The Time Traveler's Almanac (131 page)

Miguel was about to touch the lantern when he decided instead to ring the tiny porcelain bell whose intricate details seemed to never end.

“Vueño arao, what can I do for you?” Mr. Henares said, appearing from an adjoining room.

“Good morning, Mr. Henares,” Miguel Lopez Vicente replied. “I have come to trade away all my days.”

“All your days? Are you certain?” The old merchant looked him straight in the eye and for a moment Miguel felt himself dissolve into sad and heavy motes that just barely kept the shape of a man.

“Yes,” Miguel nodded. “Believe me, this decision was not at all spontaneous.”

“I cannot buy them all,” Mr. Henares said. “This is not that kind of place.”

“Do you know who I am?” Miguel asked him.

“It makes no difference, sir,” Mr. Henares replied. “But, yes. I do.”

“This way, at least, let someone benefit,” Miguel told him with an unflinching gaze.

“I see,” said Mr. Henares. He leaned forward until the space between him and Miguel was no wider than a fist. “But I have nothing in stock to give you for what you want to give me. It is quite early in the month. The value of your—”

“Sir,” Miguel interrupted him, taking a step back. “Just give me the first thing you see and we’ll call it an exchange fair and well-made.”

“Very well,” the old man said, before vanishing into the other room. He returned a moment later with his tools, brass and glass and wood, and took precisely the amount of time Miguel Lopez Vicente wanted to exchange. Afterwards, he handed Miguel a silver thimble, discolored and slightly dented.

“This was found in a ship sleeping at the bottom of the sea, off the island of Siqui’jor. The vessel sank fleeing pirates – it is a story old but true.” Mr. Henares said in a soft tone. “Sometimes, one cannot run away.”

“I am aware of that story,” Miguel sighed as he looked closely at the thimble for the inscription.

“Of course. Of course, you are,” Mr. Henares nodded, scratching at a sore on his left arm. He left Miguel alone to read.

Around the rim of the thimble, almost worn away, were the words

There is a reason why past is past.

That night at his home, Miguel Lopez Vicente dismissed his maidservant early, mixed water with his last supper’s vino, a simple claret from the vineyards of Sevilla in Ispancio, undressed himself, taking care to empty his bowels beforehand to maintain a semblance of dignity for the benefit of those who would find him, and stretched out on his lonely bed built for two.

His final thoughts, as he slipped into a dreamless sleep, were how he wished he were a man half his age again, at the height of his powers. That bittersweet conceit kept him occupied as cold seawater rushed to submerge his bed.

And so his story ended.

-terminó-

“Cumpleaños felices,” the dark-skinned Katao boy from Cabarroquis whispered, his eyes soft and liquid brown. “I am your birthday present.”

Miguel Lopez Vicente fought his almost overwhelming excitement and sought his voice. “You— you are?”

“Yes,” the boy smiled, trailing a slender finger down his bare chest, stopping short at a point past his hairless navel. “Your uncle engaged me for tonight. For you.”

“Oh,” Miguel managed, “I see.”

“Do you like what you see?”

Whatever words Miguel had suddenly dried on his tongue as he watched the boy disrobe.

“There is no need to feel anxious.”

“No, no, I am— not anxious.”

“You only turn sixteen once. It should be special. It will be special.” The boy had crossed the distance between them in the span of a thunderous heartbeat and Miguel shuddered when he felt the intense heat the boy seemed to radiate. He did not know if it was the result of his imagination or barely controlled desire but he feared that he would burn.

“You cannot possibly be older than me,” Miguel said, casting his gaze to the side, suddenly conscious of the boy’s nearness.

“I am fifteen. Or thirteen. Unless you prefer me to be older,” the boy spoke as he began unbuttoning Miguel’s shirt. “I can be eighteen. Or twenty. Just let me know.”

“I—” Miguel began, but as the boy’s fingers found his skin he lost all words, the language abandoning him to the trails of heat left by the boy’s explorations. When their tongues met, he was certain he would be consumed by fire, losing himself in the intense moment of unadulterated sunlight that reduced everything that he was into a throbbing cinder, wanting only the explosive release that was as inevitable as life and death.

“Never leave me,” he told the boy.

“Everyone loves me,” the boy answered. “You must live only for the moment.”

“Then I’ll never be old.”

Later, after his birthday gift had left, he lay trembling in a bed built for one, his body weak with the demarcation of new frontiers, while his soul, not quite anywhere, exulted in the epiphany that he was his own boundary and that it was as wide or as narrow as he wanted.

What Miguel Lopez Vicente did not know, what he could not know, was that his heart was ill-suited for single nights’ passion. It was fragile and tender and rare, wanting only true love, and collapsed upon itself, heavy with imagined loss in the small hours before dawn, feeling lost, betrayed and old before its time.

And so his story ended.

-terminó-

When Miguel Lopez Vicente turned eight, his father brought him to see the End of the World.

The spectacle, held only once every generation and lasting for fourteen nights, was staged on a massive series of sculpted sets within the Baluarte of the Plaza Miranda. Ciudad Manila spared no expense – the costumed cast numbered in the hundreds and great machines, made invisible by cloth and convention, spewed fire, blew wind and rained artificial hailstones the size of macopas but with the consistency of cotton. The Beast of the Apocalypse (a magnificent contraption maneuvered by three alternating shifts of eighteen people) towered over the amazed audience, clawing its way out of a bottomless pit; its words and imprecations resounded with the voice of the Most Excellent Primo Orador herself.

Much of the performance went over Miguel Lopez Vicente’s head; instead he was terrified by the sights and sounds of the Apocalypse, much to his father’s regret.

“Did you not enjoy the show?” Antonio Manuel Vicente asked him afterwards, visibly irritated at his son’s obvious pallor.

“Yes, Papa,” Miguel lied with little difficulty.

“It is important that you know about things like this,” Antonio continued, not hearing him. “The world ends in horror if the will of the Three Sisters is not followed.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“That is why you must pray every day, every night, before you eat, before you sleep. Pray for their mercy.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“When you grow older, you’ll understand that we are all servants of the Three.”

“Yes, Papa,” Miguel replied, but in his heart he had decided never to grow old.

When they returned home, Miguel rushed to his room and trembled in a corner, his thoughts ablaze with images of endings and destruction. He cried for over an hour, caught off-guard by the tears his fear provoked, feeling helpless, alone and destined to die in the Apocalypse that could occur tomorrow or the day after that.

The young boy turned his back on the faith of his father that day, with the fierce determination of the very young, and resolved that he would rather die than live to see the End of the World.

Before he went to sleep, he deliberately did not say his bedtime prayers and turned the statue of the Three Sisters away from his bed. He did not want them watching him.

The Apocalypse arrived that night, triggered by the loss of one little boy’s faith. In their fury, radiant devas came to Miguel’s room on shimmering wings, shattering the walls of the house. “So this is the one who brought about the End of Things,” the fiercest among them said, pointing to the sleeping boy with a sword that burned with a flame unseen since the Beginning of All Things. With a soundless cry she struck down the remnants of the house then flew with her legion into the sky that wept stars.

And so his story ended.

-terminó-

Miguel Lopez Vicente’s mother, dead just a week, came to him on the eve of his fourth birthday, saying something her son could not quite hear.

He sat up, straining to listen to her words, having no fear of the woman who had shown him only love.

“Miguel.”

“Mama?”

“I am lonely here. Will you come with me?”

“Yes, Mama.”

When his mother kissed him on the forehead, Miguel felt suddenly cold and embraced her, his heavy heart, lately engorged by sorrow, shrinking to the size of a child’s perfect love.

“You are the only one I have ever loved, my Miguel,” she told him as they stepped into the shadows.

“Yes, Mama.”

“You will always be my little boy.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Do not forget to take your smile with you.”

Miguel set his face into a smile of unconditional trust and walked forward.

And so his story ended.

-terminó-

Antonio Manuel Vicente, the rising dramatist, stood at the balcony of his tower residence and contemplated his life, like pages in a chapbook he felt he had only partially authored.

A soft wind, heavy with the suggestion of salt, blew in from the nearby harbor, carrying muted voices that sang, argued, lied or whispered promises. He pulled his dressing robe closer to his body, thinking about the sad and strange paths his life had taken, the people he had loved and left behind, and how the simplicity of a change of perspective – the height of a balcony – could provoke thoughts of drastic action.

In his arms he carried his sleeping son, Miguel; a two-year-old result of a dalliance with a woman he could honestly not remember. He had found the boy sitting alone, silent and stone-faced, on the stairs of his residence, with a brief letter that held even briefer introductions. That was a week ago.

Antonio had his entire life before him and felt that the unwelcome weight in his arms was an unfair burden. When he felt his son stir in his arms, he summoned up all the paternal inclinations in his heart and came up with an absolute emptiness.

He looked at the son he had never wanted, never even dreamed of, and without a single other thought, hurled him off the balcony. He felt no remorse, prepared to act the distraught parent when tomorrow brought news of the horrible accident to his ears, already composing the lines of dialogue that he, grief-stricken, would speak.

Miguel Lopez Vicente watched the ground rush up to welcome him with the same stoicism he had when he was abandoned by his mother.

And so his story ended.

-terminó-

Mr. Henares looks at his inventory

In the storeroom of his shop along the Encanto lu Caminata, Mr. Henares looked at the eighty four vials he had distilled from the future days of his largest customer of the year.

He gently swirled the closest one between thumb and forefinger and watched the marvelous stories of Miguel Lopez Vicente unfold in a glimmer of effervescent, liquid tales brimming with potential. He paused and thought about the nature of stories, the vagaries of time and the single, long road of desire and shook his head, resigned to the fact that for as long as people were people, his business would continue.

Mr. Henares replaced the vial of Miguel Lopez Vicente among the eighty-three others, put off for the next day the task of determining their relative prices (perhaps he would bundle two or three – one of his regulars, a famous astronomer when he was young, wanted some more time for stargazing), and went about closing the shop.

“We all burn sunlight,” he muttered to no one in particular, scratching an arm with a motion that could almost be mistaken as a caress.

-terminó-

THE WEED OF TIME

Norman Spinrad

Norman Spinrad is an American writer who has published more than twenty novels and sixty or so short stories, feature film scripts, television scripts, songs, and much assorted other stuff. He has won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for his fiction. “The Weed of Time” was originally published in
Vertex: The Magazine of Science Fiction
in August of 1973.

I, me, the spark of mind that is my consciousness, dwells in a locus that is neither place nor time. The objective duration of my life-span is one hundred and ten years, but from my own locus of consciousness, I am immortal – my awareness of my own awareness can never cease to be. I am an infant am a child am a youth am an old, old man dying on clean white sheets. I am all these have always been all these mes will always be all mes in the place where my mind dwells in an eternal moment divorced from time.

A century and a tenth is my eternity. My life is like a biography in a book; immutable, invariant, fixed in length, in duration. On April 3, 2040, I am born. On December 2, 2150, I die. The events in between take place in a single instant. Say that I range up and down them at will, experiencing each of them again and again and again eternally. Even this is not really true; I experience all in my century and a tenth simultaneously, once forever … How can I tell my story? How can you understand? The language we have in common is based on concepts of time which we do not share.

For me, time as you think of it does not exist. I do not move from moment to moment sequentially like a blind man groping his way down a tunnel. I am at all points in the tunnel simultaneously, and my eyes are open wide. Time is to me, in a sense, what space is to you, a field over which I move in more directions than one. How can I tell you? How can I make you understand? We are, all of us, men born of women, but in a way you have less in common with me than you do with an ape or an amoeba. Yet I
must
tell you, somehow. It is too late for me, will be too late, has been too late. I am trapped in this eternal hell and I can never escape, not even into death. My life is immutable, invariant, for I have eaten of Temp, the Weed of Time. But you must not! You must listen! You must understand! Shun the Weed of Time! I must try to tell you in my own way. It is pointless to try to start at the beginning. There is no beginning. There is no end. Only significant time-loci. Let me describe these loci. Perhaps I can make you understand …