“The future outwits all our certitudes”
The first time was on my birthday, five years ago. Amber had just left me alone for a moment after a lovely day, full of friends and celebration, and I was sitting on our back porch, about to go up after her - a wife who says "I'll be waiting," is an invitation that I had every inclination of accepting. Joshua was already fast asleep, having been tired out by the evening, and so there was little likelihood of interruption.
As I stood up, though, the darkness lit up around me, transforming from a twilight lit by a crescent, low-hanging moon to a brighter, harsher, glaring fluorescent lighting. And the smell - the scent of sterility, of disease and death that is only sometimes kept at bay by chemicals and concoctions, of bleach above it all - invaded my nostrils. If I could've flinched, I would've, but I was rooted to the spot.
As my surroundings brightened, the brightness brought with it shapes, forms, objects - a hospital bed, the beeping of the incessantly invasive machines, the pumps and scopes and carts and drugs, the droning of the TV, the entirety of the terrible medical experience we subject ourselves to.
But the brightness wasn't done - after it formed the bed and the window and the ugly floral curtains and the bathroom - it brought to life people, shapes that stepped into the light and were given face and shape and voice.
My face, younger, with fewer lines but also a corresponding smaller understanding of the world. Amber, in a hospital gown, on the bed, clutching my - the younger me's - hand, and I knew what this was without reading the chart at the edge of the bed. It was the birth of our son, Joshua. There were others there - our friends, Chris and Danielle, Amber's sister, Sarah.
This was just after the birth - I remember her squeezing my hand hard enough that her nails drew blood; I could only imagine what she was going through. It was a relatively easy birth, the doctor said, but Amber told me later that it was hell on earth until the epidural came, and that she almost throttled the doctor for not giving it to her sooner.
Only then did I snap out of the vision enough to wonder how and why this vision was coming to me - but it was also that moment that our son was presented to us for the first time, with an adorable cap on his head, and all memories escaped from my mind but the vision of little Joshua, opening his eyes for the first time to the world.
And then, without further ado, I was back on my porch, my glass of mulled wine still steaming in my hand.
I did what any sensible father would do, I think. I went upstairs and kissed my son on the forehead, and went to bed with my wife.
-
It didn't happen again for months after that, and it got to a point where I was starting to wonder whether it happened at all, or whether I had just imagined it while I was nodding off, a gift from Morpheus himself. I asked Amber if she remembered the day, of course, and she had - at least enough to confirm that the TV was indeed playing Oprah and the curtains had a terribly ugly floral design, though she said that the rest was hazy. And I had seen the picture of Joshua taken shortly after we brought him home, still with that adorable cap on, and it looked very much like the vision that I had seen.
But I was content to put it from my mind, accepting it as a one-time gift from whatever deity may have been to relieve a very special day to me, until it happened again, a few months later. It was an innocuous day, too, which is what was strange to me - Amber had just kissed Joshua on his head and told our boy to go out and make his father proud, and then turned to smile at me. And as I was smiling back, I was transported, again, to that day.
It was a different position - a different vantage point, this time out in front of the nurse's station, and I watched the younger me go into the room, Chris and Danielle wait and then go in after the birth, the nurses kibitz and talk about their other experiences. There was no reason for me to be there, I thought - and no chance that I had even been in that position, observing those people, because I had to have been in the room.
And then, just as last time, I was back in my time and place, and Amber was smiling and I was already smiling back. Again, no time had passed.
After that occurrence, they started happening more frequently - each from a different position, a different moment, some before and some after the birth itself, and I started trying to figure out why. I read the books, of course: the Time Machine, the Time Traveler's Wife, A Connecticut Yankee, Doomsday Book, Slaughterhouse Five, all of them. It was dumb, I know - I was searching for a truth in fiction that could not be found. But even if none of those authors were time travellers, I thought that perhaps I could scour the limits of their imaginations to understand why, why I kept coming to this one place, this one time, this one moment of joy.
But none of them told me anything. I was not a literary figure, on a journey of love and self discovery; I was not Henry DeTamble or Professor James Dunworthy or anyone. I was just me, seeing the moment that my son was born, again and again. Or I was, until the day that Chris and Danielle and Amber and I got lunch, and as Chris poured Amber a cup of coffee, as she laughed at a joke of his and reached out to touch him on the shoulder, I was given another perspective on Joshua's birth.
It was a perspective from just in front of the bed, but my vision was narrowed to just my wife's face; her eyes. I watched as she struggled, I cried with her as her tears came, I imagined the soothing of the epidural, and I waited for the moment of joy as she saw Joshua for the first time.
And I saw it, and it was beautiful, in a way I can not describe. A gift beyond compare.
But I also saw that immediately after she looked at Joshua, she looked up - not at me, beside her, with her, but at Chris. And I see her smile at him, and finally, I think, I understood what I have been told, what these visions mean, and I think you do too. And I am reminded of a story I read once, about a merchant and an alchemist's gate, and I think of those words now: "past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully." In that story, it was a happiness that the past gave; in my story, it is not.
I know my past more fully now, but I do not know what to do - do I stay silent? Do I confront Amber? And if she denies it, how can I say that what I know, I know because of a vision? And at the heart of it all, Joshua is my son; I have raised him, and I love him more than I love anything else in the world. If I had not known, then I would be living life happily. What does knowing change? And yet it is naive to say that it does not change anything; this knowledge casts into doubt everything that has been for the past decade, everything that may be in the future.
I love my son, whether he is mine or not. And I love my wife, in the past, and in the present. But I do not know what the future holds for any of us.
As I stood up, though, the darkness lit up around me, transforming from a twilight lit by a crescent, low-hanging moon to a brighter, harsher, glaring fluorescent lighting. And the smell - the scent of sterility, of disease and death that is only sometimes kept at bay by chemicals and concoctions, of bleach above it all - invaded my nostrils. If I could've flinched, I would've, but I was rooted to the spot.
As my surroundings brightened, the brightness brought with it shapes, forms, objects - a hospital bed, the beeping of the incessantly invasive machines, the pumps and scopes and carts and drugs, the droning of the TV, the entirety of the terrible medical experience we subject ourselves to.
But the brightness wasn't done - after it formed the bed and the window and the ugly floral curtains and the bathroom - it brought to life people, shapes that stepped into the light and were given face and shape and voice.
My face, younger, with fewer lines but also a corresponding smaller understanding of the world. Amber, in a hospital gown, on the bed, clutching my - the younger me's - hand, and I knew what this was without reading the chart at the edge of the bed. It was the birth of our son, Joshua. There were others there - our friends, Chris and Danielle, Amber's sister, Sarah.
This was just after the birth - I remember her squeezing my hand hard enough that her nails drew blood; I could only imagine what she was going through. It was a relatively easy birth, the doctor said, but Amber told me later that it was hell on earth until the epidural came, and that she almost throttled the doctor for not giving it to her sooner.
Only then did I snap out of the vision enough to wonder how and why this vision was coming to me - but it was also that moment that our son was presented to us for the first time, with an adorable cap on his head, and all memories escaped from my mind but the vision of little Joshua, opening his eyes for the first time to the world.
And then, without further ado, I was back on my porch, my glass of mulled wine still steaming in my hand.
I did what any sensible father would do, I think. I went upstairs and kissed my son on the forehead, and went to bed with my wife.
-
It didn't happen again for months after that, and it got to a point where I was starting to wonder whether it happened at all, or whether I had just imagined it while I was nodding off, a gift from Morpheus himself. I asked Amber if she remembered the day, of course, and she had - at least enough to confirm that the TV was indeed playing Oprah and the curtains had a terribly ugly floral design, though she said that the rest was hazy. And I had seen the picture of Joshua taken shortly after we brought him home, still with that adorable cap on, and it looked very much like the vision that I had seen.
But I was content to put it from my mind, accepting it as a one-time gift from whatever deity may have been to relieve a very special day to me, until it happened again, a few months later. It was an innocuous day, too, which is what was strange to me - Amber had just kissed Joshua on his head and told our boy to go out and make his father proud, and then turned to smile at me. And as I was smiling back, I was transported, again, to that day.
It was a different position - a different vantage point, this time out in front of the nurse's station, and I watched the younger me go into the room, Chris and Danielle wait and then go in after the birth, the nurses kibitz and talk about their other experiences. There was no reason for me to be there, I thought - and no chance that I had even been in that position, observing those people, because I had to have been in the room.
And then, just as last time, I was back in my time and place, and Amber was smiling and I was already smiling back. Again, no time had passed.
After that occurrence, they started happening more frequently - each from a different position, a different moment, some before and some after the birth itself, and I started trying to figure out why. I read the books, of course: the Time Machine, the Time Traveler's Wife, A Connecticut Yankee, Doomsday Book, Slaughterhouse Five, all of them. It was dumb, I know - I was searching for a truth in fiction that could not be found. But even if none of those authors were time travellers, I thought that perhaps I could scour the limits of their imaginations to understand why, why I kept coming to this one place, this one time, this one moment of joy.
But none of them told me anything. I was not a literary figure, on a journey of love and self discovery; I was not Henry DeTamble or Professor James Dunworthy or anyone. I was just me, seeing the moment that my son was born, again and again. Or I was, until the day that Chris and Danielle and Amber and I got lunch, and as Chris poured Amber a cup of coffee, as she laughed at a joke of his and reached out to touch him on the shoulder, I was given another perspective on Joshua's birth.
It was a perspective from just in front of the bed, but my vision was narrowed to just my wife's face; her eyes. I watched as she struggled, I cried with her as her tears came, I imagined the soothing of the epidural, and I waited for the moment of joy as she saw Joshua for the first time.
And I saw it, and it was beautiful, in a way I can not describe. A gift beyond compare.
But I also saw that immediately after she looked at Joshua, she looked up - not at me, beside her, with her, but at Chris. And I see her smile at him, and finally, I think, I understood what I have been told, what these visions mean, and I think you do too. And I am reminded of a story I read once, about a merchant and an alchemist's gate, and I think of those words now: "past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully." In that story, it was a happiness that the past gave; in my story, it is not.
I know my past more fully now, but I do not know what to do - do I stay silent? Do I confront Amber? And if she denies it, how can I say that what I know, I know because of a vision? And at the heart of it all, Joshua is my son; I have raised him, and I love him more than I love anything else in the world. If I had not known, then I would be living life happily. What does knowing change? And yet it is naive to say that it does not change anything; this knowledge casts into doubt everything that has been for the past decade, everything that may be in the future.
I love my son, whether he is mine or not. And I love my wife, in the past, and in the present. But I do not know what the future holds for any of us.