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A short story I wrote 2 years ago

Posted by Gimwinkle on Sunday, July 28 2019 at 0:57:58PM

Decisions

7th Oct 2018
Written by GIMWINKLE

Slowly infusing into the dreamy windswept palm trees of some remote island, the sharp shriek of a smoke detector stabbed into Warren’s sleep. He tried to breathe in the remaining warm tropical breezes only to choke horribly.

“Shit.”

Smoke! Choking, rancid, life-threatening smoke.

Warren was wide awake now but still could not get a breath in. Nor could he open his eyes for more than a split second. The smoke was heavy. He rolled off the soft couch he’d fallen asleep on and onto the cold hardwood floor. He desperately needed air but, so too, did Scott, his infant son sleeping in his bassinette next to the couch. Warren reached blindly for him and clutched the one-piece sleeper wrapping the sleeping baby who startled into a choking shriek matching that of the smoke detector. Crawling along the floor to the front door, Warren reached up to the door handle and opened it to a soft flow of fresh, clean, life-sustaining air. The relief from Warren’s gasp was intense but he couldn’t enjoy it for long. Scott continued to choke and squeal while Warren dropped him quickly onto the Irish Moss skirting the front steps. As long as he was crying, thought Warren, Scott was breathing regularly. Now to go back for Amy and Bev, her mother, both upstairs in separate bedrooms. Hopefully, they were nowhere near whatever was causing the smoke. He took a couple deep, refreshing breaths, held the last one, and pulled his t-shirt up over his nose and stumbled his way back into the thick cloud of hot greyness. Eventually, he found the banister leading to the upstairs bedrooms and began to climb only to feel the skin of his bare arms and back of his head being scorched by flames. The winds from the front door twirled about the downstairs front room as it danced with flames coating walls, curtains, and ceiling. Warren’s brain, overloaded with piercing pain from his burning skin and hair, pushed on upwards demanding his body climb while on fire. Bev and Amy were all he could think of. The blinding pain was trying to stop him.

The top of the stairs lead first to Amy’s room, then to Scott’s nursery, then the master bedroom where Bev was. Flames roared from Scott’s nursery, twisting against the hallway wall, up the ceiling, and towards Warren as well as the master bedroom. Warren turned his agonizing head and demanded his eyes peek open to see where Amy was. His ears could hear her crying for her mother as she crawled slowly in circles, her eyes closed. His own eyes could now see her night-shirted figure crawling desperately while blindly feeling around the carpet. He tried to call to her but his voice refused to create even a squeak. To make matters worse, and a bit strange, Warren found he could not move. He tried to fall to the floor but he remained standing, frozen in place. Nor did he feel pain any longer. No pain, no choking, no crying from Amy, no roaring of flames, no movement. The dream stopped mid-scene.

He wanted to cuss, but could not. He could only think, “What the fuck?”

He could see Amy, frozen in her crawl, wanting frantically to call to her. He willed movement in his hands, arms, legs, anything. But all was at a complete standstill.

“Hello, Warren.”

“Hey, over here! I’m stuck! Please get my daughter right here! Quickly! Over here!”

“Calm down. Amy is going to be okay. You’re not stuck; you’re time-locked just as I am.”

“God-dammit, fire! The house is burning. Please, over here. Get my daughter and wife. Over here!”

Nothing.

“Hey! Help! My house is on fire. Fuck: I’m on fire! My skin’s burning. Please get my daughter and wife! Hurry. Over here!”

Still nothing. No flames moved, no noise, no pain, and no motion.

“God, what a weird dream. A nightmare.”

“It’s not a dream, Warren. We are time-locked. That’s why you don’t feel pain. Everything is time-locked.”

“I don’t care if it’s a dream or not. I need to get to Amy.” He paused. “Where the fuck are YOU?”

“You wouldn’t understand. I’m here with you.”

“Well, you go down the hall and get my wife! She’s in the bedroom sleeping. I’ll try to get Amy, myself. Hurry!”

“No.”

“God-dammit! Help me! This place is burning!”

“Calm down, Warren. For you and I, the place is not burning. You are not in pain. Your wife…”

Warren wondered about his pause, “What about my wife? Where the hell are you? Why can’t I see you? Why is everything stopped? Is this a dream?”

Slowly, the reply came. “Bev died just before you began your climb up the stairs. I am here with you. You can’t see me because you don’t know how. Everything has stopped because of our time-lock. No, this is not a dream.”

“What?” He screamed silently. “What?” Warren ran out of things to think. He felt no pain. He was stuck in some kind of dream state, in his burning home with flames that did not move just as he could not move. And this idiot just said that Bev was dead? He waited. Nothing. He waited some more. Nothing.

“What the fuck is going on here? What kind of dream am I having? Damn, I can’t remember how to wake from a dream. Isn’t there something that’s supposed to wake you if you think it?”

“I told you. This is not a dream. You and I are in what is called a time-lock. For us, time does not progress positively until the lock is terminated. Then, things will progress normally in one of two ways.”

“If this isn’t a dream, why can’t I just fall to the floor? Why aren’t the flames moving?”

“That’s how time-locks are manifested.”

“Manifested?”

“That’s how time-locks work. For the two of us, time does not flow. There are four states that I can understand with my limited education: Three are one dimensional, positive, stationary, and negative. The fourth is fractal.”

“Why won’t you help me save my family?”

“I am helping. In a way. There is much you won’t be able to understand just as there is much more that I cannot explain to you. In my English studies, I came up with a close approximation of what we are experiencing: an existential fractal event structure. That quite doesn’t cover it all, but it’s the best I can do.”

“Yeah… right. Where,” he emphasized, “are you?”

“You will probably understand better if you think of me as being here with you.”

“And I can’t see you?”

“It’s possible. But the best answer for you is no. You cannot see me.”

“So, how can I hear you? If you’re in this time-lock, are you stuck, too?”

“We are expending great amounts of energy to force a link for what you feel as sound to you. And yes, I am stuck, too. But, in a short while, the time-lock will be terminated.”

“How do you know Bev is dead? Did you start this fire? Is Amy dead, too? Am I dead?”

“When an entity exits life, the event structure develops a bubble-wave. That’s the way I can understand the concept. The system we have here is sensitive them. Our focus anticipated your deaths in preparation for a link to Bev. But it was Bev’s death we got, not yours. Our link is to you, instead. No, I did not start the fire. That was from the battery being overcharged in a baby monitor in Scott’s room. No, Amy is not dead yet. Because I am communicating with you, you are not dead yet, either. You think; therefore, you are.”

“You said Amy is not dead yet. Is she going to die? Am I?”

“Until 3165, in your calendar, everyone dies. But, you want to know about what you understand as here and now. Amy’s death depends on you, Warren. Your death will occur moments from when the time-lock terminates. Scott exists from this fractal point for another 87 years. My death is possible and depends on you, as well.”

“You want ME to save YOU? What do you mean Amy’s death depends on me?”

“Depending on your decisions in this link, I will die after the bifurcation somewhere positive. So, too, will Amy. Depending on your decisions. Once the time-lock terminates at the bifurcation, everything fractalizes again. The explanation gets complicated, well beyond my ability to understand. I’m not a mathematician.”

“Whatever you want, just save Amy and Scott. I don’t care about me.”

“It’s whatever you decide, Warren. You decide how the fractal goes.”

“What the hell do I have to decide about? Whatever it is, whatever it takes, I want Amy and Scott to escape this fire. Can you do that? What do I need to decide on to make that happen?”

“As I told you, Scott will live a very long life in almost all the event structures we’ve studied. In this one, the lengths and qualities of Amy’s life and my life are completely dependent on what you decide.”

Warren thought for several moments. Then he asked, “What do I have to do to save Amy?”

“This fire ends both Bev’s life and yours. Scott will be adopted either by a family in San Francisco, California or Portland, Oregon. Amy will either die within moments after your own death or she will live with me and live a long and prosperous life.”

“You are going to adopt Amy?”

“Adopt? No.”

“Well then, how will she live with you?”

“As her lover.”

Warren was incredulous. He cried out, “What the fuck? You can’t see her, can you? She’s just an 8-year-old kid, for God’s sake.”

“Of course I can see her. Just as you can. I am a certified pedophile, Warren. I have studied Bev, you, Amy and Scott in great detail. I have been professionally hetero-paired with four lovers, bringing all four to un-pairing. I volunteered to migrate to this event structure with permissions from all four of my previous pairings. And yes, the four knew that it would end in my death. They also had confidence in my ability to connect in this event structure with bonding to Amy’s mother or, as it turns out, you. None of us expected the bonding would be with you but we were prepared for it.”

“Did you say you are a pedophile? A child rapist?”

“A child rapist, no. Pedophile, yes. It is one of the most prestigious of all occupations. Very few people qualify for it. Most do not. Not to brag, but I ranked 95th on the Stanley Placement Assessment. It’s one of the reasons…”

“Sorry, but I think you used the word wrong. A pedophile is a child rapist. You don’t rape little kids, do you? I mean, as your occupation.”

“Rape them, no. Love them, care for them, become part of their growing up, yes.”

“And you want to have your pedophile way with my Amy? Fuck that shit, buddy. I don’t care how prestigious you think you are. I’ll cut your throat if you so much as get near her.”

“You would rather she die with you?”

“If that means that she doesn’t get raped by you, then yes.”

“I don’t think you mean that, Warren. She won’t be raped. Not by me nor by anyone. She will be loved just as you love her. It’s your definition of a pedophile that is incorrect.”

“If you love her so much, why don’t you just get her out of this house and then go back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

“I don’t love Amy yet. I don’t have any experiences with her. I only know about her from our scans. I do know that, as a pedophile, I will fall in love with her once we bond in life. It is my nature. The way laws in my current existential fractal event structure are formed, I cannot transit with a bond with Amy. It may be with a bond with either her mother, father or another close relative. Transiting with a bond with Amy would be a conflict of interest and, thus, not permitted. My explaining all this to you is my attempt at bonding with Amy’s only relative willing to accept the bond. You. Then, the time-lock will be released, you will proceed with your own death and I shall transit to your event structure. Amy will…”

“I don’t know about all that existing fraction stuff, and I don’t care about my own death. But I will rip your face off if I ever can get my hands on you. You stay away from my daughter. You go back to wherever you come from.”

“Warren, you will not survive this fire so you cannot rip my face off. If you want Amy to continue life, you must bring me there. To do that, you need to accept a bond with me.”

“Are you crazy? You want to be friends with me and me knowing you want to sexually molest my little girl? If I gotta die, then so be it. Let me die. Now, get out of my… my… my death. And leave Amy alone.”

“If I don’t transit to her, she will die with you. I am offering you a chance to save her life. Are you willing to have her death on your conscience? I am offering her a lifetime of love and you mistakenly think it will be some violent crime against her? Are you willing to let your mistake end her life?”

“You said you wanted to make love to her. You said you are a pedophile. What am I supposed to think? I can only think of you raping her and me wanting to torture you for you even thinking that way. Why can’t you just save her life, let me die, and you get back to the sick nut-house you come from.”

“Warren, you felt the intense pain from your burns just before the time-lock began. Do you want that for Amy? Her death will start with breathing in enough smoke to choke her. Her involuntary reflexes will prevent her from breathing any further until her breathing reflexes force her to draw in the smoke-filled air. For several seconds, her lungs will sear with pain and she will pass out. Two hundred fifty-six seconds later, flames will begin to scorch her body and raise her consciousness to experience the final pain for another 12 seconds. Death follows her return to unconsciousness. That is, of course, if you insist on rejecting my transit request. Do you want this for Amy?” He paused. “Please answer that question directly.”

Warren thought. He knew the pain he had just felt would be what Amy was going to feel. “No. Please do what you can to save her.”

“You must bring me to you. I can only tell you that there never will be any rape as you understand it. I am horrified even at the concept of such a thing. I can only tell you that she and I will live a long and loving life together. It’s your choice.”

“You said you wanted to have sex with her.”

“She will probably be the one to want it when she is ready.”

“You don’t know?”

“I am not legally allowed to know. I can only assume things from the tenets of this project. I would not be allowed to transit to an impending death. I would not be asked to transit if I could not fulfill my task. Amy is who she is. You are who you are. I am what I am. My whole being is centered on love. This is what I am assuming that you will permit me to give Amy if you decide.”

“She won’t be ready until she’s 18. You will wait that long?”

“Warren, I told you, we studied this event structure in much detail. I know, for example, of Amy’s burgeoning sexuality that you already have knowledge of.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I told you, she’s just a baby.”

“I am trying to save you from your embarrassment. I know you, Warren.”

“Huh?”

“I warned you.” Silence. Then, “The scans show the night you entered Amy’s bedroom and discovered her pleasuring herself. Rather than reclosing her door and leaving, you stood at that door and told her to continue while you watched. She did.”

“Bull shit. You’re just… just… Oh, fuck you.”

“You didn’t watch?”

Warren said nothing.

“You were sexually excited at seeing her pleasuring herself. The event is passed. It happened. It’s a natural thing, Warren. But I know it embarrasses you. My point here is to show you that she already is experiencing sexual pleasure on her own. If you decide to let both her and me to be together after she lives with her mother and father’s deaths, eventually she will want me to be there for her sexually just as she had wanted you.”

“She… she was busy with her own self. She didn’t want me.”

“No, not the way you think. She wanted to share her pleasure with you. But you just stood there. So she went on without you. A loving partner would have helped her as she wanted.”

Warren remained silent.

“Your social restraints – your laws – prevented you from helping her. If you both had been in the desert and she had found water, drank her fill, and offered some to you, would you drink?”

“In the desert, water would be what we both need. Sex is not a needed thing.”

“Sex is one of the most important attributes for us. The human race would die off if sex were not needed. You, as her father, should be teaching her things just as you had planned on teaching Scott. You…”

“I wasn’t going to teach him how to jack off! That’s crazy.”

“You are reacting to the Westermarck effect. We call it reverse sexual imprinting. It’s an effect through which people of your time and event structure, who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives, become desensitized to sexual attraction. This is where your incest taboo comes from. Observations by your sociologists, interpreted as evidence for the Westermarck effect, have since been made in many of your places and cultures, including in the Israeli kibbutz system, and the Chinese Shim-pua marriage customs, as well as in biologically-related families.



“In the case of the Israeli collective farms, children were reared somewhat communally in peer groups, based on age, not biological relation. Those sociologists did a study of the marriage patterns of these children later in life which revealed that out of the nearly 3,000 marriages that occurred across the kibbutz system, only fourteen were between children from the same peer group. Of those fourteen, none had been reared together during the first six years of life. Their conclusion from that study was that the Westermarck effect operates during the period from birth to the age of six.

“They found that when proximity during this critical period does not occur—for example, where a brother and sister are brought up separately, never meeting one another—they may find one another highly sexually attractive when they meet as adults or adolescents, according to the hypothesis of genetic sexual attraction. Thus their theory was that the populations exhibiting the Westermarck effect became predominant because of the deleterious effects of inbreeding on those that did not.”

Warren had listened quietly. He replied, “Well, I never had a single sexual thought about my sister when I was growing up nor even today. She’s a year older than me. I never had a Western Mark for her. And, may I point out, I didn’t have a Western Mark for Amy that night, either.”

“You misunderstand: your lack of sexual attraction demonstrates the Westermarck effect. The effect is why you didn’t think sexually about your sister. But, may I point out to you, you actually were sexually excited at seeing Amy pleasure herself. And, you did not grow through your own early years with her so you had a normal, healthy male reaction to sexual stimulus. Your social taboo system prevented you from acting on that stimulus. So, you just watched and then took relief in your shower.”

Warren grew frustrated. “Fuck this all. I just don’t want you touching my Amy.”

“Then she will die along with you and her mother.”

“Not if I can get out of the time stuck thing.”

“I told you: you will die in a moment or two after this time stuck thing terminates. So will Amy.”

Silence. Finally, Warren cried, “You can save Amy? Can you save Beverly?”

“I can save Amy. But no, Beverly has already passed on.”

“Can you promise me you won’t rape my little girl?”

“I can promise you that her life will be full of love and caring. But eventually, if you and I bond enough for you to bring me to her, she will probably fall in love with me and do what nature will point the way to. I could never force myself on her.”

“Will you wait until she’s eighteen?”

“Do you think she will? Let me put it this way: if she wants to wait until she’s that old, then out of love, I will wait until she wants me.”

“What if she never likes you? Will you go back to your… your… where you come from?”

“If I fail her, I will abide by whatever her wishes will be. Even to my own death without her.”

Warren thought to himself and considered his options. “Okay, what do I have to do?”

“You must accept me with full knowledge of who and what I am and how Amy relates to me. You must bring me to her.”

“How do I do that?”

“Just accept me. They will know and release the time lock. I will be inserted into your fractal structure, you will die, and Amy will discover me amidst the smoke, next to you. I will get her to fresh air and a hospital.”

“And you will love her? Will she love you?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

Warren thought to himself a bit more. Then, “Will my death be quick?”

“Yes.”

Finally, Warren asked, “What is your name?”

“We do not have names. Our identities are our names. But, since you will be bringing me to your event structure, I will take a name for myself.”

“You are not human?”

“Not the way you think. But, yes, we are human. We’re just a very much advanced human life form than what you can understand. Imagine what Neanderthal man would think of you and your cell phones, cars, airplanes, and microwaved pizzas!”




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