Dream to Live By
by David J. Strumfels
“I’m not sure how to explain I this, but…”
He tried. He showed me the device. “Don’t ask me how it works though. I’m an engineer, not a physicist. I didn’t even build it. Found it. All I know is how to make it send me where I want to go. Excuse me, when I want to go.”
The crazy thing was, I wasn’t scared. I mean, what if someone materialized out of thin air right in front of you? Especially if it were very late at night and you were alone? I don’t know; maybe I figured that somebody who could do that could do any thing he pleased, so what was the point of being scared? If he wanted me dead—or whatever—I’d be that way. So I wasn’t scared.
And like I said, he tried to explain. Someone who means you harm doesn’t usually do that. But it was all hopeless. Time travel is one of those things that just can’t be, according to the way my mind works. It’s like ghosts: even if I saw them with my own eyes, I probably still wouldn’t believe it. I’m just not the sort of person who can believe things like that.
Then he told me who he was, and I really didn’t believe it. Jesus Christ, he was an old man, for crying out loud. And me, I was—am—just a kid. Who can’t even think of himself as being old, for God’s sakes. So how was I supposed to…?
“Forget it, then. I didn’t come here to talk about dumb things, like paradoxes and the nature of reality. I’m here for something more important than that. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He took off across the dunes. That was also eerie, the way he knew which way to go. Ever since my folks bought our summer home three years ago, I’d been taking these nightly strolls along the beach when I can’t sleep, which is often. There’s something about the salt air, and the rush and crash of waves and rustle of grasses in the sand, in the darkness that thrills me, that opens my mind to things that seem impossible by day. But how the hell did he know that? Unless he really was—I shook my head and took off in a trot to catch up to him.
“If you didn’t build it then where’d you get it?” I demanded, once my breathing had calmed down; that’s another thing about the strolls, it helps my asthma, though the doctors don’t know why. “And don’t tell me you bought it at a store.” I didn’t need to be told that obviously.
“I told you, I found it.” He stopped for a few moments, a little winded himself. At his age, who wouldn’t be; then I realized, maybe it was more than just age; maybe it was a bit of me coming through—“Don’t ask me where, though. That I’m sure as hell not going to tell you.” He chuckled, as if at some private joke. “I don’t know, maybe some careless traveler left it behind. Or maybe I was supposed to find it, so I could come here and do what I’m doing.” He shrugged. “More dumb stuff. You might as well ask why any of us are here, or what’s the meaning of life. Ah, here we are.”
We’d reached the top of the highest dune, and were now looking down on the southeastern edge of the bay. It was a pretty sight; a waning three-quarters Moon was rising right over the black waters, sending a dancing rope of yellow light right down to the shoreline. A bright star hovered just a couple degrees over her, a diamond atop a pearl.
“It is beautiful,” he said wistfully. I thought I caught some tears at the corners of his eyes; but maybe it was just the way the moonlight was reflecting from them. “I can see why…” He shook his head. “Of course, from here it’s so small.” Then he chuckled again. “Of course, from there we’re even tinier.
“Come on, sit down. Take a load off an old man’s legs.”
We sat in the sandy grass. I felt the night moisture seep into my trousers, the way it had the last hundred times I’d been here. And damn if the old guy didn’t sit like I always did, his arms wrapped around his knees, his heels dug into the ground. Spooky as hell.
And believe it or not, we sat like that for a long time, just gazing into space and feeling that coolness and saying nothing. Which is also crazy, I know; but it was like he had me hypnotized or something. I mean, he really just couldn’t be what and who he said he was, but I know what I’d seen and was seeing and there was no other explanation I could think of, not sitting there like that. I just couldn’t think of a single thing to say or do.
“Look,” he finally broke the spell, at just about the time I couldn’t stand it any longer. “I just want you to know one thing before I begin. And that is, you’re not nuts. Understand that? You’re not. I’m not saying that there isn’t such a thing as being nuts, because there is—believe me, there is, as you’re going to find out soon enough—but it’s got nothing to do with you. Not now, and not ever. Understand?”
He was staring at me hard when he said that. Hard the way my father did, when he wanted to make sure I got his point. I swallowed. “Yes sir.”
“Sir?” His eyes rolled skyward. “OK. No problem. Call me sir if it makes you feel good. Actually, people don’t show respect like that much anymore. Maybe they should…
“But I’m getting off the subject. Bad habit I’ve gotten into since I retired, I’m afraid. Retirement gives you too much time to—” He grinned. “Piss away. Shit, this isn’t easy.”
A shock went up my spine; no adult had ever used that word in my presence, at least not so carelessly. It made me—well, maybe not exactly start to believe, but at least wonder. “I’m really your grandfather?”
“You want a DNA analysis or something? No, don’t ask; I shouldn’t have said that. Look, maybe if I tell you what I retired from it’ll make things easier. See that point of light above the Moon?” He pointed skywards. “That’s the planet Jupiter. That’s where I worked. Well, not on Jupiter of course; we were actually in orbit around Europa, one of the moons. But that’s not important. What’s important is what I was doing there. You know what that was? Building the first interstellar spaceship, that’s what. That’s right, the first ship to go to the stars. There, how does that grab you?”
I don’t know what made me say it. I guess it was just too much for me to grasp all at once. But looking back, it was a pretty stupid thing to say. “It grabs me just fine, I guess.”
“You guess? You guess?! Jesus Christ Almighty! Don’t you have any idea… we’re going to the stars, boy! To the stars!”
That’s really the way he said it. You should have seen his face, too: it was all lit up, just like the Moon in front of us. I swear you could have read by the light of his face. All of which, again, should have made me scared, but didn’t. In fact, I really didn’t know how to react. I guess it was just too big a thing for my mind. The stars? You might as well talk about going to the—well, about going to the stars.
And then the strangest thing happened. OK, a lot of strange things happened that night, but in my mind this was the strangest. Damn if the old guy didn’t look at me—directly at me, into my eyes, or my soul, or whatever in me that is me—as if he understood exactly what was going on inside me. And then he touched me. He put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed a little, then patted me before letting go. His eyes were full of understanding. And, though I didn’t understand why at that moment, pity. Which finally did scare me, a little.
“Sorry,” he said. “You have to understand, I can’t tell you too much; you could do things with that knowledge that… and the worst thing is, you’d do them from the best of intentions. That’s—part of what makes this so hard.
“But you’ve got to know some. Enough to get by. So I’m going to tell you. But—and no shitting me here, you have to promise this and keep your promise like you’ve never done before in your life. I mean, even though you’re still a kid. Because this is serious stuff. You can’t tell nobody about this. Nobody. Understand? No one else can ever know.”