Or Not to Be

by Laura Lanni

  Anna stops digging through the messiest purse I’ve ever seen. Her mouth hangs open, which I don’t find attractive, and she looks like she’s panicking, like she might bolt.

  The cashier tells her, “You can use your daughter’s card. Is her name Emily Muckenfuss?”

  No! That’s impossible. Even if we do end up with a daughter named Emily, how could she be called Muckenfuss?

  But Anna answers, “Yes. That’s her.” She is a bit pale. I think she’s going to puke.

  “Wait, Lizzie! Just hold on a minute. This woman is a freak of nature. Why did you think showing me a glimpse of her in a bookstore was a good idea?”

  “Sorry,” she says. “See, Anna loves to read. She’s extremely bright—certainly your intellectual match, which will be really hard for you to find. I thought you’d like to know that you will find one. Maybe there’s a better time in a bookstore I can show you. Hold on a sec.”

  Then we see Anna in a different bookstore. Again she holds a pile of books. None of them look familiar to me. Looks more like a pile of chick lit. Ugh. Did this woman ever use her brain?

  When she gets to the register, the cashier, once again, asks for her membership card. I’m waiting for the “I forgot it” line again, when she surprises me with, “I don’t have one.”

  He asks if she wants one, and she counters with, “Are they free?” Perfect. She is cheap on top of all her other lovely qualities.

  She smiles when the guy says, “Not for most people, but it would be essentially free for you today.”

  This gets frugal Anna’s attention.

  After he patiently explains about a ten percent discount, she asks, “Do I have to use my real name?” Is she serious?

  The guy says, “You can be whomever you want.” What is with the future world? Identity theft? Erectile dysfunction? Be whomever you want? I don’t get it.

  Anna looks gleeful when she announces, “I am Martha Washington, and I would like to buy a free membership card.” Muckenfuss? Martha Washington?

  She gives her address as the White House. What a fruitcake.

  I’ve had enough of Lizzie as my guide. “Halt! Please, no more! This is not working at all. I don’t want to go back to that woman!” I’m the one panicking now.

  “Sorry, again. Maybe I should abandon the bookstore theme. How about I show you Anna when she was younger?”

  “No,” I insist. “I don’t want to see more.”

  “Come on, Eddie, I’ll hit on a good one eventually.”

  “Do not call me Eddie. That’s him. You just showed me two dumpers in a row. One more and that’s your third strike. Then you’re out. Got that?”

  “Sure. You just reminded me of something. Hold on tight, we’re gonna whiz back sorta fast here.”

  Then Lizzie says, “Here we are. You were a lot younger. This is your first date with Anna. See if this helps at all.”

  So I watch.

  A young Eddie and very pretty Anna are having dinner. The waiter has just delivered the dessert menu when Anna says, “I decided to come with you to get a free steak dinner. Now I’m ready for chocolate cake. But I don’t want to go to Abbott and Costello in the middle of campus where everyone can see us. This is our first and last date, and I don’t want people thinking there’s something going on here. Got that?”

  This girl is a beast! Why does she hate poor Eddie?

  By coincidence, my younger self asks, “Anna, what can I do to make you stop hating me?”

  So I was right: she did hate me.

  “I don’t hate you,” she says. What? So maybe I was wrong then and now? Will I be wrong again when this happens in my future?

  “Well, then, how do you feel about me?” This Eddie guy is asking for some punishment.

  Anna looks him square in the eye and says, “I have never been insulted in the first five seconds of a date before.”

  Eddie insulted her? How? Why?

  “That makes you a special, unforgettable date. And I haven’t been on many dates.”

  I could see why!

  “That also makes you special and unforgettable. But even if I have to live the rest of my life alone, no dates, forever, I will never be so desperate that I have to be with a guy who is mean to me. Got that?” She looks like she’s about to cry.

  Eddie says, “I’m sorry I was mean. I didn’t mean it. Please go to the movie with me?”

  Anna smiles a wicked smile—which makes her look pretty hot—and says, “I think you are begging me.”

  “You bet. I am. Really I am. This cannot be the last time I see you.” Eddie, the loser, is a head case.

  “Why not?” She is teasing him!

  Apparently he’d been mean in some way that gives Anna the upper hand. She thinks she has a right to be furious and to string him along in a nasty way. Eddie better come up with something good if he wants to see this witch again. But why would he want to? He should just cut loose right now and run.

  He does look desperate, and he’s thinking hard, really working. It’s incredible, but I find myself starting to root for him a little. Come on, guy, and give her something good. Make her like you. Argue your case. Stand up for yourself. Be a man!

  “Because.”

  That’s it?

  But Anna smiles!

  Later, they walk hand in hand down a path lined with roses. Sickeningly romantic. Not my style. Eddie wears a stupid little smirk on his face when he suggests they sit down on a bench.

  As Anna sits down, she says, “Do you bring all your first dates here?”

  “No,” answers Eddie, the loser nerd.

  “Just the ones with awful hair so you don’t have to be seen in public?”

  What was this about awful hair? Anna’s hair looked pretty good to me.

  “Actually, it has nothing to do with their hair,” he mutters.

  Then Ed-the-man says, “I just bring the ones I want to kiss.”

  Bam!

  “Really?” Anna’s smile is suspicious. She doesn’t buy it. “How many times have you been here?”

  I find myself rooting for Eddie again. Don’t blow it, man. Think about this one. There is only one correct answer. It’ll make or break you.

  “Never before tonight.”

  Bingo!

  If he messes this up, I’ll kill the guy.

  With one awkward arm around her shoulders, he pulls her to him. He lowers his face so close to hers I hope neither of them had onions on their steak. He touches her hair and says, “I love your hair.”

  Enough with the hair, Eddie.

  She laughs and says, “Just kiss me already.”

  And he does.

  | | | |

  “Aw, that turned out sweet, don’t you think, Ed?” Lizzie asks me.

  “It wasn’t as bad as the others,” I admit. Maybe there’s hope.

  Finally, Lizzie, my Rebound guide, leaves me alone.

  47

  Wonder Wander: The Big and the Deep

  I like being alone in space. It’s peaceful.

  I take stock of my situation. I’m still dead. Still about to turn twenty. I’ve experienced some mind and time travels and seen some future details of my life. All of it feels like cheating, like knowing the ending of a good book. I always hated that. I’m going back. I know Lizzie’s right. I’ve seen enough to be certain, but I’m still curious, and though I was keen to get away from her, I’m pursuing Lizzie again because I still have questions.

  It seems that just the mention of going back is exerting some strong force on me, on my antimatter—I’m traveling at light speed now, no doubt about that—and on my thought processes. I need Lizzie to help me apply whatever amounts to brakes out here on the dead side so I can slow down.

  Then Lizzie’s voice says, “You don’t need me for that. You have complete control of the speed of your return. Just get back in there. The living are waiting for you.”

  That didn’t feel quite true to me. In the life I left behind, I was not exactly surrounded by crowds of
friends and family. I spent most of my time studying. I lived as a loner, but I was good at it. So there were not many people anxiously awaiting my return. I could feasibly stay dead.

  Lizzie’s annoying voice breaks in with, “That’s one of the main reasons you need me. Since you slipped through unexpectedly, and you are one of those souls who would love to be dead—would enjoy the death experience, have no fear of it, even understand it—you require a nudge to remind you to return.”

  “How is that any different from when Grampa pushed me back when I was six?”

  She sighs. “You know, for a smart guy, you really kill me.”

  “You’re already dead.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “And so am I. If you make the decision for me, you’re as bad as Grampa,” I insist.

  “You silly boy. I swear you boys are as dumb grown-up as you were in kindergarten. Listen good, Ed, because I’m only going to explain this simple thing to you one more time. You must go back. You were not supposed to die. It was a mistake. An error. A bug in the plans. It happens all the time with the chaotic design upon which our universe relies, you know, those thermodynamic laws? But in your case, there’s no decision to be made. You just go back this time.”

  “But when I was six?”

  “The link between your matter and antimatter was fragile, but you had a choice then—you could have decided to stay dead. But your grampa didn’t even let you go through the decision process. Do you not get this yet?” She is annoyed with me, I think.

  “Sorry. Yeah, I think I do. But since I have your full attention, now, I have more things I want to talk to you about. I need your help, okay?”

  “I’m at your disposal, like it or not.” Obviously, she did not like it, but I didn’t give a rat’s ass.

  “Good. How about getting back to some of those big and deep questions?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Here’s the thing. If Grampa’s antimatter got sucked into mine when I returned to my body when I was six, and some of him got washed into those other sick kids, too, then if I don’t have kids, will that help him to be released when I die?”

  “In theory, yes. Most of your grampa does remain within you, so you’d just take him with you. But, Ed, haven’t you paid any attention at all? You will have kids. Your grampa’s antimatter will be further fractioned in them.” Lizzie is trying to help, but I have other ideas.

  “What if I die for good right now? What if I decide to—what’s it called? Depart? Then Grampa’s antimatter will be mostly freed, right?”

  “Don’t even go there, you idiot. You are not going to stay dead! Let’s just stop the hypothetical discussions and get on with this, please!” She is close to wailing now. It reminds me of the awful noises she used to make in kindergarten when Jimmy made her rub my baldy-head.

  “Help me understand how Grampa’s antimatter will be split if I have kids. What makes up the antimatter part of a new person? Is it like genes and DNA? Does it come from both the mother and father?”

  “If you’d think for a second, you’d see there is no other way it could be. If a new baby is just matter, it wouldn’t survive when it’s born.” That is the most helpful information so far.

  “Of course I’m helpful; I’m your damn guide. What else do you want to know?”

  “When does the antimatter of the baby join the baby’s matter?”

  “First breath. The instant the baby is functioning on its own outside the mother, that’s when the antimatter locks on. It’s pretty cool.”

  “It really is.” I’m glad I didn’t go right back to my life. There’s so much to understand that I could never learn while alive.

  Lizzie’s going to be pissed, but there are even more big and deep areas I want to explore.

  “Okay, how about this: It seems to me that humans aren’t evolving anymore. As a group, many are getting dumber. They don’t care about learning. As the high intellectual end of human ability develops technology, the great majority of the lower end—who use the technology and depend on it—have no real concept or interest in using their brains from day to day. They watch TV, eat, sleep, and call it a life. It all seems like an incredible waste to me.”

  “That’s just you. You’re such a geek! I would have loved fifty or sixty more years of that. You don’t understand that at all, do you? Life on our little Earth is so unique, so special. The perfect planet for antimatter and matter to connect and form energy. For life to reproduce itself. It’s a beautiful place.” To make her point, Lizzie brings into focus a view of our bright marble from deep outer space. It is glorious, all blue and green and white. I’d seen pictures, but it is breathtaking to actually witness.

  “I’m sorry. I know I’m not a normal person. In my life I often offended people. I alienated myself and just kept learning. I was driven. Just bear with me, okay? How about this idea of a deathday? Did humans always have a deathday?”

  “They must have to ever have died, right?”

  “Do most people die more than once and go back?”

  “Think about that one. Have you met many people who seem to know about deathdays?”

  “No. Nobody but me. Ever.”

  “Those who return to their lives don’t remember anything from the dead side. You’re an exception, but even you won’t remember all of this. The fact is that most decide to stay dead. They explore a little, find that they understand the entire cosmos with minimal effort, feel the peace of rejoining the fabric of the universe, and don’t miss life that much.”

  “But not all of them?”

  “No. There are some who desperately miss life and go back as many times as they can. But they usually make their decision immediately and go back with no memory of the event at all.”

  When I don’t answer with another question, Lizzie suggests hopefully, “How about it? Ready to go back now?”

  “Not yet.” Under no deadline, no time pressure, I am enthralled by the golden ticket: those who stay dead come to understand everything. Every single mystery is exposed and comprehended. I have the opportunity to do that and then I can still go back to my life. This is irresistible. “I’ve decided to try a little time travel on my own.”

  This earns me another groan.

  48

  Anna’s Deathday

  Somehow, I ditch Lizzie. I’m free and alone in space. It is glorious, amazing, and immense. Yet none of these human terms are adequate to describe it. On the dead side, there should be a new language, a new set of adjectives, to encompass all of the wonders.

  Still hesitant to return to the life that will turn me into grumpy old Eddie, I travel, quite well, I think, to revisit the day Anna dies.

  There’s old Eddie waking up. He leans toward snoring Anna and gets smacked in the face by her elbow as she rolls over. It looks like he’s sneaking out of bed.

  Anna’s sleepy voice pulls him back. “Eddie, what are you doing?” Couldn’t this guy even get out of bed without getting into trouble? They almost have a conversation, and Eddie leaves the room, looking guilty, although I don’t think he did anything wrong.

  I follow him to the kitchen where he finds the boy lying on his belly under the kitchen table. Joey says, “Hi, Daddy. Can I have breakfast right now, right away?”

  “Sure,” says Eddie. “Whatcha want?”

  “Oreos, please.” The kid has a definite chocolate addiction. He’s grinning like a fool.

  He scarfs down the cookies before his mother comes into the kitchen. When Anna sits beside him, Joey says, “Ooh, Mommy. I don’t feel too good today.” He leans to her for a hug.

  “Show me those teeth.”

  He smiles, reveals the cookies, and gets poor old Eddie in trouble again.

  Later, Anna carries her bags to the car. Joey, Old Ed, and I all follow her.

  “Honey?” Eddie, the sucker, leans his head in the open window of Anna’s car. “How about a day off today? You and me and Joey. Let’s all play hooky.”

  His wife looks at him li
ke he’s nuts. He might be. She makes it clear that she has no interest or intention of spending any time with him. Maybe not ever. “Enough with the honey crap. You’ve been a jerk to me for weeks.” She doesn’t take off her sunglasses but even I can tell she’s crying when she says, “I’m going to work. See you tonight. Honey,” and leaves Old Man Eddie standing there, as pathetic and desperate as ever a man could be.

  Damn. Why in the world would Eddie try to get Anna, a woman who is never happy, to stay home and spend a day with him?

  That familiar sense creeps up: I’m not alone. I’d rather be alone, because I’d like to watch the rest of this day and find out how Anna ends up dead. An almost comical yet disturbing thought suddenly occurs to me: maybe Old Man Eddie finally lost it and just snuffed her. Is that possible?

  A voice, which is not Lizzie’s, answers, “No, you fool. Eddie would never hurt me. He wasn’t even there when I died.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I am his wife, you idiot,” the voice says.

  “You are the lovely wife of poor Eddie?”

  “Poor Eddie? Have you any idea what he put me through the last two months of my life?” She kind of freaks me out when she yells at me. “And what are you doing here? I was time traveling to determine what I should do with my soul, visiting the day I died, trying to understand some things. Can’t I ever be alone? What are you doing watching my life?”

  “Apparently, that was my life, too.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Ed.”

  “Ed? Eddie! You’re dead, too? Who’s with our kids?”

  “I’m not dead now. Not in your now, I mean. I’ve been watching your family after you died, so I know that Old Man Eddie is still alive in your now.”

  “Then how did you get on the dead side?” she asks.

  “It’s complicated. See, I died when I was twenty—before we met. According to my guide, I was supposed to just go right back to my body, but I’ve been looking around first. Kind of checking out my future.”

  “I was warned not to travel forward in time,” she tells me. “My guide, my mother, said that’s dangerous and painful.”