Changes of Revelations

[Changes of Revelations is a contemporary piece of fiction that explores the concept that time is not linear and that persons can manipulate their way through time just as they do through space.]

SIMON

The house smells just like I like it. Reeking of weed. A wonderful dinner with the woman I love, good wine, and a little time alone. Now I can chill with Sebastian and smoke some before bed. As I stroll into the living room, I see Sebastian lying on the sofa, watching TV. The bong is on the wooden table next to him and a bag lays out, the seeds already sifted through. Sebastian’s features are obscured in the shadows; he doesn't move as I come in.

“What’s up, Sebastian?” I ask.

“Not much, man.”

“Cool. Mind if I take some hits?”

“Go right ahead, Hammy,” he says.

“Thanks.”

I look over at him as I pack the bowl. His dilated eyes stare back, red and old. I finish packing the bong's bowl and spark it just as he asks me how dinner was. I hold up a finger as I suck the smoke out of the tube.

“Great,” I say, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Hey man, thanks for the wine. If you hadn’t hooked me up, we would only have had water to drink.”

Sebastian sits up, his head not quite steady on his shoulders. “No problem. It’s like I never had it to begin with.” He claps his hands and grinds them together, like a blackjack dealer washing their hands of an old table.

“Well, I appreciate it, man.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Sebastian said, a vacant gleam in his eyes. “It won’t be the last time I do something like that.”

“Cool. So how’s my favorite lottery winner doing?”

“Learning,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Learning what?”

“To see through the lies,” Sebastian says.

“Oh really,” I reply.

“Think about it. We're brought up on a foundation of lies. Whether it’s Santa Claus or believing that the sun rises everyday. The truth is repeatedly hid from us as we grow up and we never have a chance to start from a foundation of true knowledge. So when we yank away all those lies, what do we have left that we can say is real or true?”
“Have I come at a bad time?” I ask.

“Think, Hamlet.” He’s poking his head and staring intently at me now, his hair dripping into his face.

I’m really not sure what to make of him other that the fact that he’s wrecked. “Okay . . . “

“We have to think about the things that we deal with. We can’t just accept everything as fact. Don't you think it's messed up that we accept what is real by what they tell us is real?”

“You’ve been reading Rex’s books again and you‘re starting to steal my thunder,” I tell Sebastian. “I thought I was the conspiracy theorist.”

“I’m not talking philosophy or politics," he says. "I’m talking about reality.”

“Oh. So the sun doesn’t rise everyday?”

“No, Hamlet. Actually it doesn't. But that’s more of an idiom than a falsehood. Listen, man, I’m talking about the way we see things.”

I’m not sure where he’s trying to go with this or if I want to stay around much longer. I’ve already had a fairly satisfying evening and I don’t want it to lose its consistency with the extended rants of a pothead. He can barely stop from wobbling and his eyes aren’t steady. I look at the clock—it’s still early enough to give him a shot.

“I know what you’re thinking, because you might say it later,” Sebastian says. “But d on’t pity me, just listen. Take what I’m saying seriously.”

“So speak,” I say.

Sebastian leans forward and digs through the weed. At first I think he is going to pack the bowl again, but he’s not. He picks out a small seed and holds it up to me.

“All you have to do is have faith as wide as this marijuana seed, Hamlet, and you'll see. You won't have to be stuck in the linear equation that the rest of them call time.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You ever read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter House 5?"

“Sure. In high school,” I say.

“Remember the Tramalfadorians? They considered time as a fourth dimension of space?”

“Yeah. So?”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Sebastian says.

“What what is?”

“Time.”

“Time?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding.

“Oh.” I think I’m going to bed now. Sebastian is obviously not with it. I’ll try to humor him and say I’m tired, brush my teeth, and go to bed. As I’m about to speak, though, Sebastian's eyes, wavering and rolling, catch me and he raises a finger to his lips, keeping me silent. I watch him pick up a pen and write down several lines. He folds it up into quarters and holds it out to me.

“Put this in your back pocket and don’t read it until I say so.”

“Okay. Sure.” He is so gone. I stand, stretching. “Well, Sebastian,” I say, “I gotta get to bed. I’m really tired. I’m just gonna brush my teeth and then I’m out.”

“I know.”

I get up, stumbling over Sebastian’s shoes as I do, which are lying in the middle of the floor. I shake my head at the kid. He’s really cool, he is. He just doesn’t do much with his life other than smoke. I leave the living room and head through the dining room, to the adjacent bathroom. I turn to the CD player and put in the Ozzy disc laying next to it. Tapping the fast-forward button, I jump tracks up to “Miracle Man.” I quickly wash my face and brush my teeth, glad to have escaped Sebastian’s wasted rant.

Earlier with Jamie was fantastic and I can’t help but appreciate what has happened to us the last couple of weeks. I don’t know how I ended up with such a smart, beautiful, sweet girl. I can’t help but think that we have a bright future ahead. All I need now is a job and then everything will be on track. Oh well. As I exit the bathroom, my eye catches the mail on the dining room table and I look to see if anything is for me. Just a Mastercard bill. I drop it back on the table. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. Now it’s just past Sebastian and I’m asleep, dreaming again.

“Wait,” he says as I walk by. Oh shit.

“Open it.”

“Hunh?”

“Open the paper I gave to you.”

It can’t hurt, right? “Okay,” I say. I open up the folded over lined paper and read it:

“Well, Sebastian, I gotta get to bed. I’m really tired. I’m just gonna brush my teeth and I’m out”—Get up, trip over my shoes, go to bathroom, turn on CD player, “Miracle Man,” water runs as you brush teeth, come out, look at mail, pick something up, look at it, put it back down, walk back into room, look annoyed as I stop you: 12:58. Look at wristwatch -- look down at paper -- look at me.

As I turn my stare from the paper to my watch, back to the paper, and over to Sebastian, I am completely dumbfounded. He smiles, but his old eyes aren’t so wavery anymore—they burrow into me, carving their way to whatever it is inside of me that suddenly forced to think that Sebastian is up to more than just bullshit—the part of me that is is wondering if he really can do this: the part of me that wonders if I can do this.

REX

It’s late. It has to be. I’ve been out with Nate and I didn't even get a hold of him until almost eleven. Lately, it’s almost the only time I can ever reach him, with his new job at the firm and all. I hear voices in the house as I come in the back door. I hit the light switch, turning on the lights in the kitchen. I look in the fridge and grab a bottle of Snapple iced tea. Sometimes I can’t help but envy Nate. We did our undergrad work together at the same school. When he left for law school, I stayed to work on my Ph.D. in philosophy. Now he’s back here as a lawyer and I’m finishing up my dissertation. He has a future and I have none. I don’t know, maybe that’s not fair. It’s just I feel that doing what I enjoy doing may not help me make much of a career. I suppose I could go and become a professor: that’s where I’m headed anyway. It's just that I’m not sure that that is what I want.

I take a sip of the Snapple, trying to weigh happiness versus practicality. Maybe happiness doesn’t determine what we’re worth, but it’s always seemed to me that we’re monkish if we don’t enjoy some of life. I’ve always tried; and I still have my moments. It’s not that I don’t enjoy life now. It’s more that I’m afraid I won’t if I’m forced to get a job I don't want because that's all I can get. Even if I wanted to be a professor, it’s a pretty slim job market. We all want something when it comes down to it; only some of us are lucky enough to get paid for getting what we want.

I can hear Sebastian and Hamlet in the living room. What I don’t hear is music or the television. I don’t hear the bong water bubbling or hysterical laughing, so they’re probably not smoking unless they’ve already passed out, which they obviously haven’t because I can hear them. So what are they doing?

I cross the dark dining room and enter the living room. The bong is out and from the odor it’s obvious that they have been smoking; both of their eyes are glassy; I’m not sure what they’re looking at, even though I’m staring right at them. I try and follow their gazes, looking across the room and then back at them. I still can’t figure it out.

“What are you guys doing?” I ask.

They don’t even answer. It’s as if they aren’t even there.

“Guys?”

No response.

“Hey!”

Only with my loud cadence do they finally snap out of their reverie. Where before it didn’t seem as if there was anyone there, there are now two perfectly aware young men. Hamlet runs his hand through his short brown hair, looking at me with such intensity that it’s actually unnerving. “What’s up?” I ask.

“You’d never believe.”

Sebastian smacks Hamlet as soon as he speaks, then turns to me. “You must believe,” he says.

I scratch my forehead. “Okay. What?”

“We were traveling through time,” Sebastian says.

“It actually looked like you were right there, Sebastian,” I say.

“No. I don’t mean it literally,” he says. “Our minds were looking forward and backwards in time.”

“Okay. That’s interesting. I was actually talking to Nate about that today.”

“What’d he think?” Sebastian asks.

“He couldn’t figure out if you’d smoked too much or had dropped one too many tabs of acid,” I say.

I expect a curt reply, but Sebastian only laughs.

“I haven’t smoked enough,” he says. His hair falls over his eyes and he glares at me with a smile. “I may just sit here and smoke a lot, but I also sit here and think a lot. Let me tell you, it is easier for the likes of us to understand than a thousand Nathans or Mathons.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “Sebastian, I don’t quite—“

“Ask Hamlet.” Sebastian said, shrugging.

Hamlet nods, almost smiling, and holds out the bong.

“I don’t mind smoking now and then, Sebastian, but I’m not really in the mood,” I tell him. “And I don’t feel like taking part in your games right now.”

Hamlet sets down the bong and looks at the floor. “You could have told me, Rex.”

“What?” I ask.

“You could have told me you slept with Lana last month,” Hamlet says.

“What?”

“Right here. On this couch.”

“Hamlet, I—“

“I know I used to date her,” Hamlet says. “But that doesn’t matter. I dumped her. Besides, I have a new girl now. Did you think it would hurt my feeling?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Don’t try and cover it up, Rex. I went to my room—right there—with Jamie, and you were the only two up still. Lana was putting on her jacket as I went to bed and I thought she was leaving. But when I closed my door behind me, she threw her jacket off and kissed you. You stopped her at first, but maybe because you were drunk or maybe just because you didn’t want to, you stopped stopping her. She unbuttoned your shirt and then you undid hers. You both got quickly naked and then she pushed you down and got on top of you. On this couch. She came before you did, so you picked her up and without slipping out, got on top of her and fucked the shit out of her until you were done. You laid there for awhile and then she got up, got dressed, and walked home. Does that sound about right?”

My jaw was hanging open. “How the hell did you know all of that? Did she say something?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Sebastian asks.

“What the fuck is going on?” I ask. “How did you know that?”

“The same way we know that if you keep up the hard work you’ll graduate with honors,” Hamlet replies.

“What?”

“And the same way I know Jamie and Hamlet are going to fuck over on those couches next weekend,” Sebastian says.

“Hey! (Really?)” Hamlet says.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I ask again.

Sebastian levels his gaze at me, a smile creeping onto his face before he speaks. “Why don’t you sit down?”

REX

What little sleep I got last night was troubled and harried. The thoughts I have been having regarding Sebastian’s discovery are beyond anything I ever even imagined within the scope of reality. Yet how can I not believe having seen the initial proofs myself. How can I deny that my mind’s eye broke through the temporal walls that we all construct around ourselves and delved into a deeper, seemingly hidden, stream of time: one that lets us examine what we refer to as "time" in a great plane, not unlike a sea, as opposed to a straight line that would be more akin to a river. We stop and measure off gallons of this "time" by minutes and seconds, preciously coveting one moment to the next, always fearing the expiration of time as we ourselves expire, not daring to hope for more in fear of losing what we have. Yet now a bold new world opens before us, one almost entirely devoid of ethics and morality, an undiscovered fountain of knowledge. I do not say that it is lacking ethics and morality because there should be none, but more so because there are none; to the greatest extent of my knowledge this ability of ours is undiscovered—or if it is not, it is a great secret kept to a few and exploited by them for their own gain and thus the mores are still unknown to us.

And who is to say that this is not the case? Businessmen could certainly build an empire in such a manner, gamblers could win fortunes, and managers and agents could pick all the winners, knowing what they could get for them without pushing too far. There are infinite applications and uses, from the vulgar to the sublime, from the trivial to the paramount; yet there must be guiding codes of ethics to go with these applications, to govern their uses, and to ensure that we at least have a code for identifying which uses are acceptable and which are not.

As these powers which Sebastian surmises begin with deja vu and intuition, the subconscious applications, and evolve to the conscious in post- and pre-cognition, we must infer that the power relates foremostly to the self; it is one’s individual power that one uses for one’s self in some manner: as with all things, self-duties being the foundation of all other duties. So we must first suppose that transgressing against the self in any manner would be a moral failure. The powers must be of a benefit to one’s self or one is squandering one’s ability. Second of all, in any case where one utilizes one’s freedom to act—in this case regarding temporal abilities—the proper use of freedom must be the supreme rule. I have always found that the proper use of freedom most often rests in the path of moderation. Departing to either extreme is acceptable, as long as there is an overall balance; a long-lasting depart in either respect from the path of moderation is a breach of duty to ourselves and utterly contemptible. Self-discipline and mastery over our desires is what is necessary. Our mind, our soul, if you will, must be autocratic over our hearts and desires no matter what obstacles are presented. Thinking of these new powers, nothing must be changed as far as foundations of morality go, it is only a matter of application. Unfortunately, self-discipline and moderation don’t seem to be the most common of human traits.

I don’t think that these new powers are necessarily good or evil in themselves. Really, nothing can be wholly good without limitation except for good will, and this must be remembered if we intend to use our powers properly. We must use them for good. Of course, almost necessarily as dictated by laws of balance, someone will find insidious uses for this knowledge, and then what? Further, how do we discover which uses are acceptable and which are not? Theoretically, I have general ideas for what is intrinsically proper, but how do we reevaluate an entire new scenario of ethics from the small scope that we have now? The problem is, based on the simple knowledge that most humans have right now, an evaluation of such moral codes is impossible. If one is not used to or even familiar with such behaviors and abilities, how can they judge them without such knowledge? How does jealousy and fear not rule their decisions? Thus the laws and codes of such lectures must come from those such as us. Yet who are we to judge? Who is Sebastian?

There is only time and faith and hope that we will learn.

RAYMOND

In the living room, the television buzzes; flashes of light ricochet off of the opposing walls in the kitchen. The news rages on and I listen, wondering how much of it is true and smiling all the same. I’m cooking pasta below me on a worn green stove, swirling it, keeping it moving with a wooden spoon. On the adjacent burner, sauce with a few added spices simmers. The outside door opens behind me and I hear Nathaniel come in. If he says hi, I don’t hear. However, his complaints are too loud to ignore.

“Everyone’s talking about Sebastian and his ludicrous delusions, I don’t get it. Hamlet, Mattie, Jamie: who the hell cares?”

“You seem worked up about it.” I say. As I turn, he’s sitting at one of the kitchen table chairs. He shakes his head and looks down.

“No, I’m just sick of hearing about it,” he says.

“Have you talked to Sebastian about it?”

“No.”

“Maybe he’s forgotten this episode and it’s only the joke that remains,” I say.

Nathan looks up, interested. “Hunh. That’s an idea. If that would only be the case, maybe I would.”

“You should,” I say.

“Ah well. I have to edit some law briefs. I’ll talk to you later.” Nathan gets up and walks out of the room.

From what I can tell, Sebastian’s gotten quite a lot of mileage out of his last trip. It is a fascinating idea, though. Imagine the ramifications of having such a power rather than it being only a drunken hallucination. The uses would be nearly limitless. Or suppose it does not involve mere sight, but ultimately the power to travel through time. Now that is the supreme delusion.

I chuckle softly as I turn the burner off and lift the pan over to the sink, straining the water off of the noodles. Maybe I will go talk to Sebastian. If nothing else, maybe he’ll give me some ideas for my writing.