The Man Who Folded Himself (22 page)

On August 13 a very strange thing happens. Has happened. Will happen.

I'd known about it for some time—that is, I'd known that something happens, because I don't attend the party linearly. I stay in a range of a week or two and bounce around within it. There's more variety that way.

After August 13 the mood of the party is changed. Subdued. Almost morbid. Most of me seem to know why, but they don't refer to it very often.

The last time something like this happened was just before I met Diane—when all the other versions of me had disappeared. I knew something was about to happen, but I didn't know what until I got there.

I have that same kind of feeling now. Too many of the older me's are acting strange. Very strange. The more I hang around them, the more I see it.

I'm going to have to investigate August 13.

Is this it?

Three or four of the youngest Dannys are here. They're in a quieter mood than usual though, almost grim.

A couple of us frowned at them—they really weren't welcome here; they should have stayed in their own part of the party; but most of the rest of us tried at least to tolerate them, hoping that they would lose interest soon and go back to their own time. “They're here to gape at us,” complained one of me.

“Well, some of us are gaping right back,” snapped another.

“God,” whispered a third. “Were we ever really that young?”

And then there was a pop! as another me appeared. It was a common enough sound. Somebody was always appearing or disappearing at any given moment. But this one was different. A hush fell over the room. I turned and saw two of me reaching to support a third who had suddenly appeared between them. He was pale and gray. He was half-slumped and holding his heart.

Apparently the jump-shock had been too much for him; that sudden burst of temporal energy that jolts you sharply every time you bounce through time. They helped him to a chair. Somebody was already there with a glass of water, somebody who had been through this before, I guess. And the younger Dans were murmuring among themselves; was this what they had come to see?

“Are you all right, old fellow?” someone asked the newcomer.

He grunted. He was old. He was very old. His hands were thin and weak. His forearms were parchment-covered bones, so were his legs. The skin of his face hung in folds and he was mottled with liver spots.

“Aaah,” he gasped. “What day is it?”

“August 13.”

“Thirteenth?” Slowly he pulled his features into a grimace. “Then I'm too soon. It's the twenty-third I want. I must have made the wrong setting.”

“Take it easy. Just relax.”

The oldster did so. It wasn't a matter of recognizing the wisdom of their words; he simply knew that he didn't have to hurry. A timebelt is a very forgiving device. Besides, he was too exhausted to move.

“What were you looking for?” asked one of the younger Dans. (They weren't me. I didn't remember ever having done this before, so they must have been variations from another timeline.)

The fragile gray man peered at them, abruptly frowning. “No,” he croaked. “Too young. Too young. Got to talk to someone older. Those are ju st—just children.”

Some of us shouldered the younger ones aside then. “What is it?” they asked. (Others hung back; had they heard it before? The room seemed emptier now. There were less than ten of me remaining. Several of us had left.)

“Too tired,” he gasped. “Came to warn you, but I'm too tired to talk. Let me rest. . . . ”

“Hey, have a heart, you guys. Don't press him.” That was one of the quieter ones of us. I recognized him by his business suit, he had
been hanging back and just watching most of the evening. “Take him in the bedroom and let him lie down for a while.” He shoved through and picked up the frail old man—God, was he that light?—and carried him off to the downstairs bedroom. “You can talk to him later,” he promised.

Out of curiosity, I followed. I helped him put the old man to bed, then he led me out. “You know what's going on, don't you?” I asked him.

He didn't answer, just got himself a chair and a book, and stationed himself in front of the door. “It might be too soon for you to worry about this,” he said to me. “Why don't you go back to your party?” He opened the book and proceeded to ignore me.

There was nothing else to do, so I shrugged and went back into the other room. A little later a couple of other me's tried to see how the old man was doing, but the business-suit me wouldn't let them. He sat outside that room all night.

The party was considerably dampened by this incident. Most of the Dans faded away and the house became strangely deserted. Here and there, one or two of me were picking up dirty glasses and empty potato-chip dishes, but they only served to heighten the emptiness. They were like caretakers in a mausoleum.

I bounced forward to the morning, but the bedroom was empty and the business suit was gone too.

So I bounced back an hour. Then another. This time he was there, still outside the door, still reading. When I appeared, he glanced up without interest. “Hmm? Is it that late already?” He opened his belt to check the time.

I started to ask him something, but he cut me off. “Wait a minute.” He was resetting his belt. Before I could stop him he had tapped it twice and vanished.

I opened the bedroom door; the old man had vanished too.

My curiosity was too much. I bounced back fifteen minutes. Then fifteen minutes more. He was sleeping quietly on the bed. His breath rasped slowly in and out.

I felt no guilt as I woke him; he'd had more than six hours undisturbed. I wanted to know what was so important. He came awake suddenly.

“Where am I?” he demanded.

“August fourteenth,” I told him.

That seemed to satisfy him, but he frowned at me in suspicion. “What do you want? Why'd you wake me?”

“What was supposed to happen last night?

“Last night?”

“The thirteenth. You came to warn us of something….” I prompted.

“The thirteenth? That was a mistake. I wanted the twenty-third.”

“Why? What happens on the twenty-third?”

He peered at me again. “You're too young.” He pushed himself off the bed and stood unsteadily. And tapped his belt and vanished.

Damn.

Naturally, I went straight to the twenty-third.

My old man was there, of course. A dozen times over. Wrinkled, gnarled, and white. Their hands hovered in the air, or scrabbled across their laps like spiders. They clawed, they plucked.

But not all of them were that old. There were one or two that even looked familiar.

“Don?” I asked one who was wearing a faded shirt. If I remembered correctly, he had gotten that ketchup stain on it just a few hours ago at the poker table of the thirteenth.

He looked at me, startled. “Dan? You shouldn't be here. You're still too young. I mean, let us take care of this for now. You go back to the party.”

“Huh?” I tried to draw him aside. “Just tell me what's going on.”

“I can't,” he whispered. “It wouldn't be a good idea—”

Abruptly, a familiar business suit was standing before us. Was it the same one? Probably. “I'll take over,” he said to Don.

“Thanks,” Don said, and fled in relief.

I looked at the other. “What's going on here?”

He looked at the clock in this timebelt. “In a few more minutes you'll find out.” He took me by the arm and led me across the room. “Stand here. I'll stay right by you the whole time. Don't say anything. Don't do anything. Just watch, this time around.”

I shut my mouth and watched.

The air in the room was heavy. The few conversations still going on were the merest of whispers. The supposedly silent hum of the air conditioner was deafening. Almost all of these wrinkled faces, pale faces, were deathly. The few tan ones stood out like spotlights. They were grim too.

The old men, their eyes were like holes in lampshade faces, but nothing glowed within. Their expressions were bleary. Uniform. Frightened.

And there were so many of them. More and more; the room was filling up. This house, so often a happy place, was now a cloister house of the infirm. The laughter of youth had shaded into the garish cackling of senility. What had been a firm grip on life had degenerated into a plucking and desperate claw, scratching on the edge of terror.

Who were these men—why could I not accept what I was seeing? And what drove them together here?

How old am I? (And here is the fear—) I don't know. I don't know.

Am I one of the tan faces or the pale ones? Does my skin hang in pale folds, bleached by age? (I touch my cheek hesitantly.)

As the air pops! softly—

—and the body that crumples to the floor is me.

Of course.

It was the jump-shock that killed him. Will kill me.

He was old. The oldest of them all. (But not so old as to be distinguishable from the rest. He could have been any of them. Us.)

There was silence in the room. Then a soft shadowed sigh, almost a sound of relief, as too many ancient lungs released their burden of breaths held too long.

They'd been expecting this, waiting for it—eagerly?—the curiosity of the morbid draws them again and again until the room is crowded with fearful old men. Each praying that, somehow, this time it won't happen. And each terrified that it will.

And perhaps—perhaps each is most afraid that the next time he comes to this moment, he will not be a witness, but the guest of honor himself....