Kev (29 page)

On the fourth day, I woke up, having
forgotten everything. I remember waking up next to her and asking
her who she was. I remember her tears and then returning to Macon.
I remember her kissing me goodbye and telling me she would see me
again some day.

I graduated a year later and moved to Boston,
having been accepted to MIT. I spent two years there before
dropping out, feeling stifled in that place, despite the fact that
I wanted to learn new things. I had a strong desire at that time to
find a way to make contact with alien races, believing there was
life elsewhere and thinking I must find a way to reach out.

After dropping out, I moved to a small town
in Vermont, buying a house with part of the insurance money I
received after my parents’ deaths. I had enough money left over to
sustain me for some time, so I set to work developing a device that
would allow me to send faster than light signals to any part of the
universe I chose.

The device took two years to develop. In that
time, I suffered from acute depression, often wondering if life was
truly worth living. I knew I had memory problems, knew that I had a
life that I would never recall, and wondered if continuing this way
was worth it.

Clive had hunted me down at one point and
given me a call. We spent our time on the phone talking about our
childhood and the time we had spent together, Clive reminding me of
many things, but never telling me about things like The Show or the
girl. He seemed sad, and I asked him what was wrong, but all he
would say was, “I just wish you could remember, Kev. I think you
would be a lot happier if you could remember.”

On the day I finished building the
communications device, I put together a package of data that
included pretty much every piece of digital media I possessed,
books, programs, music, things I had written, and a variety of
other things. I attached a suicide note to the package and then
sent it to every possible point in the universe.

Moments later, I received responses,
thousands upon thousands of responses. Most of them were about
something called a Flogulator, a device that could help you with an
overly sleepy or overly alert flog, whatever that was. One of them
was from someone who called herself Ruby. She claimed to be my
wife. She claimed that I had disappeared and told me she was going
to come right over. She did not want me to kill myself. I
immediately forgot about this message, went into the bathroom and
grabbed all my pills, went into the kitchen and poured a glass of
water, and then went into the family room and sat on the couch.

I poured all of the pills on my coffee table
and started taking them, three at a time, starting with my sleeping
pills. At that point, a beautiful woman in a tight fitting, red
dress entered my home and rushed over to me.

She looked at the pills on the coffee table
and said, “How many have you taken?” quite alarmed.

“I don’t know. Maybe nine. Who are you?” I
said.

“I’m your wife, Kev. Please don’t do
this.”

“What’s the point? I can’t remember anything.
There is no point in living.”

“You will remember, Kev. I am going to help
you remember.”

I saw a blur as Ruby’s hand shot out over my
glass of water and then back, but didn’t think much of it,
believing the sleeping pills were making me hallucinate. I took a
sip of the water and said, “How are you going to help me
remember?”

Ruby kissed me softly and said, “Do you
remember that? Come to the bedroom with me.”

I took a sip of water, my eyes on Ruby. I
felt the pills taking hold of me, but not in the way I expected. In
that moment, I felt quite giddy, and in that moment, going to the
bedroom with Ruby struck me as a wonderful idea.

I awoke next to a naked alien wearing a broad
grin on her, his or its face, jumped out of bed and cried, “What
are you?” Remembering everything we had done.

“Relax, Kev. We’ve done it before. You should
be happy. I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant? Who are you? What are you?”

“I’m Ruby, you silly man. Don’t you remember
me? I thought this would make you remember, but I guess I misjudged
the situation.”

I threw on my clothes, rushed out of the
house and down the street to the bar. Inside, I sat at the bar and
ordered a screwdriver, my drink of choice.

“You sure you don’t want a green tea, Kev?”
said Max, a concerned look on his face.

“What? Green tea? No thanks. I need something
strong,” I said.

“There is nothing stronger than green tea,”
said Max.

“Oh, well fine, I’ll have that.”

The front door to the bar opened, and in
walked Ruby, now appearing as the beautiful woman who had taken me
to the bedroom and done unspeakable things to me, with me--I wasn’t
entirely sure. She sat down next to me, placing her hand on my
thigh.

“What are you?” I said, my eyes wild with
fear.

“Oh, hi, Ruby,” called out Max from the other
end of the bar.

“Hey, Max,” replied Ruby.

“What are you?” I said, again.

“I’m a Nidian, the mother of your four sons,
the four Kev’s. Well, also your soon to be fifth son.”

“What? You’re joking, right?”

“Not at all. I could take you to meet the
four Kev’s if you like. The fifth will be born in about an hour,
and then I won’t be able to have any more children.”

Max came over and dropped off a glass of
greenish liquid, winking at me but saying nothing and then drifting
off to the other end of the bar.

“This is a nightmare. Wake up, Kev. Wake up,”
I said.

Ruby squeezed my thigh and said, “I can
assure you this is not a nightmare, my dearest. Why don’t you take
a sip of tea? That will help you, I hope.”

I took a sip of the tea and had
The Isn’t
This Getting Old Experience
, followed by a quite vivid replay
of what Ruby and I had done together most recently.

“What the hell?” I cried.

“Do you remember?” said Ruby.

“Remember what? You drugged me and took
advantage of me!”

“Well, I’m a Nidian. Goes with the
territory.”

“Nidian? What the hell?” I looked at Max,
and, again, he winked at me. What the hell was going on? If this
wasn’t a nightmare, what was it and when would it end?

Ruby sighed. “I guess it’s not going to work,
Max.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” said Max.

“What’s not going to work?” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Ruby. “I tried.
Can’t say I didn’t know this would happen.”

“What would happen? What the hell is going
on?” I cried. The other patrons of the bar all looked at me, not
surprised, sympathy on their faces.

Barry walked over to me and patted me on the
shoulder. “It’s okay, Kev. You’ll remember eventually. Right, guys?
He’ll remember.”

I heard many voices saying things like,
“Yeah, sure he will,” or “Not soon enough.” I heard one person say,
“I’m going to kill myself and sit this one out.”

“Maybe you need to go check your messages on
that communications device of yours, Kev,” said Barry.

I had never told anyone about my
communications device. How did Barry know about that? Something was
not right, and I knew, in that instant, that nobody here would tell
me a damned thing, the bastards.

I rose from my seat and said, “I am leaving
now. I do not want any of you to follow me. Thou shalt not follow
me!” I stormed out of the bar and returned home.

The
Girl

Back home, completely uncertain of pretty much
everything, I checked the messages on my communications device. I
had received an additional thousand or so messages advertising the
Flogulator. It seemed spammers existed everywhere in the
universe.

Someone sent a request for a copy of
Breakfast of Champions
, which I packaged and sent over along
with a brief note reading, “You might want to read
Galapagos
as well, one of my favorites.”

Another message read, “Do you remember me
now?” Remember who? I was sick of thinking about forgetting and
remembering and deleted the message.

The next message read, “Don’t delete my
messages, Kev. Do you remember me?”

I wrote back, “No,” and deleted the
message.

The next one, from the same sender, read,
“Kev, you have to get out of your house immediately. Go to the bar.
The Canadians are coming for you.”

I replied, “What the hell are you talking
about?”

“Get out of the house now!”

I heard a slamming sound, like someone trying
the break open the front door. That couldn’t be good. I jumped up
from my seat, opened the window and climbed out, and then raced
through the woods, trying to keep out of sight. I reached the edge
of the woods, across from the bar and scanned the area. I didn’t
see anyone, so I ran across the street and flew into the bar.

Max was waiting at the entrance, as if he
knew I would come. He grabbed me by the arm and escorted me
forcibly to the storage room. “Stay here,” he said. I nodded but
said nothing.

Max left me. Soon, I heard voices, some
raised. Someone shouted, “Where is he, ey?” Another said, “When was
the last time you saw him, you hoser?” I could not make out any of
Max’s responses.

The voices died down. I waited for what
seemed like an eternity before Max returned to me, telling me it
was safe to come out.

“Were those Canadians?” I said, still able to
remember the text of the message that had warned me.

“Yeah, and they were pretty pissed, too,”
said Max.

I looked around the bar. There was nobody
there other than Max. Where had everyone gone? Where was Ruby? Had
I imagined Ruby? Was this a nightmare? “Why are they looking for
me?”

“Because they are a bunch of nihilists is
why. They are pissed that all creation hasn’t come to an end and
they hold you responsible for that,” said Max. His face changed and
he said, “Forget I said that, Kev. I was just talking out of my
ass.”

“Huh?”

Max sighed. “Look, I guess I’ve already
spilled it, so here it is, at least what part I can explain at this
point. The Canadians are pissed off because all creation hasn’t
ended. They believe you are responsible for that, and they want to
capture you and force you to end all creation.”

I wondered if Max had been drinking, but
quickly dismissed that thought. I was certain someone was after me.
However, Max’s explanation was something straight out of a very bad
dream I thought I might have once had. It made absolutely no
sense.

“How could I end all creation?” I said,
feeling strange, like I already knew the answer, although I
couldn’t recall the answer.

“I don’t know, but they believe you can.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to
face a beautiful, young woman with black hair and eyes older than
time itself. “I’ll take it from here, Max,” she said.

“Do I know you?” I said, recognizing her, but
unable to remember her name.

She took a seat at the bar and motioned for
me to sit next to her, which I dutifully did.

“Kev, listen carefully. You are in grave
danger. All creation is in grave danger. Clive is using the
Canadians to trap you so he can connect you to the Proth Sphere and
end all creation. Do you remember any of that?”

“Absolutely not. Who is Clive?”

“Your best friend.”

“Wait. My best friend is trying to end all
creation? Are you messing with me?”

“Do you remember me, Kev?” she said.

“Vaguely. What’s your name?”

“I don’t have a name.”

I remembered her saying that to me before.
When had that happened? I thought of something and looked down at
her hand, seeing a little, silver ring with an amethyst. I
remembered her.

I reached out and pulled her to me, hugging
her tightly, tears streaming down my face. How could I have
forgotten her? How could I have forgotten my wife?

The girl pulled back and looked at me. “What
do you remember?”

“I remember you.”

“Is that all?”

“I remember Ruby,” I said with a shudder.

“Well, we are all lucky Ruby stopped you from
killing yourself again, so you should be happy,” said the girl.

“Killing myself again? What are you talking
about?”

“Kev, you are stuck in a loop. You keep
coming to this point in time, depressed and alone, and you keep
killing yourself, and each time you do that, things reset to the
day of your ninth birthday. You’ve done this countless times, and
nothing we have done up until now has stopped you. Don’t you
remember? Why didn’t you kill yourself this time?”

I thought about that for a few seconds before
saying, “Well, Ruby told me I had kids and I guess I thought it
would be terrible to kill myself and leave them behind.”

“You have more kids than you know, Kev. I
know you don’t remember, and I feel like a fool for not telling you
all these times you’ve relived your life. You and I have a
daughter, Soph. She’s eighteen now.”

“How is that possible? I’m only
twenty-one.”

“You are much older than that, my dear. I am
so happy you’re alive. This means something. I think you are going
to figure things out, but you are going to have to hide or the
Canadians will catch you and everything will come to a terrible
end.”

“You said Clive is using the Canadians to get
me. I don’t understand.”

“He has brainwashed them, Kev. He has turned
them into a bunch of nihilists. They want to end all creation. They
believe you have the one nightmare that can end all creation.”

“I don’t have a nightmare about that. I mean,
I have had a nightmare in which a giant nozzle sucks up the entire
universe, but that is hardly ending all creation, right?”

“No, it’s not that nightmare. It’s Aputi’s
nightmare, or, at least, I think it is. You might have told me that
once. Anyway, Clive wants to use the Proth Sphere on you to make
that nightmare come true.”