Shrodinger's (Jamies) Cat. Teen. (UC. Slash) 01/27 COMPLETE

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Patroclus76
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Shrodinger's (Jamies) Cat. Teen. (UC. Slash) 01/27 COMPLETE

Post by Patroclus76 »

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Many thanks for everyone who voted: Awarded for Haulden in Roswell.









Shrodinger's (nee Jamie's) Cat. Slash. U.C. Teen

Disclaimer: The characters of "Roswell" belong to Jason Katims, Melinda Metz, WB, and UPN. They are not mine and no infringement is intended


Summary:
Roswell meets the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. This is a `tag' to Haulden in Roswell, which is on the Complete section for stories in this genre. By accident, Jamie and Max travel back through the library doors from 2012 to 1998, but due to a chaotic event caused by the Granolith at the sub-atomic level, Max is turned into a cat. The meeting of Jamie (aged 31) with Michael (17) outside Max;s house disturbs the previous time line when they both met in 1999 at West Roswell High School just days before Liz was shot at the Crash Down. Will the change prove serious?

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I hate my fucking life. It stinks – sometimes literally. For example. I’m nearly 17 and I’m already condemned as white trailer trash, stuck on the edge of Roswell, New Mexico, in a trailer park of the marginalized and dispossessed. I am plummeting through school as well, like one of Galileo’s weights off the Tower of Pisa – quote Math teacher `Michael – you re-define the meaning of mixed ability’. Another example: I have a fascist. son beating step-father, who somehow – SOMEHOW – managed to convince someone, somewhere, that he could bring up a child and – wait for it – get PAID for it! That really gets me – shouldn’t someone, SOMEWHERE, check up on Hank and see what a shit job he is making of being a single parent? Don’t these foster people have records? The only people who check on me – who care – are Isabel and Max, but sometimes it’s not enough – sometimes it can’t compensate for the deep sense of – of what, desolation? Shame? Thank fuck for heavy metal.

Oh, and before I tell you about what’s JUST HAPPENED TO ME, there’s another reason why I hate my fucking life and that’s because – wait for THIS – I’m half a fucking alien! (Not a full one, mind, or a third of one, but half!). And I don’t mean that metaphorically, either. I don’t mean it as an allegory of the `teenage disposition’ – I mean I am literally a bit green about the gills. Max, Isabel and myself – we’re the original Freak Show – but it’s worse for me, naturally! It’s all part of why I’m in Trailer trash land, (although Max and Iz aren’t, they're in suburbia with a step-dad, a step-mother AND a garden!).

Max tells this better than me. We were born in pods – somewhere in the desert – and our real parent’s are dead, killed, blah blah blah, or in hiding. Max and Isabel are brother and sister, incidentally. It seems I am not related. But we do have powers! Telekinesis, some mind reading abilities, energy discharges, changing the molecular structure of things – only, only I’m not too hot at controlling mine, while Max is – although he rarely uses any, of course. Good old Max, all responsibility and no power! Max is all control. I am all no control. Max is all silent and dark and watchful, while I am all noise and anger – I’m Whitman’s original barbaric YAWP. I’m scared though, sometimes, now more than ever. Scared of losing Max and Is, scared of killing Hank in a temper, scared of my own rage. Afraid of being discovered. Anyway, back to my story.

By the way, you’re probably reading this, thinking, `yeah right – the guy’s a jerk – delusional.’ I probably am, so would you be, in my situation. I hate my life so much all I can think of is running away. Recently I have been pressuring Max to start some serious investigations into who we are, why we’re here, all those Yoda questions we should be asking but aren’t. I want to get out of here. I need to escape - WE need to escape. Max, on the other hand, doesn’t – at least not yet. Pressuring Max is like trying to get blood out of a stone, incidentally – or watching paint dry. He can’t get inside my situation; he can’t see how bad it is for me. And I’ve been trying to pressure Iz as well, but I have to be careful because she tends to be ALMOST as impetuous as me and nag Max. And the more you nag Max, of course, the slower he gets. And the nearest he gets to making a decision, the slower he gets as well. Einstein once said that you can accelerate a particle towards the speed of light, but you never get there exactly, and the closer you get to it, the harder it is to accelerate one bit more. Well, that's Max. When I grow up I’ll write a fucking science paper on it. Well I’m sick of waiting. I wish Max would see that. I wish Max could see me as well – sometimes – standing in front of him, begging him. He does, sometimes I think.

Anyway – sorry – where was I. Oh yes. Hating my life, hating the waiting, waiting just makes things get worse. Think second law of thermodynamics. Soon I’ll be a blob of useless energy. I so much want something to happen, to break the inertia!! And guess what! I think tonight it did! WHat I am about to tell you is -

We start off with a normal shit night. Hank has two buddies around to watch a baseball game and to drink themselves into a stupor. I try and sit in my room but all I can hear is Neanderthals grunting obscenities. I try and shut it out, but after a while it fills me with dark anger. A huge vast anger, like I want to break their fucking necks, smash the trailer, explode. I try and think of Isabel, and then I try and think of Max – sitting with a book on his knees, hands in pockets, walking glacial like, Max as a form of meditation – but then some jerk scores and everyone next door screams. God it cuts through me like a knife. So I do what I always do. I get out of here. I climb out of the window and wheel the bike away a safe distance, kick start the bitch, and go to see Max. Except of course Max is not at home. When I reach the land of Suburbia, Max and Isabel’s palatial house is in tasteful, tree lined darkness, and I remember they’ve gone away for a weekend.

I stand in the drive, an expert in stealth, thinking not so much of Max and Is but of me: when did I last go away, anywhere? For a minute I can’t remember. I feel desolate, not angry. While riding over I had already pictured tapping on Max’s window, already imagined the bemused sleepy look of confusion on Max’s face, the creaky, dry `Michael?’, the way he rubs his eyes. All I find when I get there is darkness – and silence.

So I go across the street and sit down next to my mean machine and muse. I’m good at musing, not in an abstract, Max sort of way, but in a Michael `let’s plan for action!’ way! I work through various thought experiments such as `If we are half alien, are parents must have had hot interspecies sex!'. OR `If we really did crash in 1947 our parents must be dead.' etc. Meanwhile I half notice that suburbia is weird, very weird. For example in Trailer land there is no silence, no quiet. Someone is always arguing, smashing furniture, or trying to stop a child or baby crying. Usually they’re trying to do all of these things at the same time. There is always the sound of a TV or a radio or something. Then there are the dogs, of course. Dogs everywhere, yapping, barking, and howling. Here, however, – in Max and Isabel land – there is nothing! It’s sort of sinister.

I sit on the edge of the pavement next to the bike listening: just nothing, just me. No wind, no people, just neat smug houses hunkered down in their greenery. In Trashville it’s dark too, while here we have fancy street lamps with flower baskets stuck on them. Who waters them? In some way, in some weird way, I HATE Max and Isabel for their life here, in street lit utopia, for the way we all got separated. I shouldn’t but – there it is. It gets in the way of us three, it makes me apart.

Anyway. Sorry, I’m rambling. No Max. No sleeping bag on the floor and no sound of Max breathing softly, grunting acknowledgements as I babble on about my shit life. No Isabel to make me feel better. No innate joy at being close to something that is not mine. So - shall I go home and see if Hank et. al have managed to trash the kitchen yet? Or avoid a fight? Nah. Once I got back to see Hank throwing up in the bathroom – FANTASTIC timing – nah – I might as well drive around a bit, get the air, make some more plans. No school tomorrow – Sunday, thank fuck – so no summons to the Principals office when I arrive late, sleepy, crumpled. (and no look of guilty anxiety from Iz, either). God it’s almost as good as it gets. Then………….well, then it happen.

I stand to reach for my helmet, anxious to make a move. In suburbia the cop car comes by often, pendulum like, either the Sheriff himself, or one of his minions. Wealth must, after all, be protected. And that’s the last thing I need – another brush with the LAW. So I get up, feeling philosophical. As I climb onto my intrepid, quasi-illegal bike, there is a strange sort of flash – out of the corner of my eye, across the street from Max’s house – odd, immediate, like lightening, and then a sort of wind. Fucking weird! I hear all the trees creek and snap and then settle down, as if they’ve all had some sort of collective nightmare. It spooks me a bit. I rub my eyes. I see my own irises flash. So much for getting some air. I climb on the bike, wedge my helmet on, and then I see him – some dude – standing in the middle of the road.

He startles me, seeing him like that. He definitely wasn’t there a minute ago! He seems so still, as if he has jumped up from the surface of the road itself. He is standing, shirtless, with just jeans on, bare footed. His hair is curly, sort of blonde – it’s hard to tell in the semi darkness. It’s longer on his back, but chaotic, fuzzed around his head like a dandelion gone to seed. He doesn’t appear to have seen me. And what the fuck is he doing? He is holding his hand out in front of his face for some reason, palms up, like he’s trying to be a ghost, and rotating slowly. I look at him carefully. He’s older than me, probably mid 20s – definite college jock. I can tell immediately. He’s all worked out and pumped up, with a good solid torso, and some sort of frat tattoo on his chest! Probably some lawyers son, back home for a campus free weekend to detox. I am holding my breath, watching him intently. I then hear him say, in a sort of panic.

`Jesus titty fucking Christ!’ He then looks about like he’s just woken up or something, and then he looks straight at me! There is something definitely weird about the way he sees me, about his reaction, as if he's on a bad trip, as if he thinks I am not real or not here. Glue sniffing, weed? Root beer? He looks at me and starts to come closer, then he stops, and then, with a weird sort of recognition, he swings around and looks directly at Max’s house.

`No way!’ he whispers, almost scared. Only then does he seem to notice he’s half fucking naked or something, because he looks really freaked and steps back. I have a really bad feeling about this by now. First off, my chances of a run in with the law have DOUBLED. One, I am seemingly casing out an empty house, two, I am next to a fucking half naked madman. I settle back on my seat, my foot ready to kick-start but, of course, I am intrigued. Really intrigued. This is, after all, marginally better than going back to Hank, and there is something about him, something that is – well – sort of – I can’t explain.

The dude looks at me AGAIN and then says, `Shit!’ really loudly, then he does some sort of pantomime, and ends up looking above my head, at something behind me. He does it long enough, and intently enough, for me to turn around and look as well. I expect to see the Sheriff. Instead I see nothing except more suburban greenery. Then, as I look up, I see something white flapping in the tree about twelve feet above me. It’s a shirt. Although I am no rocket scientist, it’s presumably HIS shirt.

When I turn around he is standing right next to me. I didn’t hear him move and he makes me start. He looks much more beefier this close, and much more fucking dangerous. He’s also older than I first thought – perhaps late 20s. He has a handsome, sharp face, tanned, but there is an intensity about it that is not exactly normal. And he’s looking at the shirt and holding his arms, although the night is warm and dry. The only advantage I seem to have at this stage is being on a bike and wearing shoes.

`Yo, you ok? That your shirt?’ I say, as he continues to look at me, then at the shirt, then back at me. I wonder for a moment if he’s all there, you know, fully functional? I go to try my spanish but he clearly isn't Mexican. I try to hide my anxiety. The illusion that he is two cans short of a six-pack collapses though when he says with an intelligent, suspicious voice.

`Yeah, yeah it is. And it’s expensive as well. ’ The shirt is well up in some sort of ornamental palm tree. He doesn’t offer an explanation as to how it got there, and I am not inclined to ask.

`You on drugs or something?’ I ask, trying to sound casual. I have my helmet on, of course. He frowns at me, like he can’t hear properly. Perhaps talking about drugs is not a good idea. I look at his tat, at the definition of his chest and arms. Probably a quarter-back. He’s looking at me intently, more with curiosity than aggression, but I wouldn’t want to bet serious money on it. I think it best to make some an exit.

`Buddy I’ve gotta go – but don’t hang around here too long, man, the cops come around a lot – and who knows, the shirt might blow down‘. I go to kick off and drive away but he touches my arm and he says in a really WEIRD voice,

`Michael?’ Goose bumps spread across my neck.

Silence.

He definately just said Michael. It’s a bit weird when a complete stranger, standing half naked, says your name, and says it in such a way that scares the shit out of you. To illustrate the point, he does it again. He says `Michael?’ like my name is a chemical formula, or the capital of a remote, dead, civilisation. And I get such a sense of déjà vu that I drop all ideas of escape.

`How do you know my name?’ I ask, trying to sound relaxed, like a guy who, with enough time, might well remember his as well. He doesn’t answer. His mind is working furiously. I can see it, like clock work, whizzing behind his wide open eyes. Then he says

`Fuck I shouldn’t have said that!’ He winces, and pulls a face. The way he does this makes him seem suddenly much less dangerous, far more human, and almost comical. I peel my helmet off. He rolls his eyes, makes a despairing gesture with his hands, and says suddenly
`Michael what the fuck are you doing here!’ and then he adds `and what’s the date?’

`What?’ I scowl. If I knew his body language better I would say he is either embarrassed or excited to see me. He avoids my eyes, now, and is walking backwards into the road again.

`Do you know me?’ I ask.

He pauses, looks up at his shirt, and then says, bewilderingly. `Yes, I mean no – no – well sort of.’

`Sort of?’ What kind of fuck answer is that!

`It’s written on your helmet!’ He says quickly. It isn’t. My name isn’t written anywhere. Caught in the lie, he looks at me and has another go.

`You look like a Michael, I mean, the bike, the –‘ he comes close `the spiky hair, the `don’t fuck with Michael look’! Definitely Michael, or at worse, a Matthew?” He starts to smile, very slowly, and I have the strangest fucking sensation that he knows me really well. I press my lips together to stop from getting too friendly and smiling. I still have no fucking clue who he is at all.

`You a friend of Isabel?’ I guess. It’s a stab but he’s the sort of jock I know Isabel thinks about and dates. She’s been dating a few recently, despite Max getting all protective and defensive.

`Yeah, I know-‘ he stops again and, to my surprise, slaps himself hard across the face.

` No, I don’t actually! I’ve never met Isabel in my life! I know an Elizabeth!’ He rests his hands on the top of his head, groaning. I can’t help but notice how the top of his shoulders knot up. There seems to be something odd about his neck, I can’t quite see. `And the date?’ he asks again, carefully.

`May –‘

`May – kewl – good month – and the year?’

I snort. Fuck he must really be out of it. `Yeah right, 1998.’

That seems to both comfort and alarm him. Whatever he’s on, it sure isn’t cherry cola.

`1998! Fucking library!’ He then seems to come to some sort of resolution. `Ok, Michael, if that’s your real name, thanks for that, I'll be getting along now.’

I nod, trying to see what he has on his neck.

`No problem. Always good to know the year – you should take it easy, go steady on the substance.’ He moves away from me and then looks intently at Max’s house again. I realise he is waiting for me to leave first.

`Ok man, thanks. –‘ he says again, and stands around as if I am about to fucking vanish into thin air.

`You live around here? You want me to get you home?’ I ask, all friendly like. I quite like the idea that he might know me.

`No thanks, it’s fine – I feel a bit better now – much better – ‘ he makes small talk with his hands, waves them about like I am a dog.

I wonder if I should mention Isabel again, or Max. Is he waiting to break into Isabel's bedroom? I suddenly become conscious that he is hanging about the Evan's house, and the house is empty. We stand apart stupidly, both lost in our own plans. I feel a sort of anti-climax, but as I go start my bike two things happen:

A police truck pulls around into the road, and the glare of the lights falls on me and then on the jock , and then -

A large ginger cat falls from nowhere, and lands howling on top of his head.
Last edited by Patroclus76 on Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:22 am, edited 64 times in total.
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Post by Patroclus76 »

What the fuck!!!!!!

I mean all this was weird, even before the cat fell. Weird enough. There was something about this guy from the beginning, something that both intrigued me and yet spooked me. Hard to explain, but it was rather like seeing a ghost. And the way he appeared. One minute there was nothing: empty road – flash – then there was the shirtless man.

Anyway, as for the cat. I can’t really describe it because it was so unbelievable. It was really frightening and also fucking hysterically funny. The cat was huge, a big ginger tom that meeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooowed down through the darkness and landed on the crown of jock boy’s head, sticking its claws into his forehead and along the top of his back. The dude screamed and put his hands up quickly as the poor beast rolled forward under its own momentum. The inertia of the fall pushed the guy down as well. The cat landed – predictably - firmly on all fours, while prize quarter back crouched on his knees, with huge scratches on either side of his cheeks.

After a pause he said `Shit! That HURT!’ and rocked back and forth a bit, holding his head. He then looked directly up at the sky above him as if another cat might land at any minute. I was still stunned to be honest, too stunned to laugh, or even to recognise the look on the face of the deputy sheriff as he climbed out of the police truck, open mouthed, wide eyed, looking up at the sky as well, and then down at the guy kneeling, as if he had witnessed a miracle.

It was Deputy Hanson – not one of the fastest men on the planet – and he was clearly dumb struck by what he had just witnessed, or should I say, struck slightly dumber than usual. So was I. The cat, after appearing to step tentatively forward, paw by paw, shook itself to see if it was ok, and then sat on the curb and looked at everything with a sort of studied outrage.

Then – something really fucking strange happened – I mean – stranger even than a cat falling from nowhere – the cat looked at me, turned its head to look at something else and then, I kid you not, it did a double take. The cat swung around and just stared at me as if in shock, its eyes all green and luminous. I have never seen anything like it, not even on those stupid Pet Video shows on TV where dogs play Mozart on a baby piano and fish sing! I mean – it looked at me as if to say, `What the fuck is HE doing here!!’ and then it looked straight at the bike as if it recognised it! And the dude, lifting his head up (which was about to be examined by Hanson) said – seemingly to the cat - `It is, and don’t ask!’

During this little charade, Hanson had walked over to the man to see if he was injured. He shone a torch on his cuts, then at the cat (which was still looking at the bike, its eyes narrowed now, as if it was profoundly suspicious), and then Hanson noticed me.

`Michael.’ He said, naturally, as if I hung around street corners all the time, and as if I was already entirely to blame for what had happened.

`Deputy’ I said.

`These cuts look nasty, young man.’ Hanson said to the jock. `You ought to go home to get them treated with some antiseptic. What’s your name?'

Hanson straightened up and put his "deputy dog" look on. I could see Hanson looking at his physique. Gym dudes really piss me off. Hanson then caught sight of the shirt flapping like a small flag up in its tree.

`Jamie. Jamie Relph, I’ve just moved into the neighbourhood.’

`And is that your cat?’

`Apparently. I mean, yes. Yes it is.’

`Are you intoxicated?’

`No, I am not – I ran out half dressed to retrieve the cat –it’s only just arrived from Washington state. It’s a bit disorientated by its new surroundings.’

Hanson seemed to sniff and taste each word. Meanwhile, the cat was sitting with its head twisted, its hind leg up, licking its own ass as if we had all the time in the world.

Finally Hanson moved towards me. On the opposite side of the street I noticed that several porch lights had come on, and that various people were at their windows, peering out curiously. The blue and red flashes from the truck light strobed Hanson’s face. He had his `puzzled’ look on, the habitual frown of a man constantly outwitted by his own mediocrity.

`This guy a friend of yours? Are you intoxicated, Michael?’

`No, I am not `intoxicated’ and yes, I know him, we met today – he’s a friend of Isabels Evans!’

The name did not seem to mean anything to Hanson. He pursed his lips and shook his head slowly. `So you were making Mr Relph feel welcome and part of the neighbourhood, is that it?’

The difficulty with Hanson was that he was so stupid that sarcasm sounded like a genuinely new idea. It was hard to know if he was trying to be rude or just helpful, and whether he was telling you something or thinking out loud.

`I was helping him to find his cat.’ I said.

`Exactly.’ Answered Jamie. He’d wiped the blood away from his cheeks and looked like a Native American with war paint on. He had blood on his arm and his chest as well. The cuts did look quite painful. So far Hanson had not reached for his pocket book, and had not radioed back to report anything. He was actually looking at the cat as if it was a sort of accomplice. For a moment I thought he was going to ask it some questions.

`And where do you suppose the cat fell from?’ he asked eventually, squinting up again into the darkness.

`From that tree –‘ Jamie pointed at one so far behind and to the right that, unless the cat had been spun and delivered like a baseball on a massive parabola it could NEVER have come from such a direction. I started smirking and looked down sharply. Jamie’s eyes twinkled at me.

`I hope you've not been mistreating it in any way?' asked Hanson but the cat, seemingly on cue, walked over and started rubbing Jamie’s legs and purring like a fucking locomotive.

`I love my cat!' said Jamie with particular enthusiasm.

Hanson’s brain computed and clanked through the utter improbability of this but decided he’s had enough.

`OK boys, it’s late and as I’m sure you know, Mr. Relph, this is a respectable area – ‘ he looked at me as if I ought to pay particular attention to this bit of information. `And Michael, you had better scoot home and see if Hank’s missing you yet.’ He smirked, sort of. I felt a spasm of anger but let it go.

`Sure thing, deputy Hanson!’ I said breezily.

`But you’d better come back and say goodbye to my folks first, Michael’ said Jamie with firmness. He sounded as pissed about Hanson as I felt. Hanson was walking back to the truck. Jamie leaned down and the cat, despite its size, jumped into his arms with surprising ease and allowed itself to be held, baby like, its paws sticking out awkwardly like someone being winced up in a harness from a crash scene. It looked so fucking comical – it was big enough to be a small dog and it had this sort of indignant look on its face as if it vaguely embarrassed by jock boy’s behaviour.

`Goodnight, Deputy! Sorry about the fuss!’ shouted Jamie and crushed the cat ever so slightly between his arms and his pecs. The cat growled but remained in a sort of crash position. As soon as Hanson was in his seat Jamie said to the cat:

`You little bastard, you’ll pay for that! Next time I say jump, you jump with me you understand? You don’t hang around! You could have ended up anywhere! We could have got separated!’

I frowned. Jamie then turned to me with great warmth. `Come on Michael, let’s walk into the Evan’s house – I’ll pretend it’s mine – Hanson clearly doesn’t know them well enough to know where they live.’

`Sure – ‘ I sounded hesitant. Did he know they were away for the weekend? He walked, making baby noises at the cat and I walked with him, casually, into the porch of Max and Isabel’s house. Hanson drove passed us, looking but evidently not suspicious. I realised I had left my bike on the opposite curb. We stood, with just the sound of the cat purring and growling as Jamie teased it lovingly if not violently. I felt a really strong desire to hang around and see what the fuck was going on!

`So where did the cat fall from?’ I asked, eventually, vaguely embarrassed by the sound of this guy making further death threats to the cat as if it was his best buddy. Jamie looked up at me.

`It’s complicated. Had I been looking out for him, I would have been able to determine where and how he'd fall. But since I was not paying attention, the `wave function’ did not collapse, and so Max here, fell at random, or rather, according to nth amount of probability for all given directions! He surprised me by landing at great speed on top of my head! Didn’t you – you little fucker! Yes, you did you wicked fucking little adorable bastard!’ He ended this tirade with a series of gurgling noises.

`You’ve called the cat Max?’ I said. That really amused me, but somehow it was just a little too weird as well. We were after all standing on Max’s porch.

`Yeah!' Jamie said, flashing a really intimate smile at me, as if somehow he was making a point. `You wanna hold him for a moment?’ and before I could say anything, the fucking beast was off loaded into my arms – mute now and eyeing me with a certain degree of scepticism. I don’t really like cats. This bastard weighed about 30 kgs.

`So the cat fell from nowhere?’ I wondered, evidently as Hanson had, whether the guy had thrown it somehow, whether he was some sick bastard who played frisbie with his pet animal. Perhaps he had pitched the poor cat into the air and ran after him to do a sort of touch down? But the cat’s trajectory was wrong!

`Well it depends on your opinion: it depends whether you believe in quantum decoherence or not –‘ Jamie said this quietly, while scrutinising the Evans’ front door with the obvious intention of breaking in. He was looking at the lock and the hinges of the door. I knew that look. I had practically invented it.

`Quantum decoherence?’ I repeated. I was beginning to suspect that he might be on drugs after all. The cat was really heavy by now and surprisingly hot. It was purring and looking at me with faint amusement. It also looked very smug and – I can’t believe I thought this – clever. As I looked down into its stupid grinning face it WINKED at me! It’s a fucking cat I said to myself. Jesus! And as I went to put it down the CAT said to me

`Pay no attention to him Michael, he’s showing off. What he really means is that what was exceptional and unpredictable at the sub-atomic level appears to be normal once it is observed. The quantum phenomena take on the appearance of classical form – that is, I appeared to fall from no where, but in fact I was being transported from one space-time coordinate to another – randomly – as it evidently turned out to be.’

I think I screamed.
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I don’t usually scream. I can’t actually remember the last time I did, it’s not really my style. But what was so weird, so fucking disturbing, was not just the cat talking, and the way it moved its mouth (as if it talked all the time) but the fact that it spoke with Max’s voice! And as I screamed the absurd idea formed in my mind that the cat really WAS Max. That’s probably why I screamed, I guess.

When I stopped screaming, the cat had screwed up its face and was wincing as if it had tooth ache, while Jamie had spun around and, in a familiar gesture to me, raised his right hand – like Max did, like I tried to do, in preparation to use our powers. Was Jamie, like me, half an alien? And what was the cat – my mind screwed up into a tight ball of denial and yet I felt a huge surge of excitement. What was happening? Was I being tricked somehow, was Jamie a con man, and the cat some very clever sort of ventriloquist act?

The silence after my scream thundered in my ears for a while.

`For fuck sake, Michael – that was at point blank range, thank you very much!’ said the cat, sitting on the porch looking at me in feline outrage.

`Sorry Michael – ‘ said Jamie, matter of fact, `He isn’t suppose to speak, but of course he can’t help himself! I would have told you - ’ he turned back to the door, and then said,

`Can you use your powers to open this?’

My mouth half opened, but no sound came out. I flashed my eyes at Jamie and then I looked down at the cat. The cat stretched and said,

`Your alien, half Antarian powers, Michael, the door – before Hanson comes back again! Otherwise Kyle’s dad will be all over us and I’ll end up in a freak show!’

`Antarian?’ I asked. My head was reeling. Could this be a fake? How? How did they know I had powers? How can a cat speak?

`Max!’ Jamie chastised the cat again, ` not another word out of you until we’re inside!’ There was a sound in the street, a door slamming.

`Michael?’ said Jamie, a coaxing, friendly voice, like he knew how to work on me. I pressed my hand over the lock, and with some effort, sprang it open.

`Thank god!’ signed Max, `I can go wallow in nostalgia until the Doors return!’ The cat disappeared into the darkness. Jamie cursed and whispered after him,

`Max! Is there an alarm? Bastard!' and then at me, `He is so impetuous!’

but we followed, into the hallway, and then right into the kitchen. I was next to Jamie. I could feel the heat from his body, disconcertingly close to me. He seemed powerful and yet quite detached from the fact he was half dressed. He was obviously less vain about himself than I had first imagined. I know vain guys, the way they hold themselves, the way they walk around with the `me me me' sign.

`Where have they gone, Michael? The Evans’? Do you know when they’ll be back?’ he asked me.

`Ask the cat!’ I said. If the cat knew then I was obviously insane.

`Good point!’ smiled Jamie. He looked at me and then patted my shoulder. `Hey, relax – we’re your best friends, Michael! We haven’t met yet, obviously, but we will soon – in about a year's time - and hey,’ his handsome face clouded, `be nicer to me when we do!’ he laughed, and then slinked off, saying, `Here Maxy, Maxy, you good for nothing adorable hunk of a cat!’

I walked after him, in the general direction of Max’s bedroom.

`What the fuck are you talking about?’ We haven’t met yet – and the cat – that is NOT Max! Max is away with –‘

`Ah, don’t tell me!’ said Jamie, he put his finger to my lips and I leapt back, shocked at the way he touched me. He saw my reaction, and removed his hand quickly. `Oh, I’m sorry Michael, - I’

`Michael doesn’t like to be touched!’ said the cat. It had jumped onto Max’s bed and was rolling on its back, `Not yet anyway! God it’s so strange to see my old room after all these years! ’

I felt confused, awkward; uncomfortable at the sense of familiarity that came with Jamie, uncomfortable with my anxiety about it, and deeply disturbed by the cat. Jamie walked over to Max’s desk and clicked a lamp on.

`Max, tell us where you are – ‘ he said, to the cat, and sat heavily on the bed. The cat playfully jumped on his head. It was like being with a fucking couple!

`What’s the date?’ it asked eventually, after Jamie had thrown it in the air several times. Every time I looked at its fluffy whiskered mouth talking, I felt like screaming again. Then the cat added quickly,

`No, no don’t tell me – let me look, let me look.’ It stared at the walls, at the desk, and then it looked at me. It jumped off Jamie, who was flat on the bed now, and smiled at me like it was playing a trick.

`The best clue is Michael – I mean, the Country Crows poster is a bit of a giveaway, that lamp shade Iz smashed in 1999 when she had an argument with me, but Michael’s hair and – let’s look at your shoes – hmm, yes, now show me your T-shirt.’ stupidly, I did. What the fuck was I doing. I was playing charades with a fucking cat!

`Got it –it's 1998, and it’s possibly May?’

`You cheating little bastard!’ said Jamie lovingly, his head down still. He had stuck his legs out at a curious angle and was flapping them about pointlessly. All I could see was his feet, and the top of his jeans, and then an astounding crease of muscles where a normal guy would have had a stomach. He had his arms under Max’s pillow and – and he was smelling it!

`Am I right?’ said the cat triumphantly.

`Yes – May 23rd’ I said, still anxious about whether I could stop the screaming if it just kicked off without warning.

`Ah ha, then that means I am in Sante Fe visiting Mom's sister – Aunt Verity!’

Jamie sat up at this stage. Arms back, he looked very relaxed. I notice that the scars on his face had healed.

`Is that right, Michael?’

It was right. I nodded like a guy who has just seen his watch smashed by a magician, and then restored better than new. I took a deep breath:

`So – you’re trying to tell me that – that you’re both from the future, and that in the future, Max has turned into a cat?’

`Not exactly, baby–‘ said Jamie. I frowned. No one ever fucking called me baby, and certainly not a guy! Max, the cat, frowned as well.

`We are from the future, Michael, from 2012 to be precise, but I only became a cat as we travelled through the Gr-‘

`The library doors!’ interrupted Jamie sharply. He pointed a finger at the cat in mock anger, `Stop spoiling the story!’ The cat studiously stuck its tongue out.

`When I resume my normal form, Jamie, I shall thrash the living daylights out of you!’

`Promises, promises!’ said Jamie, looking at some personal photos and stuff on Max’s desk. I sat on the end of the bed, next to `Max’. I was beginning to suspect that Jamie’s relationship with the cat was slightly more intimate than it should be.

`Can you two stop bickering for a moment!’ I pleaded. Before the cat could get a word in. I went back to the beginning. `Ok, so you appear in the middle of the road, half naked, and then a cat falls on your head. Explain? And I don’t believe in time travel, either, so drop the bullshit!’

The cat, momentarily ignoring me, said to Jamie, `We have twelve hours until the Evans’ return, if I remember correctly, and hopefully the doors will realign with us by then? So we don’t have to rush!’

`What is all this about the doors!’ I said. Confusion makes me edgy. I hate being made to feel stupid. I’m not, I’m clever. I just act stupid.

`We travelled accidentally through a large pair of doors,’ said the cat slowly, as if this actually helped explain ANYTHING. `And since we are in a timeline where myself and Jamie already exist – the quantum principle of entanglement comes into play – what Einstein famously called `spooky action at a distance’ – our parallel selves remain connected because we started off as the same entity - the doors will calculate the probability of our whereabouts and realign with us and return us, eventually, to our own time. And hopefully change me back into a hybrid!’ The cat grinned as if it had been especially clever.

I looked cynically at them both. Until I found out what the fuck was going on, it was up to me to protect Max’s house!

`Bullshit' I said, but with slightly less convinction that before.

`Time travel is very simple –‘ the cat added, as a sort of afterthought.

`Remember that space and time are the same thing, Michael, so that movement in one dimension alters the basic framework of the other. Godel’s theorem suggested that time-space becomes layered up in a continuous number – an infinite number of `nows’.’

`William James coined the phrase `multiverse’ – but the Antarian Seeth claim to have empirically demonstrated that they exist.’ Concluded Jamie. He was looking at a picture of Max and Isabel taken many years ago, not long after they – we – had been adopted. `There are portals that connect them – ‘ Jamie looked at me and frowned as if he was teasing me. Then he smiled. `You’re not buying any of this are you!’

`I am still considering the probability of a talking cat. How did you change into a cat in the first place?’.

`A very good question, Michael!' stated Jamie. `A chaotic event, possibly. Just before it happened, Max and I were playing in the library, and next minute I found myself on the road outside the house with you looking at me, and then –‘ Max interrupted him with,

`Then I fell on top of him! Thank god I was naked otherwise you would have seen a dressed, talking cat falling as if from no where – how weird would that have been!’

I ran my hands across my face. `Hold it, you and Jamie were playing in a library, in 2012, which would make you in your early 30s, and you – you were naked?’

Jamie and the cat looked slightly sheepish. Jamie put the photograph back. `Well, I still had my pants on,’ he said, cautiously.

`Only because you wouldn’t forfeit them for the last hand which you clearly lost! the cat protested indignantly.

`Wait a minute.' I looked from one to the other. `You were playing strip poker?’

`Hmm, yes – but it’s not what it seems. I hadn't yet changed into a cat, remember!' Warned Max. It seemed fucking weird to me.

`But you were both guys?' I said. I felt odd saying that - because, well, because for reaons I couldn't or didn't want to explain yet, about some - some - of my feelings for Max.

We all sat looking at each other. I needed a pee. I excused myself and went and pissed quietly and tried to sort my head out. I splashed cold water over my face and re-spiked my hair. As I walked back I heard the Cat say to Jamie:

`Isn’t he adorable! Of course he’s not the fully `at ease’ Michael that you have come to know and love, so I’d go easy on the physical intimacies for a while – we'e had a few near misses and we're someway away before our first morning in bed together!'

Jamie laughed. He was looking at something, touching things; I could tell he was distracted. `He’s really cool though – and he look’s so young! But I guess when we meet I look younger! Isn’t this weird! Being here – being back in 1998? Before it all starts!’

`Yeah - and me as a cat!'

I paused outside the room. I think I felt scared hearing them talk. It sounded so genuine.

`It is weird' continued the cat, thiughtfully, `And just think Jamie boy, that not far from here, a certain Miss Parker is sitting on her balcony – I mean – I might just nip along and, well you know, rub around her - ‘ but Jamie interrupted him

`No fucking way!’
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Hearing Liz Parker’s name was a revelation. Until that moment, part of me had still harbored alternative explanations for Jamie and the sudden appearance of the cat. Despite everything I had seen and heard, I was still not buying it, all that pseudo physics crap about time and alternative universes. But hearing the cat say `Miss Parker’ changed all that. You see, I was the only other person to know about Max’s secret obsession. I knew about Liz despite the fact that Max, typically, hadn’t actually told me about her! (At least, not directly, he had in his own way – and he probably thought he had been quite explicit about telling me as well!) I had always known about Liz, because since as long as I could remember, she had always been there – just below the horizon of Max’s world, just out of sight, waiting for her rendezvous with history.

And for the past few years in particular, I had seen her growing on Max, looming up out of the mists, like a siren. I had seen him looking at her and, increasingly, hearing her song, and starting to hang around weird, off beat places at school, and in Roswell –Liz territories, like the science block, and the astronomy class. The Crashdown café, for instance, had suddenly become the centre of the Max’s Universe. It was owned by the Parkers, and Liz was a waitress there, part time, after school, and Max had recently started sitting in one of the booths pretending to do his home work but looking mournfully at her. It was sort of pathetic. I went with him, partly to avoid Hank, partly to be with Max, partly to try and understand what the fuss was about.

I tried refocusing on the conversation, but it has gone on a bit. Max the cat was protesting about Jamie’s refusal to let him go. He taunted Jamie with jealously, with seemed a strange accusation and Jamie retorted with some long complex view on causality. I thought I heard a farting noise. It was Max, apparently.

`You bastard – oh god that smells even worse than one of DeMarr’s stews!’ I heard the window open.

`It is one of DeMarr’s stews! Look, I’ll slink off, behave myself, and then slink back. In the meantime you can talk to Michael and try and cheer him up a bit’

`He looks cheerful enough to me? On the other hand, he is taking an unusually long time to take a piss– ‘ Jamie’s voice had moved closer to the door. I was about to fake my arrival, but the cat disrupted Jamie’s train of thought and direction of motion.

`1998 was a difficult year for Michael – I mean, he was beginning to outgrow Hank’s temper and he was becoming increasingly anxious about the alien stuff – he was always planning to run off if I recall!’

`That’s so Michael!’ said Jamie with such affection I felt myself blush. `He knows about you and Liz by now, obviously?’

`Yes – he does – I have recently started the great routine that drags Michael to Liz’s café on a daily basis to watch her. He isn’t stupid. He hasn’t said anything to me yet, but he’s watching and waiting! But more seriously, he thinks his life is shit, and deep down he is beginning to despair. I don’t think I was much help. I wasn’t very good at articulating my love for him. Not until the night he ran off on us.’

My heart and chest felt tight. This was so fucking spooky! These guys were really from the future! Instinctively I moved forward and walked into the room.


`Sorry guys – hey what’s that smell!’

Jamie, sitting on a chair near the window, pointed accusingly at the cat. The cat sat up and smirked, with its thick bush tail flitting around it.

`We thought you might have drowned.’ It purred, before jumping up onto the window ledge. `I have to run off and do a few errands, Michael. Keep an eye out for a large pair of ornate doors – ‘ and before anyone could say anything, Max – Max the cat – flashed off into the night.

`Don’t speak to her, for god's sake!’ shouted Jamie after him, his head through the window. He returned and sat down.

I glanced at Jamie. He was holding his knees looking thoughtfully after Max. The light from the desk lamp made his thick fuzz of blonde hair shine like a halo, and it picked out the curve of his shoulder. He looked very powerful sitting there, like a statue. He seemed suddenly aware I was in the room.

`So how are you, Michael – how are things going in 1998!’ he said, smiling at me. There was something about the way he smiled, something about his own body language that felt – sort of very immediate – very full on. I didn’t dislike it, I was just aware of him taking notice of me. As I sat on the end of the bed I suddenly worked it out.

`Are you – gay?

Jamie blinked in mock surprise. `Fuck, it’s these jeans, isn’t it? They’re not mine really – I bought them in Seattle for a friend! She’s really sweet but she has no dress sense at all!’

I laughed. `No, it’s not the jeans, it’s the way you are with me – with Max – the way you are with yourself, it’s cool. I wasn’t being –‘ I thought for the word, judgmental or anything!’

`Good! Yes, I am gay, although gay as a word is sort of out of fashion in 2012!’ He seemed about to say something, but he changed his mind.

`Are we good friends in the future?’ I asked suddenly. The question seemed to please him, because he smiled and uncurled his legs.

`Definitely! We have all been through a lot – I mean, you, Max and Isabel especially – ‘

`And are you an alien like us?’

`Not exactly –‘ he voice was guarded now, as if he feared to say too much. I scratched my eyebrow.

`I understand why you can’t say anything specific – I mean, you probably can’t tell me anything for fear if changing the future!’

He nodded slowly, as if I was half right. He stood up and suddenly landed on the bed next to me. It startled me. It was weirdly cat like in its way.

`Well, sort of. I mean, time is not linear Michael, it has no clear end or beginning - ‘ He was close to me, his head on Max’s pillow. I tried not to look alarmed. I didn’t feel alarmed – not exactly – it was just weird having some jock sitting just across from me, half dressed, from the future. To a 17 year old any guy who is nearly 30 is `old’ – Jamie was both young and old, at the same time. I looked at his tattoo, curved by the grooves of his upper chest.

`No end or beginning?’ I repeated.

`Time is not one thread, it’s many threads, like a big tapestry, so unpicking something doesn’t always change the overall pattern! I mean, for instance, if I told you, that you had to keep Max from getting a job at the UFO center –‘

`No way!’ I gasped. `He doesn’t!

`He does! He even wears one of those stupid fucking little vest – the beige ones – do you call them vests?’

`Fucking hell! Yes, we do!’ I laughed out loud.

`But, as I was saying – if you managed to stop him doing that, it wouldn’t necessarily make any consequential changes – ever heard the expression `re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic’?’

`Can’t say I have,’ I mused. `But I get the drift – you change the details, but the ship still sinks?’

`Exactly!’ said Jamie and slapped me quite hard on the back. After my eyes had watered slightly, he apologised. `Sorry, man. That’s a habit I picked up from you actually, and Kyle!’

`Kyle?’

`We were talking about time – ‘ he said, frowning at himself.

`Or is this destiny?’ I asked. He couldn’t possibly mean Kyle Valenti! I liked Jamie. I liked the way he talked to me.

`Destiny is a very big word, Michael – but yes: it begs issues of destiny. Was the Titanic destined to sink? If we went back and stopped it, would all the people who died that night die anyway?’ Jamie then told me a story of a man who tried to go back in time to save his wife. He could manage to save her from one accident, but she would still die from something else. No matter what he did, not matter how much he changed time, he never got his wife back. It was a strangely moving story. He explained it to me with a sad look on his face.

`God, that’s weird – who told you that?’

`An ex-boyfriend of mine. I have since learned that there is a Sect on Antar who do not believe in destiny at all, who believe that we are not really alive – the Istari – an old order of the High Seeth. They believe we dream ourselves.’ I hadn’t the slightest idea what the fuck he was talking about, but I wanted him to go on talking! Jamie was the first person – the first adult – who had treated me with respect, who treated me like I was his equal.

We fell silent for a time. Jamie rested his arms behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. He seemed to doze, or was he thinking about something complex and abstract. He looked oddly like Max, somehow, for a moment, self contained, enigmatic. I was still trying to make out the tattoo. It looked like a snake, or a large uncoiling S.

`So when do we meet?’ I asked, impatient already.

`In about a year, but I won’t look much like this –‘ he chuckled, `I might look very gay! And very skinny! And you are very protective of Max!’

`I am? Yeah, I guess I am!’ I said, thoughtfully. I hadn’t really thought about that. Jamie winked at me. I smiled, and shifting onto my side. I used to lie with Max like this when we were younger, we’d lie slightly apart, my head near his feet, his feet near my head, and I used to always thing of Pisces, of the fish sign – god knows why.

`Can I ask about myself – I mean, in 2012, just one question, no elaboration and no appendices added – yeah?’

Jamie smiled at me conspiratorially, as if I had asked him to come along to a game of poker. `Sure –no cross examinations allowed though!’ he swung up into a sitting position, with an ease and subtly that again surprised me. `Shoot!’ he said.

So what should I ask? What one question would you ask someone who knew you from the future? Will I be rich and famous? Will Hank die a long and horribly death? When do I get laid? Does Max love me? Do I get married and have kids? We sat looking at each other in the gloom of Max’s room. It must have been well passed midnight by now. I looked into Jamie’s eyes – they were very clear – grey-green – I thought I saw myself reflected in them,along with the lamp, sickle mooned in the corner, a minature world etched on the glass smooth irises.
In the end I asked simply `Am I a good man, Jamie?’ I felt weirdly emotional, really churned up.

Jamie frowned as if this was not the question he had expected. And then he smiled, an odd smile, like you smile at a memory or something that suddenly, unexpectedly, reminds you of something good. `You are one of the best men I have ever met, Michael.’ He went to touch me but thought better of it. I realised that touching people was instinctive to Jamie, it came without effort.

At that stage Maxy boy turned up on the window sill. He seemed to have grown definitely more panther like. He scared the shit out of me, appearing suddenly.

`Ohh, good old male bonding I see!’ he purred. He seemed especially self congratulatory. He’d clearly enjoyed rubbing Liz!

`We have been talking about destiny, Max.’ retorted Jamie suggestively. Max stretched a long, muscled back, yawned with a shocking red mouth, and swished his tail. `Cool – I have just been in the arms of destiny, god – Liz looked so young!’ Max leapt across the room and landed with a thud on Jamie. `She said I was the most beautiful cat she had ever seen!’

`Shit, you’ve gained mass – the doors must be close?’ Jamie sounded winded. Max was definitely no longer a domestic cat – that bit was fucking obvious. He looked quite dangerous.

`Yes. I think you’re right. We’d better get ready to say our farewells! I was rather hoping to see myself, see whether I really was as slow and as inactive as everyone said I was!’ Max purred this in my ear, a huge black creature with green eyes. He then nuzzled my neck, and as I turned to – to what? Stroke him, touch him, I could smell Max! And when I looked into those cats eyes, I recognised him! I ran my hand over his thick pelted neck. All these weird emotions swelled up inside me.

`Hang in there Michael, as someone will say to you one day, `feel the love!’ He licked my cheek with a tongue as rough as sandpaper. I put my arms around his neck. Why couldn't I do this when Max was human, here and now? Should I try?

At that moment, Jamie sat up, as if listening. I could see him, tense, staring at Max’s bedroom door. For a moment I wasn’t sure what he was looking at or for, but slowly, I realised that Max’s door was changing – it was growing higher and broader – melting and reforming like smoke. I felt my face and neck go cold. The door became, slowly, two doors, both with wide panels and covered in ornate carvings, like writing. The carvings glowed and swirled around – they made words I could not read but which I seemed to understand.

`Shit!’ I gasped, trying to move away. I knocked into Jamie sliding forward off the bed.

`It’s ok – time to go – hey – see you soon!’ he pecked my cheek as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He stood up and the doors loomed over him, expanding out to take over most of the wall and Max’s entire house. I just can’t describe it clearly – but just as I thought they could get no bigger there was an ominous, deep creak and the doors opened slowly, inwards. As they opened they revealed a fucking enormous room.

I couldn’t really see the end of it – a huge vast place of books and tables – receding away into a sort of wintry gloom. Pale, golden sunlight fell in heavy squares on the carpet, low angled, and without warmth. An old man in a dressing gown was blowing ashes on the grate with a billow. Jamie stood on the threshold.

`Jamie, will I recognise you – I mean – when we meet?’

`Of course!’ he said. Max’s voice said close to me, `And don’t be so rude to him this time!’

Jamie walked forward. As he did so he seemed to melt away. Max strode off and leapt into the great library – as he did so – he transformed back into a human – the panther elongated and it’s front legs became arms – Max was there, momentarily naked, dark, incredibly powerful, a smudge of movement and then he, too vanished. I sat – pinned against the wall – speechless as the doors closed and faded. Before they) shut, I thought I heard laughter and an old, rich voice say

`Was that Michael?’

Then the doors closed. They sealed, they melted and they transformed back to Max;s bedroom door. I sat looking into space. What the fuck had just happened? Well – I had about a year to wait.
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Post by Patroclus76 »

I am posting the link to the previous timeline - its half way down the first page of Haulden in Roswell. This describes the first meeting beween Michael, Max and Jamie.

http://www.roswellfanatics.net/viewtopic.php?t=13672

Below is the re-arranged time line caused by Jamie and Max arriving in 1998.


------------------------------------
September 1999.

So I go to the gym – thank fuck there is one in this flea hole of a school – and, reassured by the smell of boy’s sweat and wood veneer flooring, I do my geeky workout. The air is thick and heavy with heat; great slaps of desert sunlight fill the hall, and I grow philosophical. Why in god’s name was I ever born so skinny and how the fuck can I improve myself without the wholesale recourse to drugs? I swing around a few girlie weights while I multi-task through my personality crisis.

Since I am also alone, I practice my grunting and my monosyllabic asides like `yeah’ or `strong’. They don’t sound very convincing, but sort of apologetic. Shit! I am doomed. Like every other school I have ever been to, I am probably about to be eaten alive. `Damn you, God, damn you I say!’ I shake my fists for dramatic effect, pick up another set of dumb bells and then I am FUCKING MORTIFIED to see that I am not alone.

Near the windows a dark, tall youth is standing, doing hammer curls with a distressingly large amount of weight and with shocking ease. Bastard. He looks Spanish, or Native American, and already to my finely tuned, discerning eye, he has an astounding physique! I mean, I can spot an astounding physique from about 12 miles up through low clouds. I am better than a fucking infrared spy satellite!

I stop swinging my girlie weights out like some demented cheerleader, and quickly try to COLLATE DATA. He has a ripped, chiselled torso squeezed into a sort of tank top. I think I can see his nipples from here. I could hang my coat on them. SHIT!! Ok ok, don’t panic. I sit up sniffing the air. He has stopped and turns towards me, and OH MY GOD, he is beautiful!

My heart stops (metaphorically, of course) I feel the world rushing and wobbling through space. He goes and sits on a bench, inclines the back, sits so I see his shoulders, the shape of his arms, the triceps cut and molded behind the elbow. I jump up and try to pretend I am looking for a plate or a set of weights. I hover close towards him, holding my breath, like a swimmer in a wreck. His hair is jet black, solid, a bit nest like, heaped up into a sort of fringe, and his face, his cheeks, his eyes, they are – fuck – synaptic failure – FUCK!!

I have just walked into a pec deck!


I am blinded by ACUTE AGONY, made worse by trying to pretend I am perfectly fine. God boy turns and before I can overcome the flashing blue lines behind my eyes and the feeling I am about to projectile vomit over him, he is literally standing IN FRONT OF ME:

`You ok, man?’

Did he say something? Did he speak to me? Am I hearing voices. I must be concussed. I open my eyes and HE is about three feet away. I have a full on, annihilating view of the most beautiful guy I have ever seen. His body is slick with sweat, his front shoulders framing a muscled, corded neck. AND HIS EYES!!!!!!!! They pierce my heart. I am not sure I can speak or breathe. Little white blobs whiz around my peripheral vision.

`That looked really painful – ‘ he growls, moving towards me. I think I say `It’s ok, thanks, I just grazed my arm.’ But I actually say `Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh eeeeeeeeeeeeeer wwwwwwwwwwe yeahhhhhh’ as if I have a flannel in my mouth or as if I demonstrating the Doppler effect.

This does not deter God boy. He is clearly used to dealing with people overwhelmed by his sheer presence.

`Hey, sit down for a moment’ I sit on the pec deck seat. My pathetically flat and white shoulder is bleeding slightly. `Shall I go and get one of the staff?’ his voice is subliminal, deep in the Earth. He is stone and wind, a primordial force left over from when the World was made. He is leaning over me – oh fuck – the look of concern is enough to dissolve lead. It’s like Gone With the Wind! If he leans forward I might uncontrollably lick him, long tender licks of complete submission.

`I’m ok,’ I manage to say – my emergency sub-routines for geek survival have kicked in. He stands over me, he rests his hand above me on the right pad of the deck and I see a thick boss of hair under his armpit. I think I might scream.

`You’re new here?’ he asks gently. Yeah baby! We are in a wide, sheet swirled bed, and he has just mercilessly fucked me as part of my initiation rights.

`That was fantastic!’ I drool.

`Sorry?’

`I mean, yes – yes – I started today – my name is Jamie – Jamie Relph.’

`Hi, my name is Max. Max Evans'

GOD has a name. His name is MMMMMMMMMMMAXXXXXXXX.

I gawp at him, dribbling slightly, until I realise that this requires some formal response.

Hi, Max.’ I try looking at him, at his amber brown eyes, the high cheeks, the smooth dark jaw line but my eyes are swimming all over the place. Shit, I have to get a grip.

`Pleased to meet you, Max!’ I stammer. What the fuck – the understatement of the year – I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU ALREADY.


I think we speak for a while. I am not sure. Eventually, Max mumbles his apologies – he is late – he has to meet someone – I can’t really hear – I have the sight of his armpit and the rise and fall of his tits burned into my brain. He puts his weights away, grabs his shirt, and goes off to shower. By now most of my higher brain functions have come on-line, along with a massive boner painfully stuffed into my pants.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Where is the universal barbarism of the gym for lower life forms? The last time I had walked into a piece of gym equipment an entire pack of jocks laughed themselves senseless for weeks. This muscled Olympian aks me if I am alright! How is this possible? Have I stumbled into some form of parallel universe? Then, suddenly, I realise he has gone to take a shower. This is the opportunity of my gay life time. I do my emergency breathing exercises, gleaned from a back issue of The Reader’s Digest `I am John’s Kidney’.

They work. Next minute, re-booted, I am off! I swing through the doors and I hear water slamming onto tiles from the open stalls. Boy God is in heaven. My balls tighten and my stomach starts the San Andreas Fault routine. Stay calm. The key to success is not to get a hardon (or to successfully lose the one you have). I run through my `I am dying of cancer’ drama or `My Mother is a Hamster’. That works on my stiffy. The locker room – the inner sanctum of my tribe – is completely empty. There is not a soul around. I move to where I can see my locker, and my bag sticking out in the central aisle, under a bench.

Perfectly placed. God I am a genius.

I position myself just at the end of the lockers where I have complete `STRATEGIC VISION’ both of the exit and of the showers. I spot my target in 0.00003 seconds. Max is standing absolutely naked, at an angle, his head resting on the tiles, his hand on his temples, as if he is contemplating the meaning of life. The water cascades down his powerful, long fingers and varnishes his torso. I have never seen so many muscles in my life. He must have had implants. I see the narrow waist and then, the swell of his butt. I start shaking with some sort of seizure. Jesus Jamie – pull yourself together – I avoid looking DIRECTLY at his cock in case I start howling or spontaneously combust. I am holding my bag with one hand, fishing through it with the other in an entirely unconvincing attempt to look preoccupied.

Just at that moment, at that precise moment, some blonde, punk kid appears from fucking nowhere and says:

`What the fuck are you doing?’

I look at him, deer in headlights, with the words FUCKING PERVE written in extremely large letters across my head. It’s perfectly clear I am dogging up someone in the showers.

Punk boy has a beautiful bad boy face with great brown eyes. A forest of spiky hair. West Roswell clearly has hidden boy talent. I judged the place too quickly and too harshly.

`Trying to find my stuff,’ I say – tone perfect – neutral, no fucking wobbles. The secret of staying alive is don’t provoke, don’t stare. But I am troubled by the fact that he is staring at me, and, it has to be said, in rather a weird fucking way. I am usually adept at avoiding alpha males and not provoking aggressive behavior in higher primates. I have, after all, studied the History Channel for years and have collected such videos as `How to Not Provoke Sharks’ and `Living with Primates: Ten Easy Lessons in Survival.’ But I am now seriously alarmed.

I continue to do my lucky dip routine with my kit bag. Punk boy continues to frown and stare at me as if he has gone into a trance. I am not sure if he is considering whether I should live or die, or whether he has suddenly remembered he has left his wallet in the Mall, shot someone and not buried the body, or suddenly realised that he actually doesn’t belong to Roswell High School. WTF! I am really uncomfortable and I feel myself starting to go red. I look up at him. There is a very strange expression on his face; and then suddenly I get it.

It is the expression of recognition.

I am off the scale of fucking alarmed by now, and am clutching my gayboy hair fudge inside my bag ready to bludgeon him to death if necessary. And then he says in a excited whisper:

`Jamie?’

The world goes dark. Some unscheduled eclipse dims the room. I am looking at him with all the cultivated presence of a geek who has been speared by a javlin. And before I can regain any sense of what the fuck is going on, or what the fuck I shouldl do, he says again, `Jamie? Jamie Relph!’

`Yes, er yes, that’s me – I am not sure – I can’t recall – ‘ WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU but before I get to say this he lets out a huge tribal yawp and bangs me on the back so hard I gob all over him. He blinks, but instead of beating the crap out of me, he wipes his face with his hand, and laughs as if he’s won the fucking state lottery.

`Oh man! Am I glad to see you! You’re late – you said May! Fucking hell! Have you just arrived!’ I am now conscious that God boy has turned his attention to me. I am so totally unnerved, I back away slightly, still clutching the bag. Is this some sort of fucking weird Jock joke, one of their sicko wind ups? But he knows my name and – fuck – he looks – jesus – ecstatic!

`This is my first day at school – but,’ my mouth is dry and my lips keep sticking together. `I don’t think we’ve met – I’m sorry man, I meant’ he isn’t listening to me at all. He is looking at me and laughing as if I am his long lost brother.

`You really ARE skinny! Jesus – you weren’t kidding – fuck you are so geeky!‘

To add to the sense of complete chaos, Max shouts over the water `Michael?’

Michael? My brain rushes through a series of entries for Michael going back to my imaginary friend at nursery school, next door’s parrot, a lad I watched peeing when he was nine and a cousin of my mother's who shot the postman over a wrong delivery. That quickly exhausted every Michael I had ever known.

I try to sound very adult and say very slowly `Michael, I think you’ve made a mistake –‘ but Michael is on a roll. He still isn’t listening. It’s like he’s been waiting for me for ages.

`Hey Max, meet Jamie! Jamie Relph!’ and next minute boy god is standing, dripping in front of me, with a small white towel tucked modestly around his waist, showing off the knuckle of genitals, and looking at Michael as if he has had some sort of lobotomy or been replaced by a giant pod plant in human form.

`We’ve already met briefly – he’s just moved into town.’ he extends a powerful erotic hand to mine. This HAS to be a fucking wet dream – the result of too many M and Ms. I am hallucinating. I am still in the gym, lying in a pool of blood – or – omg – dead – like in Sunset Boulevard! The scene where I am floating in the swimming pool!

`How do you know Michael?’ Max asks me, with a life taking husky voice. He sounds slightly amused or intrigued. He is watching Michael closely. Either I wake up dead or I have to explain that there has been some horrible mistake. I really like the idea that I am best friends with Michael, and through Michael, friends with GOD, but that does not happen to people like me. It is not part of the REAL WORLD. There are geeks, jocks, quarter-packs and cheer-leaders. THAT’S IT! I go to open my mouth but Michael says quickly,

`It’s all very secret!’ He is grinning. `You see the great joy of this is, he can’t remember meeting me!’

I look at Max like a man looks at his last shred of fucking sanity. Max is smiling at Michael, a really cute, indulgent smile, as if he is pleased to see him happy but deeply worried as to exactly why. I know then instinctively that they are close buddies. You can just tell.

`I can’t, actually.’ I say like I have fucking amnesia. `I really am sorry – I’m not being difficult.’ I don't know who you are!'

`That’s cool, Jamie boy! Don’t worry, it will sort of come back to you I guess! Welcome to our world! Hey and no cats with you!’ he laughs, looking about, and then clicks his fingers at Max.

`Oh no – stupid of me – he’s here, well sort of!’

`Michael are you OK?’ asks Max. Max is trying to reassure me with a devastating smile that drains all my blood into my cock.

`Sure I am – hey – wait! I have something for you Jamie! This will really freak you out!’ He runs out of the changing room. We hear him gallop off down a corridoor. I wonder if he's off his tits on drugs or something.

`He’s not usually this excitable or – polite – actually!’ says Max with a grin. `You must have made some impression on him!’ Max continues to dry himself, modestly. I am staring at the tiles on the floor as if they all have 100 dollar bills stuck in them. We then hear punk boy return. He is carrying a plastic bag. He comes up to me, his cute face flushed with expectation.

`Here, this is yours!’

I take the bag off him gently as if it’s likely to explode or contains a severed head. Inside is a shirt. An expensive white linen one, with a curious style to the collar.

`Michael – it isn’t mine – it’s way too big!’ I say carefully.

`You’ll grow into it, Jamie. Keep it.’ He turns away, smiling to himself. And then he peels his top off. Max takes the shirt off me and looks at it. He then frowns at me as Michael’s face is momentarily eclipsed by his T-shirt. It is an inclusive look, saying, `he’s ok really Jamie, honest!’ As Michael strips to shower he says to Max (who is hitching up his boxers)

`You eating at the Crash Down later?’

`Sure.’ Max sounds cautious. I am still not sure what to do. I am still holding the shirt like a flag. Should I undress and test my ability to control a hard on to the limits. Should I do an emergency exit before the real Jamie turns up!

Max looks at Michael as if he anticipates a rebuke about his plans for the evening. But Michael says,

`Excellent – you want to come and see the Crash Down, Jamie – the centre of the known Universe? Come on, it's fun!'

I make goldfish movements with my mouth. `YES, PLEASE!’ What to do? Just go with it? Just flow? I undress with all the primness of a virgin in a brothel. I watch Max bend to pull on his socks. His abdominals are so separated they appear to be made up of metal sheets; his cock is thick and long, dark, cut. He trims his pubes (good sign). He foofs up his hair. I drop my towel and patter pathetically into the shower. If I stood sideways against the white tiles I would probably be invisible.

Then Michael shouts, over the sound of water, and through his long his wet fingers rubbing his face -

`So you out yet, Jamie?’

My stomach collapses on itself and I stop breathing. WHAT THE FUCK!

Max stops and looks directly at me, and then at Michael. It is a sort of controlling look – as if Max mediates, or tries to mediate, the way Michael behaves.

`I – ‘ I gather myself together. `Yes, I am Michael, I have been out for a year or so – ‘

`Cool!’ he slaps his shoulders with soap. There is no sarcasm, no sound of trickery. `I just wasn’t sure – you know – well, when you sort these things out!’

Max looks utterly bemused now. He looks so beautifully clueless that I want to drop on my knees. Eventually, he just says:

`See you later, Michael, Jamie! See you both at the Crash Down.’ he smiles at me and casts Michael an affectionate but suspicious glance and shakes his head slowly. He swings out of the doors. Michael is beaming at me.

`Michael – I really don't want to spoil the mood but we have never met, much as I regret it’‘

`Oh Jamie, shut up!’ he says with jock ease. `Everything is going to be fine – we’ve just met now – just think of it as a sort of premonition! It involves the collapsing of space and time, you’ll explain it to me sometime – one day – ‘ his voice sounded almost dreamy - `Godel’s theorum.’

`Godel?’

`Yeah – and he’s a beautiful guy – isn’t he?’ he nods after Max.

My vision seems to go completely now. I am definately dead. Definately face down in the swimming pool.

Are Max and Michael Lovers?

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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So what is happening?

Somehow, through some sinister sleight of hand, I have slipped into a parallel world that looks like mine – but clearly it isn’t! I’ve read about stuff like this: Boy becomes Dog, I appear to others to be a giant apple – OMG! I mean – I have just showered with a thoroughbred jock who thinks that I have a) a physique and b) play team sports. Both are ABSURDLY incorrect.

He also thinks he knows me, and in several creepy respects he does – he knows I am gay and he knows my surname. Note to self: at the first opportunity check your appearance in a mirror. But then again, this is no time for an existential crisis.


Alternative explanations exist for how he knows all of this – naturally. I mean, `Michael’ (if that is his real name) could have spotted my sexuality from my intensely well turned out and spotless grooming and good manners, and he could have spotted my name since it was written up in large letters outside the Principals office as a greeting for `the new student’ (shit – I mean – tactful or not – they might as well have had a mug shot and my personal measurements!) But – there is something not right here – something in Jockopolis is seriously, seriously wrong. There is a weird, Jedi feeling in the base of my spine that – well – that this has happened before. An erotic sort of déjà vu.

There are further, and more interesting explanations as well: `Michael’ could be inclined to a tad of cock himself – his reference to Max Evans seemed very pointed – or was I obvious about my instant, undying LOVE for his best friend? Was it a bit of a give away? Me gawping into the shower clutching my bag for DEAR FUCKING LIFE, with the full orchestra behind me, swelling (cough) into song??!

Ego to id: you must go off into a silence space and think about all of this very carefully.

After we showered and after I had managed to get unstuck from my T-shirt afterwards (Michael: `Jamie man, get a different size, that is way too small!’) we had arranged to meet up at the Crash Down at 7. Michael gave me the low down on this oasis of taste owned by the Parkers. He imparted all this information quietly and very seriously while drying his balls, as if he has been taking notes on them and wanted finally to share the burden with someone else. He looked at his cock for a moment, the way that people looked at their pets. I felt a wave of facial paralysis.

Summary of my crisis so far:
I had been in Roswell for less than 48 hours and I had a date (sort of – well, you know what I mean! A social event – something other than a trip to the Mall or a stake out) WTF! My luck was never this good! I had landed in the middle of a wet dream! In the background to Michael’s sharp, sexy smirk was the solid image of MAXX, the apotheosis of male youth. Were they lovers? Were such things possible?

I was so excited I walked into several lockers on the way out of school and then collided with the janitor. `Look where you’re going, ass wipe’). Fuck. I was afraid I might start hyperventilating! I got so worked up I couldn’t even find my bike, until I realised I hadn’t brought it in today. Get a grip, Jamie boy!

-----------

I got home to find my parents, standing on unopened boxes, arguing about where to position the sofa in our new home. It was like some avant-garde production of Rigoletto. Army dude daddy was in his white trousers and tie, and Mother had a sheet around her (several, actually) and a turban. They were clearly `going out’ somewhere. Of course the argument about the sofa was actually a trope or allegorical narrative about each other and their shit life together. When mother said to Army dude,

`It shouldn’t go there – it should go here!’ what she really said was, `You are a stupid moron without taste and I have not the slightest recollection why or how I married you.’

And when Daddy said, `It’s perfectly fine there, in the window!’ God damn it!' what he really said was, `Why can’t you fucking see the obvious and why did I marry someone who is, basically, clinically insane and devoid of style?’ And so on. I kept notes on my parents.
They ran to 6 lever arch files. I planned a movie. Brad Pitt would play me.

I flew by to my room and shut the door and tried to adjust my groin and file away crowded images of MMAAX (and Michael) in a variety of astounding positions, slick with sweat, and involving implements of certain kinds. I got all hot and flustered and decided that an emergency jack off was in order, but before I could get comfortable, MOTHER manifested herself at the door with a list of instructions that I was to follow once they have gone to their event:

1)Look out for Afghan and Iraqi terrorists seeking to undermine US sovereignty. (in Roswell?!)
2)Do not move the sofa or compromise the kitchen while cooking.
3)Do not mess with Daddy’s `stuff’ (subtext: leave his porn mags alone, his shaver or other gadgets, do not root and nose through our room and do not use the video player)
4)Call 911 if you need help or clarification on any of the above points.

Mother delivered this ultimatum with the expression of an entire Greek Chorus. Recently my mother had developed a strange habit of walking with one arm raised. I wondered if she had suffered a stroke. I announced that I am going out.

Silence.

Mother did her `look up to camera one’ expression. `Out?’ She gave the word a sinister, sexual connotation.

I explained that I had been asked out by some friends to the Crash Down Café in the center of town, to meet some mates from school. This was unprecedented. Army Dad appeared framed in doorway to clarify this startling news. His son had a social event.

`Is the Crash Down a, a – ‘ mother tried to make words with her mouth. It looked quite painful. It looked like she has bad toothache or that she wanted to say `Booooooooooooooo’ very loudly. She closed her mouth and had another go.

`Is this a gay bar?’ ie am I faking my ID again.

I reassured them that it was a family run business full of West Roswell High Students who `hung out’ and had study classes over cherry cola. My enthusiasm to make it sound as geeky as possible had them reassured.

Mother (up lighting and camera pan right) said: `Very well, but make sure you get home at 10 pm! And don’t bring anyone home!’ Yeah, right. Fat chance.

My parents left the house with the speed and dignity at which glaciers usually melt. And with the same retreats and advances. I am not sure which one was worse, either. Both exhibited signs of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Typical conversation at the door:

`Where are my keys, oh yes, did I shut the freezer, oh yes, have we put the lights out, sure, where are my keys? In the freezer? Shit, put the light on a minute, ok - ’ JESUS! It’s like Ground Hog Day!

Meanwhile I was distracted by what to wear and how exactly to wear it. My clothes were still being unpacked, so I was limited to my woodland shades range of sweaters and blue jeans. In the end I decided to wear the shirt that Michael gave me – it seemed sort of prophetic somehow to wear it. It was WAY too big, and seemed bit sort of – well – arty somehow, New Romantics, like I should be in Culture Club or speak with a British accent. I gathered the bottom and tucked it in my jeans. I looked a bit like a Russian Peasant a la 1912, but it did make me look sort of lush, a bit exotic, like I might do a tap dance or shout `Fiesta!' without warning.

Or perhaps I just looked stupid?

I then spent a very long time in the bathroom trying to jackoff and not get flushed but I was so excited I couldn’t even concentrate on my streaming imagery of gay porn for all occasions. And, more worryingly, I couldn’t keep a stiffy – it kept lolling off like a limp stick of celery, first one way and then another. Fuck was I impotent at 17? Then my imagination lurched into a certain girly romanticism in which Max read to me in bed or fed me sugar mice, dangling them by their little string tails.

Fuck – what was wrong! I looked at my face in the mirror. It was definitely me – I mean I still looked very much like I have always looked – potentially attractive, I mean, minus the braces and the spots, and in need of a bit of body mass – but – hey – it could have been worse. I played with my blond curly hair and tried my Luke Skywalker look. The bit where he finds his Aunt’s been incinerated by the Evil Empire. I `borrowed’ Mother’s tinted moisturiser Morning Glow and did a first rate job on hiding my proto-manly imperfections – although the key thing was not to blush. If I blush I was covered in strange orange splotches and people said, `What the fuck!’ which made it all worse.

By 6:50 I was ready – tense, excited, and yet – yet slightly worried. What if – well, what if the real Jamie turned up? You see, I had been considering the possibility that Michael did meet someone who looked like me, and that, well –seemed enough like me to – well – it’s creepy! I mean, Max and Michael were way way way out of my league! Something must have happened to Michael. I turned to go and then
Something really fucking weird happened.

I mean more weirder than being mistaken for Rambo in the school gym.

I turn around and there, slap bang in the middle of my bedroom are a pair of massive fucking DOORS!
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Ok - so what the fuck is going on?

I have already, at the tender age of 17, experienced total panic and crisis in my life and lived to write my journal. For instance, I survived my mother discovering my first male porn magazine when I was 14. (I told her I thought you bought the female one separately, and then added them together!). She was so startled by the size of the guys in the mags that she couldn’t really get outraged (although she took them anyway). I survived a near death experience while investigating how people conduct electricity by shoving a fork in a socket and holding a light bulb. (The experiment failed, much to my disappointment).

This however was QUITE DIFFERENT!

I closed my eyes, and then opened them. The doors were still there. So too was some weird, freaky noise like an exhaust fan or a sort of wind machine. I closed my eyes counted to ten, and then opened them. The same. The doors, the fucking Vincent Price sound effects, all we needed now was a coffin and some fangs!

As you know, I am trained in the art of immediate scientific observation. It’s part of my geek nature and my native genius. So besides being scared SHITLESS by the appearance of what looked like, to all intents and purposes, the main entrance to St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, in my bedroom, I pressed myself against the wall and I scrutinised this phenomenon MOST carefully.

The doors were massive – both made up of ornate, decorate panels with loads of fucking swirls and carvings, and – what IS the word – cartouches? Is that the word? Together they must have stood about twelve feet high, disappearing regally into my bedroom ceiling. They were each about four to five feet wide, with regency like inlays around the door handles. They took up almost the entire width of my bedroom, except for a small strip of carpet near the window. They were made of a dark wood, or perhaps, a really strange metal of some kind. I screwed up my courage and approached them, with my right hand stretched out. For some mysterious reason I used my left hand to shield my testicles.

On close inspection, the art stuff on them was spectacular, people and stuff in relief. Army dude would have declared that they were `definitely classy’ and most likely European – I would guess Italianish, but then I am a bit weak on the arts at the moment. I pressed my palm against the panel on the right, just above the heavy metal handle. It was VERY cold, so cold I snatched my hand back. Where I had momentarily touched the surface, a silver handprint glowed like when you touch a cold windowpane. It faded slowly. The whirly noise continued. I made my way around to the window and craned my neck to see the back of the doors.


The backs were plainer, impressive still, but clearly the `interior side’. Moving back and forth I could make out they were about eight or nine inches thick. This was so fucking weird and yet really exciting! Had I not organised to go to the Crash Down and try to win myself into MMMMMMAAAX’s affections, I would have called Judge Judy or Jerry Springer, or probably the police.


I walked back around to the `front’ and leaned against the wall. How could you explain this? Where would you begin? I was not hallucinating. This was definitely my bedroom. The doors were real. I put my palm on the panel again. Again the silvered outline of my hand appeared and lingered. And then there was a loud click. I stood back, defensively, my heart racing. Nothing. I then suddenly realised that the click was the lock of the doors opening!


I went to touch the handle and then I saw something really fucking spooky, something that actually made my nasal hairs stand on end. There was a light showing through the hairline crack between the two doors! Since the opposite wall of my bedroom was in darkness, and since the window was to the right, the only explanation was – FUCK! I breathed in deeply and screwed my face into a `manly’ look and, walking forward, I pushed the door open.

I screamed.

Or rather I think I did. Someone did.

The door opened lightly, soundlessly and without effort, to reveal a huge hallway – not the back of my bedroom wall at all – but a vast stone floored chamber, dark for the most part, but in some places obliquely lit by low, cold sunshine, coming through high slanted windows. My breath steamed. I stood on the threshold, eyes (and mouth) wide in disbelief. Multidimensionality. A parallel universe – next door’s loft conversion?


Whatever it was, this was real! I shivered with the clammy stone coldness of this great place, and without hesitating to consider the risk of the doors closing behind me, I stepped into a cathedral like space, my footfalls echoing as I walked forward. I looked back at the doors to see them magnificently in their proper setting, a huge shout of artwork, and then I started – because above them, in a niche over the doorway itself, was a statue of a man, a young man, kneeling down, pointing at me. I felt myself go cold with fright – and with recognition. It – it was Max!?

Had – had this all something to do with Max?


At that moment I heard the sound of people talking and approaching – above me – and I noticed to my left a staircase. It led down from a gallery, and although I was at the moment obscured, I would be seen as soon as they descended down the first flight! Shit! I darted to the wall, and then, in stealth mode, I crept up against the side of the stairs itself. Luckily there was some sort of armor dude standing holding what appeared to be a giant corkscrew. I crouched down next to it, scuffing my knee badly and then knocking the fucking guy’s leg. Jesus, it was like Scooby Doo!

I could now make out voices – two men in conversation – quite clearly. Although the light appeared to be fading, if they walked towards the doors they would most likely see me! But my mind was still obsessed with the statue. I tried to focus on the conversation.

`Julian, I know how you feel about these things, and I appreciate your wife’s directions in these matters, but she ought to be moved to a modern facility where I can care for her – ‘

The voice was American, definitely – it sounded a bit in the upper nose area, like a posh New Yorker. There was a pause. They were almost at my level now. Then the other person spoke.

`Is she in pain?’ This voice was more unusual, mid Atlantic, possibly British, or Dutch. I sat, frozen next to the armored Ancestor, trying to breath through my nose quietly. A ghost of a tickle started.

`No, she is not in pain. She is administering her own morphine – I was thinking more of, well, the size of this place – visitors, some company perhaps, you know – before –‘ and the first voice trailed away.

`Before the end?’ Two men walked out from the foot of the stairwell. One was youngish, in a black overcoat and a scarf. He was holding a medical case and a pair of gloves. The other was an older man – difficult to say how old in the lowering gloom – and he seemed to be wearing a blue checked dressing gown over clothes. As he turned to look at the doctor, I saw something flash on his forehead. He had a pair of glasses shoved up absent mindedly.

`She is happy here, Anderson, really – and we read to her and we talk about our life together.’ He paused, his voice seemed far away, sad. `If she expresses a desire to move, I shall comply immediately – you know that!’

Anderson sighed deeply – and so did I – because I had killer cramp in my left ass cheek. `And are you coping, Julian, with all this – I mean – after Boston and all that?’ The question was sharp.

Julian stirred himself. `I’m coping just fine, Anderson – really.’ He sounded vaguely annoyed. They stood in silence, and then to my immense relief, they walked away from the doors towards some unseen, concealed corridor.

Once I was sure they had gone, I stood up and walked about it, slapping my ass and rubbing it in what mother called a `vigorous’ manner. I was so fucking cold and had possible frostbite in my toes. I meandered back to the doors and looked up at the statue. It sent another thrill of excitement through me. It was definitely Max. It had his eyes, and they seemed to glow at me in the darkness. Max. Crash Down. Had this anything to do with the strange mistaken identity by Punk boy Michael? I stood, holding my breath, close to the doors. What if my bedroom wasn’t on the other side of them ? What if I was trapped here? I looked up, Max was lost in gloom, but I felt his presence and I felt a real stab of joy at the thought of seeing him in the flesh!

And yet suddenly the idea of leaving this extraordinary, spooky dimension seemed a huge mistake. I pushed one of the doors ajar and, to my immense relief, my bedroom appeared on the other side, oddly distorted though, as if I was looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. I hesitated, half turned. Fuck it – this was an opportunity not to miss! I looked back into the great cavernous gloom of the hall, ink filled with darkness. Just a few moments more? My natural geekiness – a moth to the flame! I cantered off in the direction of `Julian’ and his doctor friend.

This place was either a cathedral or a museum, whatever it was by about ten minutes and the third (or fourth?) turn into matching corridors I was beginning to think I should have tied a thread from my super peasant shirt to the doors to make sure I didn’t get lost. In fact – frankly – I was getting vaguely panicky – sort of nightmare short of breath panicky – ESPECIALLY since I was beginning to get the distinct impression I was being followed.

Once I thought about the possibility it seemed pretty fucking definite. I stopped at another juncture of another vaulted chamber and listened hard. It was now almost pitch dark, except for a gossamer trace of light from the stone white slabs on the floors. In the silence I tried to filter out my heart beat, a rumble in my lower stomach. What was that noise? There was something soft and – sort of – padding – padding behind me, and then it too stopped. That really set my nasal hairs going. I spun around and looked hard but all I saw was the faintest, ghostly outline of a high arched corridor, and then – perhaps – a patch of greater darkness sitting just up from the floor?!.

I tried my emergency meditation techniques – I thought of sex and Max and that helped slightly. I turned and pressed on – how big was this fucking place? Again, behind me, a strange stealthy padding started and – a sort of deep humming – or – or was it something – something purring?

Shit! The thought of an animal of some kind stalking me REALLY sent the ticker going – jesus! I spun around and tried to see where the noise was coming from – perhaps it was just in my head? Like tinnitus? Great darkness all about – and – fuck – a flash! A distinct flash of green eyes about half a mile in front of me! A fucking panther!!!!!!!!!! (I think).

I turned and ran forward, skidding on the cold floor and turned into another passage way – and as I did so, to my great relief, I saw some sort of artificial light – seemingly normal lighting – ahead, like a series of standard lamps and – thank fuck – signs of some domestication – a row of chairs, carpets, pictures! I also heard voices now –– indistinct, still seemingly far off. I turned and, close to serious panic, I looked behind. I could see nothing, but a stoned cold hallway receding into darkness, not unlike looking into the mouth of a mineshaft. I walked into the light. The corridor opened up into a huge, vast stairwell – shit – I was in, what – Versailles? As I took in the staggering vertigo of my surroundings, I heard a door open and, instinctively, darted back against the wall, stubbing my toe in the process. I bit a large ornate sword hilt to stop myself screaming.

The Julian dude appeared again, still in his weird fucking dressing gown, with the doctor now wearing a sort of 1930s Nazi hat – if this was September, it sure wasn’t fucking Roswell. They were talking earnestly about something. The doctor asked about someone called Wilcox, and Julian said he was `on the roof’. Which one? They vanished from my line of sight. After a while I peeped out and came forward slowly – this was clearly the main entrance hall to – whatever sort of place I was in –. Doctor dude was presumably being shown out, and was being escorted the self evidently five mile walk to the door! Jesus. If I lived here, I would install a rapid transport system – like a fucking monorail link!


I looked about, gathering information like a spy satellite. I crept across another vast space and noticed a door half open – a normal, living room sort of door – painted white. Glancing rather fretfully towards the main entrance, I judged I had just enough time to have a peep inside before Julian and the dressing gown reappeared.

Behind the door was a really comfortable, richly furnished study. It looked like the sort of room you have in 1950’s movies – leather chairs padded and studied, all that was missing was Spencer Tracy in a dress shirt. In the centre of a huge hearth burned a roaring fire, abd around it, the glint and sparkle of decanters. Fuck! My heart was pounding away somewhere near my cheek bone. I walked quickly over to a wide, green felt topped desk, scanning for clues, photos, newspapers, letters. My eyes skidded and banged uselessly all over the place. It was about as successful as my first attempt to watch a guy undress in the gym. Then I saw the edge of what looked like a newspaper – a wide broadsheet – opened under a pile of letters at what appeared to be Real Estate Page. I searched the top margins and my heart literally surged into a random series of dots and dashes.

The Seattle Times. November 14th 2006.
Last edited by Patroclus76 on Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Patroclus76 »

Ok, ok. So if you have just tuned in, I ought to do one of those cheesy voice over plot summaries, like `Last Week on Jamie’s Life Story: Jamie walked into one unbelievably hot stud and then encountered another (less hot but still very hot) stud who claimed to know him. Both studs invited Jamie to meet for a drink. Jamie went home to prepare himself for ANYTHING that might happen only to be confronted by a very large pair of mysterious doors that manifested themselves in his very small bedroom. On going through them, Jamie made the startling discovery that he appeared to be in the Pacific Northwest, most likely Washington, and that he had also travelled to 2006 from 1999.’

Of course if this was a cheesy sci fi TV show, we would have action flashbacks as well, with me in various heroic poses running about, hair wet, great profile shots, CLOSE ups of Max, but of course it isn’t – a TV show, that is, it’s real and I am either mad, or have been exposed to mysterious psychotropic contaminants in the school water supply.


Getting back into my bedroom involved a small mini adventure in itself. I ran out of the study, holding my purloined copy of The Seattle Times Real Estate Section like I was in a 4 by 4 relay race. It was proof, to discuss with my new best friend MICHAEL on my safe return. However, as I steadied myself from careening over some fucking baronial carpet the size of a small baseball diamond outside the study, I thought I heard the old dude in the dressing gown approaching from the direction of the front door. There was nothing left to do but run back the way I had come.

Since only a fraction of this ridiculous House (note capital H) appeared to be lit, I had to run the gauntlet of approximately five miles of unlit corridors and confront my growing suspicion that I was not ALONE in the outer darkness: I had formed the somewhat bizarre but seemingly indisputable impression that, like some feline Minotaur, a fucking large cat of some kind patrolled the lanes and avenues between me and the doors back to my bedroom and my own year.

Call this irrational or hysterical – but I had seen its eyes flash and sensed it padding after me. Moreover – in my supergeek mind, honed to operate in all conditions, I vaguely recalled Michael making some jocky quip about a cat when I met him in the locker room – with – with MAX. I was already working on some rough hypothesis that, since I had travelled in time, the guy who Michael seemed to think was me might well have been me, but from the FUTURE? As my friend and mate Sherlock Holmes says, `once you have eliminated all that is impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the answer’ – you see – I AM a fucking genius!


I’ll skip the sheer horror and terror of getting home except for a few critical details. I ran into several walls and objet d'art, all irritatingly at genital height, and then almost took out my eye on another one of these decorative SWORDS – whoever lived here had a serious fetish and uninsurable problem when it came to armor! And the cat – well there was definitely a cat – because, when on the point of complete physical exhaustion, when I was in fact about to give up and lay down on the flagstones and DIE, I saw it face to face!

I turned a corner and there were the massive cathedral doors – indeed there was the outer hallway I had arrived in earlier, but this time BATHED in fucking sunshine – as if this part of the house was in a different time zone altogether. Moreover, in front of the doors lying on its back, playfully growling and swishing a very large tail was what I think I can say – indeed say authoritatively – was a PANTHER.

I stayed calm for about three nanoseconds and then I think I screamed. I am always ashamed at how easily I scream. I screamed once during a Buffy episode for no apparent reason, and I once screamed at an astronomy class during a meteor shower and got myself banned for a month. Anyway, I screamed and the panther rolled upright and seemed – I mean – I find it hard to type this – but it seemed to grin like it was mightily pleased to see me. It might have been grimacing, and its mouth was very pink – and yet in some weird way, it was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen. On the very plausible grounds that it was also the last thing I was most likely to see, I prepared to make a last ditch run for the doors – and yet as I did so, the damn thing rolled over again and looked at me as if it seriously wanted me to go and rub its stomach!

I stood there in disbelief. Clearly it was a trap of some kind. I would get over there, go to tickle it in a friendly, Star Trek First Contact sort of way, and the fucking thing would eat me! I knew these things. I had read comics and studied manuals. Nonetheless, it had to be said that it looked rather less dangerous than it had seemed during the darkness, although it seemed considerably on the large size. I was desperate to make it to the Crash Down and see my new reason for living, MAAAXX, but a minor detour might be in order. I walked forward with my copy of the Seattle Times out in front of me as if I was in a circus ring.


`Nice kitty, nice kitty, nice and slow there – ‘ the cat dabbed a paw playfully in the air and I have to confess that I was suddenly tempted to have a stroke – so to speak. I mean – shit, this had to be a trap but it looked a very tempting one. I paused and the cat, looking at me upside down with wide green eyes, seemed both comical and yet divine. Hesitation was fatal. I went up alongside it, and saw the muscled flanks and side, the pelt thick and blue-black. It was purring like a waterfall and begging to be touched. I squatted down and like a giant, dangerous pet, it twisted its head playfully to keep me in view. Perhaps the panther was tame? Perhaps that explained why it roamed about the house – fuck – perhaps Dr. Doolittle lived here or something!

I breathed in deeply and ran my hand over its fur. I have never felt anything so soft and warm. I could feel the firm, solid flesh beneath and that was weird – frightening – to sense the power that lay there. I fought the instinct to take my hand away. The panther rolled and swirled about, and the next thing I knew I had my head on its chest – WTF! A heart pounded and thundered in my ear, surging like the sea. It tapped my shoulders playfully with heavy paws, claws safely retracted. The smell of the animal was just extraordinary, so alive, – I felt – god – I can’t really say – I felt – so happy! I took my life in hands and ran a hand up under its chin and it responded by licking my face. I was delirious! Seriously off my trolley.

And then, just as if it could not get any weirder, any more fucking psychedelic, the panther SAID,

`God, scratch my chin again -'

`Shit I’ve gone mad, just like my mother!’ I said without moving my head. I scratched the chin again.

``Hmmm, god that feel's good - no, you're not mad - but you’d better get going , Jamie – the doors are fickle – they don’t always keep to TIME.’

The panther then sat up on its hind legs, and forced me to move my head and confront, in a more upright position, the curious truth that I was now in the company of a tame, speaking panther – and evidently, one that was a telepath as well, since it added secretively, even flirtatiously, `I am not tame, incidentally!’

`Oh,’ I said, as if I spoke with panthers all the time. I didn’t want to leave now. But the cat licked its front paws and then walked me to the doors.

`We’ll see a lot of each other I think, Jamie – ‘

`I hope so. Do you know a boy called Michael?’ I asked as I tentatively pushed open the door. Again, to my relief, my bedroom appeared on the other side, ominously tidy.

`Of course!’

`Do you know Max, his friend?’ My voice wobbled a bit. The panther made a strange expression, as if it were indeed human. It looked like it had frowned or raised an eyebrow.

`I do indeed – now off with you – and be careful! Lookout for stray bullets?’ and then I was in my bedroom, which was also suddenly door less. I blinked about me like someone who has just been dropped down a chimney.

I soon discovered, of course, that no time whatsoever had elapsed since my little adventure, which must have lasted at least an hour – and had it not been for my copy of the newspaper, a torn shirt, bruises on my knee and a lot of black hairs on my jeans, I would have been inclined to put this down to a flash back from a bad trip induced at the age of seven from too much cherry cola. My brain was working overtime – and before I changed out of my peasant outfit, I jotted a few notes down in my secret geek journal and then sprang off for my bike and the Crash Down. God, WHAT WAS HAPPENING! But before I can think about this again, I was rushing towards Max, like a small planet trapped in his massive gravitational field.

--------

The Crash Down was a modest diner-cum-cafe situated opposite a shoe repair shop, and fittingly, adjacent to the garishly lit freak show known as the UFO centre. I say fittingly because the Crash Down was, of course, a themed dig at the continuing value of the 1947 crash to Roswell’s flourishing tourism. A fucking half saucer shaped ship was plastered on the front of the store, and everything on the menu had an alien name to it – it was clever in a sort of Roswell kind of way. Slightly weirder, all the staff had strange alien like costumes on, and had silver antenna attached to their heads. They must itch like hell.

I secured my bike to a nearby fire hydrant and then walked into the silver doors, pulling when I should have pushed. Then the doors seemed to want to be pulled as I pushed. In the end, having fucked up my grand mysterious entrance, a small dark haired girl opened the door for me. She smiled a shy, slightly pixy smile, and said,

`Hello! Come in!’ She had her name stuck on her lapel. She was called Liz.

`Sorry – I’m not normally this intellectually challenged! I have this thing with doors at the moment. ’ I said, and then narrowly avoided walking into some sort of alien themed statute standing in the doorway. I then knocked into some big, mean looking dude as he went to swig his drink.

`Hey look what the fuck you're doing!' he snarled.

Liz's smile seemed to beg me not to go on first impressions.

`I don’t get out much’ I said.

Inside, the cafe looked a little more down market than outside, with plastic covered tables and chairs and an odd assortment of people sitting around multi-colored beverages. Liz smiled a very pretty smile, and snaked a strand of hair behind her ear and said,

`Let me take you to a seat – I saw you in school this week – you’re new, aren’t you?’ Before I could answer this, Michael’s hand went up and waved as if he was calling for a cab.

`He’s with us!’

Liz looked startled, and looked at me as if there was some sort of mistake.

`Don't ask, it’s complicated’ I muttered, half smiling. Liz seemed to relax but sremained obviously distracted. I had just shot up ten marks on the social pecking order. Or perhaps Michael scared her?

`What class are you in?’ I asked, more out of politeness, as she steered me towards Michael’s table. She didn’t seem to hear me. By now I could see the sculptured, curved presence of Max, curiously curled in on himself as if he was trying to be invisible. I felt a stab of anxiety – perhaps he had been trying to talk Michael out of this meeting – I mean – let’s face it, I seriously lowered Max’s social credibility.

Feeling slightly crushed, I suddenly thought that this was all now a rather bad idea – it was ridiculous of me – even after my bedroom adventures – but before I could work out what to do, Max, half turned, seemed to jump as if he’s seen a ghost, and then gushed,

`Hey, Jamie – come here, sit down!’ and the way he said it, the way his eyes skimmed off me and over Liz and then careened off my face and avoided Michael altogether calmed me considerably, since I realised that the source of Max’s curious embarrassment was not me,

but Liz.

I perched on my chair like a fucking spinster aunt, mainly because Michael’s legs were sprawled under what seemed the entire fucking table, with Max’s taking up the remaining space. They both looked vaguely traumatised. They had the sort of look you got in Grey Hound Coach stations three days into a cross US coach trip. The look of endless waiting and exhausted anxiety. I worried if this reflected the quality of the service.

`Thanks – er – guys’ (wince) – so what have I missed?’ I thought that sounded sort of Jock literate, breezy, non-committal, but Michael said, half in jest,

`Cut it out, Jamie – order your drink from LIZ’. He italicised her name with his voice, and Max appeared to kick him in the shin. Michael then noticed my rolled bit of newspaper.

`What's this - homework?'

`No, it's something I want to show you later,' I said, trying to sound intriguing.

`It’s about those doors of ours!’ Michael’s face lit up immediately, and his eyes licked my face, but before he could say anything Max slumped forward as if he was avoiding an imaginary ball thrown at his head, and breathed through his nose sharply. The only explanation I could offer for this peculiar movement was that Liz had swung close by, like a comet, and gone off to a table with two very strange people behind it – a man and a woman – who were looking at a photo and getting very excitable.

Something mightily odd was going on here.

Liz returned to the counter and started chatting with a moody looking girl with pale cheeks and pouty, pale pink lips. They both were obviously talking about Max. Suddenly Liz appeared next to me, all fidgety and distracted. I looked closely at Liz while she tried her hardest to look at Max. She was very pretty, and it was fucking obvious to me – even me – that Max had a gigantic crush on her, because as I was ordering, he struck up a sort of desperate conversation with me, an octave too high and a bit too loud:

`So Jamie, what do you think of Roswell? Have you settled in?’ What will you have? The Alien Smoothies are very good!’ He had a pained smile that was so, so beautiful I wanted to lick it. I wanted to lick the curves of his cheeks. I looked straight into his eyes and I literally couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe because they were so dark and brilliant and astoundingly erotic, and also - also - they seemed to remind me of the panther. I started to go red, around the ears, then down my neck and was only helped by Liz stammering something.

Michael groaned and covered his face with his hands.

`Jesus, can we all get a grip here.’ At which Max seemed to kick him again and Liz suddenly became extremely interested in her order book.

Then everyone looked at me. Socialising with straight jocks was not going to be easy.

`You haven't given him a menu yet,' said Michael to Liz.

At that stage, a fight appeared to break out behind us, back near the door, involving the man I had, just a few moments ago, ran into.
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Patroclus76
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Post by Patroclus76 »

[a short to keep us going - more on its way - could someone have a go at a banner for me - cough - ]

-----

Everyone noticed the commotion by the door. It disturbed the general frisson between Max and Liz, between Michael and Max, and between me and everyone else! Shit - never a dul moment! Liz’s pouty lipped friend moved into a sort of monitoring position to get a better view, while several of the customers hunkered down in the classic `see nothing’ response to an embarrassing event in a public arena.

Max, with one breath taking curve of his neck (which bunched the veins alongside his throat), scanned the incident cautiously and then returned to his anxious watch over Liz, as if he was her body guard. Michael didn’t seem to notice anything; he had that sexy, slightly glowing expression of someone who has just ejaculated against a wall and then ordered another beer. I felt that this pose was rather faked, however. His boredom disguised an ever present vigilance.

Liz had meanwhile placed a laminated menu in my hand. Max, disconcerted, gave me some extremely useful advice about smoothies in general. He was evidently an expert, having obviously spent fucking hours of his beautiful life here. There were more raised voices near the door. Two thick set men in argument; perhaps about money. One banged the table and the entire cafe appeared to jump. Even Liz seemed to momentarily abandon her inner struggle to look and not look at Max. She glanced up towards the door. At that stage her pouty lipped friend screamed.

Later, according to Michael, Maria (for that was her name) screamed `he’s got a gun!’ but in truth I didn’t actually hear that. I thought she screamed just `Liz!’ but while I was trying to understand why, for once, someone else had screamed and not me, I was aware that everyone had thrown themselves to the fucking floor in an impressively synchronised `duck and cover’ move. The Civil Defense Movement of the 1950s would have been immensely proud of this, but while I sat contemplating why Roswell was under some form of missile attack, (and from whom) I heard one gun shot, and then saw plaster and other bits of detritus scatter over the tables as people rolled and scattered for cover.

The two men, red necks, baseball caped and unshaven, wrestled themselves upright, saw the entire cafe peeping at them from under various tables, and then, their argument seemingly over, legged it out of the door into the evening sunshine. For one moment a supreme silence reigned over the place and then everyone started talking at once. Liz has been crouching behind me chair. She stood up cautiously. Maria got up off the floor. Max said loudly and in shock,

`Fuck, Liz, are you OK?’ and he went over to her and took her in his arms. Michael, closed his mouth (it had opened when Maria had screamed). And I – well – I just looked about me and then, in a slightly trembling voice said to no one in particular,

`I’ll have the blood of alien smoothie please, and some fries.’

`That was fucking close!’ said someone on another table. The sound of a siren could be heard, meandering inevitably towards us through traffic. Liz, recovering, reassuring Max, allowing him to touch her, eventually took my order. Max then seated himself and ignored Michael who was looking at him suspiciously - as if he had set up the entire incident to engineer putting his arm around Miss Parker.

`Wow.’ I said, unnecessarily.

`Wow – indeed!’ Michael sneered and then looked up at the crowd of people who were standing near the door. He looked like a watchdog unhappy at the approach of a stranger. When the Sheriffs jeep appeared outside he looked even more anxious and started scratching his eyebrows and playing with his mouth. I switched to watching Max, exuding anxiety for his woman, and abandoned any further attempts at small talk.

`Max, we should go, man,’ snapped Michael. He seemed to have forgotten me entirely. He clearly was allergic to the law.

`Michael!’ Max sighed, with great weariness, and the tone sent a hot flsuh straight down into my groin. He used exactly the same tone my mother used when army dude DAD was being a fucking pain in the ass. What was it with these two! `Let Jamie get his order first?' I grinned lke a small child trapped between difficult parents.

At that moment I noticed, sitting away from all the noise in the far corner adjacent the doors, and seemingly undisturbed by all the unseasonal action, a tall, black dude in a leather coat. Somehow, I had not noticed him before, despite the fact he had a mass of black dreadlocks bunched up at the base of his neck, and despite the more relevant fact that he was strikingly good looking – a smooth close shaved face with wide, almond shaped eyes and a very sexy curve of a mouth. To my trained eye, I could detect a long muscled neck from about thirty feet! He had his head down and was looking intently at the table. Long, elegant, erotic hands played with a napkin. He looked oddly like he was at prayer.

I looked at the pictures on the wall above his head, and then glanced professionally all over him again. Despite having his collar up, I saw a wedge of smooth upper chest, as well, as a strange long earring. The oddly femine design reinforced the strong masculinity of the face. Michael turned to see who I was looking at.

`You know him?’ he asked quietly. Liz was now up the front of the cafe talking to the Sheriff. The general level of excitement was beginning to abate, however, and I was secretly entertaining ideas that my fries might turn up at any moment.

`No – no – I just,’ I paused.

Michael went `Hmm, I see!’ a little too knowingly for my liking. I then noticed that throughout the action I was still holding onto the Seattle Times real estate section. I also - at that precise moment - remembered my Panther friend saying to me something about `beware of stray bullets?'

`Hey, I need to speak with you, Michael, about some doors and a cat?’ I tried to sound relaxed, indifferent almost, but the effect of these words on my new best friend was electrifying.

`Then you do remember, you bastard!’ he snapped, but not entirely without a smirk. Max, who had been straining to watch Liz being questioned, turned around, having half heard our conversation.

`Everything OK? Hey this sort of thing doesn’t happen often Jamie, don’t think this is typical of Roswell!’ he said as if Roswell was capable of personally humiliating him, or perhaps of persuading me to move!

`It's ok, Max, I have a very dramatic life style!' I gulped. I always gulped when looking at Max.

The black dude stood up, a commanding, powerful presence, that distracted some of the people standing near the door. He left his money on the table, and then looked about him and then directly at me. Perhaps he he had seen me secretly perve him. His look lierally pinned me to the wall behind me. I felt like I had been stuck through with a very large pin. It was an odd, intensive look – square jawed, a high beautiful forehead, and there was something about it that signalled fear. I flushed red but nonetheless scanned his face. He caught me and his eyes..

for a moment, his eyes flashed. I felt intensely cold.

I heard Max say to Liz as she returned towards the counter, `hank god no one got shot!'
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Liz and Max stood looking at each other for ages - long enough to perform the entire first act of Macbeth and take a leak as well (and that‘s quite a while, believe you me - I‘ve done it!). And throughout Michael adopted the sort of weirdly protective, part approving, part-outraged posture he had when I first spotted his hand waving above the heads of the Crash Down’s hungry patrons. What was all this about? Were Liz and Max going out? Were they lovers? If so, why did they not appear to know each other? Why did Max look like if he breathed he might set the entire street alight? Was Michael jealous - and if so, jealous of Liz or Max?

`Come on Max, let’s go!’ Michael eyed the sheriff with the intensity of a robber caught in broad daylight. `That’s Kyle’s dad,’ he whispered, evidently for my benefit. Kyle was king of the jocks, prize quarter-back yadayadayada. He had yet to beat the shit out of me. I glanced across at a well built, weathered man with a face like a relief model of the grand canyon. I caught my own mini-portraits reflected in the lenses of his sunglasses. He looked dead fucking serious, like we were all involved in a collective murder plot and he was determined to prove it. He looked for a while at Michael, who bristled and tensed, and then he turned to one of his deputies. Max sighed and moved away.

Liz watched him leave as if he was going to be shot on the spot and leave her with the promise of five children and a mortgage. Clearly all was not well in the Crash Down. As we started to move towards the exit, the deputy Sheriff said, `We’ll need to question you all,’ He was a Native American from the local reservation, a great bear of a man with a grey mane of hair.

`We have to get back home quickly, can you take our names and addresses?’ said Max sweetly. I felt myself beginning to swoon. The man looked cautiously at Max for a while, as if he had been offered a bribe, and then said, `Sure’. Max and Michael oddly gave the same address. I gave mine and said, beaming from ear to ear, `I’m new here!’ and as I did so I felt like Ralph in the fucking Simpsons! The deputy snorted and we were free to leave. Kyle’s dad watched us go. Outside, the evening was still bright. The small crowd that had gathered and lingered on the pavement, had now dispersed. Max leapt magnificently into an open top jeep but Michael now seemed to hesitate - his sense of urgency apparently gone.

`You two wanna come and meet Isabel?’ Max asked. I tried looking at him as if Max was normal and not simply the most beautiful man on the entire planet, but it sort of burned my face. I had to keep looking away or to one side. I could tell that he thought this was mightily odd. It was like trying to look at the sun.

`Nah, Jamie and I have things to discuss - see you later Maxwell.’ Michael shrugged, a bad boy smirk on his face, and then turned, chewing his nails, dragging me off like I was on a lead. For a while Max’s eyes took on the luminous brilliance of deep fucking suspicion, as if he felt about myself and Michael exactly what I felt about him and Liz! Then he nodded.

`Bye, Max!’ I said with emphasis, as if I wanted him to remember me forever from this brief, fleeting encounter. He smiled at me and growled

`Really nice to have met you, see you again soon!’ and then, starting the jeep, he pushed off into the evening traffic. Michael chewed his hand some more, lost in thought. Then, suddenly, he turned around and fixed his brilliant, sexy glare on me.

`So let’s talk about doors and cats - ‘ We walked off slowly past the front of the Crash Down and along the sidewalk with its broad pavements. I thought I saw Liz crane her neck to watch us, but it could have been weirdo Maria or a classic Jamie hallucination.

`You won’t believe this -’ I started, but everything about Michael’s studied nonchalance suggested otherwise. I decided to cut out the usual caveats about drugs, flashbacks, fake memories at get right to the point.

`We have met, obviously - but you met a future version of myself - possibly from 2006?’ my voice was tentative. A young boy whizzed past us on a bike making a machine gun noise.

`Six years later , to be precise - 2012.’ corrected Michael after shouting some obscenities at the boy. He turned back to me.

`Why did you say 2006?’ I handed him the scrolled up, now rather battered bit of paper and then told him my story in great detail. I think I spoke for what seemed an hour. By the time I had finished we were in a park somewhere, and sitting on a bench like an old couple in retirement. Anyone else would either have hit me for lying, ran off, or called 911. Michael however just listened, his head down biting his fingers like he hadn’t had a square meal in years. Finally he said,

`Well that’s just fucking weird, but now here‘s my version!’ and Michael proceeded to tell me the strange, sinister, if not rather comical version as to how we met last year! After he’d finished I sat rigid, almost as if I had seen a ghost. Apart from incidental details, all I had heard was that Max and I would play STRIP POKER! Fuck the principles of time travel, that is all I needed to know! Roll of 2012!

Michael, unaware of the effect this revelation would now have on my entire LIFE PLAN, continued slowly, thoughtfully:

`When the doors returned to take them home, I think I saw some old dude in a dressing gown trying to light a fucking fire or something - that sounds like this Julian guy - he also saw me because I think I heard him say, `is that Michael?’ Michael described the guy and it was definitely the same man. Astoundingly he was apparently going to wear the same dressing gown for six more years - probably without a break.

`Ok, but Max as a cat-panther?’ I said, cringing slightly.

`Yeah - I know - but Jamie - I mean -’ he smirked, `You, you mentioned quantum incoherence, or perhaps the cat mentioned it - it’s all a bit vague!’ we both laughed. Michael was beginning to sound a little bit like me! `I remember the cat explaining that there was a random event that could take place at the quantum level that defied prediction, or something like that -and turn in him into something else!’ he continued.

`Did anyone mention Heisenberg? ‘ I asked - at this precise moment, I wasn’t sure exactly what the cause of my massive throbbing erection was, Michael’s physical bad-boy proximity or the fact that we could converse suddenly as fellow geeks! In trek speak, the universal translator was ON LINE!

`No, no one did - they mentioned Godel and William James -’

`Ah, the multiverse dude - I see - I have never heard of Godel.’ I said, more for effect than clarity - in fact I couldn’t see anything except the rather sexy way Michael was sitting with his legs open and kicked out in front of him. If it was light enough, I would be casting skilled but furtive glances at his package, neat and bulging. I chewed my lip.

The dusk deepened about us and we sat surrounded by a deafening chorus of creepy fucking crawlies, glow worms and giant moths. Eventually Michael unfurled the rolled up bit of paper as if he was about to make a proclamation. I leaned in. Michael had a very sexy smell, cheap straight boy deodorant, and hot, as if he was running at top gear all the time. We both looked at the paper. The date at the top now looked like a clever fake.

14th November 2006.

The page was covered in typed boxes of property for sale or rent, many with a picture of the places in question. They looked fucking expensive pieces of real estate. Michael pointed to where someone had ringed a Property Agents, with an address in Wenatchee, Washington.

`Hmmm, perhaps he was trying to sell something as opposed to buy?’ I asked, looking up and catching sight of Michael’s strong, powerful nose.

`Why and how do we end up in Seattle I wonder?’ he mused. He seemed to be thinking hard. `I wonder if this Julian guy is - well - somehow related to us?’ I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

`Us?’ I queried, thinking out loud `You mean you and me?’ I felt very excited saying that.

`No, I mean Max and me, and Isabel - his sister. We’ve all been - well, I have been - looking for my real parents for some time!’ His said this in a quiet voice.

`You and Max are - brothers?’ a whole new meaning suddenly suggested itself, a new explanation of Max’s and Michael’s earlier tension and frisson! Their mutual repulsion and attraction!

`Not exactly - but we are both - well, we are all orphans, all of us - and I was just wondering if this dressing gown dude is my father, or Max’s and Is’ father, or whether he just knows about where we came from?’

`Orphans?’ Fucking hell - and how could you be `not exactly’ brothers? This was all getting a bit like one of those French operas my mother warned me about, where the entire cast was inter-related and probably transgendered. You know the sort - where the Baron’s wife’s sister is really his brother’s cousin and desperately in love with the local baker who is the Baron‘s long lost son.

`So where do you come from?’ I asked - never to let a rhetorical question go if given half a chance.

Michael signed and said nothing.

`Michael, I don’t want to pry or appear excessively interested in your private affairs, but what the fuck are you talking about?’

`It’s complex,’ he said, stating the fucking obvious. `I am just curious about how and why we get together with this guy - it’s obvious he must know about us - hey do you know anything about the word Antarian? Does that mean anything to you?’ he sounded unusually hopeful about this. Clearly his conversation between me and the cat last year had played on his mind.

`Antarian?’ It was quite dark now, except for the glow of a nearby street lamp. We had been sitting close together in a show of unusual intimacy for some time. Yet we had known each other for barely six hours! I forced my mind back to Michaels question. Antarian? It left a strange sensation in my head, like an echo.

`No, I can’t say I have, but it sounds like a star or a constellation,’

`Or a planet, perhaps?’ said Michael in a weird, distant sort of voice.

`Planet?’

`Forget it - look - let’s keep this to ourselves Jamie, don’t tell Max anything yet. He is a bit preoccupied with stuff -’

`With Liz?’ I tried not to sound too inquisitorial, but we might be getting somewhere at last.

Michael made a sort of dismissive gesture. He seemed to pick at a spot in between his eyebrows.

`Perhaps this has all got something to do with what just happened?’ I suggested tentatively.

`You mean the fight in the Crash Down? - ‘

`Yeah - Max the giant panther warned me to be careful about stray bullets?’ we both looked at each other and narrowed our eyes. Even more disturbingly we whispered `fucking right!’ to each other.

`Yeah Max the giant ginger cat went off to see Liz when he visited me - ‘ Michael stopped, allowing his thoughts to catch up with his mouth. `Why would he do that, I wonder?’

`Fuck knows. Put yourself in his position. You find yourself back in time, back in 1998, perhaps he wanted to see someone he had not seen for ages, or perhaps he wanted to see someone just because he could?’ I shrugged. It all sounded a bit fucking speculative to me. Michael seemed to be weighing it all up, sniffing about the details. Eventually, pulling a sort of downward smile he said,

‘Maybe, but the trouble about getting a story back to front is that we have no frikin idea what causes a particular sequence of events to take place or not - for instance, your dude in 2006 and his fucking mansion - has he met us yet? Or does he meet us in 2008? Perhaps Max went back to see Liz because they had been parted for years? And why suddenly all these weird sort of temporal incursions?’

God I loved it when he spoke like that.

`Michael, can you say that again?’ I just wanted him to say temporal incursion while I pictured him lifting me onto his groin.

`Temporal incursion?‘ he said dutifully, but frowning rather menacingly, as if he thought he might be pronouncing it incorrectly. I made a gurgling noise and then tried to pull myself together.

`I suspect you know more to this than you are letting on,’ I added. `I mean, in the future I am clearly all in your confidences and close to you all, but at the moment -’

`You know jack shit about us, about me, Is and Max - who we are, why we’re - different from other people’ I felt a chill of anticipation run down my spine. Shit - did they long to a super super cool person’s secret society?

`Perhaps you told me one night sitting on a park bench in Roswell?’ I sounded hopeful, far too fucking hopeful, because he slapped my legs and said,

`Nice try, Jamie boy - but let’s keep this as simple as we can - for the time being. ‘ he looked at the address on the paper still in his hand. `But a few more clues might help us along the way -’ he produced from his pocket a small black brick of a cell phone. I nearly died of envy. My parents were opposed to them on mysterious principles of both money and health and `Santa Claus‘ has rejected my last two requests in a row.

`Be careful about the time paradox’ I said, racking my brains to recall the Voyager episode in which Janeway kept running into her former self. `We must be careful not to change anything? -’

`Yeah right, I saw that episode as well!’

`Fuck, you like Star Trek!’

`No! For fuck sake, Jamie!’

`Oh, shame - but - anyway this Property Agency is bound to be closed, it’s only an hour behind us - Pacific time?’ but Michael was stabbing out the number. I suddenly realised that I ought to be thinking about getting home before the PARENTS turned up. Shit - what if the house had been hit by a comet or broken into during my absence?

`Was this place as big as you say? No exaggeration for dramatic effect?’ he winked at me and smiled a sharp cruel smile. I flushed deeply. God bless Roswell! To think I had wept for three days and tried to find a wrist to slash when my parents told me my fate.

`No way! It was big and old, I mean - unless there was some sort of misleading dimensional effect being created by the doors - it must be the size of Vermont!’

`Yeah, right. ’ I could hear over the crescendo of Roswell’s night life the sound of a phone trilling. We both sat waiting for an answering machine. None kicked in. What sort of a place had no fucking answer machine? Michael was just about to hang up when a flat, tired voice answered. Whoever it belonged to had either ran for ten minutes to get to the phone, or had a clip over their nose. They sounded exhausted - or possibly foreign.

`Detouche and Bellhurst Property Management and Real Estate?’ they said after a wheeze. Somehow they sounded a little unsure, as if they might be something else altogether, like a dogs home or a mental asylum.

`Ah, hello - hiya - sorry - sorry to call so late, but I wondered if, I mean, I wondered if you,’ then Michael seemed suddenly at a loss.

`Have a large property for sale?’ I stage whispered. `Something large and in stone with mullioned windows?’

Michael repeated my descriptions somewhat incredulously, and then after a pause added `Yeah, and turrets as well.’ He frowned again, there was a long drawl of an answer, heavy with sarcasm.

`No, I’ve tried Europe, but I want to stay in the US!’ he beamed but made the sign of the finger at the phone. By now I was right next to him, intoxicated with his body heat and the smell of his hair gel.

`And you are?’ asked the voice.

`Mr. Garren, Michael Garren - I am looking for somewhere remote and very private.’

`Very private’ I reiterated in his other ear.

`Mr. Garren, we have many exclusive properties on our books and many of them are ornamented with a whole manner of gothic design and all are extremely private. Exactly where in the US are you thinking about?’

`Ah - I was thinking Seattle, or -’ he squinted at the paper in the dark, `Somewhere near Wenatchee, or up -’ he scanned the whole page at random, trying to pick up some facts about state locations, `somewhere up near the Cascades, or further across near lake Roosevelt?’

`I see - well - we are actually closed, Mr. Garren, I am here stock taking as a matter of fact, but - since I answered the phone, I could take your details and contact you in a few days.’

`Doesn’t anything spring to mind?’ asked Michael hopefully.

`It might not be on the market yet!’ I whispered to him, `It is still five years away!’

Michael’s face seemed to cloud as if he had not considered that. I tried very hard to revisualise the splendor of the place. `Have a stab at neo-Elizabethan!’ I said.

`Ok, that would be very kind of you - but it’s rather urgent. Something large, and something neo-Elizabethan if you have anything, mock - obviously -’ he winced slightly. We both raised our arms in mock horror.

`Mock neo-Elizabethan?’ the voice had a trace of interest now, barely discernible, but a definite change in tone. `Well oddly enough, we have just been approached by a hotelier in the neighborhood of Wenatchee who is considering selling a very large property indeed, but it is hardly suitable for a private residency without considerable restoration - and the hotelier in question is still not sure whether to sell or not. He is working on a business plan to revive tourism first.’ *

I made a thumbs up sign. This all sounded promising.

`Well I would be definitely interested in that - what is the address of the property?’ Michael sounded very good - he clearly did this sort of thing a lot!

`Address? Well, it’s more of a name, Mr. Garren. We don’t really do addresses - it’s called Bone Hill House. It is a local folly, designed on the same lines of Burghley House in England - it‘s got over 20 bedrooms and is situated in a substantial private estate. It has a rather famous library -‘

`That’s it!’ I said excitedly.

`Fantastic!’ Michael looked at me with evident admiration, gave his details and then hung up.

`We ought to have asked about this Julian dude?’ he said.

`But he might not be there yet - remember - we are looking at this back to front - from the perspective of 2006 and 2012! If what we are saying is right - Julian is trying to sell this in 2006 - we have no idea when he bought it!‘ Again I suddenly remembered the time, my time, right now.

`Shit, Michael - I had better get a move on - my parents will be back soon!’ Michael stood lup and we looked at each other - weird or what - like we were at a reunion or something. I thought Michael was going to get all tactile but he seemed to pull himself together.

`Sure - I better be getting back to Home Sweet Home myself’ he smiled but then I saw his eyes catch something behind me. They narrowed and flashed, and I felt a stab of fear flush my face.

`What?’

`Your black dude with the dreadlocks - he is standing under some trees watching us!’


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* For those interested in detail - a brief description of the history of Bone Hill House is given in the second part of the Roswellian Codex. Julian Evans asks the President to find out the varous owners to try and cast some light on the painting that Grey asks for when he dies in 2019. Grey bought the House in 2003, although it had been empty and unsold since the Hotelier folded in late 1999.
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