[2013] Life II Read online

  Thinking of his life made Max recall the item poking out of his back pocket.

  “Garfield, look. Let me show you something.” Max brought out the time travel book.

  “Whoa! Moldie oldie, bro. Where’d you get it?”

  “Ray’s.”

  “Looks like it. Account of Time Travel on Earth Using Wave Theory. Weird title.”

  “The whole thing is weird,” Max agreed. “It was published in Athens. 1958.”

  “As in Greece?”

  “Yup.”

  Garfield thought it over. “Why is that weird? People in Athens have to read, too. But would they read something in English?”

  “It’s not in English. It’s in dozens of different languages.”

  “No way.” Garfield’s chubby brow furrowed. “That’s weird.”

  “Seriously.” Max handed the book over.

  Garfield flipped through the pages. “Wow, dude, you’re right. This is a mess—but a cool one.” He continued chomping on his sandwich, hunched over and totally immersed in the book.

  Max grew impatient. “What are you looking at?”

  Garfield didn’t even look up. “I’m studying the French part of it.”

  Max nodded. Of course. Garfield had been a whiz with languages in school. He had a knack for listening to a conversation in another language and being able to wade into it.

  Garfield flipped back and forth between different parts of the book. Max tried to be patient, but he fidgeted with anxiety and anticipation for even the tiniest clue about this volume.

  “There’s something else kooky about it,” Garfield muttered.

  “What?”

  “All right. Check this out. You see the English and French passages match perfectly. I mean, you know no language is word for word...”

  “Right… So? Go on.”

  “But the translation’s flawless. Except—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Except—“

  “What?”

  “Except in the table of contents. Look at the English version. Chapter One. You can see General Elliptical Principles of Time-Travel Simplified?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So in the French version, Chapter One is Goût du Temps—Introduction à la Théorie.’ That translates roughly in English as Taste of Time—Introduction to the Theory. So, that’s pretty odd. Either the versions talk about different things, or the French table of contents is mistaken.”

  Max leaned forward, staring at the page. He shrugged, unsure of the meaning. “What about the other titles?”

  “Same problemo, dude. Chapter Two is Fine-tuning Resolution of Time Neutral Coordinates. But the French version of is La Retour de Principes Généraux Elliptiques Simplifiée. That would be The Return of General Elliptical Principles Simplified, which is actually Chapter One in the English version. So, it doesn’t match up.”

  Max’s pulse raced, just as it had when he tried to go to sleep after deciphering Doctor Time. He looked at the book and then at his friend. “What else?”

  “Another problem.” Garfield’s eyebrows furrowed. “The English table of contents has six chapters. The French version has eight chapters. Why the difference?”

  Suddenly a church chime rang out, reminding Max that his lunch hour was over.

  “Thanks, man!” Max snagged the old book away from his friend’s grasp. “I’ll have another look at it. Hey, do you still want to go to the movie this weekend? My kids have plans that day.”

  “Shouldn’t you go to the movies with Abby?”

  Max frowned and huffed. He didn’t want to blurt out that time away from Abby was the best time.

  “She’s trying very hard,” Garfield reminded Max, as he grasped him by the shoulder. “You should give her another chance.”

  Max gazed at him with glassy eyes. Garfield always had a soft spot for Abby. He was a good friend to them both. Thinking of that just made Max want to go to sleep, and his voice settled into a tired whine.

  “Don’t go there, Garfield. Dude, I’m doing my best,” Max said in his own defense. “Now, about the movie...”

  “I’ll go with you,” Garfield replied.

  Max turned to walk off, but then he remembered the startling headline in the UBC alumni news. Turning to face Garfield, he whipped out the tan-colored newsletter and displayed the front page.

  “Hey, take a look at this,” Max said, his voice betraying concern.

  Garfield took the paper from Max and scanned the article, shaking his head. “Bummer,” he said, returning the article to Max.

  “You remember him?” Max said, hoping for some clues as to why this guy had committed suicide.

  Garfield made a face. “Sorta.”

  Max was intrigued by what he saw as Garfield holding something back. “C’mon. What is it?”

  “Max, I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead.”

  “What? What did he do that was so terrible? It said he was a dedicated surgeon who saved many patients.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Now Max could see that Garfield was attempting to match his enthusiasm, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “No seriously,” Max said, his eyes looking upwards. “It makes you think. What your life could have been. I could die in a car accident tomorrow, and all for what?”

  “You are living the life you deserve,” Garfield pressed.

  Muttering, shaking his head, Max started walking away from Garfield, mindful that he had to be at the finance committee meeting at 1:00 p.m. sharp. With cheer, he waved at his friend, shouting, “I know, I know. But all I’m saying, it makes you think.”

  He hastened his already brisk step. “It makes you think,” he muttered to no one.

  Chapter Three

  October 24, 2013 at 2:12 a.m.

  Damn it, I can’t sleep.

  Max had been constantly thinking about the time travel book, wracking his brain trying to analyze it from every perspective, with no success. He rolled over and checked the clock.

  2:12 a.m.

  Max sighed. I can’t continue being such a candy-ass, namby-pamby my whole life, he thought. I can’t screw my life up anymore than it is now. He craned his head, and looked back at the clock, watching the minutes tick by. He looked at his sleeping wife Abby, snoring at his side. There was no point fighting this. He slipped out of bed, creeping downstairs in the dark, careful not to trip over the scattered pieces of clothing or the odd toy left on the stairs.

  He snuck into his home office, flipped on the light, found the book in his desk drawer, pulled it out, and began to re-read it. Garfield had noticed something strange about the table of contents.

  Max read it again:

  General Elliptical Principles of Time Simplified

  Fine-tuning Resolution of Time Neutral Coordinates

  Something struck Max oddly about it. A dedicated fan of brain teasers, he decided to try different ways to crack the code—if there was any. One simple code was to merely take the first letter of every word and spell them out.

  GEPTS, he observed. Nope.

  Include the small word of? GEPOTS. Nope. Damn.

  Second line now. FRTNC.

  FROTNC?

  This shit is crazy! he sighed, slamming the book shut.

  Another way was to go back to these selected letters, and replace each letter with the immediately following letter of the alphabet. Then spell them out again.

  Back to line one. HFQUT.

  Nope.

  Max was miffed now. The mystery was killing him. No need to consider the extra small word of since it was obviously hopeless.

  Try the immediate preceding letter for each first letter of each word on line one? Why not.

  FDOSR.

  Nope.

  What about this… Take the first word of the first title, the second word of the second title, and so on. General – G – Resolution – R – Exact – E... GRE....

  Hmmm. That was looking promising. He grabbed a pen lying nearby and wrote, “GRE.”
/>
  When he was finished, he sat back in his chair, contemplating what he’d just scribbled.

  The completed word was Greece.

  Max’s heart pounded. Shakily he held the book, and pushed himself back from his desk. This was definitely a code!

  He tried the same approach, working upwards.

  The first word of the last title was “Analyzing,” hence A.

  Analyzing – A – There – T – History – H...

  “Athens!” he yelled out loud, then quickly quieted himself. Everyone upstairs was asleep. Hopefully, he hadn’t called attention to his downstairs antics. He waited attentively for any sound from the bedrooms. None. One lucky thing about Angela was that sounds didn’t wake her due to her deafness. As for Abby, holy shit, she could sleep through an F-5 tornado.

  Back to business.

  Max double-checked the rest of the table of contents. Yup, Athens it was.

  Athens, Greece. The same city where the book was published. Why did the author go to such lengths to put into code where it was published?

  Maybe the treasure was hidden there.

  But dude, he thought, forcing control on himself, Athens by itself isn’t enough. He needed the name of the location. Greek ruins? A simple address? Longitude or latitude? Dammit, he thought. There had to be more clues.

  Wait a minute. The French version—did it have clues too? He flipped the pages.

  The French version read:

  Goût du temps – introduction à la théorie

  La retour de principes généraux elliptiques simplifiée

  Max’s heart raced. He applied the same diagonal solving process he’d used on the English version. Yup. Athènes, Grèce. This was now a confirmation of his approach. He was on the right track.

  Suddenly everything clicked to him, and the bells and whistles in his brain exploded. All these different languages! Of course! Someone who found this book in a bookstore in Lyon, France, would be able to crack the code. A reader in Seoul, South Korea, could probably solve it, too. Max nodded at the apparently huge reach of this book.

  But if the book was intended for the whole world, why was it so hard to find?

  He sat back and tried to clear his head. Okay. The fact was that the possible answer was hidden in Athens. Was there an address? Or a landmark hidden in these pages?

  Max turned to the first English passage and read it again:

  I sincerely apologize for the obtuse way the book has been written...

  Definitely obtuse, dude, he thought. Nothing here.

  It wasn’t until his eyes moved to the third paragraph that he spontaneously whooped out loud again. He covered his mouth, chuckled to himself, then re-read each word carefully, this time writing each letter on a scrap of paper:

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

  Max stopped writing. Reading it back, he drew in a startled gasp, his jaw dropping nearly to the floor.

  T-h-i-r-t-y-s-e-v-e-n.

  M-i-n-o-n-a.

  S-t-r-e-e-t.

  37 Minona Street.

  He looked at the book, feeling a chill circle his head. Really? Was it that easy?

  Shoving everything off his desk, Max turned to a GPS website and plotted the location. He mulled what he found.

  It was a street in downtown Athens.

  Max sat back in his office chair and laughed again. Suddenly an idea began rattling around in his skull, and he was unable to sit still. He wanted to run to the door and straight to the airport. I have to go, he thought. He couldn’t explain it. He was compelled. Called to go, as though it was beckoning him like a siren luring sailors to their watery grave.

  But when? And how? And what would his excuse be to Abby?

  He logged into his work server and accessed his calendar. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t shuffle around or push back a few days.

  You have to do this, Max. Seriously, dude.

  There was a reason that book called out to him. To him. He had to answer.

  So it was settled.

  The next day, he booked his reservation. And two days later, Max was gone.

  Chapter Four

  October 27, 2013 at 11:19 a.m.

  When Max Thorning stepped off the plane and saw the bright, sun-drenched city of Athens spread out before him, the little hairs at the nape of his neck shivered.

  An hour later he stood at the busy intersection of Zinonos and Favierou, checking the GPS on his smartphone. He knew that 37 Minona Street had to be around here somewhere, but he saw no signs of the address anywhere.

  Sure is worth it to come here on a spontaneous urge, Max griped to himself. He dodged cars zooming through the intersection and ducked out of the way of speeding bicyclists. Stray dogs and cats abounded on every street corner, greeting him. Did they know where Minona Street was?

  As expected, Abby was furious at the suddenness of this trip. He knew titling it a “business trip” wasn’t going to fly. Instead, he’d explained to her that he was going through a mid-life crisis, which included a dream telling him he must go to Athens “to experience revelation into his inner soul,” which was something Max remembered from one of her stupid books. Hearing this, immediately the smile froze on Abby’s face, and her eyes narrowed at Max like he was trying to pull something over on her. Luckily Max’s deceit hadn’t led to the drama of their shrieking marital squabbles, and Max’s fears of Abby stopping him had evaporated.

  He’d also instant-messaged his buddy Garfield of his departure.

  Awesome! Garfield had texted back. Does this have something to do with the book?

  Yup, Max had replied. Will tell u more when I return.

  Now Max was ducking under the boughs of black walnut trees in Athens, creeping through mysterious alleys, and walking toward the big crumbling house at 37 Minona Street.

  It was an old apartment building, Max realized. He scratched his head, not really getting it. This was what he flew halfway around the world for?

  This is ridiculous. You’re acting as if you’re in a movie, waiting for the kindly old gentleman with a cane to open the door and tell you the secret he’s been harboring for over fifty years. What would happen if the guy who wrote the Book of Time went on vacation for two weeks, for the first time in fifty years, at the same time Max had chosen to show up?

  Max crept and crawled closer to the house. Maybe there would be a note on the door with more information. Or maybe, if he knocked, and found that the apartment was deserted, he could ask the landlord who—or maybe what—was living behind that door.

  Silly Max. Stop speculating. Go up there. Come on, man.

  He climbed the crumbling steps, then squeezed through the huge front doors. Looking around, he checked the directory in the lobby. There was a short list of tenants, and Max’s eyes nearly bulged out in surprise when he saw that it included:

  M. Tempus, 300.

  Max’s heart rate sped up. Blood pulsed and pounded through his head. He stepped back and felt a lump in his throat, and then cupping his eyes scanned the lobby for the elevator.

  There was none. So Max took the flight of stairs up to the third floor, wheezing and trembling as he reached the top. Ahead was a steel door. Max opened it, and found a long hallway, but only one other door at the very end. As he approached he saw that it said simply, in antique gold letters, M. Tempus.

  There was an old doorbell. Hesitantly, Max lifted a hand and rang it. He couldn’t hear any ring. He pressed it again. Was it working?

  Max knocked on the door. No answer. He pressed his ear against it and listened. Nothing.

  This must be the craziest, most ridiculous…

  He knocked again.

  He waited.

  This time, he could distinctly hear the sound of footsteps. They sounded wooden—as if someone was hobbling around on wooden clogs on a marble floor. Drawing fast, short breaths, Max steppe
d back and stood stiffly by the door preparing himself.

  Should I have brought a knife? Or a gun, to protect myself?

  He felt nauseous with fear. Slowly, the door opened. Standing there was an attractive, middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair. She wore a lab coat over a blue dress. She peered at Max through eyeglasses hung on a wire necklace.

  Max raised his eyebrows, a stupid look on his face. His legs trembled. Feeling the confused silence he smoothed back his hair, then wiggled his lips, trying to say something, his brain racing to recall any phrases in Greek. Finally, he gave up, and with almost transparent eyes croaked out:

  “Um… M. Tempus?”

  The woman gave him a wide-eyed expression, and quickly smiled. “Quelle langue parlez-vous?” she burst out. “¿Qué idioma habla? What language do you speak? Welche Sprache sprechen Sie?”

  Max grinned awkwardly, wondering who she was. Probably Mr. Tempus had died long ago, he sighed. This woman wouldn’t know what had happened to him. His shoulders slumped, and he answered in a polite voice:

  “English.”

  The woman’s face cracked into a wide grin.

  “You are asking for Medicus Tempus?”

  Max’s hopes lifted. She spoke perfect English—yet there was something strange about her accent. Max couldn’t put his finger on it, but as she kept staring at him with that big smile he took a deep breath and answered:

  “Yes, I am looking for him.”

  “Medicus Tempus,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” Max repeated back. Suddenly he sensed that he shouldn’t be here, that this was a waste of time. He felt panic in his gut and wanted to back down the hallway and leave on the next plane. Yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, he thought, realizing if he left he’d be cheated out of something. He already knew the answer, yet he had to ask. “Do you know who he is?”

  The woman laughed easily.

  “I do,” she said. “But he’s not a he.” She extended her arm out to Max, and gripped his hand. “I’m Dr. Time.”

  Chapter Five