The Time Traveler's Wife Read online

barrage of popular films with their common protagonists and linear plots. It was how he had felt about Tracy, and like her, there was nothing on Earth he wanted more than to sit in a quiet, dark room and be dumbed and bewildered by its flickering glare.

  But as one scene rolled into the next, John started to distance himself from the definition he had had in his mind this whole time. His first thought was, “This is shit.”

  It was nothing like he had first imagined. The acting was terrible, the cinematography was lazy and the editing was neither surreal nor obscure, it was merely poorly executed. And then his second thought was, “What the hell was I thinking.”

  He then reverted back to his first thought, “This is shit.”

  He fast forwarded frantically through the film, trying to find the scenes that he remembered as being poignant, like the first time that he kissed Tracy; when he was too scared to open his eyes, letting his arms flail lifeless beside his body, fearful that should he touch her demure waist, she might crumble, as if she were made of sand or his fickle imagination. Or the first time that he saw her naked body and he found himself in muted disbelief at how lucky he was, hoping that he could spend the rest of life as had been at that moment, bastille in venerate wonder of her beauty; brushing the faint shadows that crept across her breasts and into the curve of her naval with the cusp of his sight as she undressed neath the heady glow of the evening sun.

  He found that scene though and his wonder and animation, as he had always attributed to this memory, turned into stale bewilderment. And in his thoughts, he remembered himself young in his feet, his teeth, and his thoughts; and he remembered, not the first time he had seen the movie, but the first time he had seen Tracy; the first time they had seen each other; as companions, lovers, and friends.

  And it was as if he had discovered a wild weed in his garden, having for the life of him thought that it was some exotic flower. And as he stared into that memory, he was without wonder and without awe. He stared at her bare breasts as he if were staring at his own worn expression. In his memory, he stared at his wife’s naked body as he did now whenever she rose from her slumber, bitter and scorned, cursing the morning and his attempts to lighten her mood. He stared at her naked body with the same normal disregard as he did every day following, as she soaped her body under the steaming douche, complaining about traffic, her asshole colleagues, the idiot in the apartment above who insisted on wearing high heels at 6am, her mother, his snoring, the budget, whether or not they’d be able to make the car payment, and her chronic constipation. In his memory, he stared at her naked body, thinking of it how he thought of it now. And like any strong and effective corporate branding, after years of impressions, now and in his memory, when he saw her naked body, he didn’t feel lustful, considerate and lucky; he felt, as he followed the shadows across the curves in her soft, pert skin - oppressed, inutile, financially despondent and ridden with nagging guilt; mainly because he could shit on cue.

  He took the memory in his strangling grasp and he heaved into his sub-conscious, tearing the thought of her from the fertile garden of his imagination and with it, every memory he had of her body and her face, and with that, every trial and error, every struggle and conquest and every sobering failure that had come from knowing her, from being with her every day, and from loving her.

  He screamed wildly.

  “What’s wrong?” Stefan shouted, already off his seat, shaking his friend, as if that would loosen him of the grip of insanity.

  John screamed once more, lifting his shirt and shouting at his nipple. His sight blurred as the room spun out of control.

  “What’s happening?” he shouted to his nipple.

  He shouted again, louder and louder, but his nipple wouldn’t respond.

  Tracy was shouting something. She was angry and upset, but John couldn’t tell. He couldn’t hear a word she was saying on account of her being so mute. And an hour ago, that wouldn’t have mattered, for whenever she got like this, in a fit of absolute rage, her face would look as it did now, with her lips trembling like they were, as if some enormous quake at her center were shaking her rigid, ire core to a liquefied, sniveling mess.

  Normally it wouldn’t matter except that, although she was shouting so desperate and furious, so dire, doleful and sore, there was no way that John could tell, no way at all; for she had no form, no shape, no color and no image. She wasn’t there at all.

  And as Stefan’s wife fought to comfort her, it looked only to John as if she were comforting herself for there was nothing and nobody in her arms at all. She had vanished, she had gone, and the room would not stop spinning.

  “It’s gonna be ok” Stefan shouted.

  John could hear a voice, faintly, but he couldn’t see anyone whatsoever. He was alone in the room; in the room that wouldn’t stop spinning.

  “What do we do?” Stefan’s wife asked.

  Stefan looked at Tracy. She stood in the corner of the room catatonic, watching her husband and her lover, he partner and her best friend, in the fit of some psychotic breakdown.

  “Call an ambulance,” she said, breaking from her trance and running to her lover’s aide.

  She knocked Stefan away and took John’s convulsing hands, squeezing them tightly as she had, every other time they passed through trouble and struggle in their lives; through his constant illness which caused them so much financial strain, and through the tyranny of his depressions and his anxieties, as she fought time and time again to make him feel for himself, how she felt about him and to cast off whatever idyllic wonder and delusion he had spelt upon her body and her face; whatever inane belief he had that he wasn’t good enough or smart enough or creative enough to be with her; to rid him of the thought that one day, she would rid herself of him.

  The siren was loud and waling as the ambulance rushed up the street. The banging on the door felt like it could have been pounding on her own failing heart as Tracy clung to her husband and her lover, feeling him slipping away from her warm touch. She felt as if she were nursing a stranger through a fit or seizure.

  The door burst open and the paramedics rushed in.

  “Is this him?” they asked. “Has he had any drugs? Has he been drinking? How long has he been like this?”

  “His whole life” replied Tracy, shaking like a leaf as the paramedics lifted him onto a gurney and strapped down his violent and convulsing body.

  “Is he lucid?” asked one of the paramedics.

  “Sort of. He just started screaming just now and this convulsing. He’s also been talking to his right nipple for the past week or so” Stefan said.

  The paramedics lifted John’s shirt. His right nipple was pasted in tomato sauce, mustard and chunks of pepperoni, chicken and pastry crust.

  “He has pizza on his nipple,” said one paramedic to the other. “Some pretty bad burns here.”

  “Are you the wife?” one the paramedics asked Tracy.

  “I am,” she said. “He hasn’t been taking his medication.”

  “Does he have a history of illness?”

  “He was doing so well,” Tracy said, bursting into tears. “I really thought this time would be different. I thought he’d…”

  Stefan’s wife embraced her and the two women wept as Stefan helped the paramedics load up the gurney and take John away. As the ambulance, with its flashing red lights and screaming siren, disappeared into the night, Tracy wiped away her tears and took a long, deep breath.

  “Now what?” Stefan asked.

  “We try again” Tracy replied, hopeful.

  A Bushel of Salt

  John woke the next morning, heavy headed from the sedatives. He woke to the sound of muffled voices from the other side of the door. It sounded like the mad ramblings of a museum curator, gleefully detailing the hospital’s latest exhibit; his symptoms, his history, his prescribed treatment and quietly, so as not to arouse discomfort or appear to be gossiping, pointing out the oddly mannered, shapely woman with strange obnoxious hair, in the co
rner who was preparing medication into cups and piling feces stained sheets into laundry hampers.

  “She’s his wife,” The Doctor said to his students.

  “Is she a nurse here?” the most astute of the students asked.

  “Yes, she is. In fact, it was here that they first met and where they fell in love. Fourteen years ago if I’m correct.” The Doctor said.

  “Is that even permitted?”

  “It isn’t ‘not’ permitted per se. In certain circumstances, who am I to stand in the way of love?”

  “You’re a medical practitioner. You’re pragmatic. So you can stand in the way of love.”

  “I am just a voice of reason,” The Doctor said “Per se.”

  “Is this in the test?” a student asked.

  The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. As he walked to the next room, the students took turns peering into the glass window at John who was rousing from a medicated stupor, shaking his head, and looking mean and uncomfortable, back at the face through the glass.

  “Come along,” The Doctor said. “Don’t dilly daddle.”

  The students all followed, leaving John alone on his mattress.

  “Good morning Tracy,” The Doctor said.

  “Good morning sir,” she said back.

  “I really thought this time he would make it you know? How long was it? Six months? A year?”

  “We had twenty one days doctor.”

  “My god that is impressive. That is progress. You are a wonderful and