to warn myself?
No, because I hadn't let the bets go that far.)
     Then, if he was me . . . there  really was only  one of me! He would go
back to the future my future, our future with his memories, but
     But  if his memories were different than mine, how could we be the same
person?
     So the question  was still unanswered: Where was  the Don I had gone to
the races with? The one  who had  worn a sweater and  slacks and bet only  a
hundred dollars? Where was my good sport jacket?!!
     Danny showed  up  then, he  was  giddy  and  excited like he'd invented
money. He waved the check at me. "You want to see it?"
     I took it thoughtfully and looked. I took my check out of my pocket and
compared them they were not identical. The check number on Danny's was lower
and the signatures were not quite the same.
     Of course, how could they be identical? We were
     leaving earlier in the day after a different set of bets. The
     situations were not the same why should the checks
     be?
     Then, this  check I was carrying it was no longer any good, it was from
a world that no longer existed.
     And it  was  the  same  situation with  the disappearing Don; he was  a
canceled check in this world, wasn't he?
     But the canceled check hadn't disappeared. I still had it.
     (I remembered myself asking if we could cash them both.)
     I'd been fooled once  by the illusion of the duplicated check, but this
time the check had been duplicated!
     And  if I could duplicate  the check,  then couldn't I have  duplicated
myself?
     There was another side to it too.
     I'd already eliminated  two  possible futures:  the  one where I'd worn
slacks and a sweater and the one where I'd won a million and a half dollars.
     As far as I knew, both of  those Dons had  ceased to exist  along  with
their futures. Neither seemed to be still around.
     And if I could eliminate them
     what was to keep some other Dan from eliminating me?
     Perhaps even now
     * * *
     No. There must be something I was misunderstanding.
     Danny  drove. He  babbled  incessantly; he was like a schoolgirl. But I
wasn't listening anyway. I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts.
     I knew there was an answer.
     There had to be.
     For one thing, paradoxes were supposed to be impossible.
     Oh, sure, I  know time  travel makes the most horrendous  of  paradoxes
possible,  even probable;  but that's just  not  so.  A  paradox would be  a
violation of the laws  of nature. By definition, they're the laws of nature.
And inviolable.
     Therefore, paradoxes are impossible.
     Because if paradoxes were  possible, then time travel would have to  be
impossible otherwise, we'd have people killing their  grandfathers right and
left. We'd have people seducing their  mothers  or kidnapping their fathers.
We'd have time  travelers killing  the inventors of time machines. We'd have
all  manner of anachronisms and flukes, and  the  laws  of  nature  would be
violated in so many different ways, it would take the  invention  of a whole
new science to catalog them all.
     But time travel was possible. I had proved it myself
     So paradoxes were impossible.
     It sounded  all very  neat  when  I explained  it to myself  that  way.
Paradoxes had to be impossible; therefore,  they were.  Everything could  be
worked out logically
     Then,  dammit,  why couldn't  I  work  this one out? If this  wasn't  a
paradox, it was still way ahead of whatever was in second place.
     * * *
     All right.  Let's assume that paradoxes are impossible then where do  I
go from here?
     The  checks, for instance. Obviously, Danny's check  was  the good one,
the  one  we  would have  to cash  in order to collect our winnings. But the
question was how?
     Should I  take it forward with me into  the future? But then what would
Danny  have to show himself when he  was  Don? (Of course, I hadn't  made  a
point of  comparing  the checks  this time around, had I?) But if  I left it
here in the past, how would I get it in the future?
     My check shouldn't exist. It was  from a canceled world.  Danny's check
was  the only valid one here because I had  done things differently from the
way they had originally occurred. If I had done things the way Don had done,
I would have had the "duplicate" of Danny's check.
     But  I hadn't. I  had  tampered with the  timestream and  didn't have a
valid check at all. And that meant that I was a canceled check too.
     Because whatever I did now, this Danny when he became Don and went back
in time would not do exactly the same as me. It would be impossible for  him
to do so. Just  as I had  eliminated  the Don  preceding  me, this Danny was
going to eliminate the Don preceding him me!
     Did I still exist?
     Was I about to wink out?
     Was it just a matter of time?
     Yes of course it was a matter of time. Ha, ha. The joke's on me.
     No, this couldn't be right;  I was thinking  in  paradoxes again. After
all, I was here and  alive I  was me. I hadn't eliminated  Don at all. I had
become him and done things differently, that's all.
     Sure but  I still couldn't stop asking myself what had become of my Don
who had done things the other way and the Don who had given me the newspaper
and told me not to be so greedy. ("Forget about them you simply won't become
them, that's all," I told myself. "How would you know?" I answered.)
     Let's see . . . there must be a way to figure this out.
     Danny had to go back in time and become Don to his Dan.
     If he takes his check back with  him, I won't have it to  cash. On  the
other hand, if I take it  forward with me, he won't have a check to show his
Danny. (He'll be changing the timestream, just like me. Unless )
     What if I gave Danny the false check to take back with  him? Would that
undo the damage? Or would it just make it worse?
     My mind began to boggle.
     But  it  was the answer, of  course. This Danny  would  become  my Don!
That's why his check would match mine when he went back to meet me (and he'd
test  to see  if  he  could change the past too!  He'd try wearing different
clothes than me: the slacks and sweater!)
     And I'd still end up with the money!
     Yes, of course. It had to be the answer.
     I'd been sitting and staring at the checks for the past ten miles.  Now
I handed  Danny the false one and he slipped it into his pocket without even
looking at it. (Ha-ha! I cackled gleefully to myself.)
     I realized Danny was  saying something: "  what happens now? Do you  go
back to your time?
     I  grinned at him. "Not yet.  First we  go out to celebrate. Like  rich
people."
     This time, I won the argument over who was "gating
     to use the bathroom first. I don't mind sharing my razor,
     but at least I ought to get the first shave off a new blade.
     Danny seemed a little bothered by the pseudo-intimacy
     of us  both  dressing out  of the same closet, so I compromised and let
him  wear  the  red sports jacket.  While he showered,  I  reset my belt and
flipped back  to morning,  phoned  The Restaurant and made reservations  for
two,  then flashed  forward  again, appearing  at  the exact  instant  I had
disappeared and in the same spot. The  air  hadn't even had time to rush in.
(That was one way to minimize the jump-shock.)
     It was at The Restaurant that I began to realize what Don had meant the
night before and why he had said what he did. Danny looked  so ... innocent.
So unprotected.  He  needed someone. And I  could be that someone I was that
someone; I knew Danny better than anyone.
     He was my "little brother"  I would  watch out for him; and that  would
make him feel as secure  as I felt when my "big brother" Don  was around. It
was a strange feeling exciting.
     "You'll  never have to be alone again," I told  him. (I knew how lonely
he  was; I knew how much he  hated it.) "You'll always have me.  I'll always
have you. It makes more sense this way." (I would keep him from falling into
those bitter, empty  moods, those gritty moments  of aching  frustration. It
would be  good for both of us.) "I don't like being alone either. This way I
can share  the things  I  like with  somebody I know likes them too." (No, I
would never be lonely again; I would have my Danny to  take care of.  And my
Don to take  care of me. Oh, it was such  a  wonderful  feeling to  have how
could I make him  see?) "I don't have to try and impress you, you don't have
to try to  impress  me. There's perfect understanding between  us.  There'll
never be any of those destructive little head games that people play on each
other, because there  can't be." It  all  came  spilling  out,  a  flood  of
emotion. (I wanted to reach  out  and touch him. I  wanted to  hold him.) "I
like me, Danny; that's why I like you. You'll feel the same way, you'll see.
     "And I guarantee, there are no  two people in this world who understand
each other as well as we do."
     * * *
     Life is full of little surprises.
     Time travel is full of big ones.
     My worrying about paradoxes and canceled checks
     had been needless. If I had thought to read the timebelt
     instructions completely before I went gallivanting off to
     the past and the future, I would have known.
     I was right that paradoxes were impossible, but I was wrong in thinking
that the timestream had to  be  protected  from them.  After all, they  were
impossible. It wouldn't have mattered whether I  had given Danny a check  or
not; changes in the timestream are cumulative, not variable.
     What  this  means is that you can change  the past as many times as you
want. You can't  eliminate yourself. I could go back in  time nineteen years
and strangle myself  in my crib, but  I wouldn't cease to exist. (I'd have a
dead baby on my hands though . . .)
     Look, you can change the  future, right? The future is exactly the same
as the past, only it hasn't happened yet. You haven't perceived it. The real
difference between the two the only difference is your point of view. If the
future can be altered, so can the past.
     Every change  you make is cumulative;  it goes on top  of  every  other
change you've already made, and every change you add later will go on top of
that. You can go back in time and talk yourself out of winning a million and
a  half dollars, but  the resultant world is  not one where you didn't win a
million and a half dollars; it's a world  where you talked yourself  out  of
it. See the difference?
     It's subtle but it's important.
     Think of an artist drawing a picture. But he's using  indelible ink and
he doesn't  have  an  eraser. If he wants to make a change, he has to  paint
over  a line  with white. The line hasn't ceased  to  exist;  it's just been
painted over and a new line drawn on top.
     On the surface,  it doesn't seem  to make much difference. The finished
picture will look the same whether the artist uses an eraser or a gallon  of
white paint, but it's important to the artist. He's aware of  the process he
used to obtain the final result and it affects his consciousness. He's aware
of all the lines and drawings beneath the final one, the layer upon layer of
images, each one not quite the one all those discarded pieces; they  haven't
ceased  to  exist, they've just been painted out of view. Subjectively, time
travel is like that.
     I can lay down one timeline and then go back and do things  differently
the second  time around. I can go back a  third time  and talk myself out of
something, and I  can go back a fourth  time and change it yet again. And in
the end, the timestream is exactly what I've made  it  it  is the cumulative
product of my changes. The closest I can  get to the original  is to go back
and  talk  myself  out  of  something. It  won't be the same world,  but the
difference will  be  undetectable. The difference will be in me. I  like the
artist  with his painting will be  conscious of  all the other  alternatives
that did exist, do exist, and can exist again.
     The world  I came from is like my  innocence. I can never recapture it.
At best, I can only simulate it. , You can't be a virgin twice.
     (Not  that  I would,  of course. Virginity seems like  a  nice state of
existence only  to  a virgin, only to someone who doesn't know  any  better.
From this side of the fence, it seems like such a waste. I remember my first
time, and how I had reacted: Why, this was nothing to be scared of at all in
fact, it's wonderful! Why had I taken so long to discover it? Afterward, all
the time beforehand looked so ... empty.)
     According to the timebelt instructions, what I had done by altering the
situation the second time around was called tangling. Mine had been a simple
tangle, easily unraveled,  but there was no limit  to  how  complex a tangle
could be. You can tie as many knots in a ball of yarn as you like.
     There really isn't  any  reason to unravel  tangles  (according to  the
instructions) because they usually take care  of themselves; but the special
cautions  advise against  letting a tangle get too complex  because  of  the
cumulative  effects  that might  occur. You might suddenly  find that you've
changed your  world beyond all recognition and possibly beyond  your ability
to live in, let alone excise.
     Excising is what you do when you bounce back  and talk  yourself out of
something when you go back and undo a mistake.  Like winning too much at the
races. (How about that? I'd  been tangling  and excising and  I  hadn't even
known it.)
     The belt explained  the  impossibility of paradoxes this  way: If there
was only one  timestream, then paradoxes would  be possible and time  travel
would  have  to be impossible.  But every time  you  make  a  change  in the
timestream, no matter how slight, you are actually shifting to  an alternate
timestream. As far as  you are  concerned, though, it's the only timestream,
because you can't get back to the original one.
     So when you use the timebelt, you aren't really  jumping  through time,
that's the illusion; what  you're  actually doing  is leaving one timestream
and  jumping to maybe even creating  another. The second one is identical to
the one you just left, including all of the changes you made in it up to the
instant of  your appearance.  At  that  moment,  simply by the fact  of your
existence in it,  the second timestream becomes  a different timestream. You
are the difference.
     When you travel backward in time, you're  creating that second universe
at an  earlier  moment. It  will develop  in exactly the  same  way  as  the
universe you just left, unless you act to alter that development.
     That the  process  is  perceived as time  travel  is  only an illusion,
because the  process is  subjective. But because  it's subjective, it really
doesn't make any difference, does it? It's just  as good as the real  thing.
Better, even; because nothing is permanent; nothing is irrevocable.
     The past is the future. The future  is the past. There's no  difference
between the two and  either can be changed.  I'm flashing across a series of
alternate worlds, creating and destroying a new one every time I bounce. The
universe is infinite.
     And so are the possibilities of my life.
     * * *
     I am Dan. And I am Don.
     And sometimes I am Dean, and Dino, and Dion, and Dana. And more . . .
     There's a poker game  going  on  in my apartment. It starts on June 24,
1975. I don't know when it  ends.  Every time one of me gets  tired, there's
another one  showing up to  take his  place. The game is  a  twenty-fourhour
marathon. I  know it lasts  at least  a week; on July 2,1  peeked in and saw
several versions of myself some in their mid-twenties still grimly playing.
     Okay. So I like poker.
     Every time I'm in the mood,  I know where there's an  empty  chair. And
when. Congenial people too. I know theyTll never cheat.
     I may have to get a larger apartment  though. Five rooms is not enough.
(I need more room for the pool table.)
     Strange things keep happening no, not strange
     things, things that I've learned not to  question. For instance, once I
saw  Uncle  Jim  he  looked surprised and  vanished  almost immediately.  It
startled me too. I was just getting used to the idea of his death. I  hadn't
realized  that he would have been using  the timebelt  too. (But why not? It
was his before it was mine.)
     Another time I heard strange noises from the bedroom. When I peeked in,
there  was  Don  in bed with  well,  whoever  it  was, she was covered  by a
blanket; I  couldn't see. He just looked at me with a silly expression,  not
the slightest bit  embarrassed, so  I shrugged  and closed the door. And the
noises  began  again.  I'm  not  questioning  it  at  all.  I'll  find  out.
Eventually.
     Mostly I've been  concentrating on  making money. Don and I (and later,
Danny and I) have made a number of excursions  into the past, as well as the
future. Some of our  investments go  back as far  as  1850 (railroads, coal,
steel).  1875  (Bell  Telephone).  1905  (automobiles,  rubber, oil,  motion
pictures).  1910  (airlines,  heavy  industry, steel  again).  1920  (radio,
insurance companies, chemicals, drugs). 1929 (I picked up some real bargains
here.  More steel.  Business  machines.  More  radio,  more  airlines.  More
automobiles). 1940 (companies that would someday  be involved  in computers,
television, and  the  aerospace  industry).  1950  (Polaroid  and  Xerox and
Disney). 1960  (More  Boeing stock, some  land in  Florida especially around
Orlando). Turned out that 1975  was a good year  for  bargains too. It was a
little too early to buy stock in something called Apple, but I could buy IBM
and Sony and MCA  shares. Oh, and Don said I should also  pick up some stock
in  20th Century Fox. There was a nifty little movie coming up in 1977  that
would make a bit of money.
     Down  through the decades, I bought a little here, a  little there  not
enough to change  the shape of  the  world, but  enough  to supply me with a
comfortable  lifelong  fortune.  It  was  a  little  tricky  setting  up  an
investment firm to  manage it, but it was worth the  effort. When I got back
to 1975, I found I was worth one  hundred  and forty-three million  dollars.
Hmm.
     Actually, the number was meaningless. I was worth
     a hell of a lot more. It turned out I owned an investment
     monopoly worth several billion  dollars, or let's  say I controlled it.
What I owned was the holding company that held the holding companies. By the
numbers, its value was only one hundred and forty-three million, but I could
put  my hands on a lot more than that if I wanted.  What it meant was that I
had unlimited credit.
     Hell! If I wanted to, I could own the country! The world!
     Believe it or not, I didn't want to.
     I'd lost interest in the  money. It  was  just so much numbers. Useless
except as a tool to manipulate my environment, and I had  a much better tool
for that.
     Those frequent  trips  to the past had whetted my  appetite. I had seen
New  York grow like a living creature, the  city had swelled and soared; her
cast-iron  facades  had become concrete;  her  marble  towers  gave  way  to
glass-sided  slabs  and  soaring  monoliths.  And beyond  that,  she  became
something enchanted: a fantasy of light and color. Oh, the someday beauty of
her!
     I became intrigued with history
     I went back to see the burning of the Hindenburg. I was there when  the
great  zeppelin shriveled in flame and an excited announcer babbled into his
microphone.
     I was  there when Lindbergh took  off  and  I  was there again  when he
landed. The little airplane seemed so frail.
     I was there when another airplane smacked into the
     H Empire State Building, shattering  glass and concrete and tumbling to
the horrified street below. It was unreal.
     I saw the Wright brothers' first flight. That was unreal too.
     And I know what happened to Judge Crater.
     I  saw the blastoff of Apollo II. It  was  the loudest sound I've  ever
heard.
     And  I  witnessed  the  assassination  of Abraham  Lincoln.  It  wasn't
dramatic at all; it was sad and clumsy. I was there (via timeskim) at Custer
s last stand.
     I witnessed the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. (The
guy  who was  supposed to pound in  the  gold spike slipped and fell  in the
mud.)
     I've seen the Chicago fire and the San Francisco earthquake.
     I was at  the signing  of the Declaration  of Independence. (How far we
have come since then. . . .) I saw the burning of Atlanta.
     And  I've  seen  the  original  uncut  versions  of  D.  W.  Griffith's
Intolerance and Merian C. Cooper's King Kong and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
     I was there the day the Liberty Bell cracked.
     And I saw the fall of the Alamo.
     I witnessed the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack.
     I attended a band concert conducted by John Philip Sousa.
     I heard Lincoln deliver his Gettysburg Address. I recorded it on tape.
     I've seen Paul Revere's midnight ride and the
     Boston Tea Party.
     I've met George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
     And I watched Columbus come ashore.
     I saw Ben Franklin flying a kite on a rainy day.
     I was there when Bell tested his first telephone.
     "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you."
     I witnessed Galileo's experiment when he
     dropped two lead balls of different weights from the
     tower of Pisa.
     I have seen performances of plays  by William Shakespeare. At the Globe
Theater in London.
     I watched Leonardo da Vinci as he painted La Jac-
     onde, the Mona Lisa. (I will not tell you why she smiles.)
     And I watched as his rival, Michelangelo, painted the
     Sistine Chapel.
     I've heard Strauss waltzes, conducted by Strauss himself.
     I  saw the disastrous  premiere of Stravinsky's Rites  of  Spring.  And
Ravel's Bolero too.
     I've heard Beethoven's symphonies as conducted by Beethoven himself.
     And Mozart. And Bach. (I've seen the Beatles too.)
     And the beheading of Ann Boleyn and Thomas More.
     I've seen the signing of the Magna Carta.
     I have  visited Imperial Rome.  Nero  and  Tiberius  and Julius  Caesar
himself. Cleopatra was ugly.
     And ancient Greece. The sacking of Troy was more than a myth.
     I have witnessed performances of plays by Sopho-
     cles and watched as Plato taught Aristotle and Aristotle
     taught Alexander. I saw Socrates drink the cup of
     hemlock.
     I have witnessed the crucifixion of one Jesus of
     Nazareth. He looked so sad.
     And more.
     I have seen dinosaurs. I have seen the thunder lizards  walk the Earth.
The  Brontosaurus, the  Stegosaurus,  and Triceratops  and the Tyrannosaurus
Rex, the most fearsome monster ever to stalk the world.
     I have seen the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of Pompeii.
     I have seen the explosion of Krakatoa.
     I watched an asteroid plunge from the sky and shatter a giant crater in
what would someday be Arizona.
     I've witnessed the death of Hiroshima by atomic fire.
     I've timeskimmed from the far distant past and watched  as the Colorado
River  carved out the Grand Canyon a living, twisting snake of water cutting
away the rock.
     And more.
     I've been to the year 2001 and beyond. I've been to the moon.
     I've walked its surface in a flimsy  spacesuit and held its dust  in my
hands. I've seen the Earth rise above the Lunar Apennines.
     I've visited Tranquillity Base and flashing back to the past, I watched
the Eagle land. I saw Neil Armstrong come ashore.
     And more.
     I've been to Mars. I've been to the great hotels that orbit Jupiter and
I've seen the rings of Saturn. I've timeskimmed from the far past to the far
future. I have seen Creation.
     I have seen how Entropy ravages everything.
     From Great Bang to Great Bang the existence of
     the Earth is less than a blink; the death of the sun by
     nova, almost unnoticeable.
     I've seen the future of mankind
     I like to think I understand, but I know that I don't.
     The future of the human race is as  alien and incomprehensible to me as
the  year  1975 would be to a  man of Charlemagne's era.  But wondrous it is
indeed, and filled with marvelous things.
     There is nothing that I cannot witness
     but there is little that I can participate in.
     I am limited. By my language, by  my appearance, by my  skin color, and
my height.
     I am limited to life  in a  span of history maybe two hundred  years in
each direction. Beyond that, the languages are  difficult: the meanings have
altered, the pronunciations and usages too complex to decipher. With effort,
perhaps, I can communicate; but the farther I go from 1975, the harder it is
to make myself understood.
     And there are other differences. In the past, I am
     too tall. The farther back I travel, the shorter everybody
     becomes. And the farther forward I go, the taller. In the
     not-too-distant future, I am too short humanity's evolution is upward.
     And there are still other differences. Disturbing ones.
     There are places where my skin is the wrong color, or my eyes the wrong
shape. And there is one time in the future when I am the wrong sex.
     There are places where people's faces are different.
     I can witness.
     I cannot participate.
     But witnessing is enough: I have  seen  more of  history than any other
human being.  I  have timeskimmed and timestopped and my  journeys have been
voyages of mystery and adventure.
     There is  much  that  I  don't  understand. There  are things that  are
incomprehensible to one who is not of the era and the culture.
     But still the proper study of humanity is humanity itself.
     History is not just old news.
     It's people. It's the ebb and flow of life. It's the sound of bells and
horns, the stamp  of boots in  the street, the flapping of  banners  in  the
wind, the smell  of smoke and flowers. It's bread and trains and newspapers.
It's  the acrid smell of the herd, and the press of the crowd. It's surprise
and glory and fear. It's confusion, panic, and disaster
     and above all, history is triumphl
     It  is  the  triumph  of  individuals  creating,  designing,  building,
changing,  challenging  never quitting. It  is the continual  victory of the
intellect  over  the  animal;  the  unquenchable  vitality  of life! Passion
overwhelms despair  and  humanity  goes  on; sometimes  seething,  sometimes
dirty, sometimes even unspeakably evil.
     But always despite the setbacks the direction is always upward.
     If I must taste the  bitterness, it  is worth  it; because  I have also
shared the dreams.
     And the promise.
     I have seen its fulfillment.
     I know the truth and the destiny of the human race.
     It is a proud and lonely thing to be a man.
     * * *
     This part, I think, may be the hardest to record.
     It was inevitable, I suppose, that it happen,  but  it has caused me to
do some serious thinking. About myself. About Dan. About Don.
     When Uncle Jim died, I  thought my life would be changed, and I worried
about the directions  it  might take. When I thought I had eliminated myself
by a timebelt paradox,  I  realized  how much I  feared dying I realized how
much I needed to be Dan to my Don and Don to my Dan.
     But this
     this makes me question the shape of my whole life.
     What am I? Who am I?
     What am I doing to myself?
     Have  I made  a wrong decision? Am I  moving in a strange and  terrible
direction?
     I wish I knew.
     It started when? Yesterday evening? Time is
     funny when you don't live it linearly. When I get tired, I
     sleep, I flip forward or backward to the nearest nighttime
     and climb into bed.
     If I'm  not tired, and itTs night, I flash to day and  go to the beach.
Or I  jump to winter and go skiing. I stay as long as I want, or as short as
I want. I stay for weeks or only a few minutes. I'm not a slave to the clock
nor even to the seasons.
     What I mean is, I'm no longer living in a straight line.
     I bounce  back  and forth through  the  days like a  temporal Ping-Pong
ball.  I  don't  even know  how  old  I am  anymore. I  think I've passed my
twentieth birthday, but I'm not sure.
     It's strange. . . .
     Time  used to  be a  flowing river.  I sailed down  it and watched  the
shores  sweep  past: here, a warm  summer evening,  ice tinkling in lemonade
glasses;  there, a cool fall morning, dead leaves crunching underfoot and my
breath in frosty puffs. Time was a slowly shifting panorama along  the river
bank. I was a leaf in the water. I was carried helplessly along, a victim of
the current.
     Now I'm out of the river and standing on the bank. I am  the motion and
time is the observer. No  longer a  victim, I am the  cause. All  of time is
laid  out before me like a table,  no longer a moving entity, but a vast and
mutable landscape. I can leap to  any point  on it at will.  Would I  like a
nice  summer day? Yes, there's a pleasant  one. Am I  in the mood for a fall
morning? Ah, that's nice. I don't have to wait for the river to  carry me to
a place where I might be able to find that moment I can go exactly to it.
     No moment can ever escape me. I've chased twi-
     light and captured dawn. I've conquered day and tamed
     the night. I can live as I choose because I am the master
     of time.
     I laugh to think of it. Time is an everlasting smorgasbord and I am the
gourmet,  picking here, choosing there, discarding this unnecessary  bit  of
tripe and taking an extra piece of filet instead.
     But even  this temporal  mobility,  no matter how unlimited it is, does
not keep me from arbitrarily dividing things into "day" and "night." It must
be  a human thing  to want to  divide  eternity into bite-sized chunks. It's
easier to digest. So no matter how many jumps I make, anything that happened
before my last sleep  happened "yesterday," and everything since  I woke  up
(and until  I go to sleep again) is part of my "today."  Some of my "todays"
have spanned a thousand years. And "tomorrow" comes not  with  the dawn, but
with my next awakening.
     I think  I'm  still on  a twenty-four-hour life cycle,  but I  can't be
sure. If I add a few extra hours  to  my "day"  so as to enjoy the  beach  a
little  longer,  I  find my  body tends  to  obey the  local time, not mine.
Perhaps humanity is unconsciously geared to the sun. At least, it seems that
way. I don't get  tired  until after the world gets  dark. (But like I  said
before, I'm not sure how old I am anymore. I've lost track.)
     Anyway. What I'm getting to is that this happened "yesterday."
     Don and I were listening to Beethoven. (The origi-
     nal Beethoven. I had gotten a recorder from 2050, a multichannel device
capable of greater fidelity than anything known  in 1975,  and had taped all
eleven of the master's symphonies. Yes. All eleven.)
     We had spent the day swimming skinny-dipping
     actually  (it's strange to  watch your  own nude body from a distance),
and  now we were resting up before dinner.  I have this mansion in the hills
overlooking the San Fernando Valley; the view is spectacular. All fields and
orchards. Even the bedroom has a picture window.
     It was dusk. The sun was just dipping behind the hills  to the west. It
was large and  orange through the haze. Don  had  turned on  the stereo  and
collapsed  exhaustedly  on the  bed (a  king-size water  bed)  without  even
toweling off.
     I didn't think anything of  it.  I was tired too. I  made an attempt to
dry myself  off, then lay down beside him. (I'd gotten into a very bad habit
with Don  with Dan with myself. I'd  discovered I didn't  like  being alone.
Even when I sleep, I need the  assurance of knowing there's somebody next to
me.  So more and  more I  found  myself  climbing into bed with  one or more
versions  of myself. Sometimes there's a lot of horseplay and giggling. What
did  I want? Did I know? Is that why I did it?  It  extends to other  things
too.  I  won't  swim  alone.  And  several  times  we've  showered together,
ostensibly so we could scrub each other's back.)
     We were both stretched out naked on the water
     bed,  just  staring  at  the  ceiling  and  listening to  the  Pastoral
Symphony, that  part near  the  beginning  where it goes  "pah-rump-pah-pah,
rump-pah-pah .  . ." (You know, where  Disney's  joyous trumpets  announce a
cascade of happy unicorns.)
     It  was  a  good tiredness. Languorous. I was floating oh so pleasantly
and  the light show on the ceiling  was swirling in red and pink and purple,
shifting to blue and white.
     I'd been getting strange vibrations from Don all day.
     I wasn't sure why.  (Or perhaps  I  hadn't wanted to  admit )  He  kept
looking  at me oddly.  His  glance  kept meeting mine  and he seemed  to  be
smiling about some inner secret, but he wouldn't say what it was. He touched
me a lot too. There had been a lot of  clowning around in the pool, and once
I thought he had been  about to (I must have sensed it earlier, I must have;
but I must have also been refusing to recognize it.)
     The symphony had reached that point where it sug-
     gests wild dancing, with several false stops, when a soft
     pop! in the air made me look up. Another Don. I had
     long since gotten used to various versions of myself ma-
     terializing and disappearing at random. But I sat up any-
     way.
     He looked troubled. And tired.
     "Which one of you is Dan?" he said. He looked at
     me. "You are, aren't you?"
     I nodded.
     Don, beside me,  raised up on  one elbow,  sending  ripples through the
bed, but his gaze was veiled. Don II looked at him but stepped toward me. He
was holding a sheaf of papers I recognized it as my, no, his diary; that is,
his version of my diary.
     "I want to excise something," he said.
     "What?"
     "That is, I think I want to excise it. I'm not sure "
     He looked at  me. He sat down on the bed, and for a moment I thought he
was close to tears. He was trembling. "Look, I don't know if this this thing
is  good or bad or what. Maybe the terms are meaningless. I just don't know.
I'm not sure if I should tell you to avoid this or whether I  should let you
make your own decision." He looked at both of us. "I can't talk  about it. I
mean, I can't talk about it to you because you wouldn't understand. Not yet.
That's why I have to do it this way. Here's my diary. Read it, Dan. Then you
decide for yourself if if that's  what you want. I mean, it's  the only way.
You shouldn't stumble into this. You should either go into it with your eyes
open  and  be  aware of what you're doing,  or you  should reject it because
you're aware of its possibility. Either way,  it's going to change your  our
life."
     He was very upset,  and that made me very concerned.  I reached out and
touched his arm.  He flinched and pulled away. "Tell me what it is " I said.
He shook his head adamantly. "Just read the diary."
     "I will," I promised. "But stay here until I  do, so you can talk to me
about it."
     "No, I can't. I tried that once and we ended up
     doing exactly what I came back to stop. I mean, I mustn't
     be  here if  you're  to  make  your  own choice." And he  popped out of
existence. Back to his own future my future perhaps? I won't know till I get
there.
     I picked up the papers and paged through them.
     The early parts were identical  to mine, even up to the point where Don
and I were listening to Beethoven, stretched out on the water bed
     * * *
     What I'm trying to get at is that it started almost accidently.
     Don  rubbed himself abstractedly and then stretched and rolled over  on
his  stomach. He  reached over and grabbed a pillow above my head. "You want
one?" I nodded. He  fluffed  it and shoved  it  under my head, then  grabbed
another one for himself. He didn't roll away; instead, he sighed and let his
arm fall across my chest.
     Absentmindedly  I reached up and stroked his arm. In response,  he gave
me a casual hug.
     And then he was looking at me and our eyes  were locked in  another  of
those glances. He was mysterious.  I  was curious. His smile was bottomless.
"What is it?" I asked.
     In answer, he slid himself upward and kissed me.
     Just a kiss. Quick, affectionate and loaded with desire.
     He pulled back and looked at me, still smiling, watching my reaction.
     I was confused. Because I had accepted it. I had let
     him kiss me as if it were a totally natural thing for him to
     do. I hadn't questioned it at all. His eyes were shining,
     and I studied them carefully. He lowered his face to
     mine again. . . .
     This time the kiss was longer. Much longer.
     And he didn't just kiss me. He slid his arms around me and pulled me to
him.
     And I helped.
     We stretched  out side by side, facing each other on the  water bed. We
put our arms around each other. And we kissed.
     I realized I liked it.
     I liked it.
     "Don," I managed to gasp, "We shouldn't "
     He studied me. "But you want to, don't you?"
     And I knew he was right.
     "Yes, but  " His face was  so open, his eyes  were so  deep. "But  it's
wrong "
     "Is it? Why is it?"
     "Because it's not right "
     "Is it any worse than masturbation? You masturbated yesterday, Danny, I
know. Because I did too. You were alone in the house, but you're never alone
from yourself."
     "I I but masturbation isn't I mean, that's "
     "Danny " He silenced me with a finger across my
     lips. "I want to give you pleasure, I want to give you me,
     You have your arms around me. You have your  hands on me. You like what
you feel, I know you do."
     And he was right. I did like it. I did enjoy it.
     He was so sure of himself.
     "Just relax, Danny," he whispered. "Just relax." He kissed me again and
I kissed him back.
     * * *
     I've done it  twice now. I've been seduced and  I've seduced myself. Or
maybe I should say, after Don seduced me, I seduced Danny.
     I'm  filled with the joy of discovery. A sense of sharing. My relations
with Don  with Dan have  taken  on a  new intensity.  There  is  a lot  more
touching, a lot more laughter, a lot more . . . intimacy.
     I look  forward  to  tonight and  yet,  I  also  hold  myself back. The
anticipation  is  delightful. Tonight, tonight . . . (I begin  to understand
emotion. Now I know why there are love songs. I touch the button on my belt.
I fly to meet myself.)
     * * *
     So this is love.
     The giving. The taking.
     The abandonment of roles. The opening of the self.
     And the resultant sensuality of it all. The delight. The laughing joy.
     Were I  to  describe in clinical  detail for  some unknown reader those
things that we have actually done, the intensity and pleasure would not come
through. The joy  would  be filtered  out.  The written paragraphs  would be
grotesque. Perverse.
     Because love cannot be discussed objectively.
     It is a subjective thing. You must be immersed in it to  understand it.
The things that Danny and I (Don and
     I) have done, we've done them out of curiosity and delight and sharing.
Not compulsion. Delight.
     And joyous sexuality. We are discovering our bodies. We are discovering
each other. We are  children  with a magnificent new toy. Yes, sex is a  toy
for grownups.
     To describe the things we have been doing  would deprive  them of their
special intimacy and magic.  We  do them because  they feel good. We do them
because in this way we make each other feel good. We do it out of love.
     Is this love?
     It must be. Why didn't I do this sooner?
     * * *
     And yet, I wonder what I am doing.
     A vague sense of wrongness pervades my life. I find myself looking over
my shoulder a lot Who's watching me? Who's judging my days?
     Is it wrong?
     I don't know.
     There is no one  I  can talk to about it, not even myself. Every  Don I
know every Dan is  caught up in the same whirlpool. None of us is any closer
to the truth. We are all confused.
     I'm alone for the first time in days.
     It makes no difference. I'm still talking to myself.
     I wish some Don from the future would come back  to advise me  but even
that's a  useless wish. Any  Don who  did come back would only  be trying to
shape me toward his goals, regardless of mine.
     (I did meet one once. I don't know if it was intentional or accidental.
He  looked to be in his mid-thirties, maybe  older; there were tiny lines at
the corners of his eyes. He was  a  little darker and a lot heavier than me.
He said, "You