Thanks? Or No Thanks? Epilogue, 15 years later, June 2039

“Allison Grace,” my mother exclaimed more than once in complete exasperation, “whatever am I going to do with you? You’re just a hypercharged hummingbird, buzzing from one thing to another, never satisfied. Can’t you ever leave well enough alone?”

She was right, of course. And I tried to tame my restlessness and settle down. I really did.

The timeline I landed in with the help of Joel and Aline and their hypnotic helmet was almost perfect. I left the annoying drudgery of my customer care call centre position behind and started working with an interior decorator, selling custom window treatments. I enjoyed it so much that I started taking courses in interior decoration. One thing led to another, and I built up my own business. I actually have a backlog of prospective clients waiting to have their homes transformed.

I started dating after Stewart 3.0 re-married, but never found what I was looking for in a long-term relationship. I couldn’t completely relax with anyone who didn’t understand temporal displacement.  But it went deeper than that. I am still pining after Stewart 2.0. His grief and loyalty re-opened a part of me that I thought was dead. The memory of his head on my chest still gives me goose bumps. I shouldn’t have left him without saying good-bye, without trying to explain.  In my dreams, I meet him again on another time line that is ideal for both of us.

My attempts to locate Joel and Aline have turned up no clues. The Internet search engines came up with nothing useful regarding timelines, time paradoxes, timeline dilemmas, or temporal displacement. 

I made the best of my situation, built my career, and raised my three children. I was grateful every day for Drew’s presence in my life, so much so that Jerry and Emma complained that he could get whatever he wanted by making his trademark puppy dog eyes. I told them that was to be expected with the baby of the family, feeling like a hypocritical liar. There was no way to explain the miracle of recovering a child after a miscarriage.

Despite my good intentions and earnest efforts to be grateful, I was haunted by questions. Was I really where I was supposed to be? Was this my forever home base, or was there something more, just out of my reach? There were many times that I was tempted to retrieve my amulet and reach out for another adventure. The only thing that held me back was that I dreaded the thought of losing my children again.

The kids are living their own lives now. Emma is a landscaper in Japan. She married and had a baby, Lisa. We have met online, but never in person. Jerry is an engineer, always on the move, somewhere in the USA right now, I think. Drew and his puppy dog eyes became an ESL teacher in Colombia. We all have good intentions of getting together again, but our schedules never mesh.

Without my older brother, Jeremy, I would have been unbearably lonely. But he always included me in his special family occasions, and made sure that Aunt Allison got the appropriate attention. After his wife Linda died and his children left home, we became closer than most married couples. Not a day went by without connecting with each other, even if it was just a silly joke in a text message.

I was completely blindsided by Jeffrey’s accident. Operating a motor vehicle is the most dangerous thing most of us will ever do, but we forget that and carry on blissfully unaware how easily something can go wrong.

Jeremy spent three weeks in hospital with a broken back and a dozen other injuries. The medical staff kept making hopeful noises, but it was obvious that he could never live independently. Two weeks after he was transferred to rehab, he succumbed to a virus donated by a visitor who didn’t believe in hand sanitizing or masking.

His funeral is two days from now. I don’t want to go. I can’t say good-bye.

While Jeremy was still in hospital, I retrieved the amulet from my safety deposit box and started wearing it around the clock, visualizing a kinder world. No results so far. Not even a tiny transition. I decide to dig the helmet out of its hiding place in the closet. I know I’m playing time line roulette, but I need to escape.

After some time on my phone charger, the helmet comes to life. I wonder if I should try to adjust the settings. I have no idea what this piece of tech can do, or whether it was altered by its jump to this timeline. If I had any common sense, I’d forget all about it and make the best of what I have.  But my only faithful friend is loneliness, and I would rather die than be stuck here.

I put the helmet on after I’m settled in bed, and flick the ON switch. Five hours later, I wake up. The helmet has finished its cycle and is as still as death. I pull flip up the face plate. Everything in my room looks the same.

I wander around the house, looking for clues. After forty-five minutes, I come to the conclusion that I am exactly where I was before. Jeremy’s obituary is still in the paper, word for word, unchanged. His funeral is tomorrow.

I go back to bed, pull down the faceplate of the helmet, and turn it on. I have no idea if a double dose is safe, but I don’t care.

When I wake up again, sunshine is spearing through the lace curtains of the bedroom. I’m still wearing my amulet, but there is no sign of the helmet. I am ready to cry with relief.
 
A retro-looking blue gingham dress is draped over the chair beside my bed, along with some strangely constructed underwear and a pair of sandals. I haven’t worn a dress for a long time, but everything fits perfectly, and the sandals are the most comfortable footwear I have ever worn.
The bathroom is still in its usual place. It lights up automatically when I approach. The bathtub is missing, replaced by a cylindrical cabinet. I peek inside and see a seat, but no sign of a shower head. Clearly, I have a lot to learn.

Using the toilet is like sitting on a vacuum cleaner. I’m suctioned, sprayed, and dried with relentless efficiency, leaving me wide-eyed and giggling nervously. Does the bathroom come with a user manual!

There is no staircase, just a barrier to keep me from tumbling to the ground floor. When I step up to it to assess the situation, a door closes behind me. A lever on the barrier starts flashing. I slide it down, and descend gently. The barrier retracts, and I step into the intersection of the kitchen, living room, and entry hall.

The kitchen has no stove or fridge.  One wall is covered with an array of doors of different sizes, dials, switches, and buttons. A large shelf protrudes from the opposite wall, with a chair on either side. A single exquisite rose in a bud vase invites me to sit down and admire it. I wish I knew how to make coffee.  Does coffee even exists in this time-line? Breakfast will have to wait.

The living room shocks me with its simplicity. The walls are off white, with no windows or artwork. There are no light switches, no television, no bookcases. A futuristic version of a rolltop desk sits against the wall, paired with a kneeling chair. A love seat and two arm chairs sit in horseshoe formation around a marble coffee table. There is none of the usual clutter that makes a place look lived-in.  The previous version of me must be an incredible neat freak.

I sit down on one of the chairs. It instantly adjusts to my body, inviting me to relax. When I lean back, a footrest emerges and lifts my feet to just the right angle. I sigh happily. At last, furniture that understands me!

I notice a control panel on the arm of the chair – a lever similar to the one on the elevator, and nine push buttons. When I move the lever, the light in the room brightens and fades accordingly. 

“Piece of cake,” I reassure myself. “It’s not rocket science. I’ll figure things out, one step at a time.”

I push one of the buttons. The wall and floor melt and I am in an exquisite Japanese garden, with a waterfall, birdsong, and faint flute music in the background. I close my eyes and let myself drift into beauty.

“No!” I tell myself sternly. I need to get moving. I have to find Jeremy.

Turning the garden off is more complex than turning it on, but I manage, with detours through a seascape, a jungle, a mountain village and an enormous concert hall. The chair senses my urgency and pushes me to my feet.

I cross to the entry hall and open the front door.

I am greeted by a world I could never have imagined. The brightly-coloured houses on each side of the street are fitted together like the pieces of a tetris puzzle, topped by solar panels and rooftop gardens. There is greenery everywhere I look.

The street is split in half by islands of trees and benches and graceful sculptures. There are wide sidewalks for foot traffic. Busy traffic streams in both directions.

There are no cars.

I stare at the traffic, expecting motor vehicles to appear. But all I see is bicycles, tricycles, unicycles, and elongated bikes that accommodate two to sixteen people. One two-seater resembles a carriage. Everything is pedal powered, even the handful of machines flying overhead with rotors that resemble giant screws.

I shake my head. This can’t be real. It must be some sort of special retro festival. 

I step inside and find a door that leads to a garage. It contains two standard bikes, a trishaw, and a tricycle with wide tires and a transparent enclosure for the rider. There is lots of space left for storage cupboards. I haven’t ridden a bike for years, and hope that my current body remembers how. I wonder if there is some sort of transportation service that I can call for help.

I finally locate Jeremy on the back deck, facing a beautiful mountain view. He is sitting on a wheel chair beside a small round table, drinking from his favourite Star Rider mug. I want to hug him silly, but decide on a more subtle approach.

“Hi, Champ,” I say, as casually as I can.

His face splits with his huge trade-mark grin. “Hello, Al. I thought you’d gone to work.”

Oh shit. I have a job, and I’m supposed to be there.

“I took the day off,” I say. “I want to spend some time with you.”

“No need. I’m managing fine. That guy you hired – Stewart – does a good job. I think he’s sweet on you.”

“That’s crazy. I’m too old for that stuff.”

“Nobody’s too old for a good romance.  He keeps asking me questions about you, and I keep telling him that you’re the person with the answers. You should ask him to have dinner with you somewhere nice. Strictly business, of course, to talk about the needs of your disabled brother.”

“Do you know anything about internal combustion engines?” I ask, just to change the subject.

Jeremy snorts. “The ICE? Haven’t you seen the prototypes in the museum? Some guy named Ford developed it over a hundred years ago. It didn’t catch on.”

“Why not? There are so many applications. Agriculture, manufacturing, rapid transit …”

“Noise. Pollution. And they run on non-renewable fossil fuels.” He raises a quizzical eyebrow. “Good grief, Alli – didn’t your kids bring this information home from school?”

“I guess I had my mind on other things …”  My voice trails off, and I sit down facing him. There are so many questions I want to ask, but I don’t want to startle him. Not yet.

“Look at that!” Jeffrey exclaims, looking at my throat. “Great minds think alike!” He unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt, exposing the twin of
my amulet on his chest.

“Wow!”  I say, my pulse quickening. “Where did you get that?”

“At the Magical Market. That was one of the better Easy Living outings.”

“Did the seller have more of them?” I ask.  
 
“Oh yes. All shapes and sizes and colours. The lady had a witchy look. She told me that this particular one would make my wishes come true.”

“Did it?”

He smiles. “It's just superstition, but you know … sometimes I almost believe that there is some sort of mystical power at work. What I wanted most in the world was for you to take care of me instead of dumping me in a care home. I was afraid to ask you because I thought it would drive you away. You absolutely refused to visit Mom and Dad after they were institutionalized. You said it made you sick to be around sick people.”

My eyes start to burn. On my former time line, I never had the chance to be a dutiful caregiving daughter. Dad died during cancer surgery and Mom had a heart attack two months later.

Jeffrey gazes at me with wonder in my eyes. “Two days after I got the amulet, you showed up and offered to take care of me. Just like that. You renoed the house and even designed new environments for me.” He picks up a remote and clicks it. The mountains are replaced by a herd of horses grazing in a clearing. “This is my favourite. I could watch them all day. It was a stroke of genius to tie it into the observation camera at the Alder Wilderness Preserve.” He reaches across the table and takes my hand, tears in his eyes. “Thank you. I’m never lonely now.”

I am choking with emotion. “People change,” I manage to say. “I am sorry the old me wasn’t kinder.”

My head is spinning with possibilities. Will two amulets provide double the transfer power? Can Jeremy and I jump together to a timeline where he wasn’t injured? Can we acquire more amulets?

I feel more alive than I have for years. I am no longer mired in the quicksand of predictability. The rest of my life will be an adventure, a roller coaster learning curve.

Jeffrey tilts back his head, staring into the sky. “I wish—“ he begins.

I jump up and put a warning finger over his mouth. “Don’t wish for anything,” I command. “Not yet. Hear me out first. Then we can make some serious plans.”