“Song, my love, the girl I’d been out to see that day, was the only thing I had left. The only thing. I wished for her and myself to survive the war unharmed. A very simple wish, just as yours was, but one that had far-reaching implications, just as yours did.
“Song and I left Nanking, sneaking out past the occupation zone in the dead of night. We were never seen, never challenged. Of course not, we were guaranteed to survive the war unharmed. We made our way to Chinese controlled territory and we got married. The next day after our wedding I joined the army. For the next six years I fought the Japanese, killing as many of the bastards as I could get into my rifle sight. I charged machine gun nests in order to drop in grenades. I cleared paths for other soldiers across dangerous territory. I always took the point when out on patrols. Bullets whizzed around me so close that I could hear them. Artillery exploded all around me, sometimes close enough to knock the wind out of me, but never was I struck by anything. For those six years I was basically immortal. Then the Russians invaded Manchuria to help drive out the Japanese. The Americans dropped a couple of atomic bombs. The Japanese Empire was destroyed in the way it was fated to be destroyed and the war was over at last. The limits of my wish had run out.
“I returned home to find Song and the now five-year-old son I’d sired before heading off to fight waiting for me. It was time to start our life. It wasn’t long however, before another war started, the civil war between the Communists and the old regime. I was loyal to the old regime but I wasn’t protected in that war as I had been in the previous one. My immortality had ended. I did not fight. My family was among the first to flee to Taiwan. It was during the trip across the straights on a freighter that I finally received firsthand knowledge of how cruel, how vindictive fate was capable of being.
“We were strafed by a communist plane about halfway across. It came out of nowhere and only made one pass. Song was hit in the chest by a piece of metal that had been thrown from an exploding fuel tank on a jeep that had been hit. The piece of metal, no bigger than your thumb, missed every major organ but severed her spinal cord. She was left paralyzed from the chest down. She spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She was never able to give me any more children.
“We only stayed on Taiwan for a few years before we were allowed to immigrate to the United States. We settled in San Francisco and raised our son there. I found a job at the Port of San Francisco unloading ships. It was hard labor but it paid well. I did that until my retirement in 1980, working my way up to management eventually. Song remained my faithful wife but her health was always poor. She died of congestive heart failure and pneumonia in 1977.
“My son, Chang, attended Stanford University, obtaining a law degree much like your sister. He joined an exclusive firm and worked there for many years. He became fully Americanized, changing his name to John Lee instead of Chang Li. He sired one son before his marriage was dissolved in divorce. He might have been worthy of the gift had he survived, but he didn’t. In 1980, after years of eighty hour workweeks at the firm, he developed a bleeding ulcer, what is known in medical circles as a GI bleed I believe. He bled to death internally one night at the office when he ignored the persistent vomiting and diarrhea filled with blood, passing it off as a case of the flu.
“That leaves only my grandson, who is now thirty-eight years old. He too went to Stanford University but his major was business. He is an evil, corrupt man and I have nothing to do with him. His interests are in money and power and mostly in his own advancement. He works in Seattle as a high-ranking corporate officer for Pacific Healthcare. He makes more than two hundred thousand a year, plus stock options. He has a wife, three children, and two mistresses at my last count. His children are exact clones of him. The whole lot of them makes contact with me as little as they can get away with, which is fine by me.
“It is here, Bill, that we encounter dual realities. In the first reality, the one in which I met you for the first time in 1999, I was living in San Francisco in my old house I’d purchased my second year working at the port. I was a tottering old man, without much to say to anybody, without much to do. I watched the television, I played golf on occasion, but mostly I sat at home and did nothing. I was sedentary and cared about little. Perhaps I’d begun to become a little mentally unstable? I think that possible.
“In early 1997 I began to notice that it hurt whenever I urinated. Sometimes there would be a brown tinge to my urine. Finally it began to hurt a lot and the urine was consistently the color of fresh apple cider, that dark brown. When I finally dragged myself to the doctor to be examined it was discovered that I’d had prostate cancer. I say had because by the time I got checked, it had moved past my prostate and into my bladder and kidneys. It was making its first attacks on my colon and liver. It was much too far-gone for me to live much longer. Even radiation and chemotherapy only slowed it down a little. My days were numbered.
“When it got to the point in January of 1999 that I was unable to care for myself anymore, my grandson, who was listed as my beneficiary, pulled a few strings within his corporation and got me admitted to that concentration camp in Spokane. It was far enough away from him in Seattle and most of all, it was cheap. He sold my house in San Francisco and pocketed most of the money. He sent lawyers out to visit me to make sure my will was updated. He made sure that my doctor brought up the do not resuscitate order and made sure it was initiated. He sat by simply waiting for me to die so he would have one less inconvenience to worry about. Very American attitude, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” I agreed, knowing exactly what he was talking about. I’d been in every convalescent home in Spokane County at one time or another during my career. Of the forty or so that we have, perhaps three could be considered a quality type of place. The remaining thirty-seven were basically warehouses that people stashed their elderly relatives in to die. They were sentenced to those hellholes the moment it became inconvenient to care for them. And the vast majority of the residents of these places were not the relatives of the poor, they were not the relatives of ethnic minorities, they were the relatives of good old, white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class Americans. Mr. Li’s presence in one had been an anomaly. One did not often find Asians in con homes. Asian culture has a much greater respect for the elderly than American culture.
“So there I laid,” Mr. Li continued, “for more than six months. Getting worse every day, getting weaker, my mind and judgment deteriorating. Sometimes I was delirious, sometimes I couldn’t even keep track of which day it was. And then came the final day, the day I met you. All that day I felt myself becoming more and more aware, more alert than I’d been in years. The time of my death had come and the clarity that went with the gift was manifesting itself. The clarity was there, but my judgment was impaired severely. No offense, Bill, but I never would have given you what I did if I’d been in my right mind. Never.
“But I didn’t think of such things as the consequences of my actions. I didn’t think about how dangerous a thing I was doing, I only thought about how, after the year I’d spent seeing the worst of America, seeing myself dying in that concentration camp, someone had finally come along that possessed some basic human kindness, some empathy. Someone who treated people with respect. I decided to take a chance on you and I offered you my gift. I had no time to explain the ramifications to you; it was an impulsive decision in the last few seconds of my life. I still had the ability to withdraw the offer if you had wished for world peace or immortality or something like that. Something that would have had dire consequences to fate and the world. But you didn’t. You asked to be fifteen again, knowing what you knew at that point. That seemed almost noble to me. You obviously didn’t believe anything would come of it but you used the gift for personal betterment. That was what it was intended for. I honestly didn’t see the consequences to fate that might have occurred if you had been a less moral person than I thought you were. Thankfully my instincts were mostly right about you.
“At the moment of truth, at my dying seconds, I thought it had all been for nothing. When my grandfather passed the gift on to me in that house in Nanking, I’d felt a definite power shifting from his body to mine. It was the gift. I’d felt it enter me, felt it as a presence in me ever since that day. I knew at that instant that my wish had been granted and that the gift was now mine to pass on. I knew it.”
“I didn’t feel anything like that when you died,” I told him, confused. “Nothing like that at all. To tell you the truth, Mr. Li, I didn’t think much about you at all once I wrote the paperwork and left the hospital. It was my nature. For my own sanity I could not allow myself to get involved in every tragedy I witnessed. And I never felt anything enter my body. If I have the gift with me now, I don’t feel it at all.”
“I understand your feelings at my death, Bill,” he told me. “I was in war and I probably understand them better than you do. I saw human suffering and loss during the war on a scale that you probably can’t even imagine. So don’t feel sorry for forgetting about me after you left. But as for the passing of the gift, you didn’t feel it pass to you and I didn’t feel it leave me because it involved time travel. Your wish was granted but it set up a paradox. Two people cannot possess the gift at the same time. It was not passed to you because by granting your wish I was left alive. That was why I thought it didn’t work.
“I remember dying. It’s not an unpleasant experience. In fact, it feels almost blissful when your body finally accepts its demise. I’d never felt more at peace, more free of pain. I remember grieving absently that the gift had died with me. Everything finally went black. I was at rest.
“And then, seemingly seconds later I woke up in my small house in San Francisco and it was 1982 again. My body was functioning properly, my brain was functioning properly, and I had every memory of what had just happened. I was horrified by what I had done, by what I had put at risk. I could have destroyed the world, Bill if you had wished for the wrong thing or if you had treated your gift differently once you were sent back.
“I knew that I was going to have to find you immediately and keep a close eye upon you.” He cast a smile, “It’s a good thing that you wore a nametag with your first and last on it or I might never have found you. You never told me your name.
“I moved to Spokane, leaving my small house in the hands of a real estate company. I located you as a teenager and I’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since, making sure you didn’t put anything at risk.” He gazed at me meaningfully, a little apologetically, “I’m sorry to say that I was prepared to arrange your death if you started to go too far off the path of morality.”
I was shocked. “My death?”
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “I would have done it without hesitation if you were putting the fabric of existence at risk. You came close a few times. I must say you were not very moral when you first returned. You put at risk more than twenty relationships by your philandering. You tried to stop an historical event from happening in Beirut.”
“You knew about Beirut?” I asked, astonished. “How?”
“You had copies of your letters in your house, did you not?” he asked mildly. “I simply entered it when no one was home and took a look.”
“You were in my house?”
“Bill,” he said, “I don’t think you realize even today what was at stake with your wish. What you wished for was something I had no right granting. It put the entire world at risk. Of course I was in your house. I was in it more than a hundred times over the years, snooping through your things, trying to see what you were up to. I’ve been in the house that you share with Nina now at least fifty times. I’ve been watching you obsessively through my telescope. I needed to make sure that you’ve stayed on the straight and narrow. I don’t think you realize the responsibility that I feel for empowering you in this way. You could have destroyed the world by utilizing your gift in the wrong way. Literally destroyed it. I was obligated to keep an eye on you.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, wondering at the fact that this man had been watching my every move for the last seventeen years. It was a spooky feeling.
“It was touch and go with you for a while,” Mr. Li went on. “You teetered on the very brink of temptation those first few years. Thankfully I discovered the same thing that you and Tracy did, that fate tends to keep things in line despite your interference.”
I looked sharply at him, “You know what Tracy and I talked about?”
“Your house was bugged,” Mr. Li said. “I had transmitters in your telephones and in every room of the house. I listened to everything that you said to anybody.” He gave me a stern, disapproving father look. “I heard every one of your study sessions. I listened when you told Tracy about your gift. I listened when you told your father about your gift. I listened to your father and Tracy when you weren’t there to see if they would tell anyone else about it. I couldn’t monitor Tracy at Berkeley from Spokane unfortunately but I was able to bug your father’s office. He kept the knowledge to himself and so, apparently, did Tracy.
“You gradually realized the proper use of the gift, for personal betterment. You found love, which is perhaps the greatest thing on this earth. You did use the gift for money and you are very rich now, but you’ve never used it for power or influence. You’ve chosen well, Bill. Only one time was I obligated to interfere in any way.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, still trying to grapple with the knowledge that Mr. Li probably had logs of every time I’d taken a shit over the last seventeen years.
“Stevens Consulting,” he said. “A very good idea. A wise use of the gift I might add. I used your service myself by working through an agent of mine. A man named Dean Stockwell.”
“Dean Stockwell?” I gasped, remembering that he’d been one of my clients.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Li grinned. “He accessed your services at my instruction. By then I was reasonably wealthy from my own insight but I wanted to make sure I was using an expert. Someone with the base knowledge to take full advantage of the knowledge we shared. But towards the end I sensed some greed in you. You had more than enough money to comfortably live out the rest of your life but you wanted more, you didn’t seem to know when to stop. I figured that you would need a little nudge to push you back on the path. So I made an anonymous phone call, several of them as a matter of fact, to the SEC. They landed on you within days. Shortly after that, you retired.”
“You did that?” I asked in disbelief.
He nodded. “I did. Sorry if that offends you. Anyway, while I’ve been monitoring you all of these years, I’ve also grown moderately wealthy. I’ve broken all contact with my son and his family. I went to see a doctor in late 1996 and they discovered the bare beginnings of prostate cancer in me. A single course of radiation and chemo and it was gone forever. I’m something of a health nut these days. I run forty miles a week. I’ve participated in five marathons. I have a resting heart rate of fifty and a blood pressure that is consistently in the nineties. I could probably live another twenty years at this pace.” He shook his head sadly. “But I can’t, Bill.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mentioned a paradox a few minutes ago. One has been created. The gift cannot belong to two people at once. When I woke up in San Francisco after dying in Spokane I could still feel the gift with me, could still feel it inside of me. I’d given it to you and your wish had been granted, but the gift itself had not been passed on because I remained alive as a result of the gift. That is the paradox. It is a paradox that will correct itself in a few minutes.”
“Correct itself?”
He nodded. “If nothing is done, when the time of my death in the previous life occurs, everything will go back to the way it was. I will be dead, taking the gift with me. You will return to your previous existence with no memory of what has happened. You will simply wake up in bed in your apartment in Spokane as if nothing had ever happened. Your wife will once more be an unpleasant doctor married to a neurosurgeon. Your sister will be dead. The kids you’ve had with Nina will have never existed. The correction will have occurred.”
That was the most horrifying thought that my mind had ever entertained. I would lose everything in a few minutes? Even the memories of the life I’d built? That couldn’t be! It couldn’t! I couldn’t even speak, my horror was so complete.
“Before you ask,” Mr. Li told me, “yes, I’m sure about this. We have less than twenty minutes now by my calculations. I have twenty minutes to live no matter how healthy I am, no matter what steps I’ve taken. Reality will simply go back to the way it was.”
I shook my head in denial, in fear. Twenty minutes? Would I never see Laura or Jason or Megan again? Would I only see Nina as an enemy, not as a woman I loved, that I knew intimately? It couldn’t happen, I couldn’t accept it!
“But there is a solution,” Mr. Li said softly.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The gift,” he said. “I still have it. I can still pass it on to you.”
I looked at him, not comprehending on the surface, but catching his meaning somewhat lower in my psyche. “But in order for you to pass on the gift, you have to…”
“Die.” He nodded. “I’m going to be dead in twenty minutes anyway, one way or the other, no matter what happens. I cannot tell you what to wish for, Bill, you have to decide for yourself, but there is a wish that you can make that will break the paradox. I’ve struggled over the years trying to decide if your family, which will be based upon your moral code, is worthy of having the gift transferred to or if I should simply let it die with me.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if I made the right decision or not but I like you, Bill. I know you better than I’ve ever known anyone before, even my wife when she was alive. I think you deserve the chance. I will give you the gift tonight, right now and I want you to promise me that you will use it as it is intended, that you will follow the tradition, that you will teach your descendants the responsibility. Will you do that?”
“Mr. Li,” I started, my body charged up. Was he talking about suicide? Right here in front of me? For the purpose of breaking the paradox? Was that really what he was talking about?
“Will you promise, Bill?” he insisted, looking at me.
I continued to stare, feeling an incredible mix of emotions surging through me.
“Bill?”
“I promise,” I finally said.
He smiled, nodding seriously. He picked up his beer and then took a swig of it. “Do you know what to wish for?” he asked me.
“I think so.”
He reached into a pocket in his chair and pulled out a pistol. It was a chrome plated, semi-automatic. Its hammer was back. He looked at it for a moment, his hands trembling.
“Mr. Li,” I said, shaking my head, “I can’t go through with this. I can’t sit here and watch you shoot yourself. I can’t.”
“Be strong, Bill,” he said. “It’ll be over soon. Don’t call anybody afterward. Just go home. The maid will find me tomorrow and start the machinery.”
I was crying now, actually crying with fear. How could I sit there and let someone shoot himself? I couldn’t.
“You can do this, Bill,” Mr. Li told me. “Remember, I’m going to be dead in a few minutes anyway. Save your family. Write your existence as it is now into the pages of fate. I’ve lived a full life. My last few years have been lived with good health and considerable comfort instead of dying and in pain. You’ve done me a favor. Now it’s time for me to do you a favor.”
I was trembling, crying, unable to leave, unable to stay. I’ve never felt so confused in my life as I did at that moment.
“There will be a few moments of clarity right before I die,” he said, putting the barrel of the pistol under his chin. The contact kept his hand from shaking. “That goes with the gift. Be sure to take advantage of it, Bill. Be sure to ask the right thing.”
“I will,” I choked, watching paralyzed as he held that gun to his chin. “I will.”
The gunshot was flat and undramatic. The ejected shell casing flew across the room and landed with a clink on the fireplace bricks. A small spray of blood shot from the top of his head and his body slumped over to the left, the pistol falling forgotten to the floor at his feet. His eyes remained open, staring at me.
“Jesus,” I muttered, watching blood pour from the hole in the top of his head, watching his left pupil begin to dilate. “Oh Jesus.”
Mr. Li’s dying lips began to move. There was blood in his mouth. Words began to form. They were choked and very liquid but perfectly understandable. “What… is your… greatest wish?” he asked me.
I took a step towards him, keeping my eyes focused on his face. It was difficult to do through the haze of tears. My own mouth opened. “I want everything to continue on as it has been,” I told him.
He nodded, more blood pouring out of his mouth. “Excellent,” he muttered and then his eyes began to glaze over as awareness left them. He slumped further over and his breathing began to become agonal in nature, very irregular. This went on for nearly five minutes. I kept my eyes upon him the entire time. At last he drew in a breath, let it out, and then didn’t pull in the next one. His mouth became still.
At that moment I felt it. The power, the gift, leaving the dying vessel of Mr. Li and entering my body, my soul. I cannot describe exactly what it felt like. The closest thing I can come up with is the sensation of runner’s high, the feeling of well being that creeps over you about two or three miles into a run as endorphins are released from glands in your body. A sensation that seems to start at the top and quickly work its way throughout, spreading from place to place, energizing you. That was the closest I could come to the sensation but that does not do it justice. All of a sudden I was empowered, I felt it take up residence in me, felt it nestling in. It was a sensation that I would carry with me always, until that moment when it was time to pass it on.
I stood there looking at Mr. Li, feeling the power in me for an unknown amount of time. Finally the sensation receded, leaving only a small core inside me. I felt like myself physically but at the same time I could feel the power tucked away, just waiting for release.
“Thank you, Mr. Li,” I finally said to his body. “Thank you for everything.”
He had no answer for me. I left his house a few minutes later and climbed onto my Harley. I didn’t head for home right away. Instead I took a long drive.
________________________________________
It was after midnight when I finally parked my motorcycle in the garage and carried myself into the house. My mind seemed clearer than it had been, more focused, more in perspective. I was beginning to grasp the depth of the gift I’d been given, the responsibility that went along with it. Just beginning, mind you. I had a lot more growing to do, a lot more maturity to acquire.
I tossed my helmet onto my workbench and forced my way between the cars and into the house. It was darkened, as you would expect at that time of night, everyone asleep, no one with any idea of how close they’d come to being simply erased or put into an alternate path.
I checked on Laura. She was three and a half years old, her face so much like her mother’s. She likes to throw the covers off along with her pajamas as she sleeps. I found her curled in a ball in her room, her little butt sticking up, her thumb tucked into her mouth, her body shivering in the air conditioning. I put the covers back over her knowing it was an exercise in futility. Twenty minutes later they’ll be off again.
I checked on Jason, who was almost two. He is the opposite of Laura. He has covers piled thickly atop him. He has a collection of Hot Wheel cars that he can never keep confined to one place. I stepped on them in my bare feet as I gazed upon his sleeping form, as I listened to his soft breathing.
A short trip down the hall brought me to Megan’s room. She was nine months old, almost ready to begin walking and talking. The first and only child to adapt my facial features. She is an aficionado of stuffed animals and they cover her bed, sometimes making it difficult to find her in there. She is also a poor sleeper, waking at the slightest noise. She hears my entrance into her room. She creaks her brown eyes open and gazes at me sleepily. I kiss her, hug her, tell her everything is okay and she drifts back to sleep.
I went to my own bedroom where Nina was sleeping soundly on her side of our king sized bed. Like Laura, she’s not a big fan of either clothing or covers when sleeping. She’s dressed only in a pair of panties, her breasts bare, her pillow hugged tightly to her face. In the dim light I could see the stretch marks on her stomach and the single line of scar that marks Megan’s entrance into the world via caesarian section. Megan had been in the breach position. I looked at my wife with love, with deep feelings of gratitude towards Mr. Li, who made all of this possible.
I continued to stare at Nina, at her firm breasts, her bare thighs, her scarred but still flat stomach. We are happy together, still deliriously in love after more than fourteen years of marriage. We make love at least twice a week, often more. We sit together on the couch or in the bed or on the deck outside after she gets home from a day at the hospital and we do what we have always done best, we talk. Nina is still my best friend but she is still ignorant of the secret that I carry. She had no idea that a cosmic clock had nearly ticked away our life together. And she never will.
As if sensing my thoughts she mumbled in her sleep, rolling to one side, kicking the last vestiges of the covers off of her body. Her eyes opened and she saw me standing in the doorway, looking at her.
“Bill?” she asked sleepily, stifling a yawn. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, babe,” I told her reassuringly. “I was just checking on the kids. Go back to sleep.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I gave her a smile. “Perfectly okay,” I assured her. “Everything is just fine.”
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The End
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Thank you very much bros who have shown their appreciation for this story. I hope that the long read was worth it…
I have a few more other stories. If you guys want. Please let me know and I will try to post them up. Although not as good as this one. (This is my Fav of all time) maybe it will be a interesting read.
So cheerleaders? Or a new world after the a catastrophe? Both are also very long stories… If there is sufficient interest I will post.
Great story~! Appreciated your effort in getting those posted. Wondering if you reveal the author for this story? Like to do a search on him/her..
To me, I’m actually watching a story than just reading your story.
All things seems like a life movie than just plain words. Its full of picture & emotion. The best story i ever read.
Thanks for sharing, thanks.
Thanks Bro whiskynaam,this is really 1 of the best story that I had ever read
.Thanks again for your hardwork,hope that you will continue to provide more stories in the future.
Thanks bros for your encouragement.
Sorry bros… I unfortunately do not know the author. I was clearing out my hdd and found a treasure chest of old stories that I really enjoyed. So this is the first one…
More?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
whiskynaam
Thanks bros for your encouragement.
Sorry bros… I unfortunately do not know the author. I was clearing out my hdd and found a treasure chest of old stories that I really enjoyed. So this is the first one…
More?
yeah brother. continue this one. and MORE!! Its real great stories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
whiskynaam
Thanks bros for your encouragement.
Sorry bros… I unfortunately do not know the author. I was clearing out my hdd and found a treasure chest of old stories that I really enjoyed. So this is the first one…
More?
More of cos =)