Encompassing Reality

by Richard Lord

  “I have to save all of my daughters!” Adam began to remove himself from her embrace even though she was trying hard to hold him tight.

  “Adam, you don’t have any daughters.” Tomorrow looked confused and afraid that she may have misjudged him. Perhaps he truly was as mad as a hatter.

  Adam looked directly back into her eyes, “Hatters went mad because of the mercury that was used in their production.” He stopped at the sight of her looking at him with her hand over her mouth in shock.

  “How did you know what I was thinking?” Tomorrow asked.

  “What? I haven’t said anything.” Adam gazed at Tomorrow.

  “Are we?” Tomorrow gestured with her finger to his head and her own and then mouth to mouth.

  “Yeah, it seems that way. I have to go and save my daughters.” Adam replied.

  “You already said that, but you don’t have any daughters, Adam!” Tomorrow responded.

  “I didn’t say that. I’m telling you now.” He turned his head from her and then back to her. “I don’t have any children. That’s odd. Will you come with me?” Adam asked.

  “Where are we going?” Tomorrow asked. Then suddenly they were both in a river.

  “Hold on to me.” Adam considered his own words rattled in his mind. He looked at Tomorrow to be sure she was real and that he wasn’t dreaming.

  Tomorrow looked at him. “I taste sand. Adam, this isn’t my bed, please tell me what’s going on!”

  Adam pulled her to the shore and they lay under the trees for some time while he thought how to answer that. Tomorrow was silent trying to make sense of it herself.

  “This is where I began. I was never born. Being with you. My Alpha and my Omega.”

  “I would say you’re insane, but nothing explains what is going on.” Tomorrow then puts her hand to her mouth realizing she didn’t say those words.

  “Yeah, well if you think that’s weird, look at those two over there?” Adam comments on the couple working diligently at procreating with no lack of fun in their eyes.

  “Adam, I’ve looked in the mirror while we have been, umm, baby making. That’s us!”

  “Yeah, this is strange. Not to mention there are no payphones here, so I can’t call out for the day and you can’t either.” Adam mentions.

  “We’re pretty sexy together!” Tomorrow giggles.

  “Name someplace, I want to try something.” Adam replies.

  “Can I watch us before you get all scientific?” Tomorrow requests. “You definitely look older and I look younger!”

  Adam narrows his eyes at her and then he feels the heat on his back. He looks out as he sees himself hovering over Tomorrow pointing from a rise at two people on a cliff below whom are watching a hawk. He feels Tomorrow move.

  “Wow, and we were just starting to get interesting!” Tomorrow comments and then shades her eyes. “Seriously, am I dreaming?” She puts his hand on her rear end and says, “Pinch me!”

  “I can’t, I’m pinching myself. I am not sure what’s happening, but it’s happening.” Adam replies as he points to what he is watching.

  “Oooo, I look even younger! You still look old.” She smiles at him and reaches up to kiss him.

  “Yeah, whatever. Why are we seeing this? How can we be here? I don’t know about you, but I keep reaching for the pillow in your bed that should be right about there, but it’s not.” Adam looks very flustered at the fact that Tomorrow is taking the situation in stride. He is keenly aware this is not normal and also aware it doesn’t make sense to either one of them.

  “Well, from what I can see, those two are not as ‘friendly’ with each other as we are, or were by the river. You seem very serious and you are pointing at two guys. One of them is trying to trick the other one. I can’t tell which.” Tomorrow points to the sun. “It’s hot, this is dusty and disgusting. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to go back to sleep and wake up from this.”

  “I know that gesture. I’m considering something about the two people they are watching. I’m trying to explain it to you, but you don’t understand.” Adam explains, “I’m telling you and asking you.” Adam watches himself then he concludes, “One of those two must die and I have to do it. There is something familiar about them to him and to me.” He stops and looks at Tomorrow, “This me.”

  Tomorrow rolls her eyes at him and continues to pretend she is still in bed.

  “He’s signaling me. He knows I am here!” Adam yells.

  “Good. I suspect he’s telling you to go back to sleep.” Tomorrow reaches for his arm to pull him towards her.

  “Tomorrow, that really is me! I’m using a hand code I made up when I was young.” Adam’s heart beings to race as he repeats to Tomorrow what he is seeing, “Stay low. Which one? Children. Important.” He breathes out as he looks at Tomorrow, “What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know, Adam. Maybe he wants to know the lottery numbers to pick.” She then sits up. “We really are here, aren’t we?”

  “Do you think he did it? I mean the older me?” Adam asks.

  “I think we have both lost our minds and that were just experiencing the best afterglow of all time. Well, given the environment, maybe the worst. I don’t know.”

  “They are both family. They both end up creating beautiful societies. They both will unintentionally lead to the death of your daughters.” The voice is clear to both of them.

  Tomorrow sits up. “What the hell?”

  “I don’t know. He’s trying to get me to decide which one to kill. What if I kill him?” Adam asks Tomorrow.

  “Have you ever even been in a fight, Adam? Plus he’s kind of far away. Can we just get out of here?” Tomorrow is clearly spooked.

  “I don’t even know how we got here!” Adam’s heart begins to race and then they are behind themselves. Adam moves quickly and grabs himself by the neck and begins struggling to either choke himself or break the neck of the older looking version of himself. He looks down and sees that Tomorrow has already put the younger version of herself down using a far more efficient method.

  She looks at Adam and he hears her think, “She won’t remember a thing.”

  Then they both hear a voice, “Adam, it is him, not you. Leave him alive. You can’t be the one. You are first.”

  Tomorrow looks up at Adam and thinks to him, “What does heyou mean?”

  Adam shrugs. He hears two more voices, “Bob and Tomorrow will finish. You and Tomorrow will begin with Joy.”

  Tomorrow grabs Adam’s arm. “Let him go!” Then she nods and says, “I understand. I have to go with him. I love you, Adam. Please take care of me.” She gestures to herself on the ground.

  He sees the hand signal from both of the figures on the lower cliff, across the divide as he lets his grasp release. The man who looks like him grabs the woman who asked to bear his child and they both vanish. Adam sits as his mind is flooded with millions of memories. Then he wakes Tomorrow.

  She sits up and looks at him, but quickly becomes dizzy with all of the thoughts in his head as she slowly catches up to him. Then Adam reaches out and grabs her arm and they arrive in a bombed out home in the dessert to hear a baby crying.

  “Wow. That’s you! Come on!” Tomorrow urges him to move with her as she pulls the child from the niche he was able to survive in. “You were kind of cute, Adam!”

  Adam, says, “I still am.” Renfield grabs Tomorrow by the arm again and says, “Tandem, I know where, just follow.”

  CHAPTER 36

  “Time is confusing until you’ve had time.” -- from the Book of Sara

  “Well we’ve raised you and sent you off to school, little boy.” Tomorrow laughs at her husband as she watches him sit on the barstool in their quaint, but small kitchen.

  “Not very funny, Sara.” Renfield comments.

  “Neither was you keeping all of this from me, but I understand why.” Sara responds. “I suppose it was true. You didn’t know the name I was using, but you did know
the name I had, before you…” Sara watches her husband’s eyes, then asks, “So you had no idea we adopted you, even after you saw me and stranger yet, even yourself, day in and day out?” Tomorrow asked.

  “I don’t think I liked us very much when I was young. I doubt I would have considered it.” Renfield watches Stanley play.

  “It’s odd. I don’t mind as much as you seem to. It makes sense to me now. Brady wasis Johnson’s superior. Brady was dating Christina. Johnson was angry and hated you. Illogical, but he took it out on you since he couldn’t openly despise Brady. He found out what you were, knew about what we were doing and searched out someone who could isolate the genes for himself. That’s why he had two sons of his own. He sent them to meet your daughters to mix your bloodline with his own, so he could have a legacy of his own. The boys didn’t know his plans. All they knew was they had to introduce themselves. I think they may have even been briefly in love with them. An insane scenario all the way around, but it doesn’t sound like this Johnson guy wasn’t wrapped too tight. I think he knew it and that made him more angry. So he sent them to remove your daughters while he considered another plan. Which was to steal Stanley and raise him as his third son, after his other two were killed, by you and your daughters. We had Illumna, we have Joy and now we have Stanley. We just have to keep this Johnson guy away from him.” Sara pauses for a breath.

  “Something like that.” Renfield sits thinking.

  “I want to save my daughter, help you save Solstice, keep Joy safe and I want to know the one thing we don’t.” Sara says.

  “The me we just sent off doesn’t keep track of Stanley. I don’t know how we change any of it.” Renfield walks over and picks up his son and whispers in his ear, “Strange, but thanks for your mother.” Then he turns to Sara. “None of this is creepy to you?”

  “I and you are here and exist because of the events. We have children because of the events. We didn’t control the events. I love you and I love my children. I know you love them and Solstice. So get over the events and let’s figure out what we can do and stop obsessing on the events.” Tomorrow grins and says, although I suppose we have to if we are to save them. So, Stanley is the unknown.”

  “Was.” Renfield replies. “I think I just messed up.”

  “What do you mean?” Sara asks.

  “I just thanked him for you being in my life. I heard him lock the sincerity of that statement away and mark it as important. Which it is, but...” Renfield looks at Sara. “Every time I think I have made a change, it’s all still the same, only more complicated.”

  Tomorrow leaps up and says, “Wait, before I knew I was Sara, I…” Then she sits down again. “Then no Solstice, no Stanley, no me, no Illumna, no Persistence, no Brian, no Stephen, no you. So we don’t exist and never meet.”

  Renfield considers his wife’s thoughts, “Keep in mind; Brian and Persistence are centuries before us already. So that won’t work.” Renfield walks over to his wife and kisses her.

  “But Stephen doesn’t exist yet. Can’t you go back and explain it to Brian?”

  “Oh. Well see, I learned a few tricks.” He sees Sara look at him. “Well Bob did. He downloaded everything to me before he…”

  Sara looks away, but Adam can hear her thoughts. She doesn’t try to hide them. Then she says, “You planned all along to become him as he became you. Both of you did.”

  “We have the exact same brain. We could perfectly engram each others experiences without feeling they were not our own. Basically, we became each other again.” Renfield explains.

  “No. Brian and Phillip both said you were the first, which is why you couldn’t die. So you are not interchangeable. So you are missing something.” Tomorrow points out.

  “Do you love me exactly like you loved Bob?” Renfield asks.

  “Yes. I fell in love with you too, remember?” Sara understands his line of reasoning, but she really can’t tell much difference between the two of them. Then she announces, “You’re pushier!”

  “I am?” Renfield asks.

  “Much!” Sara firmly says as she senses someone else present and turns with tears welling in her eyes to see their daughter, very grown.

  “She’s right, Dad. You are pushier than Bob.” Joy reaches for a peach.

  “Welcome home, dear. Technically Bob’s your Dad. Why don’t you help yourself to a peach?” Renfield says while gesturing to the peach she has already taken a bite out of.

  “See what she means? Also, I think you are wrong. Pretty sure you’re my Dad, don’t’ worry, I’m not hitting you up for money. Actually, yeah, I am.” Joy leans back on the kitchen counter and holds out her hand while taking another bite of the peach.

  “Were you invited, Joy?” Sara asks. Then she walks over to Joy and kisses her on her forehead and pushes back her hair to look at her face. “When I get time, I’ll drop in on you and your husband one day! Speaking of which, any recent romances?”

  Joy raises her eyes over her peach to look at her mother. She pauses mid-bite. Then her eyes move to her left as she looks at Renfield.

  Renfield stands and yells out, “Stanley, let’s go get some air!” Then he turns to Tomorrow and Joy and says, “Girl talk. We’re going to go have guy talk.” As Adam walks into the other room he makes a “Hrmph” sound triumphantly as Stanley begins explaining what he is doing.

  Joy and Sara laugh at the look on his face, but Joy speaks up, “I’ve thought of something, Dad.”

  Renfield stops cold and pivots on his right heel, turns and walks back towards the kitchen to look at her. “Go on. By the way, you look marvelous. I clearly have good genes.”

  “Well, I’ve been talking to Illumna, trying to get to know my sister a bit better.” Joy looks at her mother oddly unable to shake the facts of their odd bloodline.

  “When?” Renfield asks.

  “Multiple when’s, Dad. She knows I’m her sister, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve seen Solstice too. Solstice doesn’t recognize me. It’s not like I am around much when she visits.” Joy reaches for another peach and finds there are only apples left. She takes one rubs it in her shirt and drops it in her pocket. Then she looks up at Renfield, “It’s for Solstice. She likes apples.”

  Renfield looks wistful but then he looks at Joy and says, “Okay. He sucks in air trying not to lose himself to thought about Solstice. He does note Joy mentioned, when she visits, so he knows the timeframe. He finds it odd neither Solstice or Illumna ever mentioned her to him. He steels his jaw and then says, “Get to your point, Joy.”

  “Brady is Illumna’s grandfather, as you know.” Joy comments while finding a grape at the bottom of the fruit basket and grabbing at it.

  “Yeah, Joy, I get it. Christina had more of an appetite than even you, but for different things. If it’s not clear, I’d prefer not to talk about it with either of you.” Renfield’s jaw clenches harder.

  “Actually, Dad, I don’t think she did. I think she loved you as much as she said she did. I think Johnson pulled a dirty trick. I’ll explain later, but he kind of used Christina’s love for you against her and you.” Joy peered into the fruit basket and turned her nose up at the orange.

  “You can have the banana.” Renfield said, while trying to remain patient.

  Joy rose and went to inspect the refrigerator. Digging around she found the remnants of a steak, some habanero sauce and some minced avocado. She poured the hot sauce on the steak, smeared the avocado on it and then began chewing it without heating it.

  Sara narrowed her eyes at Adam. “She’s more and more like you every day.”

  Renfield ignored the comment and then looked at Joy for answers, “How so?”

  Sara rolls her eyes at Adam.

  Joy went on, “Christina was with Brady, but she was hoping to one day rectify things with you. So she insisted he use, protection. She didn’t want to become pregnant because she was hoping for you, but then she found out about Sara. That was Johnson’s doing. He really hates both of you a
lot. I’m still trying to figure that out.” She opened the refrigerator again to scrounge. “Later, he took one of your ‘versions’ of Christina in time, she was captured and…”

  Sara spoke up, “Then how was I born both here and there as two different people?”

  “I said one of Christina’s versions. I haven’t figured out how you have Tomorrow’s life and Sara’s in your head.” Joy found a few hard boiled eggs and began making short work of them.

  Tomorrow looked at Renfield. Renfield nodded. “We do. Illumna could move into previous versions of herself. Clearly it was a trait passed down. Sara didn’t know she could, when she did was during the Stephen thing. We…never mind, it’s complicated. Go on, Joy.”

  Joy stopped chewing and looked at her parents then she held up a finger. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  Renfield looked at Sara again as he heard the voice behind him. “Are we going to go do something? You said we were.” Renfield turned and looked down at Stanley.

  Renfield looked up at Joy who responded, “Uh, no! I may be looking for a man, but I was thinking of someone more my age.” She chuckled to herself.

  Renfield narrowed his eyes and said, “If you keep eating like that you’re going to lose your figure long before you find someone interested.”

  “Adam! That’s a cruel statement!” Sara was up and at Stanley’s side in a moment.

  “Mom, calm down, he knows how fast it burns off when we click time.” Joy looked down at Stanley. “Want to go on a roller coaster?”

  “Not really.” Stanley replies in thought alone.

  Hearing his thoughts Joy says, “Okay, but I’m not too good at video games. You’ll have to teach me. Want some grapes first?”

  “Sure!” Stanley’s face brightens as Joy moves towards him and grabs his small hand. As they vanish, Sara looks at Adam, who holds a finger to his lips and points to Joy grabbing a bowl to put the bunch of grapes in.