crossed my mind, I wasn’t sure if it was joyful, sorrowful, or a half-and-half concoction. I walked toward the familiar skyline of the campus. To be honest, it was the strangest feeling that I’ve ever had. I hadn’t been a college student (at least not there, anyway) for nearly three times longer than the school had been in existence. Ohio State was only 142 years old, and frankly, when you’ve been around for 400 years, a century and a few decades seem like spare change. I couldn’t help but think of my “fellow students” as less than peers. I mean, wouldn’t you? True, I still felt like a young adult physically, but the loop had given me an old soul. The fresh-faced kids from my class had a twentieth of the life experience that I had, and we were the same age. We were about as different from each other as the Queen of England is from Miley Cyrus, but I figured with a little practice, I could blend in.
It wasn’t the idea of jumping into the social shark tank of college again that was giving me the heebie-jeebies. There was only one person that really mattered to me on this campus, and she was the real source of my fear. I didn’t know how to act; should I avoid her? Reintroduce myself as a friend? Follow her around like some sort of stalker or guardian angel? After all this time away, every option seemed like a bad one. I’d become so used to avoiding even thoughts of Tara that coexisting on the same campus seemed like an impossibility.
While my mind continued its uncomfortable game of Twister and tied itself into some impressive knots, my legs continued their march up the hill and onto the property of Ohio State University. Shockingly, I still knew my way around the place. I wandered around the entire campus, visiting old haunts. I turned the night into a private tour, letting cascades of memories wash over me. Since this was still orientation week, none of the upperclassmen were around, so it was pretty easy to avoid any awkward interactions as I travelled about the campus.
My first stop was the spot where it all began. As I stood staring blankly at the red-brick wall where I’d had my showdown with the football player, a lump rose unbidden in my throat. My initial instinct was to hate this place and every detail of my first brush with the time stream, but I knew that it’d be wasted on this memory. That wasn’t the moment where my life had gone haywire; that happened later, in the woods that I had just left behind. No, what had happened in the shadow of that building was just a stepping stone, and if I’m honest, the sight of that jock’s face smushed against the grass still made me smile.
The next stop on the flashback express was the football field. As I paced across the soft, springy turf, I glanced over at Section 26A, 8th row. The sounds of my footsteps faded to the imagined roar of the crowd, whose cheering would ring out at a game in the not-too-distant future. I pictured the familiar waving banners, the drunk frat brothers greased in Buckeye body paint, and the cute blonde who’d be sitting in 26A a little over a month from now. This huge shrine to college ball dwarfed me, and despite my dislike of the game, a tingle of awe raced up my spine. One day, I’d show someone what it was like to stand here, in the middle of the field, and just feel small. I hoped that they would appreciate it as much as I did.
I shook myself. The night was still young, and the last thing thar I wanted to do was move back into my old dorm room any sooner than I had to. I clambered up the stadium wall and sat in the seat that I’d had the day we met. Eyes closed, I conjured up that day again, waiting, looking, until finally, that shrill friend of hers shrieked for attention and I caught that first glimpse of Tara. The world stopped and she turned ever so slowly, inch by inch, until I could almost see her face.
Without warning, my eyes popped open as the memory was shattered to pieces. My hand trembled as I rubbed my temples. Come on now, I scolded myself. You made the decision to come back, don’t give yourself excuses to bail out now. I recognized that internal voice; it was the one that I’d failed to listen to countless times over the course of my life, even before I started jumping. Everyone has one. Some call it a conscience, I call it “The Know-It-All” or “Mr. 20/20 Hindsight” (we’ve had a tough relationship). Truth is, I don’t like that voice because it’s always talking to me, even when I claim we’re not on speaking terms. Worse yet, it’s always right. This was no exception.
I had decided to come back, but not just to visit. I was here to stay, a normal-ish freshman living out his first year of college. For the third time. Sure, it was self-induced torture, and yes, there were a million other things that I would rather do, but there was a chance for closure here, a chance for genuine contentment. For that…….hell, I was willing to endure 8 a.m. classes and cruddy cafeteria food.
Before I
gave it all up and went back to school, I had one more place to visit. It wasn’t actually on campus. As I walked along the breakdown lane of an Ohio back road, the night air grew crisp. My breath steamed visibly in the pre-fall chill. I finally reached my destination: the stretch of road where Tara had dumped me. This was my Waterloo. This was where I’d let my addiction cost me the woman that I loved. Everything that I’d done, everyone I’d met, and everywhere I’d been in the past 400 hundred years could be traced back to this stretch of road. Squinting in the low light, I searched for the exact location where I’d begun my era of self-exile.
I’d come back to this spot for a few reasons… none mattered now. Just standing there brought back tidal waves of emotion. Regret, sorrow, frustration all sang their songs in my head, but the longer that I stayed, the more that a new feeling crept inside of me. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. It was soothing but forceful; honest, in a tough love sort of way. Most of all, it filled me with hope and a drive to do something. A strange chuckle bubbled up from my chest, startling me. It was so overwhelmingly positive that I was taken aback. How was it possible to feel something so constructive? And here of all places?
It’s closure, the Know-It-All whispered.
He was right. It was time to move on. Yes, I’d be stuck here for years. Maybe even forever. Yes, I’d have to fight with the dragon every day. I might never get back together with Tara; hell, I might never even be able to speak to her again. Despite it all, though, I knew I wanted this. I wanted to live my life as it was meant to be, and I wanted to be close to her. The question was, could I handle it?
Yeah, said the Know-It-All. Now you can.
So I shook the weight of four hundred years off of my shoulders and left it there. That night, when I walked away from that bit of asphalt, I walked away from my failure too.
The Jump Journal Page 22