The Man Who Folded Himself Read online

  Or—am I on the verge of killing myself? Or worse?

  For the first time since I was given the timebelt, I am unable to see the future—my own personal future—and it scares me.

  Now I know what those other people feel. The ones who aren’t me.

  Suppose—just suppose—that I wanted to meet another version of myself.

  I travel through time and there I am, an earlier or later Dan. I can stay as long as I want and without any obligation to relive the time from the other side. After all, we’re really two different people. Really.

  The first time I used the timebelt I met Don. Then I had thought that there was only one of me and that the seeming existence of two of us was just an illusion. Now I know that was wrong.

  There’s an infinite number of me, and the existence of one is an illusion.

  An illusion? Yes, but the illusion is as real to me and my subjective point of view as the illusion of travel through time. I still feel like me.

  As far as I’m concerned, I’m real.

  I think I exist, therefore I exist. I think.

  And so do all the others.

  Now. How do I go about meeting one of them?

  One of those other versions of myself, one of the separate versions?

  Not one who is simply me at some other part of my subjective life—as so many of the Dons and Dans are—but a Daniel Eakins who has gone off in some entirely different direction. How would I meet him?

  The problem is one of communication. How do I let him know that I want to meet him? How do I get a message across the timelines?

  Well, let’s see . . .

  I could put something in the timebelt itself, a date and location perhaps, then substitute it into Uncle Jim’s package....

  No. That part of my past no longer exists in this world. I excised it—remember?

  Well, then, how about if I left a message far in the past... ?

  No, that wouldn’t work. Look at the trouble the Coke bottle started. Where would I leave it where only I would discover it? How would I—how would he—know where to look for it? How could I even be sure of its enduring for the several thousand years it might have to? (Besides, I’m not sure it would exist in any of the timelines that branched off before I got myself into this dead end. Changes in the timestream are supposed to be cumulative, not retroactive.)

  I guess the answer to my question about getting a message across the timelines is obvious: I don’t. There simply isn’t any working method of trans-temporal communication. At least none that I can think of that’s foolproof.

  But that doesn’t mean I still can’t meet another version of myself.

  I meet different versions of myself all the time. The mild variants. The only reason I haven’t run into a distant variant is that we haven’t been tramping a common ground.

  If I want to find such a variant, I have to go somewhere he’s likely to be.

  Suppose that somewhere there’s another me—a distant me—who’s thinking along the same lines: he wants to meet a Daniel Eakins who is widely variant from himself.

  What memories do we have in common?

  Hmm, only those that existed before we were given the timebelt. . . .

  That’s it of course!

  Our birthday.

  I was born at 2:17 in the morning, January 24, 1984, at the Sherman Oaks Medical Center, Sherman Oaks, California.

  Of course, in this timeline, I hadn’t been born—wouldn’t be born. Something I had done had excised my birth; but I knew the date I would have been born and so did every other Dan.

  It was the logical place to look.

  I’d seen Los Angeles in its earlier incarnations, but the Los Angeles of 1930 had always seemed like another city, like a giant Disneyland put up for Danny the perpetual tourist. It wasn’t real. But this—this I recognized. I could see the glimmerings of my own world here, its embryonic beginnings, the bones around which the flesh of the future would grow. The cars were different, the buildings too, the clothes and the hair styles—like the false fronts of the Universal Studios backlot redressed to represent different ages of history, the outlines remained the same, the details shifted. Cities not only sprawled horizontally, they sprawled across time as well, up the line and down—concrete and steel, liquidly rising and falling with the ebb and flow of desire and disaster.

  I parked my ’05 ‘Vette at the corner of Riverside Drive and Van Nuys Blvd., ignoring the stares of the curious. I’d forgotten what I was doing and brought it back with me. So what? Let them think it was some kind of racer. I couldn’t care less. I was lost in thought.

  I’d been living my whole life around the same three years. Sure, I’d gone traveling off to other eras, but those had been just trips. I’d always returned to 2005 because I’d always thought of it as home.

  I’d folded and compressed my whole life into a span of just a few months.

  Consequently, I lived in a world where the landscape never changed. Never.

  They’d been building the new mall for as long as I could remember. They’d been double-decking the freeway forever. (Oh, I knew what the finished structures would look like. I’d even driven the new freeway; but the time that I knew as home was frozen. Static. Unchanging.)

  I’d lived in the same year for over ten subjective years. I’d grown too used to the idea that home would endure forever. For me, the San Fernando Valley was a stable entity. I’d forgotten what a dynamically alive city it was because I’d lost the ability to see its growth—

  —because I no longer traveled linearly through time.

  Other people travel through time in a straight line. For them, growth is a constant process, perceived only when the changes are major ones, or when there is something to compare them against.

  To me, growth is—

  —it doesn’t exist. Every time I jump, I expect the world to change. I never equate any era with any other.

  Until now, that is.

  I knew this city; I’d grown up here—but I’d forgotten that it existed. I’d forgotten what it was like to be a part of the moving timestream, to grow up with a city, to see it change as you change….

  I’d forgotten so much.

  There was no one at the hospital, of course.

  That is, I wasn’t there—there were no other versions of Daniel Jamieson Eakins waiting to meet me.

  I should have known it, of course. My birthday fell within the range of changes I’d been making. I was the only me in this timeline. If I wanted to find another me, I’d have to go outside the scope of my temporal activity. I’d have to go into the past. Deep into the past.

  The only way to escape the effects of any change is to jump back to a point before it happened.

  I’d been making changes for the past two hundred years. If I was to meet a variant Dan, we’d both have to go back beyond that span.

  But how far back?

  I stood by the car, jingling my keys indecisively. The one location I was sure of was this hospital; the one date, my birthday.

  Okay—

  This spot. The middle of the San Fernando Valley.

  The date: January 24. My birthday.

  —one thousand years ago. Exactly.

  I got in the car, set the timebelt to include it, and tapped twice—

  POP!

  I’d been expecting it, but the jump-shock was still severe. The pain of it is directly proportional to the amount of mass making the jump.

  Rubbing myself ruefully, I opened the door and got out.

  My Corvette and I were in the middle of a flat brown plain. Scraggly plants and bushes all around. I recognized the Hollywood Hills to the southeast. Crisp blue sky. Unreal; no smog. And dry, almost desert-like ground stretching emptily to the purple-brown mountains that surrounded the valley. The San Bernardino range had never looked so forbidding; those black walls at the far northeast end were undimmed by human haze, undwarfed by human buildings, unscarred by human roads. I gazed in awe; I’d never really noticed them
before.

  “Well?” said a female voice behind me. “Are you going to stand there and admire the view all day?”

  I whirled—

  —she was beautiful.

  Almost my height. Hair the same color brown as mine. Eyes the same color green, soft and down-turned. The same cast of features, only slightly more delicate. She could have been my sister.

  She indicated the car with a nod and a giggle. “Are you planning to drive somewhere?”

  “I—uh, no—that is—I didn’t know what I was planning. I—Hey, who are you?”

  “Diane.”

  “Diane? Is that all?”

  She twinkled. “Diana Jane Eakins. Hey, what’s the matter? Did I say something wrong?”

  “I’m Dan!” I blurted. “Daniel Eakins. Daniel Jamieson Eakins—”

  “Oh—” she said. And then it sunk in. “Oh!”

  The silence was embarrassing.

  “Uh . . . ,” I said. “I have this timebelt.”

  “So do I. My Aunt Jane gave it to me.”

  “I got mine from my Uncle Jim.”

  She pointed to a gazebo-like affair about a hundred yards off. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Did you bring that with you?”

  “Uh-huh. Do you like it?”

  I followed her through the weeds. “Well, it’s . . . different.” Judging from its distance and the angle from the car, she had put it up in the hospital parking lot.

  “It’s more comfortable than a sports car,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I won’t deny it.” I recognized the gazebo as a variation of the Komfy-Kamper (2028): “All the comforts of home in a single unit.” I wondered if I should reach out for her hand. She was looking strangely at me too. I reached out….

  We walked side by side the short remaining distance.

  “Why did you come back here?” I asked.

  “To see if anyone else would,” she said. “I was lonely.”

  “Me too,” I admitted. “I suddenly discovered I couldn’t find myself. I’d excised my past and there didn’t seem to be any me in the future—”

  “You too? That’s what happened to me. I couldn’t even find my Aunt Jane.”

  “—so I thought I’d come looking for a variant Dan and find out what happened.”

  I stopped abruptly. I certainly had found a variant Dan. About as variant as I could get . . . I wondered what I was shaped like under those clothes.

  She let go of my hand and took a step back; she cocked her head curiously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You’re very pretty.”

  She flushed, then she recovered. “You’re kind of cute too.” She peered closely at me. “I’ve always wondered what I would look like as a boy. Now I know; I’d be very handsome.” Impulsively she put her hands on my chest. “And very nicely built too—not too much muscle, not so many as to look brutish; just enough to look manly.”

  Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. I dropped my gaze to her breasts.

  “You can touch me if you want.”

  I wanted to. I did.

  Her breasts were nice.

  “I don’t wear a bra,” she said.

  “I noticed.”

  “Do I pass inspection?” she whispered.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Very much so.”

  She pressed close to me, she moved her face up to mine….

  The kiss lasted for a very long, long time.

  The sun was lowering behind the western hills. The sky was all shades of purple and orange. Twilight was a gray-blue haze.

  We’d been talking for hours. We’d stopped to eat and then we’d talked some more.

  We had pulled the shades down on three sides of the gazebo and turned the heat up. We sat naked in the glow of the electric fire and watched the sunset.

  “The more I look at you, the prettier you get,” she murmured.

  “You too.” I stretched across the heater and kissed her.

  “Careful,” she said after a moment. “Don’t burn anything off. We may want to use it again.”

  “I hope so.” I kissed her again, while she cupped me protectively. I moved closer.

  We lay there side by side for a while. “I can’t get over how good you feel.” Her hands stroked up and down my back, my sides, my legs; my hands held her shoulders, her breasts. I kissed them gently, I kissed her eyelids too.

  She looked up at me. “I liked having you inside me. It was very good.”

  “I liked being inside you.”

  She hugged me tight. “I could stay like this forever.”

  “Me too.”

  There was silence. The night gathered softly. Our words hung in the air.

  Finally I said, “You know, we could. We could stay here forever.”

  “Do you want to ... ?”

  “Yes, I whispered. I began to move again. “Oh, yes.”

  “Oh, Dan,” she gasped. “Oh, my darling, my sweet, sweet Dan—”

  “Oh, baby, yes—” I rearranged my position on top of her and again the silvery warmth tingled—

  Exploded.

  Delighted.

  —slid into me.

  He was around me and inside me, his arms and legs and penis; we rocked and moved together, we fitted like one person. He filled me till I overflowed, kindled and inflamed—

  We gasped and giggled and sighed and soared and sang and laughed and cried and leaped and flew and—

  —dazzled and burst, exploding fireworks, surging fire—

  We rustled and sighed. And died. And hugged and held on.

  He was still within me. Sweet squeeze, warmth. I held him tight. I loved the feel of him, the taste of him. I loved the smell of him—the sweaty sense of masculine man. Musky. I melted, under him, around him.

  Loved him.

  January night. Cold wind. We pulled the last shade.

  There was just one more thing. I had to make it complete.

  “Dan,” I whispered. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What?” In the pink light, his face was glowing.

  I took a breath. “I—I’m not exactly a virgin.”

  “Of course not,” he grinned. “We just took care of that.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I wasn’t a virgin—before.”

  “Oh?”

  “I mean—” I forced myself to go on. I had to tell him everything or it wouldn’t be any good. “I was only a ‘technical virgin.’ I’d never done it with a boy before. You were the first.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said quietly. “I should have realized. You only did it with. . . .”

  “Only Donna—and Diana. I mean, I only did it with myself. When I was Donna, I—”

  He cut me off gently, “I know.”

  “Is it all right?” I had to know. “You’re not disappointed in me?”

  “Of course not. I—understand.”

  “I only did it because I was lonely.”

  “No,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “You wanted to do it and you enjoyed it. You did it because you’re the only person you can trust, the only person you feel completely at ease with, and you wanted to express your feelings and your affection. You did it because you loved yourself.”

  “I—yes, you’re right.” I couldn’t deny it.

  “Diana,” he whispered. “Think a minute. About me. I’m both Don and Dan. I’m the male reflection of you.”

  His eyes were bright.

  “Did you—?” I couldn’t finish the question.

  But he knew what I meant. He nodded. “We did—I did.”

  I thought about that. Dan. Diane.

  Dan. Diane.

  Boy. Girl.

  Same. Person.

  And suddenly I was crying. Crying, sobbing into his arms. “Oh, Dan, I’m so sorry—”

  He stroked my hair. “It’s all right, sweetheart. There’s nothing to be sorry about, nothing at all.”

  “I’m so stupid—”

  “No
, you’re not. You were smart enough to come looking for me, weren’t you?”

  “Oh, no—I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just didn’t want to be alone any more.”

  “Neither did I. I didn’t know what I wanted either, but you’re just perfect—”

  “So are you—” I wiped at the tears on his chest. I didn’t know what I was feeling any more. I felt ripped up and ripped open. I felt so vulnerable. And at the same time, I felt everything was all right too. He wasn’t me. But he was. And I couldn’t get enou gh of him. He tasted good. Was I in love or just infatuated? Or was I trying to prove something to myself? I don’t know. But he was the first man I ever felt I could trust. I started crying again, I don’t know why. “Hold me, Dan, hold me tight. Don’t let go. I want you inside me again.”

  “Oh, yes, baby. Yes, yes. Yes—Oh, Danny, I love you.”

  “Donna, I love you too!”

  The sensuousness of sex. The maleness of me. The femaleness of her. The physical sensations of strength and warmth. Flesh against smooth flesh. Firm resistance, supple yielding.

  Sex with Diane is different from any kind of sex I have ever had before. There is something boyish about her that I find strangely attractive, yet deliciously feminine. I put my arms around her and she is neither male nor female, but a little of each. And there is something feminine in me that she responds to. (Perhaps it is a quality that is common to both of us and independent of physical gender. An androgynous quality. My body may be male or it may be female, but I am neither—I am me.)

  I keep thinking of Danny, and it is hard not to make comparisons between the two of them, even though I know it is unfair to both. But Danny and I (Don and I) have been through so much together, have meant so much to each other.

  Diane lacks Danny’s intensity (yes), but Danny could never match her sensuality. The sheer physical delight of her body, the perfect matching of male to female, the tenderness of her response to mine; all of these combine to make sex with her an experience that is new to me. I delight in being with her, in being inside of her, just as she delights in opening to me. I admit it, I am fascinated by her body, by the femaleness of her, the geography, the open depths that I plunge into, again and again.... I lose all consciousness. All that exists is the feeling, the incredible wallow of emotion and silly talk and discovery after discovery. I know what is happening to me and I don’t care. I admit it happily. I have become a horny little schoolboy, not just discovering sex—but inventing it fresh and new, as if it has never existed before.