Kev

by Mark A Labbe

  “So, you’re not going to tell me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Lovely. You’ve been a real help.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “Do you know where Clive is right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell me where he is?”

  “Hmm. I guess I wouldn’t be breaking the rules if I told you that. He is on Sigma Kappa Epsilon.”

  Sigma Kappa Epsilon, a planet some twenty billion light-years from Earth, was home to the universe’s largest fraternity, a fraternity with over ten billion members. I happened to be the president of that fraternity, a fraternity dedicated to the pursuit of alcohol related near death experiences.

  “Where is he on the planet? Also, does he have the sphere with him?”

  “He is in the pledge torture chamber in Keg Stand district. You remember that, right?” said Bri.

  “What about the sphere?”

  “I guess you’ll just have to find out.”

  “Gee, thanks. You’re officially off my Christmas list.”

  “Not nice, Kev. I didn’t make the rules.”

  “Yeah, well, I am changing the rules,” I said before teleporting into the pledge torture chamber on Sigma Kappa Epsilon.

  You might ask why I didn’t just write myself a long note detailing everything I knew about Clive and his desire to end all creation, instructing myself to find and hide the sphere, and then press the button on the black cube six times, thus eliminating Aputi’s nightmare from my mind. I think the answer is self-evident, but I will explain. I had a tremendous amount of knowledge that could help me prevail over Clive, knowledge that I was loathe to lose, and believed, although I risked allowing Clive to terminate everything, I would stand a better chance of defeating him if I kept that knowledge. Of course, I knew I could not let him near me if he was in possession of the sphere, and I intended to teleport away from him at the first sign of trouble. Although I feared he might have a way of capturing me, I believed that if he did, he probably would have captured me already, so I thought the risks were acceptable.

  I appeared in the torture chamber, finding Clive tormenting a group of naked pledges that were writhing around on the ground on a pile of chopped lettuce. I could smell salad dressing. Clive wore his best silly grin on his face.

  I looked around the room, seeing no sign of the sphere, and then said, “Clive, I’m going to hell. Why don’t you join me?” Then I teleported out of the chamber to a random spot on the planet, tapped my heels three times and said, “There’s no place like hell.” In the background, I could hear Bri laughing, that bastard.

  Hell

  I appeared at the top of a wooden fort in a small park in some unknown place, all of my memories gone.

  I examined my body, realizing I was a child. I had no knowledge of the past, no expectations for the future. I had no context in which to place anything I was sensing.

  I looked around, my gaze drifting out to the edge of the park, to a road, and then across the road to a field. Far away, in the field, I saw an old barn. I saw something that looked like a horned man wearing a red leotard, a man carrying a pitchfork, entering the barn. Soon after, I heard a scream, the scream of a girl.

  I climbed down from the top of the fort, and headed toward the barn, uncertain and a bit frightened, but determined to understand what was going on.

  Inside the barn, I found the man, a man with fake, plastic horns on his head. On the ground in front of him I saw a young girl, her body still.

  The man turned and looked at me, a wicked grin on his face. He disappeared.

  I rushed over to the girl and knelt down besides her, checking for signs of life. She was dead.

  I had seen her before, but did not know who she was. On one hand I saw a ring on her finger, a silver band with an amethyst. I knew that ring.

  I shook the girl in a desperate attempt to bring her back to life, but she did not stir. I cried out, begging her to live, but live she did not.

  “What are you doing?” said a boy’s voice behind me. I turned my head and saw a large, brown boy standing not far away. He had a confused look on his face. It was Clive, but I did not know that at the time.

  “She’s dead,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes.

  “Oh,” he said. “Maybe we should bury her.”

  “No.” Beside the girl I saw a small blanket, which I picked up and draped over her body.

  “You’re just going to leave her there?” said Clive.

  “Maybe she will come back to life,” I said, praying I was right.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Clive.

  I stood up, looked back at the girl, now covered by the blanket, and said, “Do you know her?”

  “No, but I feel like I’ve seen her before.”

  “Me too. What’s your name?”

  “I don’t know. What’s yours?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s go to the park,” said Clive, motioning for me to leave with him. I followed him out of the barn, across the field and the road, and into the park.

  Clive and I climbed to the top of the fort, and for some time said nothing, both of us lost in thought, both wondering who we were, where we were, what we were doing here, and what would happen next. Finally, Clive spoke up. “Hey, do you want to play a game?”

  I did not want to play a game. The death of the girl weighed heavily upon me, and I was in no mood for fun. Despite that, I said, “What game?”

  “Why don’t we play The Show?” said Clive.

  I remembered. At least, I remembered who Clive was. I knew he was Satan and that he wanted to end all creation. I did not know, however, if he knew that. Was he toying with me?

  Then I remembered tapping my heels three times and saying, “There’s no place like hell.” I knew where I was. Did Clive know where he was?

  “So, you don’t know who you are?” I said. “Are you sure about that?”

  “No clue, bro.”

  “Do you know where you are?” I said.

  “I’m in a park.”

  I should note that at this point I remembered not only Clive, but also remembered some of the events that preceded my arrival in hell. I remembered talking to Bri. I remembered wondering about God, and coming to the conclusion that I believed in God. I remembered the girl, and knew it was she in the barn, a blanket covering her dead body. However, I did not believe that was really she. I believed this was some trick that hell was playing, perhaps one of the torments hell offered.

  I remembered the black cube, realizing it was in my pocket, and knew that if I pressed the button five times, I would gain almost infinite knowledge, but also knew that if I did that, I would be unconscious for thirty-seven days. If I pressed the button five times and blacked out, if Clive somehow got his hands on the sphere while I was out, and if he remembered he wanted to connect me to the sphere, he could end all creation.

  I did not see the sphere anywhere, and I believed, or at least partially believed that Clive did not yet have his memories, that he, like me, came to this place with those memories wiped clean. Could I risk pressing the button five times? Perhaps not while standing here with Clive. I knew I could not teleport out of hell and did not know how I could escape hell, because that bastard, Bri, wouldn’t tell me. Maybe I could teleport to some other part of hell and do the deed. But, what would I find in other parts of hell? I remembered the horned man in the red leotard and his wicked grin, and thought traveling out of the confines of this park might be a terrible idea. I wondered if the strange man had killed the girl. In fact, I believed he had. Were there others like him? What would they do to me?

  The black cube would allow me to travel in time. But, then, I might be able to do that without the black cube, now having the knowledge that would allow me to travel freely through time. If I traveled back thirty-eight days to this same spot and pressed the button five times, I believed I would wake up before Clive got here. If I traveled back thirty-eight
days, would Clive know I had done that? Would I disappear in front of his eyes? Maybe not, at least not if I came back to this spot at this point in time. I knew Clive could also travel back in time in his own way, but didn’t think he would think to go back thirty-eight days. I believed if he truly didn’t have his memories, he wouldn’t try to go back in time if I disappeared, which I didn’t think I would if I made sure I was back in this spot in thirty-eight days.

  At this point, I should explain the rules of time travel, rules that are different for me than for any other being in the universe that can travel backwards and forwards in time.

  Here are my rules:

  I exist only at one point in time at a time.

  I do not age when I am not in the present.

  I can travel back in time.

  I can travel forward in time, but not beyond the present.

  When I am back in time, the present still moves forward.

  I can’t change my past, a corollary to existing at only one point in time.

  Here are the rules for others who can time travel:

  Time travelers exist in all points in time they have ever existed in, except when they negate their existence in any one point in time that they have traveled to by changing their original decision to travel in time to that point in time.

  Time travelers do not age when they are not in the present.

  Time travelers can go back in time.

  Time travelers can go forward in time, but not beyond the present.

  When time travelers are back in time, the present still moves forward.

  Time travelers can change their pasts and the pasts of all other beings and things in the universe except for me.

  Time travelers remember pasts they have changed even though those changed pasts technically never happened.

  .

  Now, I could go into a lengthy discussion of what all of this means, of course, but I am not going to do that. If you take the time to explore the rules and different scenarios, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out. It might take many ages to figure it out, and you might only be able to figure it out from the afterlife (yes, of course there is an afterlife), but I’m sure, with enough effort, it will all come to you. Well, I’ll give you something to work with. It is the least I can do.

  What if Clive travels to the past and then in the past convinces himself (his other self he finds in the past) not to go into the past? What if Clive goes to the past and finds me in the exact place in time I am? What if I go to some point in Clive’s past and do something naughty to him? Will that change his future relative to that past? What will Clive remember if he goes to the past, does some things of a naughty nature and then convinces his other self not to go to the past? What if Clive and I are together in time at some point in time that we just arrived in (in my time bubble. No, I am not going to explain time bubbles right now) and I travel back in time, but in the same place and wait until the moment I traveled back in time? Will Clive know I traveled back in time? If I do something that might make Clive depart that point in time before I get back to that point in time, will I still see him? What would be the easiest way for someone to find me in time, given that I am only in one place in time at a time? Some of these questions have multiple answers. Anyway, I have a million of these little problems I could share, but think these will suffice for now.

  So, I believed if I traveled back in time thirty eight days, that Clive would never know because I would come back to this same spot thirty eight days later and find Clive still here. I suspected that when I went back in time, I would not disappear in front of Clive if I made sure I returned to this spot at this point in time. I might not be able to be in the exact same position, but I could get close enough that he might not detect the change. At least, I hoped that was how it worked. But what if it worked some other way? I didn’t really have a clear understanding of things, and wasn’t able to work through the problem, so I just accepted that I would have to take my chances.

  I attempted to travel back thirty-eight days, and absolutely nothing happened. You might ask why I bothered to say anything about the rules for time travel if I wasn’t going to be able to travel in time. I’ll say this; would you prefer that I hadn’t told you the rules? If so, then why are you reading this book?

  “So, do you want to play the game?” said Clive, an expectant look on his face.

  I couldn’t travel through time at will, and I assumed that meant I could not teleport at will. I would have to use the black cube. “I don’t know,” I said, stalling for time as I grabbed the cubes from my pocket, now finding four cubes in my possession, red, clear, black, and blue. Blue. I reeled back in horror, realizing that I had touched the blue cube, an act that would put me on The Show.

  “What’s the matter?” said Clive.

  In that instant, I knew the solution to the problem. While I wasn’t sure that The Show existed in hell, I believed it probably did, and I believed that if I gave Clive the blue cube, he would be stuck on The Show, and I believed that whatever version of B24ME existed in hell would trap Clive in this place for all eternity.

  I looked at Clive and said, “These are cool. What do you think they are?” I picked the blue cube out of my palm and offered it to Clive.

  Clive took the blue cube and said, “Don’t know. Maybe they’re nothing.” A look of surprise crossed over Clive’s face. “Who is B24ME?”

  “You tell me,” I said, a wicked grin creeping onto my face.

  “He said I have to battle Excretorian ants. What are those?”

  “Not sure,” I said, now confident that I had set in motion a chain of events that would prevent Clive from ending all creation.

  “I don’t want to battle Excretorian ants, but B24ME says he will kill me if I don’t.” Clive started crying, and in that moment I felt terrible. Clive really didn’t know what was going on and he was facing a multitude of horrible deaths, deaths he might never escape, deaths he would face as a child, as an innocent. My regret profound, I reached out to take the cube back from him, but he disappeared before I could get it.

  “Why, hello, Turd Fondler. Fancy meeting you in hell,” said a familiar voice. “Are you ready for your next challenge?”

  “I’m not on The Show, B24ME,” I replied. “Clive has the cube now.”

  “Really? Then what’s that in your hand?” chortled B24ME.

  I looked at my palm and saw a blue cube along with the other cubes. Things were about to get really ugly.

  “Look, you can’t kill me, B24ME. You know that, so why bother?”

  “I might not be able to kill you, but I can torture you for all eternity. Don’t you think that would be fun?”

  “Just lovely. Do you think that will be good for ratings?” I said.

  “My dear boy, I’ll have you know that after you gave the cube to Clive, ratings climbed three hundred thirty-seven percent. We have reached an all time high. Audiences love this stuff.”

  “What if I fire you, B24ME? I am your boss, right?” A gamble, but worth a shot.

  “You thought you might say that at one point when we negotiated my contract, and I can tell you don’t remember the terms of the deal, although you clearly remember that you are my boss, so I will refresh your memory. If you terminate me without cause, I am entitled to torture you for all eternity.”

  “I agreed to that?”

  “It was your idea, actually. I have to admit, it was the one thing that really made me want to take this job.”

  What kind of a masochistic moron was I? Why would I ever do that to myself? There had to be a reason, but find it I could not.

  I realized I had to stall for time. There was no telling what sort of nightmare B24ME could think up. I had to figure out a way to get off the show, get Clive off the show, and get both of us out of hell. Yes, I wanted to save Clive. I believed that trapping him in hell for all eternity was a terrible idea, and that I had to find some other way to stop him from ending all creation.

  “Wh
ere is Clive?” I said.

  “On Excretor, of course. He has died fifty times. I guess he hasn’t figured out how to escape the ants. You know…teleport right at the moment you see that pretty flash of light. Of course, you can’t teleport in hell, so there really is no way to escape. A lovely end, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I’m your boss, so if I tell you to let Clive off the hook, you have to let him off the hook. Set him free and take him off The Show.”

  “Nope. The contract specifically states that if you should ever give the cube to another person, that person enters automatically into the same contract that you have with me. I have to say, you really thought of everything, Turd Fondler.”

  Running out of options, I said, “Don’t you think it would be better for ratings if you put Clive and I through challenges together? By the way, don’t you get extra compensation for better ratings? You must, right?” I was pretty sure I was right about that, and thought I might have, at least to some extent, B24ME on a leash.

  “What do you have in mind?” said B24ME.

  “You put Clive and me through some challenges together, challenges we have a chance of winning. You build up ratings, and then you can throw whatever you want at us. I don’t see how you could refuse that offer.”

  “Well, it’s not really an offer, is it? It’s more of a desperate attempt to save yourself, but I have to admit, it is a brilliant idea.”

  “Bring Clive back,” I said.

  Clive appeared in front of me, a wild look in his eyes. He lunged at me and grabbed me by the throat, choking me. I tried to fight him off, but he was far too strong. I soon died, saw a flash of light and then reawakened on the ground, Clive standing over me, panting. “Why the hell did you do that to me?” he screamed.

  “Clive, I’m sorry. Let me explain,” I said, holding my hands out in front of me, fearing another attack.

  “My name is Clive?” he said.

  “Yes. Let me explain. You are my best friend, or at least I think you were my best friend. Maybe it was all an act, but I’m not so sure about that. Anyway, you are Satan and you are trying to end all creation, and I thought that if I trapped you in hell and got you on The Show, you would never escape and wouldn’t be able to end all creation.”