Reasons Only Time Allows

by Micah Thomas

Arm in arm, they made it to the cabin and slammed the door behind them. Thelon’s world exploded into a shower of golden sparks. On inspection, each contained a bubble, swirling like an oil slick of infinite shades of gold fire.

  He was being shaken. He saw the cabin lit by a kerosene lantern, and he was on the floor. The door rattled as if a strong wind was trying to get inside.

  “I saw…” Thelon mumbled.

  “We saw it, too.”

  “Stay with us, Thelon. Don’t try to explain it.”

  “The world is collapsing,” Thelon managed to say.

  “Yeah, but that is always true,” Henry said.

  “Open the door,” Thelon pleaded. “I know who’s out there now.”

  Cassie shook her head. “No.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  Henry glanced around but saw nothing that could be used as a weapon, but he did see something new: Blood. “Cassie. You’re bleeding.”

  She looked at her hands and saw she had an open gash across the back of her left. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  “Thelon, can you…?” Henry said as he rushed Cassie to the bathroom of the cabin and ran cold water over her cut.

  While the light from the lantern was insufficient to reach under the sink, he found gauze and bandages there, which he used with utmost care to tend to Cassie. She held her hand out to his touch, giving up the mystery of how it happened and relishing in Henry’s competent and speedy work. Her lips parted and when he finished, she planted a kiss to his lips as he knelt between her legs.

  Thelon watched from the doorway, waiting for them to complete the action before opening the door.

  T stood there dressed in a tracksuit of fashionable design. “Can I come in?” he asked in a voice identical to Thelon’s.

  “Dude, come in, you’re not a vampire.”

  Firm flesh, foot falls audible on the wood floor, T walked into the cabin and took a seat at the kitchenette table. “Got anything to drink?”

  Cassie gasped.

  Henry’s eyes bugged large in his head and he blinked repeatedly.

  “Guys, this is T. The other me. The me that I hijacked. It’s his life and money I’ve been spending.”

  T said, “Hi. I’ve heard good things, but about that drink…can you check the cabinet for something strong?”

  Cassie did as he asked and set down a brown bottle. “There’s no cups.”

  “Sit and have a drink with me?” T asked.

  They sat like it was a poker night with friends, two of them twins with the same name.

  “So, what now?” Thelon asked.

  “Drink,” T said and gave the bottle to Cassie, who drank then passed to Thelon, who drank as well, and then it was Henry’s turn. “Your friends had it easy, but they’re gonna have it hard soon enough—but easier than you and me.”

  “Did I do okay? Like, is this what I was supposed to do?” Thelon asked.

  “No. Fuck no. But it’s okay. I fucked up, too. It’s okay.” T took another long drink of whiskey. “I wanted you to ignore all of this and merge with me. Let the world unfuck itself. Not my circus. Not my monkeys. Nestor wanted you, too. You cut us both out and chose your friends. No disrespect intended. You two seem nice, but no, Thelon. I did not fucking want this path for us.”

  Henry held Cassie’s hand and asked, “What now?”

  “Let’s do it.” T stood and got into the bed. Stretched out, flat on his back, he said, “Come on, Thelon. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yes, you do. After this, there’s no more me and you. We’ll be one person. And that sucks for me because I liked who I was and I didn’t ask for any of this, but there’s only one way out of the dream and that’s for us to integrate.”

  “Out of the dream?”

  “Whatever. Just come here and lay beside me. It’ll be like two magnets stacked. You don’t have to do anything, but I’m guessing it’ll hurt like a mother. You don’t have much time. We must do it while we are still fluid. You did that part right.”

  Thelon looked at Henry, then to Cassie, who said nothing as they stared back with bewildered expressions. He laughed because he remembered that he’d not even told them about T or Nestor—or a slew of other things—and here it was winding up all together and they’d see everything, unable to comprehend a second. Fucking hilarious.

  “See ya on the other side,” Thelon said and climbed onto the bed with himself.

  Just as T had said, they snapped together, a mirror merge, a molecular fuzziness as pieces interlocked and swapped places. Memories aligned, timelines rationalized, and to Thelon’s surprise and delight, it was painless—though not guilt free, for now he knew he’d dropped the ball with Annie, the love of his life, and totally left his work in a lurch, and oh, he really should call his mom, and everything made sense except for Nestor and the phone and all the bullshit that had come at him this month.

  He sat up, just like that. “Shit.” Thelon’s head ached, but the intensities of emotions and the confusion he’d carried for days as Thelon and months as T were gone. He was reconciled. Integrated.

  Cassie held her head, a signal that the headache was shared. “We’re sobering up.”

  Henry said, “I fucking hate it. Oh God, I had sobering up in the same waking period as getting fucked up.”

  Thelon smiled but couldn’t force a laugh. “Yeah, but damn. Damn, that was wild.”

  Cassie leaned her head against Henry’s neck. “Can we go to sleep now?”

  “Here, come with me.” Thelon stripped off his clothes, which were little more than sweaty rags. He noticed so much dirt beneath his nails and even toenails. He flipped on the shower but left off the light. “Everybody in.”

  They joined without protest and sat together in the bathtub, letting hot water in a wide spray jet over their bodies, rinsing mud and dirt down the drain.

  Cassie spoke through wet hair draped over half her face in the dark. “That missing time stuff. We had been flipping into other us’s. The whole trip. Bouncing into different timelines and shit. We didn’t even notice.”

  Henry said, “Yeah. That’s what it was, man. We knew something was off, but damn.”

  “That’s what T meant about getting out of the dream. I wonder if we are really awake now,” Thelon said.

  Cassie added, “But we’re not complete yet. We integrated with ourselves except for the ones who are stuck.”

  “I think that’s next,” Thelon said.

  Fatigue hit him before the hot water went cold. They were all exhausted and rather than towel off and dress in dirty clothes, they got on the cot naked, bodies pressed close under the thin sheet. It wasn’t sexy, but like a dog pile; they were comfortable and warm, and they slept.

  ~

  WRAPPED IN TOWELS, they walked the short distance back to their respective bunkhouses. It didn’t matter if they held hands anymore; they could never be truly separated again. Not after their ordeal, which had merged themselves with all their many iterations across varied experiences. A deep, resonate calm settled over their minds, individually and as a unit. A wordless processing of knowledge recently acquired and integrated into self.

  Thelon examined his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It’s me. T and me. His eyes, calm brown, steady gaze. A sober looking young man. When this is all done, it’s time to get my shit together. He wasn’t done, though. T’s history gave him grounding. His life was a good one. He was a good man. Thelon would return to that. He’d comply with T’s desire to go back to that and own it as his life. Nestor is not a good guy. He’d follow through because there was something he needed to accomplish. Black Star had showed him that and he believed them, but Nestor was a bad egg. T had known it. I don’t remember it yet, but I’d gone to T and warned him, then I’d forgotten and got duped. T had wanted me to walk away from this road, to focus on remembering, but I didn’t. He couldn’t tell if he’d fucked up or done the right thing, but action
was better than inaction. He’d continue acting. This felt right to the end.

  His friends had gone to the car to get Cat and introduce her to PD. He knew this telepathically while getting dressed. Huh. I’m in the club for real now. Information continued to flow between them, not as words and dialog, but impressions and sudden knowing. What should have been a vulnerable intrusion of exposed thought was in fact a comfort and added to the steady vibe of the mid-day in progress.

  Breathing felt better, like Thelon’s lungs were more open—like he’d taken the real deal, behind the counter Sudafed. The return of his focus, his rational mind without anxiety, was experienced throughout his entire body. His guts worked and he took a solid shit. And of course, that was when someone knocked on the door.

  “Hello? Is anyone in there?” Cynthia called and swung the door open.

  “Oh, hey,” Thelon said while sitting on the toilet visible from the open door.

  “You survived. I saw your friends playing with the frisbee this morning, but they didn’t want to talk with me. Can you explain that?”

  “Can you go back outside while I wipe my ass and then we can talk?” Thelon did not know exactly what was up with Henry and Cassie, but he imagined that their dislike of Cynthia had been confirmed through recovery of other experiences and alternate life memories. He, himself, had no such negative sense.

  She shrugged as if modesty and boundaries represented mere affectation but did as he asked. When he’d cleaned up and washed his hands, Thelon went outside, but Cynthia had stepped away from the bunkhouses and barked directions at the driver of a truck carrying a huge load of sloshing gallons of water.

  “No, no, no,” she shouted. “You’re putting tracks in the lawn. You were supposed to come in through the road and park by the lodge. Damn it!”

  “Hey, tonight’s the big night, huh?” Thelon asked as he trotted over to her. His bare feet were a naked pleasure in the soft grass.

  “Yes. There are so many moving pieces and we only have one shot. I don’t say that to make you fret, but you aren’t fretting anymore, are you?” She studied him up and down. “You’ve changed. Not only did you survive last night, but it appears our efforts were a success.”

  “What do you know about it?” Thelon asked with genuine curiosity.

  “We watched from the house and our dreaming beds. We saw remarkable things which cannot be put into words, except like for our dear Lena, you experienced integration.”

  “There was something else, though,” Thelon said. “Out there last night.”

  Cynthia waved her hands as if to shoo the topic away, “Not the time. No. Not yet. I asked you a question. Your friends, why do they mistrust me? This is personal and not some device related to our objectives.”

  “It really bothers you, huh?”

  “Well, it makes things difficult. You’ve seen them behaving like children. Nothing has to be so confrontational.”

  “Cynthia, did you take the drug? Did you ever cycle?”

  She stiffened and looked far off. “Not I, but another Cynthia did.”

  Something is not right here. “You play the ringleader around here, and that’s part of it. We don’t like authority figures. But there’s more to it. I’m not letting you off the hook either. What do you really know about the powers manipulating things behind the scenes?”

  “Not nearly enough. What I do know is that our world is broken right now, and we can at least try to fix it using every ally at our disposal.”

  She’s allied herself all right. But to who? And what? Thelon suspected that while he’d been played, she’d also been sold a bill of goods, he just didn’t know what yet.

  Cynthia continued, “Like me or not, there is something you should know about your friends.”

  Thelon nodded and saw them come around the house with both cat and dog with them. They were far enough away that they wouldn’t hear this conversation, but he hoped and wondered if they’d catch it anyway. Showing no intention of joining Thelon, Cassie smiled, and she and Henry went into the big house.

  “So, you gonna make me guess?” Thelon asked.

  “I’d hoped you already had. You know what it is. Though they integrated with most all of themselves last night, we are going after what I might call Henry Prime and Cassie Prime tonight. The ones you knew in your originating world where all the things that went wrong started.”

  “The EP—”

  “There is a wound that cuts across realities,” Cynthia explained “Their Prime incarnations are preventing the healing process. Your Henry and Cassie must integrate with them. The personal cost will be terrible.”

  “But you don’t really know that, right?”

  “You’ll see. You’ve already seen,” Cynthia said and began walking up to the house as rain started to fall.

  Thelon stood in the yard and watched Black Star people head in to get out of the rain, but he let it pour down on him. I’m not leading them to their deaths. That’s not what this is. In his gut, he knew Cynthia was wrong, but he couldn’t say why. Loose ends. Too many loose ends. The rain felt warm then cool on his skin. It smelled good, and he knew there was a word for that scent but couldn’t remember it. Annie would know it. She’ll like Cassie and laugh at Henry. We should leave today. Let the world or whatever heal itself. He would have carried on, except Henry tapped on the window and gave him a silly face and mouthed ‘Come inside.’ Thelon knew that there was another Henry—Henry Prime—and he was a good dude, too, and he’s trapped. There’s gotta be a way to do this where we don’t all die.

  Thelon gave up chasing his thoughts and went up to the house, wishing he was smarter but determined to be his best instead.

  An old man on the screened in porch handed him a towel. “We’re in for a big one. Tornado warning already on the radio.”

  “No shit?”

  “I shit you not, young man. They sound like jet engines. The loudest roar you ever heard.”

  Thelon dried his face, neck, and hair and took a last glance at the darkening sky before going inside. If I live through this, I’m going to take Annie on a long-ass vacation and drink on a beach until all of this is wiped from my memory. I swear to God, if one more fucking thing goes sideways, I’ll die.

  Cassie and Henry sipped tea in the kitchen while Cat and PD, fast friends, cuddled by the window. They offered Thelon a cup, which he declined.

  “Big storm coming,” Thelon said.

  “Yup,” Henry replied.

  The lovers were laconic. Thelon saw their deep connection ripen through their weird journey in the night. He was part of it but disconnected from the nexus of joy and sadness that was their multitude of lives spent as lovers, friends, and mutual life-ruiners.

  Cynthia came into the kitchen and said, “It’s time we began. Lena is waiting in the drawing room. This kicks off the final leg of your journey.”

  Cassie said, “What happens if we just stopped now?”

  Cynthia sighed. “You could do that. All of you could, but to answer your question, you would all die. While you’ve amassed personal power and integrated yourselves, you are incomplete and vulnerable. We can only protect you so long here before the inevitable occurs. Thelon, you would be the first to die an excruciating death as your pursuers devour your eternal being. The ones who look like people but aren’t? Yes. They’d get you, and in your terror, you would be consumed. Next, you two. You have fight in you both, but none of the tools to survive this warfare. In your incomplete states, the voices within you will rebel outside of our protective influence and you will go mad. You would never feel solid as your persona, and nothing in this life would have a firm sense of meaning. Enemies would be everywhere, and you’d turn again against each other. They would pick you off and you’d not even have the sense to know it.”

  Cassie stuck her tongue out at Cynthia. “I don’t like you.”

  They put down their tea and followed Cynthia to the drawing room. Lena waited, standing by the portraits, gazing at them as if she want
ed to ask for guidance.

  Cynthia said to her, “I wish you could have met Achebe and Butchko. Oh, if they were here, if only they were here…”

  “Would they approve, do you think?” Lena asked in a soft voice.

  Henry sat, then Thelon, then Cassie, in a row on the couch to assume their listening roles. They braced themselves for their final lecture.

  “I think…” Cynthia said, and walked with Lena around the sofa to the chairs facing it, “I think my sweet lovers and fellow explorers would be enormously proud of what we do today. Yes. Like you three, my group was a unit of three, and we were passionate not only for the work but for each other. It was our love that saw us through the worst times, as I hope yours will, too.”

  Henry snickered. “Y’all got freaky, huh?”

  “Please do not make light of it, but yes, we did. Very freaky, but that is neither here nor there. Lena, please go and retrieve the ayahuasca.”

  Cassie said, “Holy shit. That’s what we’re taking next?”

  “What is it?” Thelon asked.

  “It’s the mother fucking king of psychedelics. I don’t know, man. Is this necessary?” Cassie asked and gripped Thelon’s arm.

  “Quite,” Cynthia said as she crossed her legs and gazed at the friends, looking each in the eye for a moment. “You’ve grown. What an average person experiences on this sacred drug is different from what you will because of your growth. You will not be intoxicated. You will not be overwhelmed by sensory confusion. You will not trip in the conventional sense. You will travel and you will not be alone this time.”

  “You coming with us?” Henry asked.

  Thelon shook his head. “She’s not. Her group had their shot. She’s like the ultimate soccer mom, living vicariously through us.”

  “Well, I don’t appreciate the analogy, but he’s correct.”

  Lena returned with a wooden cup that had a small wooden lit. The thing looked old and set the scene for something cool and spooky. She sat it on the coffee table between them and knelt beside it, a look of reverence toward Cynthia.

  Thelon experienced calm on top of calm, layers of Zen and a sense of rightness of his being here and following this course to the end. He let out a sigh and joined Henry’s and Cassie’s hands in his lap. “Okay, say what you need to say and let’s get on with the show.”