The Egg Said Nothing (8 page)

“You must destroy them before they destroy you,” she said simply.

“Well, yeah. But that’s the problem,” I said. “I’ve killed three of them already. They just keep coming.”

“What happens when they die?”

“They disappear.”

“Poof?”

“Yep, only silently. Sans poof.”

“Very interesting,” she said.

“Yes, it is. Now, what do I do about it?” I demanded.

“You must travel into the future and do battle with yourself,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Um, yeah. I don’t know how to do that.”

“If what you say is true, then there is some disturbance in space and time. Your future self’s knowledge should be available to you. You just need to focus and utilize it.”

“How do I do that?” I asked, warming to the idea. Following what had already happened, it wasn’t too much of a stretch.

“You must look inside yourself. Turn the lights off, close your eyes and visualize your future self. It will work. You must trust me,” she insisted.

“Okay, I’ll do it.” I slammed down the phone. It was worth a shot, and I felt it was possible.

I went back into the living room and sat down on the couch. After closing my eyes, I tried to visualize my future self: philosopher, smart guy, father. I gathered a picture and began to slide into his brain.

I was jarred back to the present by a pounding on the door. I got up and ran over to it. “Now is really not a good time!” I shouted.

“Open up!” a voice screamed. I looked through the peephole and saw my face staring back at me.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Someone saw me,” he said.

“So?”

“So, we’re changing the future! We’re fucking things up, you goddamned asshole!”

“Sounds like you’re fucking things up,” I said. “I’m just sitting in my apartment, minding my own business.”

“Do you have any idea what potential psychological damage could come about after spending a significant amount of time with your girlfriend’s corpse?” he shouted shrilly.

“Leave me alone.”

He kicked the door.

“Stop kicking the door,” I said.

He increased the frequency and intensity of his attack. “I’m not stopping until you let me in!”

“Alright, kick the fucking door then. I don’t give a shit.” I looked around. “I’ve got earplugs in here somewhere.”

“I’ll go get the super!” he threatened. “He’ll let me in!”

“You have no idea who the super is.”

“Do, too. We learn it in 2012. May. Right after our birthday, a pipe breaks and he has to come investigate.”

“2012?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He stopped kicking.

“It’s probably not the same guy,” I said.

“It is,” he responded.

“Okay. Go get him then.”

He started kicking the door again.

~Chapter 12~

In which the narrator attempts to short circuit time.

I had no idea what to do. The creepily methodic pounding on the door was getting to me; I couldn’t think, and I had to think.

Perhaps what I needed to do was figure out how to go back in time and stop myself from hitting Ashley in the face with a shovel. In hindsight, it seemed wise that I didn’t destroy the version of me who had killed her. I might need him. Though I had started to put a plan together, I needed things to be quieter if I were to do any real thinking. I picked up the shovel from the floor and leaned it against the wall, facing the door.

“Hey, fucker!” I yelled through the door. “I think I’m ready to talk.”

“You are?” The kicking stopped. “So soon?”

“I think so, yeah,” I replied. I unlocked the door and held it open.

He seemed hesitant to enter. “Really?”

“I can’t stay mad at you, can I? You’re me. We have to deal with this, and you might be able to help me set it right,” I said.

He looked relieved. “I’m glad you’ve seen reason.” He walked into the apartment. “I think you’ll see…Oh, shit.”

A look of embarrassed recollection crossed his face a second before I clanged him in the back of the head. He hit the floor next to Ashley.

I went into the kitchen and rooted through my junk drawer until I found a roll of duct tape. Then I set to work taping his limbs together, thereby preventing him from doing anything I didn’t want him to do.

Sitting down with my back to the rear of the couch, I tried to let my limbs relax. They were hesitant. Attempting to clear my mind, I concentrated on my breath. In and out. In and out. After my focus was away from the bodies on the other side of the room, I tried picturing my future self again, tried to enter his mind and take control of his knowledge. His mind was either impenetrable or I was doing it wrong.

The duct taped me groaned. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“What am I doing wrong?” I demanded, peeking around the couch at him. He couldn’t see me, as his face was aimed towards the kitchen.

“You don’t know enough yet,” he said. “Let me go.”

“Stay on topic,” I chastised. “Tell me how.”

“It’s not just something I can tell you. You have to develop a complete understanding of this shit before you start fucking with it. And it’ll take you years.”

“That’s pretty discouraging,” I said. “And entirely false.”

“Oh, it is?” He cocked an eyebrow in mockery.

“It took
you
years. If I change things, I bet I can figure it out in a few minutes.” I tried to imagine exactly how to do this while he was pressed into silence. It must be possible, at least theoretically, or it wouldn’t have shut him up.

The future me had no idea what would happen if multiple versions of myself existed at once. Right now, there were two of us. What did I need to do?

Sometimes an idea hits you. You have no clue where it came from, but know it must have been from somewhere bigger than you. In this case, I felt as though time had manifested into some sort of entity, not a physical being, just something of a presence. And it seemed time was on my side. I think it didn’t like to be fucked with to serve human ends. I could be wrong, of course, but something put that brilliant idea in my head.

“You’re going down,” I said, grinning maniacally at the top of my double’s head. I stood up and headed back for the junk drawer. Throwing it open, I began sifting through it for the tools necessary to create a time machine. I found the pliers. And then an old pair of dull poultry scissors. The cupboard under the sink was the next stop; I pulled a claw hammer out from under it.

“What are you doing?” he asked with palatable suspicion.

“I want Ashley back,” I said, looking him in the eye for the first time since he’d been bound. He seemed frightened.

“She’s gone. You can’t bring back the dead.”

“You’re right,” I conceded. “But
you
can.”

“No, I can’t,” he insisted. He started looking around the room desperately, hoping to find a hole he could crawl into like an inchworm.

“You did it for yourself,” I countered.

He looked perplexed. “But that’s different.”

“How so?” I asked. Could one change one’s own time exclusively? Was it only possible to affect oneself by altering the past?

“Listen up, retard, I’m going to say this one more time. You’re not smart enough to understand.”

“I see.” I exaggeratedly stuck out my lower lip. I picked up the claw hammer and smashed it down on the ball of his ankle. He screamed in pain. His body convulsed as he tried to grab his ankle, but he was too well bound.

“What the fuck?” he screamed. “Why did you do that?”

“Make it happen,” I said, glaring at him.

His face was contorted in pain. “Make what happen?”

I raised the hammer again.

“No! Stop! What do you want me to do? Tell me!”

“Make me go back and stop Ashley from getting killed,” I said.

“It can’t be done,” he replied.

I gave his ankle a gentle tap at ground zero. He cried out.

There was an embarrassing scream, and another version of me ran from the bedroom, shovel blazing. A third me intercepted him, tackling him to the ground. The two rolled around the floor.

“Hold him down!” I yelled to no one in particular, and rushed to the aid of the one who seemed to have the upper hand. Together, we bound the weaker one in tape. The other collapsed to the floor, grateful that the altercation was over. I swung my foot back and kicked my exhausted double in the head, sending him flying backwards. Leaping upon him, I pinned his flailing arms to the ground with my knees and punched him in the face until he stopped struggling. Then I taped him up.

I sat there staring at the now empty roll of tape. Something had to happen now; my plan had to evolve. There wasn’t much I could do to hold off more time infiltrators. I could kill them, of course, but, honestly, it was pretty tiring.

“Listen up, you bastards,” I said, waiting until all of their eyes were on me. “Let’s think this through.”

“You need to kill yourself,” the first one said, struggling against his restraints. “And us.”

“Whoa, fuck that!” said the third one. “Kill him if he wants it so bad!”

“I said listen, not talk,” I replied, losing patience. I waited until their collective mumbling died down. “Okay. There are four of us here. None of you belong. Do any of you know about this time travel business?”

I paused, waiting for a response.

“You mustn’t do this!” the annoying one shouted. I picked up the shovel and walked over to him. I swung it down on his head.

“You must shut the fuck up,” I said to his limp body. “Now, you two. Do you know anything about this shit?”

“A little bit,” one of them said.

“Hit me,” I replied.

He cringed. “Well, you can’t do the time travel thing yet yourself. You have to attain the knowledge first. Just because you will be able to do it in the future doesn’t mean that all of your past selves can. What you need is to focus on changing the present.”

“What about Ashley?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, thinking. “Well, I think you’ve probably got a shot at that. By the looks of it, you’ve already fucked time and space all up. Why not go all out? I’d reckon you could save Ashley by killing an earlier version of yourself.”

“That sounds like a horrible idea,” I said.

“Agreed, but I can’t see any other way. You can’t bring her back from the dead. It just doesn’t work like that. But if you were to destroy yourself before you ever met her, you, or any version of yourself, couldn’t possibly kill her, could you? I guess it comes down to whose life you value more.” He struggled against his restraints. “And we all know which one that is.”

“We do?” I asked.

“We do,” he replied. “That said, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult. There are probably different versions of yourself already hunting down earlier versions. You’ve got no reason to think your particular time or self special.”

“But, if I was attacked in the past, wouldn’t I remember it?”

“Maybe. Like I said, you fucked everything up. No one is supposed to do what you’ve done. And, as such, no one can possibly know of the ramifications. I’m a version of you that is yet to be. Yet, here I am. And I have no fucking clue where you’re going with this shit.”

I was bewildered. “So what should I do?”

“Like I said, go find an early version of yourself and kill it.”

“Where would I find one?”

“Retrace your steps. I’m sure one’ll pop up somewhere.”

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. Picking up the shovel, I reached for the doorknob, but stopped. Turning, I dropped the shovel on the floor. “Just in case he wakes up,” I said. Then I left, making my way quickly down the hall.

* * *

“What was all that bullshit?” the quiet me asked the other out of my earshot. “I can’t remember any of that.”

The other shrugged as well as one can when one is bound in cheap tape. “I don’t know. Fucker was going to kill us. Had to do something.”

~Chapter 13~

In which the narrator starts to retrace his steps, but changes his mind.

I climbed into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. Where should I go? The Laundromat? How about the bank fountain? No. The one down the street! I could ambush myself there before encountering Ashley and solve everything.

I hit the emergency stop button. I needed to think.

No, it wouldn’t solve everything. The letter said I had put my revelatory idea into good hands, hands that would bring the idea to fruition. If I died, my ideas would still live on, and so would Ashley’s genetic potential.

I was starting to doubt my earlier certainty that my future self had gone completely nuts. Maybe what I had come up with was so important that it had to happen without me, without any chance of derailment. But, then again, what was the point of dying for a world without me? It would have no personal relevance.

Albeit inadvertently, I had already done the hard part. Ashley was dead. Why should I die, too? It seemed gratuitous. Besides, I knew myself. I don’t always think things through before I do them. Especially when I write letters. That letter could have been composed at a time when I was at an extreme, when I concluded the best course of action was suicide. I could see myself deciding that some past version would have to be the one with the balls to actually off myself.

I had to be rational and reasonable. Ashley could no longer be the mother of opposition. I had to face it; she was the wildcard. She was hot and would have no trouble procreating. I, on the other hand, never had any trouble keeping the ladies at bay. It was probably just some alteration of the past that future me had done that made her attracted to me in the first place.

And what if future me was just reacting to a broken heart? That sort of thing made people do crazy shit. What if I went to all the trouble of going into the past to get Ashley to like me, then, in twenty years, she dumps me for some reason. Could that push me over the edge?

I suddenly found myself wishing I knew more about gender relations. What are the roots of manhood? Why are women still treated poorly? How should men and women behave? What differences should be preserved? If I continued on my destined path, I’d eventually learn the answers to these questions, and I’d be able to change things. The confidence that provided carried a lot of weight.