The Time Traveler's Wife Read online

brain, and deep into his thoughts, just above his right ear. And that was where he anchored his hand, trying to equal the pressure and stop the sharp stabbing pain.

  And then, as quickly as it had come, the pain went away. And with it so did the memory of having ever climbed that tree. And so too, the proof that he remembered having kept with him all those years and having given to the girl whose attention had once seemed as vast and scaling as the tree under which she sat.

  As he stared out of the window, he looked at the rows of sycamore trees and the only thing he could think of, the only thing he could remember, was the scoffing and laughing and mocking of his friends. And the pain in his mind, as if someone was stabbing his imagination, it slowly eased like the dulling of a ringing in one’s ear, until the memory, much like an abused frequency, faded and ceased to exist.

  Eventually, John got off the bus and walked two blocks along a sprawling footpath in the middle of suburbia. Massive two story houses with equally massive boats and yachts, moored to silver faucets and braced by red stone bricks, and two cars in every driveway, cars as big as boats. Every lawn was manicured and every hedge was trimmed and rounded and there were no fences dividing the people who walked along on the path from their immaculate gardens and their front doors which by all accounts, were probably unlocked.

  John strolled by and he felt somewhat foreign. Gone was the intoxicating plume of urgent conspiracy, that which silted his thoughts as he drove to and from work every morning, choking on fetid exhausts, beeping horns and clocks that were never set at the right time.

  Gone too was the threat of being held up by bad traffic, flooding rain or some jackass with a replica gun, and never quite knowing the depth and severity of the puddle ahead, but always assuming the worst and waiting until the waters receded, or until the jackass got bored and turned the gun on himself.

  John felt different as he walked along the path, staring collectedly at the rows of houses and feeling almost as he had felt as a young boy, walking home from school – almost, but not entirely. Just as he was disconnected from the city, no longer feeding his subconscious a diet of fear, stress and absolute dire consequence, he too was disconnected from his youth, for even then, though his troubles and burdens could be regarded as infant and minuscule compared to his now gargantuan obligations, back then, in fact at every point in his life, everything seemed to always feel ominous and pressing.

  The houses were mostly the same and he remembered, as he passed them, how in some, when he was a boy, he was fearful of being mobbed and attacked by the feral children and their tattooed and nocuous parents who smoked on the front lawns and drank beer, at a time when most folks were drinking orange juice or flavored milk; and in other houses, he imagined himself being whisked inside by the cute girl or girls that he adored and while their parents and big bully like siblings were out, having absolutely awesome, incredible sex with one, two, three, five, sometimes every single girl that he could remember from school and the movies, that he thought about in that kind of way.

  As he walked past those very houses, he wondered what those girls might have become. And the feral kids too. Their houses were almost untouched, after all the time that had passed. But as he walked past, he felt neither mousey nor ravenous and he thought it a little silly, that he had ever felt that way in the past.

  For now, looking into the mangled yard and watching the flickering television through the hanging wire door, he imagined himself so pacifically, as if he were merely stretching out his sleep on a Sunday morning, walking across the road, kicking down the wire door, and taking the young boy who terrified him nearly to death when he was young himself, the young boy who was now a gangly emaciated junky, and beating him to near death, until he coiled on the ground and his swollen jaw jerked and twitched uncontrollably, like a fish out of water.

  “You shouldn’t do it you know.”

  John looked around. He couldn’t see anyone.

  “Down here,” said the voice, sounding muffled. “Under your shirt.”

  John pulled the neck of his shirt out and peered down at his chest. His right nipple was already on the verge of explaining everything.

  “Listen, we both know you could kick his arse. There’s no denying that whatsoever. All I’m saying is what good will come of it? What do you have to prove?”

  “I can make him feel the way he made me feel.”

  “Yeah. Ok. You scare the shit out of him maybe you rough him up a bit, but you really gonna make him feel like you felt? I remember too you know. It was just him, was it? The way we felt about him, it was dependent on the way we felt about so many other things. Like the sexy girls, and the overgrown bush that we thought was full of snakes and scorpions, and the Tyrannosaurus trees that were too big to climb, and how we never had a cool pair of shoes, not once. All of it, the way we felt about everything, it was all connected like lights on a friggin Christmas tree. You take out one bulb, just one, then none of em light up. Now I don’t know man, I’m just your right nipple, but I don’t think we should be fucking with our past. You know? Think about it sure. Imagine it and even want, when we’re labored and chained into our boredom and repetition, but leave it at that.”

  “What do you think will happen?” John asked.

  “I don’t know,” John’s Nipple said, “but nothing good can come from fiddling around in the past. Let’s say you change one thing, the way you feel about the ass clown. You change that one thing, then how are you gonna feel about everything else? What are we even doing here? We should be at home, cheek to cheek, nipple to nipple with the woman we love.”

  “But I left something here, a long time ago. I just want to see if it’s still there if I can take it back with me. I’m not looking to change anything. I know there’ll be some ripple, some event, and then like everything in life, it will all even out and I’ll be no different regardless of whatever change may come. My life will be paternal, consistent and empty. I’ll feel like this again, no matter what. But if I could feel this one thing again….”

  They continued along the road – John and his nipple - barely uttering a sound as both idly stared at the rows of houses, feeling waves of familiarity and memory wash faintly over their thoughts and senses like parched breath upon dry sunburned skin.

  “Is this it?” John’s Nipple asked.

  “I think so” John replied.

  They both stared up at the two story house from the bottom of the wooden steps. John had the right side of his shirt pulled up so his nipple could see what he could see.

  “Seemed bigger you know,” John said, sounding deflated.

  “I know. A lot bigger. And the steps, god the steps…”

  “I could barely make it from one to the other, without falling into the gap,” John said.

  “Doesn’t seem as scary at this time of the day.”

  “I only remember it at night,” said John. “I don’t think it’s the time of day. We’ve just gotten older.”

  “You remember it well?”

  “This was one of the strongest memories I had from my childhood. This house, Dracula, thinking, no, knowing, seeing and believing that Dracula was here and that he tried to eat all the children. It was so god damn scary. And the fact that, you know, no mums and dads seemed to care or even know like he was invisible to adults and our screaming and our shouting, nobody could hear and nobody ever came to take us inside, to keep us safe. I really thought it was real you know.”

  “Shit, me too man. I was tryna jump right off your chest half the time, wondering what the hell you kept getting us into and loving it, in a weird way. I wouldn’t have been anyone else’s nipple” John’s Nipple said, admiringly.

  “This was the first time I met Tracy. Didn’t really love her or anything. I was like five or something. But I remember her frizzy hair and her crazy laugh; how she’d hold her belly with one hand and slap her thigh with the other. I remember how I thought she was strange. I’d never known anyone with hair like that and with skin that color an
d who smiled so wide and so often. I remember I thought she was strange, but an interesting kind of strange. I wanted to know her. I wanted to be her friend.”

  “She thought you were a dork.”

  “I know. God, it took her forever to come around.”

  “Whatta you say? Shall we go up?”

  “I dunno,” John said. “My head is still kind of sore.”

  “C’mon. What are ya? A Coward? Knock on the door?” John’s Nipple said, egging him on.

  John smiled and so did his nipple. A light wave of trepidation shivered about them as they thought about creeping up the stairs as they had done as children and edging inch by inch towards the brown oak door, John with his left hand extended to rat tat tat on the door and his right hand gripping the wooden hand rail, almost catching every protruding splinter in his palm as he moved nervously, step after step.

  He almost felt as he did as a boy, daring to climb the stairs and knock on the door of Dracula; just him and his nipple. He felt the same air of sudden fright, expecting the door to burst open at any second and a caped and fanged monster to soar down the steps after him, thirsty for his blood as he sprinted down the road or down and alleyway or up the stairs of his house, towards the safe and secluded corner of his bathroom, between the toilet and the tub.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, John