“Anna. Anna, hey, now, Anna, get up,” my eyes open to see Jack’s face about a foot away from mine. He is gently shaking my shoulder and calling my name.
“What happened?” I ask, sitting up.
“I am not really sure… you were just sitting there, eating my Jiffy, and then the next moment you were passed out on the couch. You look terrible, like you have just seen a ghost. Are you alright?”
I nod, deciding that sometimes the truth should not always be told, “I am fine, just a little dizzy. Give me a beer.”
He chuckles, “no. Rule number one of time travel is no alcoholics. It just makes everything very confusing and surreal. I am sure you understand. So we will not be going anywhere for awhile – not until I have a reasonable amount of conviction that you are capable of remaining sober. Right now, I have no reason to believe that I won’t catch you with a water bottle full of vodka when we are halfway to a different dimension. Between dimensions is a very bad time for anything to go wrong. I don’t need any liabilities.”
“Okay, first, who said I am going to go anywhere with you? Second, what makes you think that I have any interest whatsoever in sobering up?”
“Well, first, you did not say yes, that much is true. But I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice, feel it in your smile, there is no way you would say no to an adventure like this, even if you are afraid I’m some madman just escaped from the loony bin, you are curious. Second, I will not take you with me if you don’t, so you really are out of options.”
I work through this in my head, trying to process it in a reasonable amount of time. Am I really going to trust this man? Perhaps not even trust, just… follow? Am I really the type of girl who would throw away any last trace of sanity to go after pipe dreams and crazy wishes? Even if it may all pan out to be falsehood in the end, after all? Would I risk that?
And even if I would, am I really all that much of an adventurer, or am I just somehow getting dragged along on some crazy adventure that I have no inclination or desire to be a part of? Maybe I haven’t got it in me? Maybe I am not all that much of an adventurer, maybe I’m nothing more than a dreamer. I voice this idea.
He smiles, slowly, then stronger, and chuckles a little bit, “Is there any difference, Anna? See, there are some people who think that they are dreamers, they think they are imaginers and creators. Really, though, they aren’t. See, because they see their dreams and thoughts and say “that could never happen.” Dreamers, real dreamers, they’re like you. They chase things like this,” he waves the map in the air, “for years, knowing that they could be more than a little crazy, knowing that it may lead nowhere, knowing that there is actually a good probability that they are wasting their lives and losing their minds, but they chase it anyways. They dream about it. Eat it, sleep it, dream it. They’re obsessed, Anna,” he joins me on the couch, “it’s never about what things are, but about what they could be. And whether or not you’re willing to risk your entire life: health, safety, sanity, friends, family, reputation, education: all of that, just for what could be. And you’re going to risk it, Anna. I know that you will.”
“What if I don’t?”
“That’s a silly question.”
“Not really. It’s a legitimate point.”
“Really, then, I’ll explain what will happen,” he runs his fingers through his slightly-too-long hair and leans back, a smug expression on his face, and motions toward the map, “I will give that back to you. You will go home. You’ll fall asleep. You’ll decide that it is time to grow up and put behind you all this silly chasing. You’ll be chasing again within two weeks, and every time you do, you will hate yourself a little more for still believing, still hoping. You will start searching less and less, stop dreaming, and eventually you will grow up. The note will be lost, the chases abandoned, and me, I’ll be forgotten. You will grow up, marry a respectable man, live in a nice house, maybe have two or three little ones, not because that is the type of life that you want, but because that is just the type of life that people have when they grow up.
“You will forget all about any silly things you did when you were young. If you remember, you will just laugh at them, say those were your wild days, chasing after something meaningless. Deep down inside, though, you will know. You’ll know, you’ll have that doubt buried somewhere in the back of your mind; nagging, never stopping, never leaving you alone or giving you even a moment’s rest. You’ll have that voice in the back of your mind. And that voice will be mine. And it will be telling you that you gave up what would have easily been the most meaningful thing in all reality. You will ignore it, though, brush it off, because that is what people do when they grow up. You’ll say that all grown-ups have regrets, that is how you will justify it to yourself. Maybe some days, when you’re all alone, when the kids have grown up and left home and your husband is away at work, you will wonder whatever happened to that map. Maybe you’ll walk around town for awhile, trying to grasp or remember something that you let go of a long time ago.
“You will die a rather mediocre sort of death. It will be of old age, doubtless, in some horrible metal hospital bed, surrounded by family and friends. You will be happy, I think, a little. You will have lived a good life by any man’s standards. But you will know, there in your last moments, that was not a death meant for you. You were meant for more than that. You’ll have a nice funeral, many people will mourn your death. Perhaps a young man with very blue eyes will show up to see you lowered into the ground, just to mourn a life that never really got a chance to be lived.” He sighs, “anyways, that is what I imagine would happen.”
I frown at his arrogance, but the effort is halfhearted. I think about his words. It would not be a bad life, by any means, and very likely he is right: it is the type of life I would be likely to lead. But everything in me is revolted by the idea of being average. My heart refuses to wrap itself around the idea that the world may be no bigger than living a pleasant, boring life and dying a nice, unremarkable death. Everything in me screams that there has to be something more than that. Something bigger, stronger, more powerful.
It occurs to me that I have not spoken for several minutes, I look up to his unwavering blue eyes, looking at me expectantly, “and if I do go with you?”
A grin twists onto his face, crinkling his nose and lighting up his eyes, “if you go with me… you will see things you never even dreamed were possible. You’ll do the things of legends. You’ll watch the world change, and maybe be the one to change it. There’s no possible way I can outline this kind of life for you, because it is completely beyond fitting into some nice, stringent kind of outline. Life – real life… real, awesome life, anyways, never seems to fit into boxes or anything like that. I’m not sure what your life will look like. It could be amazing and fabulous and filled with fun and joy, and it could be terrible. You could end up alone, in pain, and dyinga t a young age. In my opinion, it’s worth it. I mean, you could just exist through life and have a nice, safe existence, at that, and die a sweet death. Or you could actually live your life and risk the fact that reality could be completely awful. Pain is worth it.”
“I would rather less pain and just have a pretty good life.”
“That is a lie.”
“Yeah,” I admit, “it is. So I guess I’m all in on this now? So what do I do, where do I sign up for the loopy bin?”
“You have got to get sober.”
“I’m not going to AA.”
“Neither am I.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I,” he shrugs, “I’m a bartender, you think I don’t drink?”
“Good point. So you’re an alcoholic, too?”
“No. I drink, but I’m not an alcoholic. But I will be quitting drinking altogether. It just really doesn’t help with anything, you know?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You look tired. Why don’t we meet again tomorrow? Oh, but you have school, don’t you?”
“I don’t even know. I am pretty sure I dropped out.”
“Oh, alright then. Why don’t you just come back tomorrow, then? Same bat time, same bat channel.”
“Did you really just reference superheroes?”
“Superhero. Batman. Big difference, no plurals.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Do you want me to call a cab for you or will you be taking the train?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s a little bit late for a young lady to be out walking by herself in this part of town.”
“It’s a bit presumptuous for you to think I can’t take care of myself.”
“See, that point would hold a lot more weight if we had not met by me finding you passed out in an alleyway behind a bar. Let me call a cab for you, it’s on me.”
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