Or Not to Be (27 page)

“I’ve already gone too far from of my job
description with you. Didn’t I tell you first thing that my job was to just
turn you around and give you a push? I can’t make you go back, but I don’t have
to tell you everything. I’ll only listen and guide your reasoning through this.
Like bumper pads on a bowling alley.”

“All right, bumper pad, you can keep me in
line, but give me that push. How do you navigate out here?” I was too young to
even try to drive on my other deathdays so I didn’t actually know the ropes.

“Try this: think of a question and a
person who knows the answer. That’ll bring you to a time in your life, or your
death, where answers are brewing.”

“That’s easy. Grampa knew everything. I’m
sure he still does.”

44

I thought hard about Grampa
. He wasn’t dead anymore. His antimatter had been
redistributed. I started thinking out loud, “Grampa didn’t just make the
decision for me. He also helped me physically get back through my space-time
crack. He used his antimatter to push mine back in. I remember feeling that.”

Lizzie answered, “Yes, he did. He guided
you back in time to the instant your antimatter and matter separated. He used
the force of his antimatter to push you down.”

“I remember it was like a big down
comforter hugging me and holding me there. How can I figure out what happened
to Grampa?”

“Think about what you know about a set of
forces acting on an object. In physics class, which I always hated in school,
we had to draw those free body diagrams with force vectors all over the place.
Matter responds to forces like pushing and pulling, electrostatic and
electromagnetic fields, and friction, right? Well, similar force vectors are
felt by antimatter and the combination of these forces always results in a net
force that is proportional to the mass of the object. F equals M A, right?”

“Right.”

“So, think about the forces that were
acting on your antimatter when you reentered your body.”

“Grampa’s antimatter was somehow pushing
me, and then my matter started pulling my antimatter in. So both force vectors
were in the same direction: toward my body.”

Lizzie interrupted, “It wasn’t that
simple. The pushing force from your grampa wasn’t directly toward your body; it
was just ‘down,’ like gravity pulls on matter, toward Earth.”

“Right, but then a component of it was
pushing to my body.”

“Sure. We’ll get back to that. Now think
about what other force was acting on your antimatter. There must have been
something else if your grampa had to push. This would be a force felt before
your matter started pulling you in.”

“There must have been something pushing or
pulling me away from my body. Does the matter repel the antimatter? Or does the
universe pull it?”

“It’s a little of both. It’s not relevant
to your analysis here that you understand the exact nature of the force, just
know that whatever was keeping your matter and antimatter from recombining at
first was overcome by the pushing from your grampa, and eventually the pulling
that your matter exerted when your antimatter got close enough to your
space-time crack. Are you with me so far?” She was hoping to intimidate me, to
make me give up trying to understand and just give in and do what she said. Too
bad for her.

“Sure. I loved free body diagrams in
physics,” I reported.

She groaned.

“All of this is supposed to help me figure
out what happened to Grampa, right?”

“Of course.”

“Continue then, professor.”

She was not amused.

“You were a smart guy on Earth. This one
is easy, but I’ll help a little more. Imagine you are back in your body, alive,
and you act as a single object applying a pushing force. You are pushing a huge
boulder to the edge of a cliff in the Grand Canyon. You are pushing with all
your strength. It is almost impossible, but you are gradually inching the
massive rock to the edge. Can you see this picture? Can you feel it?”

“Yes. Okay, that’s what it was like for
Grampa’s antimatter to push mine down. Almost impossible, but he used all of
his strength and got it close to the edge. I suppose the edge here is the
space-time crack?”

“Good. Now back to the hunk of rock.
Suppose you aren’t all alone in your effort to move the rock. Somehow your
friends have tied a long, strong rope to it, without your knowledge, and as the
rock gets closer to the edge of the cliff, they pull with an instantaneous
surprising force. What will the rock do?”

“It’ll continue moving but without needing
me pushing anymore.”

“So what will happen to you?”

“Oh, right. Inertia! I will continue to
move with my momentum. Is that what happened to Grampa? He went through my
space-time crack, too?”

“Yes, Ed. The force he felt at the last
instant was about as strong as a smallish black hole. Even if he wasn’t already
pushing, he would have been sucked into it just because he was so close to the
edge.”

“Did he know this would happen? Where is
he now?”

“We think he knew. We all know in some
part of our consciousness what will happen if space-time cracks are not treated
with reverence and distance. Where is he now? You can figure this out.”

“Did he come with me? Back into my
matter?”

“Yes, but that’s not the whole story.
Remember where you were when you were six and died?”

“In the hospital. In the pediatric
oncology ward.”

“There were lots of sick kids there,
remember? Many of them were hovering on the edge of life and death. Right on
the edges of their own space-time gaps. Some of their antimatter was barely
clinging to their bodies. Imagine it like a soul hovering above the body,
unsure which force to respond to when, whack! A mess of antimatter comes out of
nowhere and smacks them down.”

“So Grampa made more kids live besides
me?”

“Seven sick kids recovered in a miraculous way, according
to their doctors, after that night
.”

“And Grampa is in all of them, isn’t he?
He got ripped apart.”

“He sacrificed his death for your life.”

“Will he ever be whole again?”

“Only after all of those kids, and all of
their offspring and grandchildren die. It takes about three generations for the
majority of the antimatter to reunite.”

Grampa gave up the peace and quiet of the
universe to make me keep on living. Why was he being punished for this?

Lizzie responded to my thoughts. “Don’t
think of it as punishment. He knew what he was doing and what the consequences
would be. Your grampa saw the future with you in it and made sure it happened.
You might have made the decision on your own, if he gave you time to think
about it, but he didn’t let you take that path. He intervened, reasoning that a
three-generation deficit was mathematically negligible in the scope of the
eternity he would eventually enjoy on the dead side. Though small, the ripple
of his illicit intervention was significant enough to interrupt the
equilibrium.”

“Is that why I remember about being dead
and coming back? Most people seem to have no idea about any of this.”

Lizzie answered kindly, “Don’t worry. It isn’t
possible to remember everything that happens on the dead side when you return.
But the pain and isolation in your life, so far and in your future, will most
certainly be caused by your unnatural knowledge of death. A much more peaceful
existence is experienced by all who live in awe of the mysteries and power of
the universe. Your grampa’s interference prevented you from reentering
naturally, which would have allowed you a memory-free journey.”

I thought about all the times when the
carefree attitudes of my peers baffled me.

In high school, I was not popular. I was
the nerd. The geek. The loser. I enjoyed learning and easily earned high
grades. I was envied and ridiculed for my intelligence and curiosity.

Even in my teens, I worried about
everything—human population, global warming, greenhouse gases, humanity causing
the extinction of so many species. All manner of inconsequential living annoyed
me. I always suspected there was some unfinished business I needed to attend
to, some higher purpose for my life. I searched and searched through my teens,
in high school and college, always confronted with frivolous living,
unappreciative use of the atoms of life, and the blatant waste of infinite
quantities of staggeringly amazing brain cells. I didn’t fit in with normal
humans. Now it seemed I might be able to blame my isolation on my blasted,
unhinged, swinging door space-time crack.

I wasn’t ready to go back. I wanted to
sniff around for a while longer on the dead side. Lizzie was hesitant to let me
roam, knowing I wouldn’t forget all that I learned in death when I returned to
life. But Lizzie said it herself: as my guide she was powerless to influence my
decision.

I thought hard and decided to investigate
my own future for clues. I wanted to find out whether my life would ever get
any better.

45

There’s a little boy
eating Oreos under his bed. He has blankets and
pillows arranged like a nest. Lying on his back, he pops a whole Oreo into his
mouth and closes his eyes while he chews. From far away he hears someone
calling, “Joey!” He stays as still as a stone except for his crunching.

Who is this kid? He’s not me, and I don’t
remember him from my life. He pulls an electronic gadget from under his pillow
and starts to mash some buttons. I haven’t ever seen anything like this thing
so I watch for a while. I find I can park on the pillow beside him and look up
at the game. It’s dark under the bed and the gadget spills a green glow onto
his face.

How did I get here?

The kid reaches his hand into his Oreo bag
and comes up empty. With a shrug he kicks the bag out from under the bed,
spraying brown crumbs onto the rug, and turns back to his game. He plays for a
long time and suddenly falls asleep. The game lands with a thud on his chest.
After a few minutes it seems to turn itself off. While he sleeps, I’ll look
around this place and try to understand where it is.

Out in the hallway, there’s a girl about
my age holding a giant mug of coffee and a pile of books on her lap. She sits
in a rocking chair and stares into space. There’s some noise from downstairs. I
go to investigate.

An old guy with thinning hair is sprawled
on a couch. The TV is tuned to a football game. The sounds of the game are
familiar to me, but the sports announcers are foreign, and the commercials are
insane. One is about something called Viagra, whatever that is. Large text over
a miserable guy’s head says “Erectile dysfunction?” What the hell! On TV? Are
they kidding? The next commercial is about something called identity theft. A
small Asian dental assistant is talking, but her voice is coming out like a male
country bumpkin’s. This is the oddest programming I have ever seen.

There is something very wrong with the
dude on the couch. He isn’t even watching the game when the crowd goes wild in
the last thirty seconds and the wide receiver pulls a Hail Mary catch out of
thin air to tie the game. I want to smack him awake to make him watch.

A voice from the kitchen calls out,
“Eddie, will you eat a sandwich?”

He doesn’t answer. A woman walks in with a
glass of water. She tells him to sit up and makes him take two pills. He is
complacent. Looks a little in shock.

The chick sits next to him on the couch.
She looks at the TV but doesn’t seem to see it either. Then she says to him,
“Eddie, you have to snap out of this. Joey needs you here with him. He’s still
hiding under the bed. We might see him soon, when he runs out of snacks. He
needs you a lot. I can’t stay here forever. You have to start being a dad
again.”

I take a closer look at this Eddie guy. He
has graying, thinning black hair. It curls by his ears. My black hair always
curls when I let it grow out. He wears a wedding ring. I am definitely not
married. The lady doesn’t have on a ring, so maybe she isn’t Mrs. Eddie. This
is puzzling.

When he finally speaks, I am shocked to
hear my voice come out of his mouth.

“I’m still not hungry, Michelle. Thanks,
though. It’s good that you’re here. Anna would have wanted that.”

Eddie is me. I will be Eddie. Nobody calls
me Eddie now. I haven’t been Eddie since I was about six or seven. I am Ed and
only Ed. But it appears, somewhere in my future that I will still watch
football and I will live in a house with a lady who I’m not married to, a girl
my age, and a little kid who eats cookies under his bed. It also appears that I
won’t give a crap about any of them. I’ll just lie around like a slug and not
even pay attention to football games on the tube. And who the heck is Anna? If
this is my future, maybe I should stay dead.