"Where did you even find this? When you went for a wee, or what?" She shakes her head. "This cannot be real, David, don't be stupid!"
She is still beautiful. Even now that she wrinkles her nose and looks at him, as if he were a madman.
"I found it right there." He points into the distance. "At the river bend, where we first… Well, you know what I mean."
A madman, he is not, but too embarrassed to finish his sentence, and she is embarrassed for him, because she has never pictured herself with anyone this uptight. Her eyes slip over him, as if they were a summer breeze, fresh and vivid enough to wake him up.
"What if it is real, though?" He asks, turning the piece of paper in his hand. "And what if what is happening out there right now is exactly this, all over again?"
Those are one too many 'what if's` for her taste. She cannot take him seriously, and to be honest, she never has taken him that. He would always be too caught up in his own world for her to still even want to understand him, which is why the twists and turns of his mind don't make sense to her.
"Well, what are you saying?" She asks half-heartedly, remembering the last 'what if' that he has thrown at her.
What if the rumours are true, and you are sleeping with Daniel?
Well, she was, but innocent until proven guilty, and back then, his what if eventually worked in her favour.
"Do you seriously want me to believe this is a message from the future?"
She nudges him and he is blushing, as her touch never fails to light him on fire. Unfortunately, not even biting flames can distract him from the thought that starts eating through his brain.
"Not from the future," he shakes his head."The opposite, actually."
The birch tree high above him throws autumn leaves on top of him, as if it is trying to bury him alive.
"I read about this a few years ago," he adds. "About the possibility that this world is way older than we have been told. Not sure, but wasn't it the Mayan who assumed that society hit uncountable breaking points throughout billions or trillions of years? Meaning, it got completely wiped out thousands of times before, and reemerged from bacteria?"
Usually, when he would get this way, she would shut him up with a kiss, bite his still moving lips until they would turn numb, and run her fingers down his neck, until he would surrender. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked for quite a while. To be accurate, it hasn't ever since the last big crisis. The one out there, and the one of their own.
"You get that there are way too many lunatics out there at the moment, who are trying to instrumentalise stupid theories like this to convince the crowds of their fanatic point of view, right?"
Jesus, what is she thinking to even engage in this sort of conversation?
All of a sudden, she misses Dan, who couldn't have been any less interested in talking. A quiet place to flee to, whenever the world around and her own husband would get too loud for her. That is what Dan has always been to her. She should have tried to hang on to him, rather than letting him go in an attempt to save her marriage to a guy who has clearly lost his mind.
"I haven't lost my mind, alright?" He gets defensive now.
On their way down, even the birch leaves seem to avoid him.
"Of course I know that there is a whole lot of misinformation in circulation out there at the moment, but that doesn't mean that this message can't be genuine. I mean, how would if help anyone if I´m made to believe this stuff,?"
She is the person to whom it will certainly be least of all helpful, that he does, in fact, believe it. Despite it, tongue-tied, she only bites her lips, and decides to let it go. To be fair, at this very moment she thinks about letting him go just as well, and sooner or later, she will, three months pregnant , which is going to be how her story will start and end. However, she doesn't know about it yet, and even if she knew, it wouldn't change the shape of things to come.
She looks down her nose, as if she can foresee it, when in reality she cannot see a thing. What moves her features, is only the stench that mists her with the next gust of wind.
"Just wondering, why do we come here every day? Aren't there nicer places out there, than the public toilets that we keep leaning against? The smell!"
If she saw anything at all, she would notice what he notices. A field of flowers, delicate, but blossoming, and for some reasonm the grass is greener here, fuller, sturdier than anywhere else. His mouth opens, like he wants to say it, and he would, if it weren't for the silence, so cosy and warm that, eventually, he says nothing at all.
Gritting his teeth, he starts cuddling up to the lack of words, and wonders if he will ever be happy with her, who never sees a thing. What he is overlooking is the future that, from where they are sitting, cannot be seen at all. At least one of them will not have one, and the question of whether they could ever be happy together will, therefore, resolve itself.
"What if we were going to go away?" She murmurs, thinking the same thoughts that he is thinking. "To a place that no one can find us in?"
Oh, right, and what place would that be?
He's painfully aware that even on the moon they would be found these days. Once you are documented, they are constantly tracking you. All the time, and you don´t even notice. Maybe that is why he doesn't bother to give her more than the public toilets, and perhaps it is as well the very reason why they will never work together. They will not because of the public toilets, and the world out there, and the moon above, and the others, because it is always easier to blame the circumstances for something that is failing.
She knows that what they have won't last, was never supposed to last, and never meant to be, and he knows that the same goes for humanity. However, it is hard to confess that things, which used to be and are presently are not going to have a future.
"What are you going to do with this now? With the message, I mean?" She wants to know, but could really not be less interested the answer, because as soon as you know about a thing, you won't ever get to unknow it.
When David will find out what he will discover, he will wish to unknow everything he has ever learned, but what he will never get to forget for the rest of his life is that everything he has ever known is an illusion.
He doesn't know anything about it yet and could consider himself lucky. Instead, he looks at her disapprovingly and shrugs, a sigh on his lips.
"Don't know. This isn't even everything, there was more."
He swallows down the rest of his words, as if they were a chewed out chewing gum that feels like a stone in his stomach later on.
Could she even take any more?
According to her frowning forehead, she cannot, and even if she could, you cannot tell people about things that you don't yet know anything about yourself. To be honest, he is not sure what he is supposed to make of everything he found. An USB-device with a whole lot of data, encrypted and, according to the guy he gave it to, impossible to decrypt.
"With our technical methods," they told David, "we will not get into it in a hundred years!"
Wait for it, pretty much in exactly 100 years the technical methods will allow it, but that would be anticipating things.
If she knew about the encrypted device, she would probably only think of one thing, Daniel, the only IT-person she has ever known. He has a degree, summa cum laude, from Washington State University, one of the most prestigious colleges for information technology. He even acquired a professorship in computer security and has worked as a cryptographer for the authorities.
Far ahead of his time, they used to call him during his college years. How far exactly, nobody has ever defined, and it wouldn't matter much, as long as nobody knows what the future holds. Now, however, that the message in the bottle claims to know exactly what is going to come, it starts mattering.
For David personally, knowing about it could matter more than anything else ever has. In order to find out about it, however, he will first have to discover what he currently doesn't know. That the rumours are true and his wife used to cheat on him with Daniel. He doesn't even know him, after those rumours absolutely doesn't want to get to know him, and would probably never meet him, if she weren't going to leave him for the man, sooner or later. Actually, sooner, rather than later. That is, in a few more days, to be precise.
David is sitting at the kitchen table when it happens. The coffee is still steaming, a knock at the door, and there he is standing. To him a stranger and to his wife a quiet place to flee to. Which is what she does, as soon as she sees him. She rushes down the stairs, suitcase in hand, and flees into his arms. Afterwards, into his car, after which the engine starts, and when David stumbles back towards the kitchen, the coffee steam is gone, and so is she. For the next while, at least.
He doesn't see her, doesn't hear from her, doesn't think of her for a couple of heavenly quiet weeks. The next time that her name crosses his mind it rolls off the pinched, which a police officer faces him with on the threshold of his half open door.
"Her partner reported her missing 48 hours ago," he says. "Any idea where she could be?"
No, thank God, David has not. For all he knows, she could be in someone else's bed, gone to jail for robbery, or gone away to torture the innocent. She has never been a good person. The opposite, in fact, and he should have never been good to her. A grim realisation, and after all those years useless. It really doesn't help a thing.
If he had only seen it earlier!
If only he had been able to foresee the future!
What would it have changed? Well, everything, perhaps, or nothing.
In what way does the future change as soon as someone knows what it will bring, and who is ever going to answer this question?
At this very moment, David isn't trying to answer it. What he is trying to do, instead, still on the threshold, is getting rid of the police, so he can finally return to his peaceful world, where a message in the bottle is still waiting to be figured out.
"Why are you even asking me about her?" He grows impatient. "Just ask Daniel, or whatever his name is. I haven't seen her in weeks. Ever since she ditched me for him, to be accurate."
The response to this statement couldn't be more depressing, "We have spoken to her partner already, we asked him where she likes to go when she panics, and he said you would know best."
"When she panics? We have been married for five years but I've never seen her in panic. What would she even feel panic about?"
It is certainly something stupid. The size of her dress, a new wrinkle on her forehead or the latest number on the scales.
"It is quite private," the officer replies. "But since you are still her husband… Well, apparently, her partner found a pregnancy test in the bin. Positive."
Shock reaction is an awkward thing. It hits you out of nowhere, and what you would do thereafter, depends on who you are deep inside. David has been a thinker for all his life. He has never been the one for emotional reactions, and when a shock reaction would hit him, he would usually flee into the twists and turns of his winding mind. Just like he is doing now.
She never wanted children!
That's all he can think of, and neither did he. However, his reasons why differed tremendously from hers. Overpopulation, pollution, dying planet.
What a horrendous future for a child, and what disaster for the world if he burdened it with yet another polluter!
Compared to his, her reasons were rather seflish. No interest in taking responsibility, the constant need for self-fulfilment, and everything else to do with her narcicissm.
"I think I know where she is," he suddenly whispers. "She´s gone for an abortion."
Would he want her to get one if it were his child?
Oh, Jesus: could it be his?
He doesn't ask the officer any of this, but secretly tries to answer it himself. For the next few minutes, hours, days, but on his walk through his own mind he doesn't seem to find a thing. Three days later, his initial state of shock. subsides and he feels safe enough to crawl out of his head again. Only, where to go from there, he hasn´t decided yet.
The rattling door bell decides it for him, he isn´t going anywhere. Apparently, his presence is required here. When he opens the door, he finds the same face in front of him that took away his wife.
He wipes his eyes.
Is this supposed to be a joke?
No, unfortunately, it is not. The person before him really is Daniel. A bit of an awkward situation, if he weren't the one and only who holds the answers to David's most pressing questions.
"Sorry for dropping by like this," he says. "But I think we need to talk."
He has no idea how right he is, and David doesn't, either. For a while, he thinks about punching him in the face, closing the door into his face, or turning his own face away.
What would facing a man who has caused him nothing but trouble even help?
"I didn't stop by to cause any trouble," he hears him say. "But we need to talk about the pregnancy."
David didn't expect to ever have to hear this sentence. Especially not, coming from a nearly 50 year old man.
"Alright," he nods despite it, and even though conversations like this aren't threshold conversations, he decides to handle the matter here and now.
"It can't really be mine. I mean, lately we haven't really often been... Well, you know what I mean."
No, Dan doesn't really seem to know, because he doesn´t understand the cryptic statements an uptight person wraps up sex in, like a secret present.
"Well, to be honest...," he replies. "What I came here to tell you is…"
He lowers his voice, afraid that the neighbours could hear them.
"Look, it is definitely not mine. I cannot have any."
David cannot have any, either. Physically, he could, but mentally he cannot bring himself to picture it. Not even now that Dan's words are its writing on the wall, for everyone to see.
"She won't be having it, anyway," he says, as if to convince himself of it, so he won't have to picture anything. "You realise that this is where she went, right? I mean, I'm sure she will be back as soon as it is taken care of..."
Saying it, he sounds completely unemotional. You could be fooled to think that he is the bad person, not her. To fool Dan, however, is hard. Ever since his sociopathic father went to prison, he has been reading up on psychology books, which is why reads people, like others read gossip magazines these days, no concentration needed!
His eyes crawl through the front yard of David's house, through mud that is cramped with old pieces of furniture, and pick up a piece of pity on their way back.
"Listen, David, I know that you don't want to consider this a possibility, but… What if something happened to her?"
So what? It would certainly not make her a better person!
Something strange happens when terrible things happen to terrible people you know. They can be the worst in the world, and you would still not say it afterwards anymore. Everything bad that they have ever done would just get barred from your mind, like a troublemaker from a late night pub, and what remains are only the things that make them look like saints.
Could that be the reason why Dan's face looks tense now, all at once? His eyes turn red and his lips twist, like startled snakes. He looks like he is about to shed a silent tear or two. Over someone who has never been a decent person and won't ever be, not even when she reappears.
David gives a sigh and slides his feet back from the door - it is wide open now - so as to invite Daniel inside.
"If you want to talk…," he says faster than he can actually think it through.
The next thing he knows is, they are sitting over steaming coffee in his messy kitchen.
He didn't expect anyone this evening. He didn't clean up, didn't do the dishes, and what he would never have thought of doing is closing the laptop on the table. The impossible to decrypt USB-device is still connected to it. Not really knowing Daniel, how could David have expected that it would instantly catch his eye?
The kettle is screeching. like a tortured cat, when Dan's glances break down on top of it, as if they were a patient with a heart attack. David is waiting for the water to cool off a bit, before he brings the coffee to the table. Meanwhile, Dan keeps his glances glued to the device, and once the cup in front of him stops steaming, the red has fallen out of his eyes to make room for fascination.
"Where did you get that? I haven't seen an impossible-to-break-into divice like this in my entire life."
Whichever way David would answer this question, it would make him sound insane.
But why would he care what a man like Dan considers him?
"The people I asked to decrypt it said the same," he murmurs, unaware that he should have rather asked Dan to break into it.
The look on his face seems to beg for it, when he starts shrugging.
"I wouldn't mind to give it a go."
It would only distract him from the thought that something terrible might have happened. At least, that is what he thinks, when he is offering. Once he will decrypt it, however, the word terrible will gain a whole new dimension.