24
After six months of waiting, Shawn finally came. Karena and Shawn both were overjoyed to see each other again, though it was strange since Karena was less than 2 years old and Shawn was 14. Still, Shawn appeared to be already used to the strangeness of it, since he’d started over so many times, and they were soon talking just like they’d been before Shawn had disappeared in her past life. Though her parents didn’t really know who Shawn was, they trusted their daughter, since she seemed far more competent than the average 2—year old, and they let her go and see him whenever she wanted.
“What happened with you after I disappeared?” Shawn asked one day soon after he’d arrived in town.
“Nothing much, really,” Karena replied. “I just sort of sat there and waited for two years for the Sandman to come and get me.” Karena then proceeded to tell him what had happened when he came for her, about her getting him by a car before vanishing.
“I tried running away from him once,” Shawn said. “But every time I rounded a corner, he would always be around the next one. It was impossible to lose him, like he could just teleport wherever he wanted to.”
“Who knows if he’s really a physical being?” Karena asked. “No one else can see him, and he seems to have no interactions with the real world.”
“Except the victim can see him interacting with real world objects,” Shawn said. “We saw that when I disappeared. He turned the water glass into the hourglass, something I’d never seen him do before. So he can’t be a spirit.”
“Well, then what is he?” Karena cried, louder than she’d anticipated she would. “We know all this about him, but the more we find out the more it seems like we know nothing about him at all!”
“Well, we need to try something,” Shawn said. “Over the past 14 years I’ve had another idea for something we can do, though I have no clue if it will yield any result, just like with your experiment with the glass.”
“What is it?” Karena asked.
“What if we dramatically alter the events in our lives so much that they’re scarcely even recognizable to our previous ones? What if we change practically everything we can about our lives?”
“What sort of changes are you thinking of?” Karena asked.
“Nothing in particular,” said Shawn. “But I’m sure there’s plenty of things we could come up with. You could save your parents, for example.”
“I’ve already decided that I’m doing that,” Karena said.
“You see,” Shawn continued. “Although I’ve been through 8 lives, most of my lives were pretty much the same. I always moved to the same place in Canada at the beginning of my life, and I always have lived and worked in the same town. The only thing I did differently was have different jobs. Mostly this is because I’d seen no reason to do anything any different before. In most of my lives I’ve been scared to death all the time, not really doing much with the time I have. I’ve learned a lot, yes, but I haven’t done very much with that knowledge.”
“So should we move somewhere far away, or do crazy things like jumping out of airplanes or what?” Karena asked. “This probably wouldn’t achieve anything even if we did go through with it. I’d rather just focus on making my current life as good and comfortable as possible to live in so I don’t have to spend years and years doing something I hate.”
“I get that,” Shawn said. “And that’s what I did for years too. But now that I’ve met another person who has been through the same things I’ve been through, I think we should do something about this. Get somewhere. Spend our extra time wisely.”
“This extra time wasn’t given to us!” Karena almost yelled, awkwardly rising into a clumsy standing position. “It was stolen from us! Our lives were stolen from us by that monster, and I don’t think that taking advantage of what he’s done to us is the way we should approach this!”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting, Karena,” Shawn said. “I want to get out of this cycle just as much as you do. Which is why we have to do something, anything, to get out of it. And right now, this is the best idea I have. If you can think of something to get us out of here, then please tell me about it, but for now this is all we’ve got.”
Karena sat back down. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “It’s just…he’s gotten into my head and is staying there. I don’t know…I…”
“It’s ok,” Shawn said. “I know exactly how you feel. He’s always in my head too, and he’s been there for far longer than he’s been in yours.”
They sat in silence. Karena realized that even though Shawn was here and things had returned to ‘normal,’ things weren’t going to be all happy the way she’d falsely thought they would be. Far from it.
25
2 years later…
Two years had passed, and thus far Karena and Shawn had not succeeded in doing anything drastically different in their lives that could potentially invoke some sort of significant change in their situation. Karena was 3, almost 4, and Shawn was 16, but nothing was really different than in their past life.
That was going to change, however, when Karena decided not to go to school.
And not just for a day or two. Karena decided not to go to school period.
Her parents, needless to say, were distressed over this particularly disturbing decision of hers. They were already used to her being quite different from other children her age, being not interested in playing or in anything that female toddlers were typically interested in. But deciding not to go to school was almost pushing it too far. Karena had to do a lot of explaining to them, and her reasons, as she soon realized when explaining them, didn’t seem very legitimate. There were a lot of ‘mights’ and ‘maybes’ and nothing at all was known for certain. On top of that, there was the fact that she had never even explained anything about the Sandman to them. In the end, it really came down to a matter of her parents trusting their daughter to do the thing that was most likely to help her, and although they could never truly understand what she was going through unless it happened to themselves, they still let her go through with it.
So Karena grew up not going to school at all. At first, this didn’t cause many problems; she was only in preschool after all, but naturally as she grew older and it became legally mandatory for her to attend school, some complications to her plan were introduced.
However, Karena could see this as a good thing. She didn’t want to spend the rest of this life in jail, that was true, but the more things differed from her last life, the better it was, or at least for the sake of this experiment. And so if she was breaking the law by not attending school, though she could hardly believe she was thinking this, all the better! Besides, it wasn’t as if she was going to be put in a real prison when she was only a toddler. Maybe they’d just put her in jail or something.
Her parents grew increasingly worried as pressure was put upon them by police and the by the state to put Karena in school. One night, Harold, looking particularly worried, said to Karena: “You know, this isn’t just about you.”
“What do you mean?” Karena asked.
“Nothing happens to you if you decide not to go to school, but something will happen to us. We’ll be put in jail for something that you did.”
Karena hadn’t really thought about this before. She supposed she’d assumed, rather foolishly, that she’d get put in jail, but she realized that wouldn’t make much sense if she were an ordinary toddler, like everyone thought she was.
Karena consulted Shawn on this, like she did for most problems she had.
“You could always tell everyone,” he said. “The truth about yourself, I mean. I know your parents wanted you to keep quiet in your past life, but there’s really no reason to keep quiet now. We’re trying to make things as different as possible, remember? I’d say, just tell everyone about what’s happened to you, or simply prove that you’re smarter than the average toddler by speaking fluently in complex sentences. That way you won’t have to go to school, and you’ll have
everyone knowing about you, thus making your life even more different than before.”
‘I don’t know,” Karena said. “It seems awful risky, just going out there and declaring it to everyone. The Sandman might not like it.”
“And so what if the Sandman doesn’t like it?” Shawn asked.
“Then who knows what he could do to me?” Karena said. “You know his powers just as much as I do, if not more. There seems to be no limit to it. If I do something to his displeasure, he could do something awful.”
“That’s the risk you have to take,” said Shawn. “But we don’t have any choice. Would you rather just live here and suffer under his oppression or…”
“I know, I know,” Karena interrupted. “OK, fine, I’ll do it.” Karena had to push herself to see the logic over the fear, but in the end logic won, at least in this case.
So she told them.
26
Everyone, needless to say, was shocked by this. The media went crazy over the 4—year old who spoke like an adult, and Karena found herself being interviewed by people from all across the nation, and even beyond, as word about her ability spread.
She didn’t tell them the reason she was so smart, however. She didn’t tell them the story of her past 2 lives, and thus everyone assumed that she was merely an extraordinary case of a child prodigy. Scientists wanted to give her an MRI and study her brain to figure out what made her such a “genius,” and teachers wanted to persuade her to come to their school, though these were soon replaced by professors when the knowledge of her academic level was fully revealed. Although she may have somewhat of a disadvantage compared to other students in university, judging from her years as a baby where she did not learn much, or at least not properly at a school, and from her physical incapability in this body, she nonetheless found herself one of the most desired students to many colleges, local and far away.
In just a few months’ time, she found her life scarcely recognizable when compared to any of the previous ones, and that was exactly what she’d been hoping to achieve.
Shawn was delighted to see her popularity with the press and with everyone else, though he said he regretted not thinking of this idea earlier. He said that in his next life, which would be his 10th, he would most definitely show off his abilities to everyone.
“And I’ll do it even sooner,” he said. “As soon as I’m reborn as a 2—year old. That way people will be even more amazed to see a baby with the intelligence of an adult.”
Karena was glad that things were going the way they were, but in her gut she felt a deep sense of dread, like she was somehow digging herself deeper into a hole, rather than climbing her way out of it. There was always the Sandman on top of everything, hovering over it all, and he continued to visit her in her dreams.
She could tell, despite his expressionless face, that he was annoyed.
27
2 years later…
Over time the media and pretty much everyone else lost interest with Karena, especially as she grew older. She eventually became a university student at one of the many colleges that had wanted her to join two years ago, choosing a local one so that she wouldn’t have to move away, and was getting a feel of what it was like to be an adult for the first time, even though physically she was still 6 years old. It was a strange experience, that was for sure, and her life was far from the way any of her previous ones had been, but it seemed that in time things were going to die down entirely and nothing would be different than before. She would start over again and it’d be the same cycle all over again.
The Sandman hadn’t done anything to her at all. Despite all of her fear and anxiety, nothing particularly bad had happened to her as a result of this in all the two years’ time. She continued to have bad dreams, yes, and she could tell that the Sandman was rather annoyed in the dreams, like she could read his feelings through his inscrutable face somehow, but other than that there was no sign that she’d stepped over the line. It seemed to her that she could do practically anything now and not have to worry about it.
Shawn hadn’t done much to change the course of his life significantly. There was the occasional thing here and there, such as getting a different degree in college or trying to do really well in high school, something that he hadn’t done in his past few lives, understandably, but other than that there were no real major changes.
“Why don’t you change something huge?” Karena asked. “It was your idea anyway, and I’m the only one who’s really followed through with it. Why don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t think of anything, really, that will change my life the way you changed yours. Besides, this is just a test, and since you already tested it, and nothing seemed to have happened, why should I do it again?”
Karena wasn’t sure she completely followed through with Shawn’s logic, but she accepted it anyway, since she trusted that he knew what was best, having lived for far longer than she had. She usually accepted what he said, even if she didn’t entirely understand it herself.
But as time went by, Karena grew weary of her situation, as she had before. She became weary of going through the same old things for the third time, of knowing exactly what was going to happen next, of constantly being bored with everything, despite her having changed her life so much. Nothing was ever really new to her, even more so than in her past life. She rarely learned something new, even though she was a university student, and life was dreadful.
At times like this when she felt like giving up, she had to put things in perspective and think about how much worse Shawn had it. If she was fed up now, how much more fed up would she be 6 lifetimes from now? She could hardly even begin to imagine it. But thinking about her future always made her feel hopeless, leaving her with almost nothing to think about. Thinking in the present made her feel bored, and the future made her hopeless. There was nothing she could do but sit and wait this out.
Things were fine like this for a while, until, one day, the Sandman tried to stop her.
28
4 years later…
It was the night her parents had died last time, the night that she’d decided, 9 years ago, they weren’t going to die on again. The night that she was going to save her parents from the fire.
The obvious solution to this problem was to tell her parents what was going to happen. They respected her after all, and they would believe her when she told them not to go that night, even if they were slightly confused. They knew what had happened to her, though they did have a hard time believing her story entirely.
She’d meant to tell them about this night months, years before, but for some reason she hadn’t been able to find the opportunity to bring it up, except on that first day when she’d said that this time they’d be with her when she started over. But tonight, on this night, she had to, otherwise things were going to be the exact same as the last two times, and she wouldn’t have that. She wouldn’t give in. She was going to defy the Sandman no matter what the cost.
Karena approached them after getting home from her job that day. She had a job now, too, which was a bit strange for the other people working at the office, as they found it hard to take her completely seriously, especially since she left work earlier than everyone else so that the company wouldn’t be accused of child labor. Anyway, as soon as she walked in the door, she started rambling.
“You can’t go out on a date tonight,” she began. “I know you’re planning to, but you can’t. You see…”
And then she stopped talking. Karena looked at her parents, confused. She hadn’t meant to stop talking, it had been entirely involuntary. She opened her mouth to say something, but for some strange reason she found that the words would simply not come out of her mouth, no matter how hard she tried. It was as if her vocal cords had been cut and she no longer had the physical ability to speak. In desperation, Karena felt her neck, just to make sure everything was okay, and, finding no incisions, she desperately tried talking again, to no avail. He
r mouth would open, but she couldn’t utter any sound, not even a click or a whistle. Frantically, she realized what she’d have to do and she began searching for something on which to write.
“Are you okay?” Christi asked. “What did you want to tell us?”
Karena held up her finger, trying to tell her mother to wait one moment as she searched for something to write with and something to write on. She ran over to the desk, disappointed to find no pencils or pens on top, where they usually were, and she began pulling open drawers to try to see where they could possibly be.
“Karena,” Harold said. “Can you please just talk?”
Karena held up her finger again, this time with more emphasis, and she opened the next drawer, which contained nothing but pencil sharpeners. The next drawer contained only staple removers, and the next one contained staplers, rulers, and tape. Karena grew increasingly frustrated. Hadn’t there been all the materials she needed just the day before?
Suddenly, in the middle of opening the fourth drawer, she felt a sudden wave of inexplicable exhaustion that made her so tired that she just about fell over onto the desk. Head throbbing, she pushed against the desk in an attempt to right herself, but found that her feet had somehow fallen asleep and provided no means for stability at all. She found herself wobbling, mute, as she leaned against the desk to keep her balance, the whole time her head spinning from exhaustion, making it impossible to think about anything except for one burning question in her head.
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