[2013] Life II Read online

  Life II

  by

  Scott Spotson

  Life II

  Copyright © 2016 Scott Spotson

  All rights reserved

  Formatting by Daniel J. Weber

  Copyright Statement

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts embodied in critical reviews, or promotion of the book, or certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people, except with the written permission of the publisher or by the publisher giving out a free copy. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Prologue

  October 22, 2013 at 4:35 p.m.

  Max Thorning turned over the ancient book in his hand. Account of Time Travel on Earth Using Wave Theory, by Medicus Tempus.

  The book reminded him of a story he’d recently seen on the news. A Saskatchewan man had picked up an old book at a yard sale and discovered a map to a fifty-year-old buried treasure in Ireland. What were the chances?

  As he opened it, the musty smell told him that the book had not been off the shelf for quite some time. He flipped to the last page through—eight hundred and seventy-one—careful not to damage the delicate sheets.

  With his fingertips, he turned the first few blank pages and discovered the book was published by Modulated Press, Athens, Greece, 1958.

  Greece?

  Max thumbed on. At the top of the first page, he read:

  Table of Contents

  General Elliptical Principles of Time Simplified

  Fine-tuning Resolution of Time-Neutral Coordinates

  Recording Faithfully Exact Equitable Occurrences of History

  Beguiling Paradox: History Entered and Altered

  Why There Are No Concurrent, Multiple Universes

  Analyzing the Morality of Repeating Existence

  Two more lists—each numbered one through six, sometimes up to eight—appeared on the rest of the page. But they were in different languages. The middle one was obviously French. The list at the bottom was possibly Spanish. Some of the words seemed familiar from his high school language arts class.

  Max turned to the back of the book. There were again three lists, each one meticulously organized. But he could not read the words, because they were in languages he didn’t understand.

  Chapter 1

  General Elliptical Principles of Time, Simplified

  Dear Reader,

  Time is a puzzle, and this book is intended for those who are creative thinkers, longing for a solution.

  Time has been described by humanity in many different ways. Some say Time is flexible, and can be commoditized, as you would measure furlongs and pecks. They are incorrect. Time marches to its own drummer. It cannot be varied, cannot be manipulated by any agent, and cannot be violated. It can only be studied and respected – indeed, Time is our Master.

  Time, hence, is rarely tranquil, yielding several emerging viewpoints – even now. Many individuals necessarily originate numerous assumptions, subject to rigorous evaluation each time.

  In his works on Time, the astrophysicist J. Rosenfeld described Time by the formula....

  Max stopped and skipped ahead a few pages to see that the English portion, in total, was only twenty-five pages, it seemed. How much of this book would he have to read to possibly discover the hidden treasure?

  He rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and then returned his gaze to the pages. As with the tables of contents, various languages appeared, ending in what appeared to be some Arabic versions and then Russian, Chinese, and Japanese versions. He turned back to the middle and glanced at a section. It could have been Martian for all he knew. No further English in the whole book.

  His brows furrowed as Max turned the volume over and over in his palms. When he originally picked up the book, he knew he’d decide within two minutes of perusing it whether or not to buy it. His hesitation to make the purchase was momentary. This old hardcover sparked his curiosity—a puzzle and mystery of sorts, and he wanted to dig into it to see what secrets it held.

  Time is our Master, he recalled. Yet—and he referred back to the English table of contents—Repeating Existence. What did that even mean? He didn’t know, but he was fascinated by it. Max closed the cover and tucked the weighty book under his arm.

  Weaving through the haphazard shelves of used, musty, dusty, old books, Max made his way to the cashier. An old-fashioned cash register with brass-colored keys sat on the glass counter that was nearly covered with stacks of books. While the store seemed somewhat disorganized, the counter was clean and tidy. A thin, wiry old man with feathery wisps of white hair paid no attention to Max standing in front of him. He seemed engrossed in the book in front of him. Max strained his neck to see the book. “Collected Essays of Edgar Allen Poe”.

  “Ah, quoth the raven, nevermore,” Max said, smiling.

  The man looked up slowly, not returning Max’s smile. He peered over his wire-rimmed reading glasses, unimpressed with the customer’s cleverness.

  Max shifted uncomfortably. He looked at the antique cash register to the left. “That’s a beautiful, old piece.”

  The clerk’s gaze held fast, not even the twitch of a facial muscle.

  “May I help you?” he asked, in a high-pitched voice with a hint of an accent. Scottish, perhaps?

  “Ah, yes. I’ll take this,” Max replied, sliding the book across the glass, toward this clerk who had no concept of retail etiquette.

  The man looked at the book. He slowly moved his palm over the cover, in a motion that was almost affectionate. He seemed to have a connection with this curious book.

  “Would you happen to know anything about this book?” Max asked.

  The clerk looked up, and Max could see his face transform from peaceful to angry in an instant. “No!” he snapped, too quickly.

  “I’m excited to sift through it and see what this is all about,” Max replied, hoping his earnestness would spark some connection with the old grump.

  “One should never sift through a book, young man,” he answered, with one eyebrow raised. “Respect the thought and care that goes into the writing, or you will never fully grasp what’s in it.”

  Was this guy sending some sort of covert message himself? Max was as intrigued with the elderly clerk as with the book.

  “I intend to explore it, one page at a time,” he said, matching the steady gaze of the old man who seemed to be analyzing Max, as though determining whether he was worthy of this book. He handed the clerk his credit card and waited as the man pulled out an old-fashioned credit card reader from under the counter. He placed the card in the metal tray and ran the arm across it, making an imprint on the carbon paper slip below.

  “I didn’t know you can still use those things for credit cards,” Max offered, more surprised than critical.

  “Time changes many things, but it doesn’t mean it’s always for the better.”

  He slid the credit card form to Max, and placed a ballpoint pen on top. Max signed it, the clerk tore off a copy, handing it to Max and then gingerly placing the book in a brown paper bag. He returned to Poe’s essays without saying another word.

  Max shrugged off the dis
missal. He would like to think he would never come back here to be treated so rudely, but he knew this bookstore must have other treasures that would be worth the time to hunt.

  Chapter One

  October 22, 2013 at 5:15 p.m.

  “I’m home,” Max announced, with little exuberance. He paused, waiting for a reply, but prepared for the usual silence that accompanied his nightly arrival.

  Nothing.

  He smelled the fragrance of rosemary and spotted the crockpot near the sink. Abby loved her slow cooker. She could throw ingredients in there in the morning and come home to dinner. No fuss. No pile of saucepans and skillets to clean. But for once, Max thought to himself, it would be nice to have a meal that wasn’t all from one pot. Sure, he could fire up the grill or fry up some chicken, but he had no desire to overstep his boundaries and invade his wife’s immaculate kitchen.

  He laid his computer bag on the kitchen table and then stopped. He picked up the black canvas bag and moved it to the black chair in the corner, recalling at the last second Abby’s need for order.

  He walked into the living room and saw Abby sprawled out on the couch with her nose buried in a book. He muffled a sigh, knowing that she was absorbed in one of her self-help books, which would lead to a discussion about how he had to change in order to better their lives.

  “How was your day?” his wife asked, clearly with no interest in his answer.

  He cringed when he saw that Abby was engrossed in what he had come to call “the dreaded book.” For over a year, she’d been poring over Communication Without Tears, believing those pages held the answer to all her woes—or at least a large portion, since she seemed burdened by so many. The author, a psychologist and motivational speaker, delved into the way people communicate their wants, needs, and desires, to help readers better get what they want in life.

  Max had tried to read the book. Although Abby was confident that the dreaded book was the answer to their problems, Max made the attempt merely to keep her nagging at bay. On some days, he simply made a show of picking up the book in her presence when he feared a lecture coming on. He read a few pages, but thought the author over-complicated a very simple issue. Talk honestly, not in riddles or rhetoric. Don’t hold onto resentment. Period. Forget about untangling messages that aren’t tangled in the first place. The book, Max thought, created as many problems as it resolved—if not more. Abby felt hope when she read each chapter, feeling excited at the “aha” moment when the author seemed to be speaking directly to her, fully understanding her sadness. “Someone gets me,” she thought to herself on those occasions. But when she closed the book and tried to bring the lesson into her life, she was deflated. Max didn’t share her desire to grow and improve. He was the anchor to her unhappiness and although she tried to lift him out of his mired position, he resisted.

  She didn’t wait for his answer to the nightly question, but he offered it anyway. “Work was work. Day is done.”

  She grunted. “Same old, same old.”

  He turned and headed back to the kitchen.

  Abby glanced up briefly and muttered, “Dinner’ll be ready soon.”

  In the kitchen, Max poured himself a glass of water and glanced at the counter, where the contents under the lid of the crockpot bubbled. He smelled the fragrance of rosemary mingled with beef and potatoes. My, how Abby loved her crockpot. She had an assortment of sizes, from her 20-ounce lunch-size to the one he referred to as “The Beast”, an eight-quart, digital unit that she only brought out for big gatherings—in other words, rarely.

  Their life wasn’t always so disconnected. When Max met Abby, seventeen years ago, she was fresh from grad school with a degree in healthcare management. After a brief stint at a sports injury clinic in Toronto, she moved to Vancouver, Max’s hometown, where she’d taken a job as director of therapy at the Children’s Hospital of Greater Vancouver. There, she guided staff who worked with developmentally disabled kids. Max was impressed with her commitment to her work and the children whose lives were being improved. She mattered, he thought, and she cared. He loved those qualities about Abby.

  Max’s career was on the opposite end of the people spectrum. He was an auditor, a job he enjoyed for its analytical challenges. He liked untangling the numbers so that they made sense. He achieved great satisfaction from finding balance when the numbers came out perfectly.

  He knew he had a Walter Mitty-like, daydreamer streak in him, imagining what lay beyond his own reality. His mother applauded his creativity as a child, when he shared his tales of make-believe with her. His father would just shake his head and say, “Son, those ideas are gonna get you in trouble someday.”

  Max loved science, and he wanted to be a doctor from the time he rescued a baby robin that had fallen out of its nest. He nursed the bird back to health, pulling worms out of the dirt and hand-feeding her. When he released her back into the woods near their yard, she didn’t want to leave at first. With his urging, she chirped a goodbye and flew away.

  From that point, he knew he wanted to heal people, to help them when they were at their worst, in dire situations, seeking answers. He imagined himself walking the sterile halls of a hospital, in his starched, white lab coat, embroidered with “Dr. Max Thorning”.

  But he never pursued that dream. He became an accountant, content with finding order in numbers, making them balance, and finding satisfaction when they did. Max often thought about his alternative universe, where he was that learned physician, healing people, holding their hands and offering comfort in their times of need. He asked himself why he didn’t follow the path to med school. He told himself that no one believed in him enough, that his parents couldn’t support him through medical school. Somewhere deep inside, Max knew those were merely excuses. If he had believed in himself and not feared failure, he would have found a way to make it happen. No, Max looked at the many years of education and training, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt he would incur, and the long sleepless nights. He knew he didn’t have sufficient drive to tackle such a large challenge.

  He chose the quicker career route. Four years of college, jump right into an accounting firm, and set your sights on a partnership.

  Every November, during his performance reviewed, his boss assured him he was firmly on the partnership track. “You do good work, Max,” Arthur Fowler told him. “Just keep it up and hang in there.”

  And every November, Max would attempt to mask his disappointment by nodding appreciatively.

  On days like this when he was frustrated by his station in life, he looked back at what he thought he would have, and then compared it to his present situation. A job he tolerated but one that paid well. A wife blessed with intelligence, organization, and inner strength. He knew what she wanted for herself—career, family, and a stable home.

  Play it safe. Get the results you need.

  Abby, on the other hand, enjoyed Max’s unstructured way of looking at his world. He was interesting, smart, and easy on the eyes—her words. No, he wasn’t the head-turner that some women sought. He had an average build, and was a few inches shy of six feet, which was tall enough for her. She often commented on how his thick, chestnut brown hair had several errant locks that wouldn’t be tamed, no matter how much hair product she gave him. Back then, she found those imperfections endearing. Somehow over the years, his quirky hair became more of a flaw for her. He caught Abby rolling her eyes when she caught him trying to smooth the wild strands.

  Unlike the other men Abby had known, Max seemed more malleable. He was an almost-blank canvas that had some appealing brushstrokes. He loved to cook, a task that she abhorred. He didn’t even object to washing the dishes afterward—a welcome change from the “chef doesn’t do the dishes rule” she had heard so often. Max was also great with kids, probably because he was somewhat of a man-child himself.

  Max knew that Abby was different from the other women he had dated. He thought he was in love with her. Later, he would look back and realize it was more i
ntrigue, like one would have when seeing a praying mantis close up. You can’t take your eyes off it and every movement is fascinating, until the female mantis bites the head off its own mate, and you have to look away in complete revulsion.

  Max fit into the role of the life mate that Abby said she wanted. He tried to be a good provider, a caring husband, and a loving father to their two children—Angela, twelve, and Brandon, age nine.

  They were married fourteen years ago, in a simple ceremony, even though Max had suggested that Abby should have one of those lavish weddings that he thought women dreamed of since they were little girls, practicing kisses on their bed pillows. She shook off the notion, saying that the money would be better spent on buying a house.

  Abby wore a wedding gown of ivory satin that she bought second-hand, at a consignment shop. She removed the frilly details and cascading train, making it look more like en evening gown than a wedding dress.

  As he stood at the altar and watched Abby’s father escort her on his arm, Max smiled at the sight of his bride. And then his mind pulled a Mitty-esque twist. He saw Abby as the praying mantis, her arms contorted into spindly twigs and pointy hands rubbing together as though relishing his forthcoming demise. Max gasped as he grabbed the arm of his best man.

  “Yes,” his best man Garfield Yates whispered, “she’s breathtaking.”

  He blinked his eyes hard and the herculean insect in ivory soon returned to the vision of Abby. Perhaps he had experienced the foreshadowing of his future, that his subconscious was giving him a newsreel glimpse of the life ahead.

  He glanced over at his mother, who was happily weeping in the front row. His father nodded approvingly at his son’s big step into responsible manhood. They know more than me, Max told himself. He took a deep breath, reached out, and took Abby’s hand in his. Thankfully, as he looked down, he saw the graceful hand on which he placed the wedding band, and not the creepy claw of a predator.