Or Not to Be (30 page)

“You silly boy. I swear you boys are as
dumb grown-up as you were in kindergarten. Listen good, Ed, because I’m only
going to explain this simple thing to you one more time. You must go back. You
were not supposed to die. It was a mistake. An error. A bug in the plans. It
happens all the time with the chaotic design upon which our universe relies,
you know, those thermodynamic laws? But in your case, there’s no decision to be
made. You just go back this time.”

“But when I was six?”

“The link between your matter and
antimatter was fragile, but you had a choice then—you could have decided to
stay dead. But your grampa didn’t even let you go through the decision process.
Do you not get this yet?” She is annoyed with me, I think.

“Sorry. Yeah, I think I do. But since I
have your full attention, now, I have more things I want to talk to you about.
I need your help, okay?”

“I’m at your disposal, like it or not.”
Obviously, she did not like it, but I didn’t give a rat’s ass.

“Good. How about getting back to some of
those big and deep questions?”

“Be my guest.”

“Here’s the thing. If Grampa’s antimatter
got sucked into mine when I returned to my body when I was six, and some of him
got washed into those other sick kids, too, then if I don’t have kids, will
that help him to be released when I die?”

“In theory, yes.
Most of your grampa does remain within you, so you’d just take him with you.
But, Ed, haven’t you paid any attention at all? You
will
have kids. Your grampa’s antimatter will be further
fractioned in them.” Lizzie is trying to help, but I have other ideas.

“What if I die for good right now? What if
I decide to—what’s it called? Depart? Then Grampa’s antimatter will be mostly
freed, right?”

“Don’t even go there, you idiot. You are
not going to stay dead! Let’s just stop the hypothetical discussions and get on
with this, please!” She is close to wailing now. It reminds me of the awful
noises she used to make in kindergarten when Jimmy made her rub my baldy-head.

“Help me understand how Grampa’s antimatter
will be split if I have kids. What makes up the antimatter part of a new
person? Is it like genes and DNA? Does it come from both the mother and
father?”

“If you’d think for a second, you’d see
there is no other way it could be. If a new baby is just matter, it wouldn’t
survive when it’s born.” That is the most helpful information so far.

 “Of course I’m helpful; I’m your damn
guide. What else do you want to know?”

“When does the antimatter of the baby join
the baby’s matter?”

“First breath. The instant the baby is
functioning on its own outside the mother, that’s when the antimatter locks on.
It’s pretty cool.”

“It really is.” I’m glad I didn’t go right
back to my life. There’s so much to understand that I could never learn while
alive.

Lizzie’s going to be pissed, but there are
even more big and deep areas I want to explore.

“Okay, how about this: It seems to me that
humans aren’t evolving anymore. As a group, many are getting dumber. They don’t
care about learning. As the high intellectual end of human ability develops
technology, the great majority of the lower end—who use the technology and
depend on it—have no real concept or interest in using their brains from day to
day. They watch TV, eat, sleep, and call it a life. It all seems like an incredible
waste to me.”

“That’s just you. You’re such a geek! I
would have loved fifty or sixty more years of that. You don’t understand that
at all, do you? Life on our little Earth is so unique, so special. The perfect
planet for antimatter and matter to connect and form energy. For life to
reproduce itself. It’s a beautiful place.” To make her point, Lizzie brings
into focus a view of our bright marble from deep outer space. It is glorious,
all blue and green and white. I’d seen pictures, but it is breathtaking to
actually witness.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m not a normal
person. In my life I often offended people. I alienated myself and just kept
learning. I was driven. Just bear with me, okay? How about this idea of a
deathday? Did humans always have a deathday?”

“They must have to ever have died, right?”

“Do most people die more than once and go
back?”

“Think about that one. Have you met many
people who seem to know about deathdays?”

“No. Nobody but me. Ever.”

“Those who return to their lives don’t
remember anything from the dead side. You’re an exception, but even you won’t
remember all of this. The fact is that most decide to stay dead. They explore a
little, find that they understand the entire cosmos with minimal effort, feel
the peace of rejoining the fabric of the universe, and don’t miss life that
much.”

“But not all of them?”

“No. There are some who desperately miss
life and go back as many times as they can. But they usually make their
decision immediately and go back with no memory of the event at all.”

When I don’t answer with another question,
Lizzie suggests hopefully, “How about it? Ready to go back now?”

“Not yet.” Under no deadline, no time
pressure, I am enthralled by the golden ticket: those who stay dead come to
understand everything. Every single mystery is exposed and comprehended. I have
the opportunity to do that and then I can still go back to my life. This is
irresistible. “I’ve decided to try a little time travel on my own.”

This earns me another groan.

48

Somehow, I ditch Lizzie
. I’m free and alone in space. It is glorious,
amazing, and immense. Yet none of these human terms are adequate to describe
it. On the dead side, there should be a new language, a new set of adjectives,
to encompass all of the wonders.

Still hesitant to return to the life that
will turn me into grumpy old Eddie, I travel, quite well, I think, to revisit
the day Anna dies.

There’s old Eddie waking up. He leans
toward snoring Anna and gets smacked in the face by her elbow as she rolls
over. It looks like he’s sneaking out of bed.

Anna’s sleepy voice pulls him back.
“Eddie, what are you doing?” Couldn’t this guy even get out of bed without
getting into trouble? They almost have a conversation, and Eddie leaves the
room, looking guilty, although I don’t think he did anything wrong.

I follow him to the kitchen where he finds
the boy lying on his belly under the kitchen table. Joey says, “Hi, Daddy. Can
I have breakfast right now, right away?”

“Sure,” says Eddie. “Whatcha want?”

“Oreos, please.” The kid has a definite
chocolate addiction. He’s grinning like a fool.

He scarfs down the cookies before his
mother comes into the kitchen. When Anna sits beside him, Joey says, “Ooh,
Mommy. I don’t feel too good today.” He leans to her for a hug.

“Show me those teeth.”

He smiles, reveals the cookies, and gets
poor old Eddie in trouble again.

Later, Anna carries her bags to the car.
Joey, Old Ed, and I all follow her.

“Honey?” Eddie, the sucker, leans his head
in the open window of Anna’s car. “How about a day off today? You and me and
Joey. Let’s all play hooky.”

His wife looks at
him like he’s nuts. He might be. She makes it clear that she has no interest or
intention of spending any time with him. Maybe not ever. “Enough with the
honey
crap. You’ve been a jerk to me for weeks.” She doesn’t take off her sunglasses
but even I can tell she’s crying when she says, “I’m going to work. See you
tonight.
Honey
,” and leaves Old Man Eddie
standing there, as pathetic and desperate as ever a man could be.

Damn. Why in the world would Eddie try to
get Anna, a woman who is never happy, to stay home and spend a day with him?

That familiar sense creeps up: I’m not alone. I’d rather be
alone, because I’d like to watch the rest of this day and find out how Anna
ends up dead. An almost comical yet disturbing thought suddenly occurs to me:
maybe Old Man Eddie finally lost it and just snuffed her. Is that possible?

A voice,
which is not Lizzie’s, answers, “No, you fool. Eddie would never hurt me. He
wasn’t even there when I died.”

“How do you
know?”

“I
am
his wife, you idiot,” the voice says.

“You are the lovely wife of poor Eddie?”

“Poor Eddie? Have you any idea what he put
me through the last two months of my life?” She kind of freaks me out when she
yells at me. “And what are you doing here? I was time traveling to determine
what I should do with my soul, visiting the day I died, trying to understand
some things. Can’t I ever be alone? What are you doing watching my life?”

“Apparently, that was my life, too.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Ed.”

“Ed? Eddie! You’re dead, too? Who’s with
our kids?”

“I’m not dead now. Not in your now, I
mean. I’ve been watching your family after you died, so I know that Old Man
Eddie is still alive in your now.”

“Then how did you get on the dead side?”
she asks.

“It’s complicated. See, I died when I was
twenty—before we met. According to my guide, I was supposed to just go right
back to my body, but I’ve been looking around first. Kind of checking out my
future.”

“I was warned not to travel forward in
time,” she tells me. “My guide, my mother, said that’s dangerous and painful.”

“I haven’t noticed any danger or pain yet,
just copious fear. How could my life end up like that?”

“Hold on,” Anna demands. “Let me wrap my
brain around this. I died when I was in my midforties. I’d been married to you
for half of my life. You died when you were twenty? And we just bumped into
each other here because we both happened to be watching the same scene in our
lives. Don’t you find this bizarre?”

“I guess. But see, you also have to
understand that I don’t know you. At all.”

When she doesn’t respond, I ask her, “Have
you decided? Are you going back?”

“I’m still not sure. According to my
parents—my guides—I have a lot of choices. What about you? Why don’t you just
go back to your body like you’re supposed to?”

“I’m just too curious to give up the
chance to look around and find things out. Wouldn’t you look around?”

“Not if they
told
me to go back. God, I’d love to be told what to do
but, in my case, they say I have to make my decision all by myself.” Anna
sounds confused, so I decide to take a stab at it and act as her guide.

“Well, I don’t have to follow those stupid
guide rules. I’ll tell you what I think. If I were you, I’d stay dead.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been watching your life, and it doesn’t look that
great. You and Eddie don’t talk at all; you fight with your little boy; Eddie
is mean to you and has been since you met him, and he has a nasty sense of
humor. The guy doesn’t even watch football right. And you! You have no memory.
You lie at bookstores. You are grumpy all the time. Seriously, all the time,
Anna. You are never happy. Why would you go back to that?”

“Ouch. Thanks for the advice.” After a
while she says, “It’s interesting to have my life analyzed by an uninvolved
observer. Things have been bad the last few months, but Eddie usually snaps out
of his annual funk by now. I was looking forward to it. But in our defense, you
obviously haven’t seen any of our good times.”

“You two have good times? You’re telling
me the guy has an annual funk? He’s like this every year and you stay with him?
Why?”

“I love him,” she says.

“Does he love you?”

“Can’t you answer that for him?”

“No, I’m not him yet.”

“I think Eddie loves me.”

“Does he say it?”

“Would
you
?” she challenges, a bit defensively, I think.

“I’ve never loved a girl enough to say it.
I mean, I’ve said it when I needed to, like to get my way—you know what I mean.
Everybody, every guy, says it then.”

“You ass! If you don’t mean it, don’t say
it. Better yet, you should just avoid the word. You’re not qualified to use it.
You know, in about five years you’re going to be a great guy. I’m glad I didn’t
meet you when you were twenty.”

“Are you advising me to go back?”

“I’m no guide, but yes, absolutely. You
should go back, Eddie. Even though I think you’re an idiot right now, and my
mother will always think you’re a talking horse, I know how awesome our life
was together. Most of the time. You have to go back. There won’t be Bethany or
Joey without you there.”