1
One way or the other, Victor Black mused, Lizzie Gordon had to go.
He no longer needed her, now that he had this… Man With No Name… and she knew too much about him. So, Victor Black decided, he would do what he was good at: he’d kill her before he’d ever met her. He needed to be rid of her; he knew she knew something she was somehow hiding from him, and she was somehow tied to this Man Without A Name without a doubt.
It was time to cut bait and bail.
Maybe now, with this Mystery Man in his custody (and why did that feel so strange?), he could continue his work without any further interference — start from a contradictory clean slate, as it were.
Victor Black locked his door, turned down the lights, and sat down behind his desk, focusing on his newest task:
Kill Elizabeth Gordon before ever meeting her.
2
On the morning of his death, Joe Gordon had awoken troubled.
He’d had a most disturbing dream, one in which his wonderful wife had come out to see him at the construction site (as she occasionally did), but had been killed in an industrial accident. An I-beam had swung out of control and struck her, killing her instantly. Joe wasn’t much into dreams (except for that one notable exception that’d predicted their meeting each other), in fact, rarely remembered anything about them, and if he did, usually ignored them. But this one was different. It involved his wife, had been nasty, and had been very, very, disturbingly real.
After lying in bed for several minutes, staring into the above-bed darkness of their bedroom, and wondering just where the hell he was — as in whether or not he was still dreaming — the dream eventually wore off, and he quietly slipped out from beneath the blankets and downstairs to make coffee and fetch the morning paper. As much as he’d tried to discount — even forget — the dream, as much as he tried to get into his normal morning routine before heading out for work, he just couldn’t shake the disturbing images.
Construction site.
Lizzie.
Kiss and talk.
Boom!
As Joe sat down to read the paper, the Metro section fell into his lap, and there, on the first page, in big, bold letters, was:
Woman Killed in Freak Industrial Accident
Scanning the article, his blood ran cold just as his Mr. Coffee began making its gurgling, clicking sounds in the kitchen.
A lady, a passer-by, had walked past an under-construction building, when a section of wall collapsed on her, because a worker on the other side had inadvertently swung his bucket loader into it. What the woman had been doing so close to a construction site was not clear.
Joe opened the Metro section for the rest of the article, but before he found it, his eyes had fallen upon an ad for a funeral parlor.
Schwartz Mortuary.
Shivering from another chill, he threw down the paper and went to the still brewing coffee. He liked his coffee—
Black.
He impatiently scolded the machine for not yet having completed its cycle, nor having yet filled the pot enough for him to pour. He paced the kitchen and grabbed at the spoon he’d laid out beside his coffee mug, but, instead, knocked it off the counter. Bending over to retrieve it, he stood back up — and rammed his head into an open cabinet door above, catching the door on its edge.
He cursed quietly to keep from waking Lizzie and rubbed his head at the point of impact, still uttering restrained expletives. Growling, he quietly slammed shut the cabinet door. As he rubbed at the wound, he looked up to the cabinet door.
He hadn’t remembered opening it.
Grinding his knuckles in and around the wound, the pain finally abated.
His coffee ready, Joe snatched the carafe from its warming station, spilling some as he poured it into his cup, then eagerly sipped it before replacing the carafe back into its nook.
Joe went to the La-Z-Boy to resume reading the paper, when his eyes landed on the words “eye beam.” Blinking, he looked back down and found he’d mentally combined the words “eye surgery” and “laser beam,” from a Lasik surgery article.
He shivered. Finished reading the article and the paper.
Joe took his shower (checked on his head wound and felt curiously lightheaded for a few moments), then left for work. On the way in, he’d had plenty on his mind… mainly, concerned with how to deal with Jeff Skopchek, his most recent problem child, and whether or not they’d complete the job on time. He also wondered about whether or not he and Lizzie should have a child… and when he could ever take off enough time for more than just a couple days, for a decent and proper vacation.
The closer he got to the job site, the more the Jeff Skopchek issue occupied his thoughts. He’d tried to do a friend a favor, but this guy had gone bad… turned into a real mess and had even started to affect his crew and their timeline. And last week — one of many — he’d had yet another accident. He’d backed up a front-end loader he was operating into the structure itself.
(lady)
(bucket loader)
(wall)
As his engineers had to evaluate any possible damage to the structure’s integrity (there had been some), that had taken time and effort away from the actual job… and had been yet another accident to which Skopchek’s name had been associated. As open-minded and willing to work with his employees as he was, not to mention trying to help out a friend, Joe felt it was time to let this guy go. He was nothing but trouble. Too many mistakes costing too much time and money. The guy just wasn’t all there and was quickly becoming a safety and company liability. Who knew what would happen next? The guy needed to get his life in order, and Joe was going to give him the time to do so — before something worse happened. He couldn’t risk the lives of his crew — nor incur any more delays.
Joe arrived at the job site already spun up, traveling mug of coffee in-hand, and it didn’t help matters any that, once again, Jeff Skopchek had arrived late and in a foul mood. Joe couldn’t talk to him immediately, but told him he did need to see him. Jeff nodded, didn’t say a word, and hopped into the loading crane’s cabin. He was supposed to transfer a stack of steel from one location to another, a harmless enough task, Joe’d thought; a child in a hard hat could do it.
It was just about then that — unknown to Joe — Lizzie had pulled up into the parking lot across from the job site, in that small field that also served as a parking lot for the construction workers’ vehicles. She sat in her car, smiling, watching him.
Joe approached a small gaggle of workers engaged in chit-chat in-between tasks. He’d said a brief “hello.” They talked a little, laughed, until Joe caught sight of one of his foremen he needed to meet with, and excused himself. Unrolling a set of plans, he caught up with the man and they confirmed the day’s marching orders. Rolling the sheet back up, Joe tucked it under an arm and headed off to another task, as thoughts of Lizzie and vacation planning once again filled his head. He felt good about life and their place in it. Was glad he had a great life, not one like Jeff Skopchek’s messed-up bullshit.
The beep-beep of a backing-up loader brought him back to reality.
Joe again pulled out his plans, looking them over. Once he got rid of Skopchek and put in that other guy who’d quit but wanted back in, they should make up any lost ground. Again rolling up his plans, he looked up and across the field — and saw Lizzie, who’d just gotten out of her car. She waved. He waved back, smiling.
Why was she there… and so early in the morning?
A smile formed on his face… when all time, all sound, all movement just… stopped.
Joe found himself standing before a guy he’d never met before. Wondered what he was doing on his job site — and without a hard hat. The guy seemed friendly enough, even had his hand extended in a greeting.
“Joe? Joe Gordon?” the man asked. “That’d be me.”
“Nice to meet you!” the Man With No Name said, shaking Joe’s hand.
“What’s going on? Who are you?” Joe asked, visibly confused.
“There’s been a little warp in time.”
“A what?”
“Joe — can I call you ‘Joe’?—I’m here to help put into motion some things we’d planned a looong time ago. Get things kicked off.”
As confused as he was, Joe couldn’t explain it, but he felt comfortable with this guy, who did seem vaguely familiar…
“I’m listening.”
The Man With No Name put his arm around Joe’s shoulders and led him away from the job site into the field in which Lizzie stood, also frozen in time.
“What I’m about to tell you is going to sound nothing short of bullshit and science fiction, but if you keep yourself open — which I know you will — you’ll remember the words as I speak them. To just jump right in… I’m here to remind you that when you die, you don’t really die, but instead shift your focus from one focal point to another. Like going from being awake to entering a dream state. Or going from what you were just doing… to what we have here, now.”
“Okay…”
The Man With No Name nodded, continuing.
“Not quite convinced, I see.”
“Well, come on, what are we talking about here? Dreams? If I can’t touch, smell, or see it—”
“It don’t exist,” the Man With No Name finished, again nodding, clasping his hands behind his back. “Understood. Except for your dream about Lizzie, before you met, right?”
“Right — except for that — which, of course, you seem to know about…”
“Well, let me help you remember a couple other things — things that have already come and gone many times, actually. And to remind you you’ve already remembered and decided upon this. I’m just reminding you — perhaps reassuring you, is the better word choice — before we get started, setting the stage, and putting things into motion. I’m the catalyst, if you will—”
“You’re kidding, right? I have an apartment building to get up—”
“Yes, you do… but, look, as hard for you as this may be — right now — we have to do it. There’s a man out there. After your wife—”
“Excuse me?”
“Now, calm down. We are going to keep him from getting her, even though he’s already starting to warp events. For instance, why would Lizzie show up, now — so early in the morning? She wasn’t up when you got up, was she? Anyway, that’s what this is all about. Again, I’m just here to get things going.”
The Man With No Name looked away as they continued into the field.
“This guy… he has issues… and is after your wife. He’s nasty and operates under some seriously misguided principles. His reasons for this are not important now, but what is important is that he thinks your wife knows something about me, is somehow tied to me, and knows too much about him — those things, he believes, makes her a serious threat to him and his efforts.”
“Is she? And what’s so important about you?”
“Not until he started all this. And, as to me, well, that gets into even weirder aspects of all this and is best saved for later. But, he’s a nasty government official using his power for his own ends, and I’m trying to stop him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It will.”
Joe looked at him.
The Man With No Name chuckled. “Look, I did manage to bring you out of your normal time, didn’t I? Look around. Things really are at a standstill, aren’t they?”
Joe looked to Lizzie… at his crew and construction site — even noticed birds frozen in mid-flight above and around them.
“All these people — even the birds — are all still experiencing normal time. To them, none of this is happening.” The Man With No Name examined Joe’s expressions. “Even the ‘you’ back there,” the Man With No Name said, motioning back toward the construction site, “is still experiencing normal time, operating at normal speed. But here… you’re not. It’s all real, so, go on… take a good, hard look; all of this is real.”
Joe looked back from where he’d been and saw himself still standing way back over at the job site.
“Holy shit.”
The guy was right. His entire world did seem to have come to a sudden and abrupt halt — a standstill — but it wasn’t like everything was dead. Though there were no breezes, birds chirping, nor equipment sounds (and he swore he heard faint, incredibly rich echoes…), there was something else… a kind of underlying… “excitement”… was the only way he could put it. Expectation. But other than that, as was pointed out, indeed, all construction, all movement, all life seemed to have stopped — except for them.
Everything else, however, looked normal.
The job site, Lizzie and her car, the town, the passing traffic, surrounding buildings, the trees and birds held motionless in midflight… yet, they were the only two moving around.
And he was still standing over there at the job site!
Okay, it was pretty odd.
Lizzie would never believe him when he came back and told her about all this. She was the one who always had all the weird experiences, not him, but now he had something to talk about that would knock her
(block)
socks off.
And as he thought about it all, he did seem to feel — yes actually feel — that other him still back there in ‘normal time.’
“Yeah, that’s right — that’s it!” the Man With No Name said, “I’ve just split a portion of you off into nontime. You’re getting it. Great!
“Ok, this guy,” the Man With No Name continued, “his name’s Victor Black, thinks your wife knows something about me… that she could lead him to me… and to that end — now, please… don’t get upset, because we’re intercepting him… he plans on torturing her to get what he wants—”
“Oh, come on! How can you know this? How can any of this be?”
“Because he’s already done it—”
“Jesus Christ, you just got done telling me he plans on—”
“I did.”
“So, if he plans on it, how can he already have done it?”
“He—”
“You’re telling me a man we don’t even know — and I barely even know you, for that matter — is planning on torturing my wife because he thinks she can take him to you — but you say this really isn’t the case until after he did this, does this — whatever? That it hasn’t yet occurred?”
“You’re still a little too attached to the emotional aspect of things. Let’s try this, instead.”
Without another word Lizzie, the job site, the town — all vanished — and Joe was overcome with images blazing across his internal landscape. But they were more than just images…
Hadn’t he just been standing in that field — he was, wasn’t he?—it was as if he had one foot in his reality, and the other
* * *
Whisked away into a maelstrom of surreal, bizarre, and fantastic imagery!
Was he still in bed, upstairs at home? Trying to figure out if he was still dreaming? Staring into that dark ceiling?
Or was he now… as he seemed to find himself… blurrily — dizzyingly — filling the shoes of untold different people all at once… people he seemed to know… people he seemed to… be?
It was like each of these people were all him… different versions of him… a confusing array of faces and lives more than just parading through or across his turned-upside-down mind… he was (and how could this be?)… he was experiencing each and every life in its entirety… their likes and dislikes… secret thoughts… how they interacted with others… quiet moments as they looked up into the stars at night, or across empty, wind-blown fields (dammit, but he felt the winds on his face)… and all the while he knew he was each and every person. He was every one of them…
… he was a diseased mason positioning a capstone in a Middle Ages castle in Germany… an ancient Egyptian priestess washing her hair before a ceremony for Osiris… a Native American construction worker eating lunch high atop an early 1900s New York City skyscraper still under construction… a navigator aboard a 1600s ship bound for uncharted, north Atlantic waters…
How could he be all these people? How could he be—
A doctor?
Many times a soldier and farmer?
Male and female?
Born and died countless times over?
Smelled and tasted and experienced everything between sea and desert and arctic air and grassland across the globe?
And as a child in his current (and what did “current” mean, now, anyway?) life, he relived playing with a passed-down set of cherished Lincoln Logs that — in another life, he realized — he’d actually made! The very same pieces!
Relived his entire current life… all his birthdays… Hallowe’ens… Christmases… playing in the woods… learning the ropes of construction… finding and marrying Lizzie…
So, how could he also be an English sheep herder… a spacecraft engineer…
It only made sense if…
It all came back in a hail of remembrance that bowled him over, and he began to laugh, and laugh, and howl into the infinity of life, the universe, and…
Of course! he continued to howl, what had taken him so long? This was why he could be both standing in that field and be a miner in 1800’s Pennsylvania!
It all was so powerfully obvious!
Good God, he could be so thick sometimes…
Joe was back at the construction site, standing in that field, the Man With No Name standing patiently beside him.
“Do we understand each other?” the Man With No Name asked.
Joe nodded, still chuckling to himself, “Yeah, yeah, I got it, good Lord, I got it.”
“It’s usually easier to live one life with only one life’s worth of data in the old memory bank — for most, anyway. The previous lives usually do end up leaking through, however, but most typically have more than enough to handle in their current focus and choose to ignore any other data. It can be exhausting, I know…”
“Wow.”
The Man With No Name went over to one of the nearby motionless birds and gently stroked it.
Joe continued to process. “It’s not that… it’s just that… I wanna keep looking in on these other lives… and it’s like, yeah, I’ve been clobbered with a two-by-four — I know it’s a two-by-four, but I also know what kind of wood it is, its lineage and genetics, and how it’s been manufactured — but I’m still reeling from the actual blow!”
“The ‘initial’ blow of the revisit stuns a little, don’t it?” the Man With No Name said, smiling, “and that’s another reason many don’t recall their other lives… you do have to concentrate upon the current life.”
Joe nodded, still smiling.
“So, to move along, and as I’d alluded to earlier, perception — life — is really nothing but a shift in focus. Since Black is quite adept at this focus-shifting thing — or thinks he is — we have to out-shift him. Lead him where we need him to go. There are so many probabilities to what he’s trying to do, we had to pick one he’d least expect — something that doesn’t give anything away, but still shifts Black’s attempt away from Lizzie. There are multiple reasons for why anything is done—”
“Please,” Joe said, holding up a hand, “don’t go there — I think I’m on the long side of overwhelmed with what I have right now — as fascinating as it all is.”
The Man With No Name nodded. “Fair enough.”
“But,” Joe asked, “if this is all a shift in focus… then, do we really need to change anything — need to do anything?”
“Of course you do, and yes. It’s perhaps a little difficult to understand — even in your current nontime perspective and with all you’ve remembered — but there are subtle nuances to all concepts. Though it sounds contradictory, nothing is preordained; there are threads of experience that encompass all actions — everything can be changed. Just because there are other probabilities doesn’t negate the need for personal action.
“It all comes down to a matter of focus.
“If you took one road, but not the other, the naturally curious soul of course wants to know where other roads go… and ends up experiencing those roads, as well. But to experience those roads, the individual still has to go down them, breathe the air above them, feel the roads beneath his or her feet, and live the passages of apparent time associated with the travel unique to those paths, experiencing the moments unique to those emotional points-of-view. But not every personality needs to know this as they take the other paths… because to know the path not taken would color the experience of the path chosen. It needs to be experienced in and of itself… though there are other probabilities where consciously knowing such knowledge is desired and needed—”
“Okay,” Joe said, again holding up a hand, “I get it. Frankly, my mind’s beginning to hurt. So, what do we do now? With Black?”
“You die.”
“Why?”
“In actuality, Black had already put his intention into action — has already killed Lizzie — but we don’t want him to realize that probability — at least not the Black we’re dealing with. There are infinite universes and probabilities, and all are highly collaborative efforts on many levels of existence, and this one, the one you chose — where you decided to die for your wife in that life — was the better desired one for the probability that is you, standing before me, in this moment. You love manipulating and rearranging things. Look at your current profession — and at many of your other lives’ professions — where you love building, creating, and rearranging physical matter. It’s who you are, what you do. It was also decided upon, before and after all this happened, that I was to kick-start this for you. It was deemed helpful to the other parts of you, in a learning and growing way we also won’t get into here, and which are eminently personal to you. Everything we do bleeds through into absolutely every other existence.
“So, what we’d decided upon — you’d decided upon — was to focus on what we want in this probability… to have Black, as confused and vile as he may or may not be, to think that this is the only reality there is for him. For all his adeptness, he still doesn’t quite get it nor understand the true nature of reality. If he did, he would be an entirely different personality — and in fact already is, this is just an ‘early portion’ of his path — and would realize there’s no reason for him to do what he’s doing.
“That’s the plan.”
“So, what you’re saying is that Lizzie has already been killed by him — as much as she’s never been killed by him — and since we’re in the probability where Black has killed her, we’re not going to focus on that and choose, in a rather nefarious and covert way — which kinda appeals to me — to fake him out and have him not kill her, by me taking the fall.”
The Man With No Name smiled. “There’s a little more to it, but yes. It’s all in the details, my friend! By choosing this, your death will cause Black to pick up and focus on all the ‘death issues’ associated with a person — you — dying, which includes initial confusion, the ‘what the hell?’ energy, et cetera — which is why you also chose to have no memory of this after we part from this moment. It’s the only way to throw him off the scent — given current events and focuses, and his juvenile reality changing ability. Of course, as you note, we’ve already gone through all this, so you do — now — know the drill. Though you won’t have any memory, quote-unquote — you already do, because of our discussion.”
“Man, this gets so convoluted.”
“But it makes sense?”
“Goddamn makes my head spin,” Joe said, looking out across the field to Lizzie.
“Pardon the pun. But every thought, no matter how fleeting or ill-formed, creates action and probability, creates a need for what’s called ‘value fulfillment.’ All thoughts take shape in some reality, in some form, somewhere. It’s immutable. Black just doesn’t yet understand the finer print, and we’re going to capitalize on that. Later, we’ll attack the whole issue — or, rather, he will — but this is what is needed now. As long as you remember and forget that, we can move on and save other discussions for later. Just as you are alive and real now, before me, you are also dead in that German castle, that Antietam battlefield, and that ocean bottom in the north Atlantic — well, except for the sharks…”
As the Man With No Name rattled off his deaths, Joe experienced each one again.
“Okay… let’s do this.”
3
Joe stared out across the field, and paused. The sight and sounds of the construction site — the birds, and passing traffic — all seemed somehow more intense, more there. Denser. He looked around, and scratched the back of his head under his hard hat. His earlier injury throbbed.
What was different?
What had he just been doing?
He tapped his set of plans against a blue-jeaned thigh.
He looked back to his crew, heading off in various directions to perform their jobs, and looked back to the field. Why did that empty
(empty?)
field seem to stand out to him right now? What was so important?
Shaking his head and smiling (he heard some shouting behind him), he turned and—