Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(70)

You’re telling me! He fiddled with his new smartphone. At age 67, he was just entering the mobile age. Yeah, buoyancy makes sure we don’t change the past. But just going there and coming back is mind-f*ck enough.

Things – I mean, we’re just not… It’s something we’re not meant to see! It’s unnatural. And it’s like your brain recognizes that and—

Look. Mac held up a hand and smiled. It’s like going to war. Nobody understands what you experienced unless they were there, too. Seeing bodies blown apart? Seeing the insides of people? We were never meant to see that! The mind rebels.

I considered that my rupture trips were perhaps taking a toll on me. My bank account was fatter, true, but I was having trouble sleeping. And I’d lost weight because I could barely keep anything down. Not because I was sick – it was all mental. Now I knew why.

The whole experience of it! I collapsed in my camp chair. Jesus, Mac, it eats at you…

He nodded, fine-tuning the settings on his device – preoccupied, but still listening. Not like there are any support groups for this sort of thing yet, he muttered.

And then when you’ve stepped through and another rupture opens right in front of you, I said, and before I could stop myself, added: Or seeing someone you know who’s dead. That—

I stopped short. What had I—? Paranoia flooded in.

Before I even finished piecing it together I craned my neck and looked away to avoid Mac’s stare. Because I knew I had said too much. Mac knew I had stepped through more than just that one rupture, which meant I was probably on the take. Dirty. The trust between us, cultivated over years of working together, was now broken forever.

? ?

Vancouver and Salt Spring are gone. Such a f*cking drag. I was gonna visit this summer…

David mutters this news in the same nasal monotone he uses to complain about his girlfriend, his hourly wage, his personal disappointments, his godforsaken lot in life. An entire province gobbled up by the void and David contextualizes it in terms of the personal inconvenience to him.

The rupture we guard, now twice the height of the train station, fluctuates ominously, spitting purple fire in the predawn gloom. I am mesmerized. How much of the world do you think has been swallowed? I whisper, gazing into its static depths.

It turns out that smartphones have an app for that. David calls up his and turns the screen to me. I see a narrow strip of the West Coast, including a chunk of Washington state and Vancouver Island, hovering between two bulbous intrusions of shadow. Encroaching fronts of—

Nothing.

Eventually we’ll get gulped down, too. David shrugs. In another – he checks the display – 22 hours and seven minutes.

Doesn’t that bother you?

Well, I— Hey, shut up, my girlfriend’s texting.

I sigh and make a note in the logbook. David texts his girlfriend while I tidy up details in a report that will never be read – each of us reacting to the apocalypse according to our individual generation’s signature dysfunction.

David stands and wanders off down a side street. A few moments later I hear the shrieking dub-step dong that is his ringtone and know he will be gone for the better part of an hour, chitty-chatting with his girl. I replace the logbook and stare into the restless vortex of our impending doom.

Inside the ruptures the concepts of point A and point B become totally meaningless…

Beginnings. Endings. Life. Death…

We were never meant to see that.

I wonder: if the ruptures lead into the past, and they swallow the whole world, why doesn’t everyone just go into the past? Or is there not enough room back there? Or—?

The mind rebels.

I ponder the yawning Abyss menacing the western edge of Duncan. Now another one is pushing toward us across the strait from the mainland. A small strip on the inner coast of Vancouver Island is all that remains. The question is: whether it’s better to join the yawning chasm or take one’s chances?

I count to 10. Make a decision. Then sprint through the opening.

? ?

I’ve been expecting you.

Mac pushes a fresh cigarette into the side of his mouth. It’s him all right, but a younger version – one from before we met. Mac, able to suspend aging and remain young forever by adroit navigation of sequenced ruptures.

We’re not supposed to meet for another 30 years. Mac’s lighter clinks. He takes a meditative drag. But I guess sometime after we do, you begin going in and out of ruptures, running errands for organized crime. The results are…

I know. The ruptures get worse. I wave a hand. And for some reason, they begin swallowing up everything. What I don’t get is why instead of going into the past, everything just vanishes.

Ever heard of string theory? Mac asks.

I shake my head.

It’s the idea that whenever reality comes to a fork in the road – choice A or B – the road splits and two different realities emerge, one where choice A was made and the other where choice B was made. Both realities coexist, travelling parallel but separate paths into the future. These strings are never supposed to meet. And never did. Until the military began experimenting with the Destabilizer.

The ruptures—?

Imagine reality as a series of threads aligned in a woven carpet. Mac holds up his hand, the fingers parallel to give a visual. Keep each straight and taut and the threads work together to create a durable weave. Our ruptures caused the threads to tangle and snarl, fraying the carpet. And the rupture bombs only made it worse. He waggled his fingers then clenched a fist. If that carpet represents the sum of all possible realities in the quantum multi-verse, then it’s become threadbare and is falling apart.