by Unknown
We were informed there probably would be no need for chemo and only a few radiation treatments. Wow, what a relief! It looks like everything was going to be alright. Karen and I thought this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
There you go thinking again, Tom.
Just as another precaution, her cancer doctor ordered a new test called an Oncotype DX procedure. It’s performed on the removed tumor and checks the percentage of chance the cancer would reoccur. The doctor indicated he was 90 percent sure there wouldn’t be a problem.
Well, guess what? The doctors are not always right. The test showed a 95 percent chance that her cancer would resurface again within five years. They recommended four chemo sessions (one every three weeks), then seven weeks of radiation treatments. During this whole process, we had been given good news only to find out bad news. Talk about a roller coaster ride.
I’d heard about chemo treatments, and I was devastated to know she was going to have to go through all the side-effects. The doctors told us she would lose her hair, so she decided to shave her head rather than watch it fall out over time. Her son and I decided to shave ours as well to show our support. One for all, all for one.
The support and help we received from family and friends were magnificent. Their many hugs and prayers were greatly appreciated. All this certainly helped Karen endure and maintain a positive attitude through all the treatments. She completed her chemo and radiation treatments. We can now only hope and pray all the treatments work, and she will stay healthy.
P.S. Praise God. The treatments were successful, and she is now cancer free going on six years.
*****
At the ripe old age of 67, to help celebrate my birthday, I climbed aboard a mechanical bull—implants and all. Karen had a fit. But I rode that sucker ‘til the end without falling off. After the ride, I was feeling pretty macho until I overheard the operator tell Karen she needn’t have worried, ’cause he had it in ’Grandpa Mode.’
*****
And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain, my friends. I’ll say it clear, I’ve stated my case, of which I’m certain. I’ve lived a life that’s full; I traveled each and every highway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way. Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.
Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew. I’ve loved, I've laughed, and cried. I’ve had my fill, my share of losing. And now as tears subside, I find it all so amusing, to think I did all that. For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself then he has naught. Let the record show, I took the blows and did it…my way!
HOLY COW! Have you noticed the time? My assorted box of chocolates is about empty. Do you realize we have gone through 37 years in just a couple of hours’ time?
As you have witnessed, I didn’t do everything my way. I have a few regrets. And yes, sometimes I did bite off more than I could chew and stuck my foot in my mouth a few times too many.
I know sometimes I may have come across as being insincere or a ‘snot,’ as one of my sisters claimed. Or ‘cruel’, as sometimes my brother would say.
I believe a person reaps what they sow. I’ve tried living my life honestly and with integrity, although I was not always successful.
But I’ve always felt it best to speak the truth, even if it might hurt because I feel lies hurt much more. You got what you saw. I have no problems whatsoever looking into a mirror. Although I might have to hire a Ghostbuster, ’cause I’m convinced my house is haunted. It seems every time I look into a mirror, some ‘old fart’ comes and stands in front of me.
*****
It’s only been a few years since I melted the memory blocks and discovered the revelation that I was Tom’s clone.
Since then, I have had premonitions of my original, Tom, through dreams. However, the last dream became a nightmare. Something wasn’t right with him. Our 73rd birthday had sprung upon us recently. Maybe becoming an ‘old fart’ could be the cause of his anxieties.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Recollection
This might be a good opportunity to refresh your memory how Tom-Tom came to be.
*****
In November of 1960, the Kid (aka Tom) experienced an unusual car accident, upon returning home one evening from the city dump, just outside the Golden Valley town of Clinton, Missouri.
Strange and unexplained events occurred that night as the Kid made his way back home. Events that would turn his world upside down and his underwear inside out. Never in his wildest dreams would he have expected to be abducted by his own grandson.
However, he wouldn’t discover this until many years later. Not even after his first wife claimed that they had been abducted by what she thought were aliens during their short marriage.
She had claimed her spirit persuaded her to become a vegetarian, fast, and abstain from sexual activity. This melted her memory blocks that had been implanted by her abductors. She claimed adopting the ascetic lifestyle unveiled the truth that had been buried in her subconscious. This helped expose some traumatic and terrifying abduction experiences.
Humans do try to categorize things and make sense of what we understand based on past experiences. Well, the Kid was no different. So, of course, he didn’t believe her claims. He suspected she had had either a fertile imagination or, perhaps, some loose marbles. After all, most folks think UFO and abduction tales to be science fiction stories, a hoax, or fairy tales. The Kid was mainly interested in getting his life back together again, after the devastating and heartbreaking divorce she forced upon him.
However, many years down the road, after retiring and writing his memoirs, it occurred to him that he may have had some mysterious phenomena buried within his subconscious. He began to wonder; what if the ex was right?
He was tormented to investigate the probability. Since he could stand to lose a few pounds and age had diminished his sex drive, he decided to give it a shot. So he adopted her ascetic lifestyle.
O-M-G. He discovered he was not who he thought he was. His exposed memories revealed that he was indeed abducted; not once, but twice. But it was not aliens who were doing the abductions.
Melting the memory blocks disclosed that he was a genetically engineered clone of the person he had thought he was, aka Thomas Hay. They were dead ringers, sharing the same age, memories, and personality, but living as separate entities. One entity was actually two; one a clone and one the original. The clone, Tom-Tom, as named by his creators, also discovered that he was just one of many who were cloned.
The clones and their originals had a mutual and special connection, much like twins are known to share, except on a much higher scale. Not only did they have extrasensory perception (ESP), they shared a deep emotional connection that sometimes produced an intense sense of empathy.
It was intimate enough to generate strong physical sensations, usually through dreams (or nightmares), even though they were in separate time quantum’s. Their parallel worlds became tangled and intermingled in the same dimension. It was a complicated relationship, to say the least.
Most humans, including Tom’s ex-wife, believed UFOs and their abductors to be extraterrestrial beings flying around in flying saucers. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. The shocking revelation revealed the abductors were actually mankind’s future descendants, traveling back to their past after conquering time travel. They were using their aircraft as time machines. This type of vessel led folks to believe they were alien spaceships from other worlds. Our future descendant’s desperate mission was to control the past to save their future.
Traveling into the future turned out to be a piece of cake. The big challenge was going back in time. They had to be especially careful not to change the past as it would disrupt the future. However, they didn’t foresee that changing the future might disrupt the past.
Our descendants did wonders to create a new world. They dev
eloped a perfect society that consisted: one race, one creed, and one government.
Through genetic engineering, humans had evolved and no longer physically resembled their ancestry. They became smaller in stature, with a pale grayish body. They had no hair, larger eyes, a smaller nose and mouth, and no noticeable ears. They had only three fingers and a thumb on each hand. They all wore the same type clothing made of a gray metallic cloth of very fine texture. They wore no jewelry or makeup.
Their manner, behavior, and personality were the same. It was difficult to distinguish one from another as well as their gender. The females did have smaller eyes and were an inch or so smaller in height. Their appearance was what led their ancestor’s to believe them to be alien beings of another world.
With everyone looking and dressing the same, hate and racial prejudice was eliminated. There were no more wars, diseases, crime, or pollution. No more need for lawyers, police, or doctors. All negative human flaws were eliminated. It was an ideal society, or so they thought.
They had no monetary system as there was no need to exchange money. All services and materials were provided and shared equally. Everyone’s career was based on specific abilities programmed during pregnancies.
Their cerebral capacity had expanded by 25 per cent, which lead to a vast leap in technology in a short amount of time.
Unfortunately, their evolution and technology caused some superfluous tribulations. Tribulations that could only be resolved by going back to their past. However, in their travels to the past, they encountered communication problems.
During their genetic evolution, humans had developed telepathic abilities. Unfortunately, this caused them to lose the functional use of their vocal cords. If you don’t use it, you lose it. They could no longer speak, which meant they could not communicate verbally with their primitive ancestors.
Tom had originally been abducted and given enhanced capabilities to help develop a communications device, to be used when the abductor’s made the first contact with their primeval past.
During the Kid’s first abduction and examination, he was determined to be an excellent candidate for other evolution tribulations; reproduction and cloning.
Consequently and unintentionally, the generations of genetic engineering had caused sterilization. The human race was in danger of joining many other species on Earth that had become extinct. They hadn’t been able to procreate for several decades. Therefore, no children had been born for several decades. The current generation would be the last of their kind. Our descendants were forced to develop a cloning curriculum because of the declining population.
Cloning humans from the past was supposed to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the clones were also found to be sterile. Surely, you say, technology could resolve the crises. After putting two and two together, they came up with a solution. However, it didn’t exactly equal the proper answer.
The solution involved the clones switching places with their originals. The originals’ couldn’t disappear from their time quantum, as it would alter the future. The originals’ picked were known not to have had more children and to have lived a normal life span.
After trading places, the originals would then procreate and help preserve the human race in the future. The clones would carry on with the originals life in the past. No one would know or suspect. Not even the clones who replaced their originals.
The clones were programmed with the originals personality and memories. They were given specific memory blocks to block the memory of their true identify. A tracking device was implanted, and they were sent back to the past to continue the originals’ lives. But, wouldn’t you know it, not everything always goes according to plan.
In 1978, Tom met his great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Monroe, who persuaded him to accompany him back to his time line of 2191. There Tom met his clone ‘brother’ Tom-Tom and after hearing their grandson’s generation’s predicament, they agreed to exchange places.
Tom-Tom was sent back to 1978 to continue Tom’s legacy. When we last heard of Tom, he was gallivanting around in the future on a quest to preserve the human race from extinction.
Since taking Tom’s place in 1978, Tom-Tom has spent the last 37 years not knowing or suspecting who he actually was. He thought he had been in touch with reality as a normal human being. Then he had to go and write his memoirs, which caused him to think about what Tom’s first wife had said about their abductions. This led him to adopt her ascetic lifestyle and eventually discovering his true identity.
In his previous story, Tom used songs to introduce and portray his life events, because songs jolted his memory of the people, places, and times of those events. In this story, Tom-Tom could actually be singing songs that reminisce of people, places, times, and events.
You are invited to sing along…
Don’t you feel it growin’, day by day? People gettin’ ready for the news…some are happy, some are sad. Oh, we got to let the music play.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Monroe Returns
The table has been set, and the appetizer has been devoured. Time to get to the main dish. Time to find out what my nightmare of Tom’s frantic dash through the wastelands was all about.
*****
The evening after the nightmare, I grabbed my fishing gear and headed out on the lake in my pontoon boat. Karen had a Women’s Club meeting that evening, so I was going it alone tonight. I needed a relaxing evening after that horrible nightmare.
I anchored in the middle of the lake, popped open a Millers ‘delight’, and tuned in the Cardinals baseball game on the radio. A couple of hours passed by and I hadn’t gotten one lousy bite, but the Cardinals had a two-run lead going into the last inning.
To the tune of When the Saints go Marching In, I started to sing: Oh, when the fish…come reelin’ in…oh, when the fish come reelin’ in…
But tonight, for some reason, the fish weren’t listening. I suppose they weren’t that impressed with the melody or couldn’t hear me. Most likely, they were just in a cranky mood.
Come on little fishes. Where you be? Maybe I should switch bait, I thought.
After all, you just have to outsmart them, right?
You never know what a catfish might be craving. Picky eaters they are. One night it could be a delicious fat juicy earthworm and the next it could be a smelly, old rotten chicken liver or a frozen hot dog. Usually, they take to the dogs, without any ketchup or mustard, mind you. They also don’t mind that they aren’t cooked.
The catfish seemed to bite best at night. Besides, I loved going out on the lake at night to watch the sky. It brought back memories of my good ole’ Navy days.
The night sky on the lake would sometimes put on the same magnificent shooting star displays as I had seen so often on the ocean. My thoughts of Monroe, my greatest of great grandsons, came to mind. I hadn’t seen him since he brought me back in 1978. He probably isn’t even aware that I had melted the memory blocks and now know who I really am and know of his existence.
What turned out to be a peaceful and clear evening suddenly became ruthless. To the west, I saw swirling monstrous black clouds developing. Lightening started to dance across the heavens. Muted rumbles of thunder followed.
One thousand and one, one thousand and two, I counted. An old folk’s tale told of God rolling his potatoes across the heavens which caused the thunder to roar. How many seconds it took from seeing the lightening to hearing the thunder would indicate the storm’s distance. A mile for each second. According to my calculation, the storm was about two miles out.
The thunder and lightning stirred my anxiety. The wind soon announced its swirling and spastic presence. All of a sudden, the glass-like surface of the lake became white caps. The boat started to rock and roll. An eerie feeling chilled my bones.
Kansas’ tedious weather was about to jump the border and wreak havoc on its rival neighbor. Some called it the Jayhawk revenge.
Shit, no fish tonight. So much for my relaxing
evening. I best be heading in, I thought.
Hurriedly, I reeled in my lines, stowed the fishing gear, chugged my fourth Millers ‘delight’, and sat down in the captain’s seat to start the motor.
It appeared that I might have waited a bit too long as the wind whipped my hat off my head in one swift movement. I watched as it disappeared into the darkness.
Darn, that was my favorite Cardinal hat too. Going to have to add that to my Christmas list.
Dad gum it, this storm was coming in faster than I had anticipated. I’d best haul ass, or I might be up a creek without a paddle. It was going to be a race to get back to my dock before the shit hit the fan.
When I turned the boat’s ignition key, all I heard was a ‘clunk.’ I turned it again and got the same result. Ah, come on man. The darn thing wouldn’t start. Of all times.
Before I could try a third time, a huge shadow blocked out the entire sky. The whole lake turned into a dark bottomless pit. I’d seen dark, but never this kind of dark. I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Even the coming storm disappeared.
At the same time, all the dogs on the lakeshore started to serenade their neighbors, and I couldn’t imagine it was from my singing. All around the boat fish started jumping out of the water. A flock of geese that had just swum by started to honk up a storm and took off like bats out of hell. It was turning into a real spooky night and Halloween wasn’t for another two weeks.
Whatever blocked out the sky and turned the night into blackness was gigantic. I’m talking really big.
“What the hell is going on,” I thought.
Then the pontoon boat began to vibrate. A tingling sensation enveloped my entire body.
“Here we go again,” I chattered.
Every single hair on my body started to dance the two-step. I knew what was happening, even before I heard Monroe’s voice reverberate in my mind.