by Thea Lim
“I’m not a mirage,” she said.
He encircled her shoulders with his arms. He placed his cheek against her neck. She leaned into him, their collarbones meeting like the sides of a steeple. She could hear the breath whistling in his throat.
“Can we go somewhere else?” she said into his ear.
She led Frank down to the canal, to the only hotel she knew in town. He hailed a trishaw and they went clattering down the street. As they passed City Hall she thought she saw the bar flying by where first she’d seen his face. Their faces glowed in the red dynamo light from the back of the bike and the fringed edge of the canopy was shaking like crazy, and he asked if they could hold hands, just one last time, and she said, “Why does it have to be the last time?”
Down by the water, the New Year’s traffic was too thick, so they got out a few blocks up and walked the rest of the way with their arms around each other, holding each other up, and you would have thought this contact would be monumental, but instead it was as natural as switching on a lamp.
But his shape was not where she had left it. His shoulder blade had shifted and his waist pinched in more sharply. She clutched the coat fabric bunched at his side.
The eyebrows at the front desk were ragged and exhausted from a night of screaming revelers and Frank’s demands that they get the best room.
“We’re not going to get crabs here, are we?” he whispered to her.
The room was all wrong. It had a private bathroom and an adjoining living room with a sofa, and plastic fruit on the coffee table and a minifridge. But Polly was sure that if they lay down and closed their eyes, they could pretend they were in that salty room at the Flagship Hotel, everything mauve.
He sat down on the bedspread of pastel diamonds and patted the place next to him.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said. “You know me.”
“I do,” he said.
She sat down, afraid that he would touch her and afraid that he would not.
“Can you take off this tuxedo?” she said. She wanted to make him look like himself.
But when he stripped, it was even worse. He was wearing tight bicycle shorts. He had gleaming muscles everywhere, and when she commented on their newness, he didn’t understand. He smiled happily and said, “Thanks. I box now.”
“Are you going to undress?” he asked her. “You don’t have to.”
“Okay, but turn off the lights first.”
She thought the dark would blur his unknown edges and his familiar self would come to the surface. But it was almost six in the morning, and the dawn was drawing its fingers across the sky, and there was not enough dark. She could only bring herself to take off her pants and her cardigan. She got under the covers and they lay still, side by side, and something was coming in like a wave and her chest was in the swells. It was something she had tried to hide from herself for so very long, something horrifyingly, cruelly simple: it was not going to be like it was.
“What do we do now?” he said.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re shaking.”
He reached for her with his stranger’s hands, and she couldn’t help it. She flinched.
He scrambled out of the bed like he’d been burned.
“Where are you going? What’s wrong?” She followed him but he kept trying to get away. He bumped into the fridge.
“You recoiled, you winced,” he cried.
She tried to deny it, but it was hard to talk. He backed himself into the bathroom.
“Don’t close the door,” she wept. “Please, don’t close the door on me.” Finally she said, “I thought it was going to be like it was. I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“I don’t deserve anything from you, but if you don’t love me anymore, I can’t stand to hear you say it.”
“I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Forever.”
“But you don’t want me to touch you.”
She searched ardently for an answer.
“I wish I was still young, but I’m not,” he said.
“You’re still you.”
“Oh.” The air seeped out of him. He collapsed on the bathroom floor in a bedsheet, between the toilet and the sink.
“What did I say? What did I do?”
He dragged a towel from the counter and unfolded it at her feet. “Can you sit down?” When she did, he said, “I met Louisa in the hospital. She was a medical student.”
She put up her palm for him to stop. “I don’t want to know, don’t tell me.”
But Frank kept talking. “At first, it was because I wanted somebody, just a body. And I told her that it couldn’t ever be a love thing between her and me, because I was waiting for you. But she got pregnant, and we were in a war zone, and we had to leave. And when Felicia was born, it started to seem impossible that I could be the same person, the same guy who was with you and the guy who had this lovely baby. The memories of you and me, they must be someone else’s memories. A story someone told me. Nobody could have felt that way about you, and lost you, and carried on. I split in two. Do you understand what I mean?”
“No.”
“I could pretend to be him. But haven’t I already done enough wrong?”
“No. No. No.”
“Then kiss me.” He reached out his hands. She took them and rolled onto her knees and brought her face up to his and closed her eyes. The bathroom lights were the brightest lights on the planet. Someone upstairs was taking a shower and the pipes began to talk.
Polly inhaled. Smoke, mint, men’s soap. She took the deepest breath in the world. But it was true. That scent, Frank’s smell, the rain and the sweetness, was gone.
She opened her eyes.
“See,” he said. “You see.”
He hugged her, wrapping her in the sheet.
They went down to the street together. There was garbage everywhere: chestnut shells, shattered plates, Napoleon hats made out of newsprint.
He asked if he could walk her home.
“What do you remember?” she said.
A group of teenagers were galloping up and down the sidewalk, screaming, “It’s the apocalypse, motherfuckers!”
“Everything,” Frank said. “I remember you laughing, I remember the dress you were wearing that first day in the park. The diner by your house with the tabletop jukeboxes, the way you put your arm through mine whenever we walked. The car ferry in Texas, throwing pennies from the deck.”
She thought all those days had been lost, like beams of light at the end of their reach, scattering into darkness. But he had kept them safe after all.
He put her in a trishaw. He kissed her cold cheeks and they said, “Good-bye, good-bye.” But this time as she was driven away, she could look back. And they waved and they waved and they waved and they waved and they waved, until they were each completely out of sight.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
My agents, Karolina Sutton, Lucy Morris (queen of titles!), and Alexandra Machinist, pulled me out of the slush pile and into the light, and have worked indefatigably on my behalf ever since. To my editors, Cassie Browne at Quercus Books, Helen Smith and Lara Hinchberger at Viking Canada, and Tara Parsons at Touchstone Books: thank you for summiting the mountain with me; for pushing me up, and up, until we reached the peak.
Mat Johnson was this story’s first friend. His tough-guy exterior belies superheroic generosity and kindness, but nothing hides (or hides from) his insight. I will always be grateful. Thank you to the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, especially Robert Boswell and my classmates, whose seriousness, openness, and commitment to the grit and glamourlessness of hard work showed me what it takes to be a writer, and made me proud to be one. Thank you to Inprint Houston, without whose fellowships and prizes I never would have met these people who changed my life. Thank you to the VONA Fam, who kept finding me when I got lost.
I am immensely lucky to live in a country that invests s
o meaningfully in its artists. Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Council for your support, long before I showed any sign of being a safe bet.
Thank you to Margo Keirstead at Maple Leaf Furnishings, Sarah van Maaren at the City of Toronto Archives, and Monique Peterson, for patiently and passionately explaining to me the ins and outs of your professions.
My front line of early readers, sounding boards, ideas guys, and child-minders: Ryan Yao, Elisha Lim, Julia Gruson-Wood, and Kristin Wheatcroft (who each endured a thousand years of questioning), Brené Brown, May El-Abdallah, Tony Neale, Sharon English, Michelle Mariano, Alison Northcott, Anthony Van Pham, Angela Lee, Aja Gabel, Jameelah Lang, Rebecca Vogan, Max Arambulo, Meghan McClenaghan, Winnie Ng, Maureen O’Hara-Lim, and Vincent Lim. Your feedback, corrections, and help were invaluable, but thank you even more for your enthusiasm, interest, and company during the years of gestation.
Stephen King says, “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” To my family—my mother, my father, my sister, my husband, and my daughter—thank you for being my someones who believe.
A Touchstone Reading Group Guide
An Ocean of Minutes
Thea Lim
This reading group guide for An Ocean of Minutes includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Thea Lim. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
In 1981, a vicious strain of the flu virus has swept across America and the only treatment available costs more than many can afford. With the advent of time travel, there is the option of traveling to the future as a migrant worker, to pay for a loved one’s treatment. When Polly’s boyfriend Frank becomes sick, Polly is willing to do anything to save him, and agrees to travel to Texas in 1993 to work for his cure.
While Frank and Polly plan to meet each other, and pick up where they left off, when Polly arrives, Frank is nowhere to be found. Polly learns she has been rerouted to 1998, and finds a world drastically different from her own. With no friends or family, no money, and no citizen status, Polly is indentured by TimeRaiser, the company who recruited her, until she can pay off her debt. But Polly will do anything to find Frank and build the future they’d imagined, rather than the one she’s found.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. At the start of the novel, we join a 23-year-old Polly as she is about to make a massive sacrifice to save her boyfriend’s life. As the novel goes on, we know that Frank has a family with parents and siblings, but it is Polly who loses 12 years of her life to save him. At what stage does someone else’s life become our responsibility? To what lengths are we expected, explicitly or implicitly, to use self-sacrifice to help those we love? Is this expectation greater for men or women?
2. Frank manages to slip a photograph into Polly’s bra before she leaves, but upon finding it, Polly tears it up because she’s enraged that “Frank believed they needed props, aids, to remember each other.” Do you believe this is why Frank included the photograph? Did he already sense that they would lose each other? What other purpose can photographs serve? Why do you believe that photographs aren’t able to survive the time travel process in the novel?
3. Much of Polly’s appreciation of her time with Frank and her desperation to return to him stem from the loss of her mother. How does the death of a parent or loved one affect her perception of time and the future? Do you think she would still have volunteered to travel to the future to save Frank if her mother hadn’t died?
4. Baird’s character offers a counterpoint to Polly’s during her first few weeks in 1998, as he demonstrates what life might have been like had she not volunteered to sacrifice 12 years for Frank. Even though Polly and Frank do not end up together at the end of the novel, does Baird’s example prove that Polly still made the right decision? Was there any other decision that Polly could have made?
5. After Baird sets Polly up, Polly realizes that “she had lost the luxury of rage.” What does it mean to be able to have or express rage? Who in our society has that luxury? Are there other moments in the text when we see rage being enacted? What are the consequences?
6. TimeRaiser resembles many of the corporations in our world today. While it uses the technology of time travel to promote itself and gain power, it uses other techniques as well. What vulnerabilities of the people in the novel does TimeRaiser exploit for capital? What techniques does it use to do so? How much of this is dependent on technologies and how much is independent?
7. TimeRaiser’s mission and the structure of migrant labor in the piece mimic our present society and immigration. Despite the text taking place in an alternate future, many of the world’s prejudices and faults remain the same. What kind of things are universal throughout time? Can they ever change if human nature remains the same?
8. Once Polly is demoted to H-I status she notices more people mistake her for being Hispanic. Cookie comments that “you looked white until you went broke.” To what extent is Polly still an O-I worker, despite being given an H-I status? The text tells us that one way to acquire O-I status is to have experience in desired professions. Do you think it’s easier for some demographics than others to qualify for O-1 status?
9. When Polly asks Norberto what he’s imagining on page 211, he responds, “The same place. But a different time…I guess that makes it a different place.” To what extent is a place dependent on its time? Is it possible for a place, a person, or a relationship to remain the same after five years? Ten? Why or why not?
10. In the climactic scene between Polly and Norberto when he attacks her he claims, “I have no choice. If I do this, I’m free.” Later, Norberto feels guilty for his actions and so pays to free Polly from her commitment to TimeRaiser. What kind of action could really free Polly or Norberto from their situations? What actually defines autonomy? Is it possible for either of them to really be free? What is really constraining them?
11. While most of the novel is written in past tense, the memories of 1981 and before are written in the present tense. Why do you think the chronologically present-day events are written as having occurred in the past, while the flashbacks are portrayed as currently happening? What might it say about Frank and Polly’s relationship? About our relationships with those we love in general?
12. Polly and Frank spend a lot of their time discussing “next times”. But their trip to Washington D.C., where they acknowledge the limited time we all have, reveals their underlying understanding of how vulnerable these future imaginings are. What is so dazzling about the promise of a “next time”? Why do Polly and Frank continue to construct these futures, even after it’s clear they may not occur?
13. After finally finding her way back to Frank, Polly proclaims that, “Buffalo is gone.” Do you agree with this statement? What kind of loss is defined by lost time? When something has changed, to what extent is it “gone”? Can it ever be regained?
14. In the final pages of the novel, Polly comes to terms with the fact that what she and Frank had shared is over. This realization is tied to her realization that, “that scent, Frank’s smell, the rain and the sweetness, was gone.” When something, such as their relationship, ends, is it also gone? How does the novel’s understanding of alternative futures and timelines complicate this notion?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. When Polly prepares to travel to the future, she packs light, taking only a set of baseball cards. While they might increase in monetary value, her real motivation for bringing them is because “they have the synecdochical magic of a beloved’s beloved.” Ask everyone to bring one object that they would take with them to the future. Then, try to explain the ob
ject’s “thing biography”. Where did it come from? Who did it belong to? Why is it important to you now, and why would it be even more important in the future?
2. As Polly works for her freedom in the future America, she remembers key moments in her and Frank’s relationship: their first date, the time he rescued her mother’s furniture, her first night in Worcester, their trip to Washington D.C., etc. Make a list of your top three “snapshot” memories. Who shared them with you? Where (and when) did they take place? What are the little details about these moments that you remember most? Why do you think they mean so much to you?
3. After finding her way back to Buffalo, Polly is desperate to get her hands on photographs of the Buffalo she remembers from 1981. Have everyone bring in photographs of themselves or their hometowns from at least 12 years ago and discuss what’s changed. Some things will be obvious – the clothes, the hair – but some things may be more subtle. Are the restaurants you frequented over a decade ago still there? What have they become? What does that say about how the place and people who lived there have changed on a more foundational level?
A Conversation with Thea Lim
This novel skillfully engages with a myriad of themes, both timely and timeless. Was there a primary question or theme that you were interested in exploring at the outset? How did that grow or change?
The idea I started from was that very human thing, where we know that everyone and everything we love will eventually either die or leave us, and yet we love anyway. So, very cheerful stuff.
But I knew too that I wanted to write a plot-driven novel. I had to find a way to animate grief – which is static and not plot-driven at all – so it was a bit of a puzzler. As a joke, I came up with the idea of time travel, because someone who is bereaved is stuck in the past. What if I actually stuck a character in the past? Very quickly, sending characters to the past created all sorts of sticky paradoxes, which didn’t help me to tell my story. So I stuck my character in the future. That’s when things came together: it turned into a time travel novel about the passage of time itself – its terrible, relentless self. That’s not to say that from there, everything was easy (it was not, it was awful) but at least I knew where I was going.