Kev

by Mark A Labbe

  “I know, but I don’t really get it.”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “Only enough time for this,” she said, giving me a kiss and then disappearing.

  I returned to Uncle Joe’s and we spent the rest of the day on the airstrip he had built on one of his fields, flying remote controlled airplanes.

  “Uncle Joe, can we go to a jewelry store today?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to get a ring for the girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “The girl in the park,” I said. I hadn’t told Uncle Joe about the girl.

  “Okay. We can do that. What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”

  Uncle Joe laughed, “Girls are difficult creatures.”

  “I know.”

  On my last day in Macon, the girl appeared at the park. She apologized for going missing, claiming she had trouble finding me, which struck me as odd although I didn’t question it.

  “I didn’t think you were coming back,” I said. I had spent every day at the park waiting for her, only leaving when Uncle Joe came to get me.

  “Don’t worry, Kev. Even if you’re lost, I’ll find you, although you can be hard to find sometimes.”

  “I have something for you,” I said, reaching inside my pocket and pulling out a silver ring with a single, small amethyst. I knelt down and put it on her finger, seeing tears come to her eyes. She dropped down to her knees and kissed me.

  “I love you, Kev. Some day you will truly understand that. I hope it’s soon, dummy,” she said, punching me on the shoulder. “You’re it.” She jumped up and sped off into the park.

  We spent the day chasing each other in the park, laughing and screaming. I remember everything now, but I remember that day more clearly than any other. At the time, I knew few things, but I knew I loved her more than anything else.

  Finally, we stopped to catch our breath. I knew it was time to leave, but didn’t know how to end things.

  “You could visit me in Connecticut, you know,” I said.

  She paused before saying, “We’ll see. You’ll probably forget me anyway.”

  “I’ll never forget you,” I said.

  “Kev, you’ve forgotten me countless times. You will forget me.”

  I swore I wouldn’t forget her, but had already forgotten her by the time I reached my aunt’s house in Connecticut.

  While I had been away, Aunt Helen arranged for me to get into Baker, the private school Clive would be attending in the fall, the school I had begged to attend. Before Baker would accept me I had to go through a series of tests, so my aunt drove me to the school where I spent several hours being interviewed and tested. The next day, the school accepted me, noting that I had scored higher on my tests than any other student in their history. In fact, I had perfect scores.

  I moved into my dormitory a week later.

  For whatever reason, I remembered Clive, and counted myself lucky when I found out I would be rooming with him.

  Clive and I had the same classes and always sat next to each other. He liked to pass notes to me in class, notes that detailed all of the challenges I would face on The Show. Some of them were ridiculous, like “survive in the vacuum of space,” and “battle Excretorian ants,” but others I knew were challenges I would really face, like, “keep Clive from suffocating you,” and “jump out of a two-story window.”

  I survived his challenges, always harmed, but never permanently injured, and Clive always said things like, “You just don’t get it,” and “Are you terminally stupid?”

  Every now and then, I remembered a girl, a nameless girl, who may or may not have been real. She was in my dreams, both waking and asleep. I heard her voice. Sometimes, I felt her kiss.

  Toward the end of the school year, my aunt agreed to have Clive stay with us for the summer, so Clive and I made our plans, Clive focusing on creating challenges for The Show, and me focusing on finding other things we could do. I told him about my fort, the one thing I truly remembered from my past life.

  A new family had moved into my old house. They had no children, but despite that, had not taken down the fort, knowing my story and happy to let me play there.

  Summer came and Clive and I went to my aunt’s house. We spent most of our time playing in the fort. Clive helped me fix it up a bit, and we brought some toys over. Clive said having just a journal and some pens would be too boring.

  I knew the journal was mine, but I never peeked inside. If I had, I would have learned quite a bit about myself. If I had, I would have remembered the voice. I would have remembered my parents, and I would have remembered the girl and Clive. But, open it I did not.

  “New challenge,” said Clive.

  “What? What are you talking about?” I said, having completely forgotten about The Show.

  “See that tree?” said Clive, pointing to a tall pine tree. “You have to climb up all the way to the top.”

  “You’re going to regret this,” said the voice. I looked around, wondering if someone else was near. “I’m in your head, dummy.”

  “Who is this?” I said.

  “What?” said Clive.

  “Not you,” I said to Clive.

  “You don’t need to speak out loud,” said the voice. “Just think. Anyway, don’t climb the tree.”

  “Why not?” I thought, wondering if I had gone mad.

  “Trust me. You don’t want to do it.”

  “Well, are you going to climb or what?” said Clive.

  “One second,” I said to Clive.

  “Who are you?” I thought.

  “I’m you, you moron. Don’t you remember?”

  “No. What are you doing inside my head?”

  “I am saving you from a world of pain,” said the voice.

  “Kev, climb the tree,” said Clive.

  “What are you talking about?” I thought.

  The voice didn’t answer. I turned to Clive, forgetting about the voice, and said, “What do I get if I win?”

  “Your life. Anyway, you only win a prize if you win all the challenges,” said Clive.

  “How many challenges are there?” I said, wondering what kind of game we were playing.

  “An infinite number,” said Clive. “Climb.”

  I made it about two thirds of the way up the tree and stopped. The branches were much thinner at that height and I didn’t think they would hold my weight. “I can’t go up any higher,” I said.

  “Yeah, you can. Anyway, if you don’t make it to the top you lose.”

  “What if I lose?”

  “You die.”

  “Funny.”

  “I’m not kidding,” said Clive.

  I moved up a few branches and stopped again after I heard a branch crack. “Seriously, I’m going to fall,” I said.

  “Keep going,” said Clive.

  I made it up another two branches before the branch I stood on snapped, sending me falling to the ground, my body slamming against branches as I fell. I hit the ground and screamed. I could see my thighbone poking out of my pant leg. Moments, later, my leg returned to normal, but there was a bloody hole in my pants. How many pieces of clothing had I destroyed while playing The Show?

  “What just happened?” I said.

  “You lost,” said Clive, coming behind me and putting me into a chokehold. I couldn’t break free and soon blacked out, saw a flash of light and found myself on the ground, Clive standing over me.

  “What just happened?” I said.

  “You tell me,” said Clive. “Are you ready for the next challenge?”

  “How about I give you a challenge,” I said, the memory of falling and being choked by Clive still in my mind but fading fast.

  “What challenge?” said Clive.

  “How about we play let’s drown Clive in the stream?”

  Clive laughed harder than I had ever heard him laugh before. When he stopped, he wiped his eyes and said, “Won’t work.”
>
  Clive sometimes wrote in my journal, although he never would tell me what he wrote, and I never read any of it. I now know why, but at the time I just thought Clive’s thoughts were better left to Clive.

  Later that summer, Uncle Joe flew up and brought Clive and me down to Macon for a couple of weeks. Uncle Joe’s model airplane collection fascinated Clive. Getting to fly some of those model airplanes on Uncle Joe’s airstrip blew his mind. When we weren’t flying planes, Clive and I went to the park, where we would play The Show, the show I only sometimes remembered playing in the past. In a five-day period, I broke my arm three times, punctured an eye, almost had my ear cut off, and fractured several ribs, all injuries that quickly healed.

  You might ask why I didn’t question any of this. At the time, I didn’t know it was something I should question. Throughout my life, all of my injuries had always healed in a matter of seconds. I had never had any serious injuries while around my family or friends (other than Clive), so nobody noticed, and I never thought much of it. Of course, I knew in some vague way that other kids were not like me, but I never really saw anyone other than my parents get seriously injured, and I didn’t remember that. So, to me, the healing didn’t seem abnormal or unnatural.

  On our sixth day with Uncle Joe, while at the park, the girl appeared as I was picking myself up off the ground after jumping off the top of the fort for at least the tenth time that day, all a part of The Show.

  “Hey, dummies,” she said.

  Clive looked closely at the girl, a strange look in his eyes, and said, “Who are you?”

  “I don’t think I know you well enough to tell you that,” she said.

  “I’m Kev,” I said, dusting off my jeans. “This is Clive.”

  “I know who you are, Kev, you doofus,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t remember,” she said.

  “Remember what?” I said.

  “Me.” She held out her hand, showing me her ring. “Do you remember that?”

  The ring looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Not sure,” I said.

  “You gave it to me,” she said.

  “Kev has a girlfriend,” shouted Clive.

  “I do not,” I said.

  “I’m his wife, Clive,” said the girl.

  “Excuse me,” said Clive, the strange look in his eyes now transformed into something else, understanding. “Where’s your ring, Kev?”

  I looked at my bare hands. “I don’t know.”

  The girl came over to me and gave me a kiss, and Clive, in his ever-cheerful way, sung, “Kev and the girl, sitting in a tree, k i s s i n g, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.”

  “Shut up,” I said, annoyed. I knew that I had a tendency to forget things, and was certain that I knew this girl, but for the life of me couldn’t remember her name. “I’m sorry I forgot you. I forget a lot of people.”

  “That’s okay, Kev. You’ll remember eventually. So, what are you guys playing?”

  “We’re playing The Show. Kev is the contestant. Do you want to play? You can be a contestant too,” said Clive, a wicked grin on his face.

  “You don’t want to be on The Show,” I said.

  “I’m sure I don’t. Why don’t we do something else?” said the girl.

  “Like what?” said Clive.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere?” said the girl.

  Clive had a funny look on his face, like he knew what was coming, and I almost asked him what he was thinking, but the girl cut in with, “Why don’t we go to Pooter Gorth?”

  “What kind of place is that?” said Clive, innocently enough, but with a tone that hinted he already knew.

  “The kind of place where you have fun,” said the girl. “Do you want to fly?”

  “Like up in a plane?” I said, suddenly quite interested.

  “No, like up in the air without a plane,” said the girl.

  A distortion in space and time preceded our appearance in the middle of a grassy park, a park surrounded by low, gray buildings and things that looked like trees, but were not, that were, in fact, sentient beings called palents, lovely creatures that hardly ever did anything unless roused, in which case, they could be quite lively, although at this time they were not terribly interested in activity of any sort, happy to observe the three children who had come to fly.

  “This looks interesting, doesn’t it, Kev?” said Clive.

  “Follow me,” said the girl, leading us to a small building on the edge of the park. On the side of the building I saw a shelf and on the shelf I saw several small metal disks. The girl picked one up and instructed us to each take one and put them in our pockets.

  “Where are we?” I said, having forgotten that we were on Pooter Gorth.

  “Pooter Gorth,” said the girl. “I already told you that.”

  “Yeah, but where is that?” said Clive, now with an almost leading tone.

  “About a thousand light-years from Earth,” said the girl, shooting Clive a dark look.

  “So, we’re on another planet?” I said.

  “Yup,” she said.

  “Kev, do you think she’s an alien?” said Clive, laughing.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I’m not an alien, you moron. Now, all you have to do is think of flying, like this.” The girl rose into the air, moving slowly away from us. I stared at her, utterly amazed.

  Moments later, Clive floated up into the sky, picking up speed. He let out a hoot and cried, “What are you waiting for, Kev? An invitation?”

  “Yeah, what are you waiting for?” said the voice.

  “Who are you?” I thought.

  “I am you, dummy.”

  I lifted off the ground and chased after Clive and the girl.

  “How do you land?” I called out after about an hour of zipping through the sky, now at least a thousand feet in the air and a little uncomfortable.

  “Carefully,” called out the girl. “Think of landing slowly or you’ll hurt yourself.”

  Clive floated to the ground, followed by the girl and then me.

  “Holy crap,” laughed Clive. “Are you sure you’re not an alien?”

  “Pretty sure,” said the girl, now clearly annoyed with Clive.

  “What else can we do?” said Clive, ignoring the girl’s tone.

  “Where else can we go?” I said.

  “Well, we could go to Nerux. Zero gravity. Tons of fun. It’s another playground,” said the girl.

  “Let’s go,” said Clive.

  We appeared in a large space station, in a large chamber with a variety of floating objects of different shapes, sizes and colors, drifting in space, surrounded by aliens that I guessed were children, judging by their sizes.

  “Do you think this is a dream, Kev?” said Clive.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s odd that we would be having a dream together?”

  “You’re not dreaming, Kev,” said the girl, pushing off of a rotating cube toward us, bumping into me and then reaching out and giving a Clive a push. Clive drifted over to a red sphere about the size of a basketball and held on. The girl and I drifted over to a wall, and then she pushed off heading for a star shaped object. I attempted to follow her, but found myself floating toward a stationary, green cylinder. As I neared it, I reached out and grabbed it, stopping myself.

  “What is this place?” I said.

  “It’s a space station orbiting Neta Nexus Nine,” said the girl. Neta Nexus Nine sounded familiar.

  “What’s the planet like?” said Clive. “Maybe we can go there some time if it isn’t ruled by an evil dictator or something.”

  “Maybe you should go down there and find out for us, Clive,” said the girl.

  I had been looking at the girl, a memory coming back to me. I knew who she was and I knew how I felt about her. I remembered giving her the ring. If there was anything more to remember, it was, at least for the mome
nt, lost.

  We played a game of zero gravity tag, a difficult game for me, much less so for the girl and Clive. Following that we returned to the park in Macon, me in a dream-like state.

  “Where else can we go?” I said, filled with excitement.

  “I don’t know,” said the girl. “Eventide, Blathus, Keek Snit, a bunch of places,” said the girl, looking quite hard at Clive, clearly deciding something.

  “I want to travel the way you do,” I said.

  “You can, dummy,” said the girl, turning away from Clive.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You just don’t remember.”

  I remembered her telling me that I didn’t remember some things on some other world, but not what, and wondered if that was a false memory.

  “Can, I travel like you?” said Clive, a silly grin on his face.

  “I would think you would know the answer to that question already, Clive,” said the girl.

  There was a tone in her words, something that made me feel like she knew something about Clive but was holding back from saying anything direct.

  “I would also think I would know if I could,” said Clive. “Who knows? Maybe I can.”

  “I have to go now,” she said, ignoring Clive, taking my hand in hers.

  “When will you be back?” I said.

  “Maybe not for a while. We’ll see.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, feeling my heart sink.

  “Don’t worry, Kev. I’ll find you. I always do,” she said, and with that she disappeared.

  “She is definitely and alien,” said Clive. “Dude, you have an alien wife.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that,” I said.

  The girl didn’t return to the park that summer, or in any of the six following summers, but I remembered her. Many times, I cried thinking about her, praying that she would come back.

  Seven years after that day, I visited Uncle Joe again, alone this time. I had just graduated from high school, co-valedictorian of my class. Clive and I shared that title. I spent a month with my uncle, visiting the park every day. On my last day there, she returned, transformed into something words will never describe.

  “You’ve grown,” she said.