Kevin Bisby was just twenty years old when he was abducted by the aliens.
Even at that young age he was already plagued by indecision. The aliens noticed it themselves. After giving him a routine physical and planting a tracking device in his sinuses, they gave him the choice of several parting gifts. Kevin could not decide on one. The aliens were patient at first, but it got late enough that they were in danger of losing their launch window, so they decided for him. The gift was a device about the size of a kazoo, with a single red button directly in the middle. They explained that this device would allow him to rewind the flow of time, hastily dropped him off next to his car, and left the solar system.
As soon as their ship vanished into the sky, Kevin looked at his watch and saw that it had been six hours since he had been picked up. It was now growing dark by the lake where he had stopped his car to look at the strange object in the sky. He had parked right on the shore of the lake, near the creek that fed it, and in six hours, the right rear wheel of his car had sunk into a muddy patch of weeds. Anxious to get back to his dorm and tell his roommate what had happened to him, he accelerated too quickly and dug the wheel deep into the mud. He could not drive out.
He got out of the car and went back to stare at the disaster. It was getting cold, and Kevin was now panicking and hating himself, which he always did just after making a bad decision, when he remembered the device in his pocket. Pushing very gently on the button, he noticed that birds began flying backward, the direction of the wind seemed to change (but not the way the weeds were blowing), and the sky lightened just a bit. He also felt a curious sense of detachment as he watched a version of himself at the wheel unaccelerate and unbury the right rear wheel. Releasing the button, he suddenly took his double's place in the driver's seat of his car. Still hardly believing it, he started up the car again and this time, carefully teased the gas until his car pulled free. He glanced at his watch and realized that no time had been taken--he really had rewound his life back past the bad decision.
A grin spread across his face as his stomach unknotted. This was the very best thing that had ever happened to him. It was just perfect. It was truly wonderful. Everything was going to be better from now on. Everything.
He had a chance to use the device again soon after relating his adventure to his roommate, who listened skeptically to every word. "Well," said Kevin, excited, "what do you think?"
His roommate shook his head slowly. "You are so stressed," he murmured in awe. "God, Kevin, you've got to change your major."
"I swear it happened! Look," he began, digging in his pocket, "here's what they gave me."
His roommate glanced at it. "They gave you a kazoo?" He turned back to the TV and popped a potato chip. "That's funny, but Kevin," he said between crunches, "you're no Monty Python, okay?"
"It's not a joke," Kevin mumbled as he felt his stomach knotting again.
"Hey, Jeopardy's on," said his roommate, and turned up the TV volume.
Kevin sighed and walked around the corner with the knot in his stomach, wishing he hadn't said anything about it.
Then he realized that he didn't have to have said anything about it. He felt the button under his thumb. He pushed it hard, and immediately noticed that the harder he pressed, the faster time rewound itself. He let go just in time to walk in the door again.
"Hey," said his roommate, eyes glued to the TV. "Where you been?"
"Car trouble," Kevin said simply.
"That really sucks," said his roommate with a heartfelt crunch on a potato chip.
And that was it. Kevin quickly stepped around the corner so he could hide his giggles. Oh God, it was wonderful. He cradled the device in his hands, gazing on it with affection and reverence. He would never let this out of his sight. Never.
Of course he used it to cheat on his exams--on nearly every exam. Not that it was a cakewalk. He couldn't write the answers on a piece of paper that he could take back with him. The only things that did him any good were the things he could memorize, so there was no way around studying. And on the math and science tests, he couldn't simply put down answers without work. (He tried it once and was expelled for cheating. The device took care of that mishap as well.) If he had been able to cheat perfectly using the device, he might have felt guilty; as it was, he felt that he was simply eliminating stupid mistakes. Unfair mistakes. There was nothing immoral about that. He didn't feel any more qualms about it until graduation, when he worried a little about being able to make it in the real world. This only increased his resolve, however, to make the device his constant companion, and beneath his gown he clutched it tightly.
It made him laugh to think that he had ever worried about who he should marry.
He married several women, all for the first time. Usually something happened on the honeymoon to make him realize that he had made the wrong decision. One couldn't be too careful. Some little conflict that seemed small now would only get worse as time went on. Kevin didn't believe that love conquered all. It was more like all conquered love, in his opinion. In the course of his wife-shopping he became something of an expert on wedding and reception arrangements. The wife that he finally stuck with, Becky, was quite impressed with how smoothly he took care of the caterers, the flowers, the invitations, the facilities, the music, everything. "I've heard that weddings can be real chaos," she told him, "but you've made this such a wonderful experience for me." And she gave him a smile so loving, admiring, and beautiful that he pulled his hand away from the device in his pocket like he'd been burned. He didn't want to lose this one.
Kevin promised himself that they would have the best honeymoon ever. He drew on his vast experience of honeymoons. What would be the best? Part romance, part adventure, part pure fun. For romance they flew to New York, and had a long candlelit dinner talking in murmurs and having white-gloved waiters refill their wine glasses. He had been to the restaurant on his third honeymoon and the atmosphere was as sensual as he remembered. They had fantastic sex that night, partly because Kevin was much more experienced, but mostly because he knew how to take the best advantage of the setting. He was a old hand at consumation. Becky was amazed. "Was that... was that really your first time?" He answered that it was. And in this time-line, it was no lie.
For adventure they traveled to the legendary Grand Canyon and exerted themselves mightily hiking the Bright Angel Trail, seeing the magnificent sunrises and sunsets. Everything was going so wonderfully that Kevin nearly forgot about the device; in fact, was almost afraid of accidentally using it. He kept it snug inside his hard plastic electric razor holder deep in his garment bag to prevent any accidental bumping of the rewind button.
For the last part of their honeymoon Kevin had planned a trip to Disneyland, for the pure fun of it. Kevin had spent honeymoons in Disneyland before, so he already had a good idea of what to see and do in what order. Everything was going perfectly until lunch.
They stopped to have a little overpriced ice cream, and while Kevin was laughing at something Becky said, the main lump of melting ice cream dropped off of his cone, bounced down his shirt, and landed square in his lap. He roared his frustration and leaped up, causing the ball of ice cream to make a final jump to his toes, splattering all over his shoes. Becky stared for a moment and then started to laugh. "Oh, Kevin, what a mess!"
Kevin didn't laugh. It was amusing enough, but there were large sticky wet chocolate stains all over his shirt, pants, and shoes. The outfit was one of those that cost a lot of money to look casual; he had bought it so that this honeymoon would be perfect. It would be stained for sure. Plus he would have to spend the rest of the day wearing the sticky wetness. And it was particularly embarrassing to have the bulk of it right on his fly. With a sigh, he reached into his pocket for the first time on the honeymoon for the rewinder.
It was not there.
Kevin screamed an obscenity and jammed his hand into his other pocket. Not there either. He began to panic.
"Kevin!" gasped Becky. "What is it? What happened? Are you all right?"
Where had he last left it? Where--with a surge of relief he remembered. He had left it in their hotel room, in his razor case in the bottom of his garment bag.
"I have to go back to the hotel," he said.
"Why? What is it?"
It didn't matter what he did now, what he said to alienate her. He was going to rewind back over this whole thing in just a few minutes. "Never mind," he said, making his way through the crowd back out to the gate.
Behind him he heard her scrambling for her purse and souvenirs. "Wait! Wait for me!" she shouted.
"Just stay right there," he called back angrily over his shoulder. "I'll be right back."
He trotted across the cobblestones, dodging Mickey Mouse balloons and spilled popcorn. He accidentally ran into a man trying to take a picture, causing him to drop his camera on the ground. The man shouted and cursed at him but Kevin took no notice. In another few minutes none of it would matter.
In their hotel room he tore open his overnight bag, plunging his hands down to the bottom of the bag to his electric razor case. The rewinder was inside. Without a moment's hesitation he stabbed down on the button and waited. He looked out their window to the Magic Kingdom, watched the cars driving in reverse, people stepping backward briskly. Somewhere down there, a puddle of melted ice cream was reforming, leaping up off the ground and bouncing up his clothes, pulling away every original molecule, and finally perching on his ice cream cone. When he judged that the time was about right, he let go and was transported, as always, into his body at that point in time. His ice cream was safely in its cone. His clothes were perfectly clean and new. There was only one problem.
The rewinder was with him.
He realized after a moment that this was what always happened. He had just never left the rewinder this far away; had never operated it at such a distance. Of course it was with him. Uncertainly, he put the device in his pocket. It barely fit; the shorts he was wearing had the pockets cut low in back.
"Everything okay?" asked Becky. "You have a funny look on your face." She licked her ice cream cone quickly around the edges.
Kevin smiled at her. "Everything's fine."
But it was not. As they were crossing the bridge into Fantasyland, over a dark green dirty pond with ducks swimming in it, the rewinder fell out of his pocket, bounced once on the bridge, and fell over into the pond. With a howl, Kevin dived after it, right over the railing and into the water, trying to keep it in sight as it sank beneath the murky water. As he plunged into the pond, eyes wide open, his hand closed on the rewind button and the entire disaster was undone.
"Kevin! Are you all right?" asked Becky.
His hand firmly on the rewinder in his pocket, Kevin turned to look at her. "What?" he said in a voice that cracked despite his attempt to appear nonchalant.
Becky frowned at him. "Kevin. You're white as a sheet. Do you need to sit down?"
"Let's get off this bridge," he muttered.
She led him gently to a bench inside the big fake castle that was the entrance to Fantasyland. His mind was racing. They could not possibly go on any of the rides. He imagined losing it in Space Mountain, on Splash Mountain, in the Matterhorn, even possibly in the Haunted House. He laughed a little hysterically.
"Kevin, I'm worried about you," said Becky. "Are you having sunstroke? You look... very pale!" She reached a hand up to his forehead. "Clammy, too."
The rewinder needed to be back at the hotel, that was certain. Yet it followed him whenever he used it. There was only one way around it. He would have to rewind back to before they left the hotel room, leave the device safely behind, then relive the day. He glanced at his watch. 1:30. Well, that wouldn't be so bad. He reached into his pocket and punched the button.
Grimly he relived the entire morning and part of the afternoon. It was pretty much the same except that this time he avoided ordering ice cream. When Becky suggested it he objected strenuously, alarming Becky somewhat. Kevin reached into his pocket to rewind a little and refuse more graciously, then remembered that the device was back at the hotel where it ought to be. He realized then that this day had to go perfectly. If not the whole day would have to be undone. He became almost paralyzed; in every situation he tried to anticipate anything that could go wrong. When the lines were too long and Becky complained of the heat, it made him anxious. He found it difficult to listen to what she was saying and had to ask her to repeat herself several times. It was going badly, he had to admit as the sun began to sink.
When, on the Matterhorn, the kid behind them vomited all over Becky, Kevin was almost giddy with relief. This was a clear disaster and he would have to go back to the hotel anyway and use the rewinder. They would miss the evening Electric Parade and the fireworks, which was of course unacceptable. So they trudged grimly back to their hotel.
"This is my worst nightmare," Becky groaned, holding her arms out from her sides gingerly. "That kid was probably pouring sugar and caramel down his gullet all day. I cannot believe the smell! Ugh!"
"It's a true disaster," said Kevin happily.
"And you can wipe that grin off your face, buster."
Kevin wiped off more than that. He wiped out the entire day. When he released the button, the sun was barely rising in the east. They were about to embark into Disneyland for Kevin's third consecutive day when Kevin suddenly felt dizzy and his heart began pounding. I can't do it, he realized. I cannot go through another day like yesterday. And what if something happened? If he had been thinking, he would have made a snug watertight holster for it long before embarking on the honeymoon. But no way was he going to rewind over the perfect part of the honeymoon. It was like a beautiful sculpture in time.
He stopped short and walked back to the closet to get his suitcase. "We're not going to Disneyland," he said abruptly.
Becky turned around slowly and looked at him. "What?"
"We're not going," he repeated. "Pack your suitcase."
"You are not making any sense. Look! We're all dressed for the day! This will be fun! What on earth is going on?"
"It's crowded," he said tiredly.
She stared fiercely at him from the hotel room door, one hand on her purse, the other on her hip. Requiring an explanation. "I thought you said you planned it at exactly this time in order to miss the crowds."
"Becky, look. Things... could happen. I might, I don't know, spill ice cream on my new clothes."
"I do not believe this."
"Or worse! You could..." his imagination failed him. All he could think about was the smell of the vomit as they hiked back to the hotel. "A kid could puke on you on the Matterhorn. Or something." He didn't look at her, just quickly buckled together his suitcase.
"Kevin! For God's sake, lighten up. Look, we're here, let's go to Disneyland." She forced a grin at him.
"I don't want to." It was going badly again. Becky had of course never seen him like this. Or at least she never remembered having seen him like this. He began to realize wearily that he was going to have to use the rewinder again. Of course it was now packed deep in his buckled-up suitcase. He swatted it angrily.
"It was your idea," she said carefully, trying the approach of gentle reason.
"Now it isn't, okay?" He was tearing open the suitcase again.
"Now what?" She stared at him as he threw the contents of his suitcase out onto the bed, like a hamster digging into wood shavings. She stepped back into the room and closed the door behind her. "Kevin, just tell me the real reason."
"I'm sick of it. Sick, sick, sick. Happy?" He found the rewinder, and before he could hear another protest from her, rewound the entire argument.
He tried several other tactics to get her to forget about Disneyland, but none of them worked. The rewinder got a lot of use. She was surly, or suspicious, or argumentative, or scared, or mocking. All of it was terrible. It was clear that there was no way around this obstacle. They had simply planned Disneyland for too long; he could not back out of it without a true and real reason. Like the park catching fire or something.
He was going to have to go through Disneyland a third time. He was going to enjoy himself to death.
But this time he did not wear those damn shorts. He wore jeans that were almost too tight, with the device securely in his right front pocket. He plotted their course doggedly through the amusement park with a tortured soul and a plastic smile on his face. It was open till midnight.
He ended up using the rewinder for a couple of routine food spills and nail breakages. Also at dinner, he ended up ordering a hot dog, which was fine, but the mustard was terrible. Rewinding, he ordered a corn dog instead, which was better. After a few more of these kinds of incidents, he began to feel comfortable and safe again. It was foolish to have left the device behind in the first place. What had he been trying to prove? When they finally watched the fireworks display at midnight, he had one hand around Becky and the other safely in his pocket, over the rewind button, in case he or Becky should miss anything.
Their life together was perfect, picture perfect. Kevin saw to that. His stomach never knotted anymore when making a decision. He just made one and waited to see how it would turn out. If he didn't like it, there was the rewinder, safe inside his shirt, in a snug holster fastened with Velcro. At night he would remove it quietly and put it under his side of the bed, in the same place every time, so that he would reach for it instinctively if there were ever a fire. He once decided to let Becky in on the secret of the rewinder, but she didn't react well to it, and so he rewound that incident as well. There was no reason to disturb their marital bliss with that. He was perfectly content to keep it to himself.
Before marrying Becky, using the rewinder only seemed to relieve the horror of a bad decision, something that simply made life bearable. Made it reasonable, really. But now, there was a new dimension to it, one of pleasure, in seeing her reaction to the life that he was painstakingly putting together. "How do you do it, Kevin?" she would ask in genuine awe. "Ever since I met you, everything you plan turns out just right. It just falls into place! You really have a knack for that, don't you? Is that why you were drawn to the stock market?"
He had actually been drawn to the stock market because it was the easiest way to turn the rewinder into a golden goose. "I--simply weigh all the possibilities," he told her, smiling calmly. It was only a half-lie. He simply lived all the possibilities. True, it was a little confusing at times. But extremely easy to maintain. If he ever let some comment slip about some incident which he had erased, and she looked at him funny, he just rewound over the indiscreet comment. To Becky, and all others, his life was seamlessly perfect.
There were some disagreeable moments. Once, on a leisurely two-week vacation to their beach house on the southern Atlantic coast, he had enjoyed himself so much that he had forgotten to keep current on the stock prices. They returned to discover that they had lost over a hundred thousand dollars on the market. Worst of all, the Dow had crashed the day they left, which meant that he would have to rewind all the way back over the whole two weeks. The whole vacation. But what could he do? After all, a hundred thousand... the second time through the vacation seemed plodding and forced, and Becky's first-time enthusiasm grated on him. He went ahead and repeated the same basic decisons as before, decisons both spontaneous and planned; after all, it had been a perfect vacation.
Their first child, strangely, was not planned. Becky phoned and told him to come home right away. She sounded pleased, yet Kevin still tapped the rewinder beneath his shirt nervously all the way home. When he arrived, she was waiting for him with a shy and joyful smile. "Kevin," she said softly, "we're pregnant."
He was so startled that his finger, which had been right over the rewinder, stabbed down by reflex and the last few seconds rewound themselves.
She was waiting for him with a shy and joyful smile. "Kevin," she said softly, "we're pregnant."
He felt a very strong desire to rewind over this unexpected conception. Yet, there was something perfect about the moment, the surprise of it, when he imagined the two of them telling their friends about it. So he fought down his budding nausea and smiled gamely.
Nine months later they had a baby boy. As Becky held his wrinkled body in her arms, Kevin hovered over her, his face drawn, studying her expression intently. "Didn't you want a baby girl?" he asked her.
"Kevin! This is the baby we have. I love him."
Kevin's finger was on the rewinder. Nine months was a lot to rewind, especially the nine months of the pregnancy. It was an awful lot. But they were going to have this child for decades. For the rest of their lives. What was that against nine months? It must be perfect. "But didn't you--weren't you hoping for a baby girl? I remember you kept hoping for--"
"Kevin, hush. I don't want any baby but this one!"
Kevin smiled weakly at her and pulled his trembling hand away from the rewinder.
The child complicated Becky's life somewhat. It complicated Kevin's life to near-madness. A child! Their lives positively bristled with decisions. Thousands of decisions! Kevin knew he must not fail. First-time parents were notoriously naive and the fact that any child made it to adulthood was a miracle of the highest degree. He trudged through endless variations on their lives as a family, major and minor. The right diapers. The right food. The right toys. The right clothes. The right doctors. The right daycare, for God's sake, oh please it must be the most perfect daycare.
Becky was unaware of such toil. Yet, somehow, as the years passed, she seemed to grow as weary as he. A certain listlessness invaded their home; she grew less enthusiastic of the perfect outings, the perfect cars, the perfect clothes, the perfect house. She wore a tired little smile most of the time. It began to annoy him. Ingratitude, was what it was. He grew resentful quickly: at least, quickly by the calendar. He lived weeks for each day, trying harder to trace moments of unhappiness down to subtly crucial decisions.
One day it broke. He came home to find a tow truck in their driveway, with their Accord hanging from the back, its entire front crumpled into wreckage. For the second time. The second time. The first time it had been a surprise. But he had rewound that unfortunate day and this morning, the second time around, he had given her careful instructions. Which she had not followed. He stormed into the house, throwing open the front door so that it banged against the wall. Becky was holding Jason on her lap; both of them started at the sound. "Oh, Kevin," began Becky.
"Did you try to take Park Street to the airport?" he demanded.
"Yes--"
"After I told you to take Alvernon?"
Her surprised expression boiled into rage. "I'll take whatever way I damn well feel like, I don't have to do everything just the way you say--" Jason began to cry softly, and she stopped to hush him.
"So you thought you'd do it your way. Real good idea. Do you see what happened? Do you realize? Do you even realize? Why don't you trust me? Why can't you just--"
Her rage collapsed suddenly into misery, and she began crying, deep sobs that twisted and reddened her face. "I just wanted to make my own decision once, just once! And so of course, of course the car gets wrecked! Proving you right! The accident wasn't even my fault! But you don't even care about that! You didn't even know if we were hurt--"
"I knew you weren't hurt," he interrupted. They hadn't been hurt the first time, at least. "Besides, it doesn't matter who hit whom, the point is that the whole accident could have been avoided if you had just--"
"Oh, you knew, you knew, you know everything! You always do! Like God or something and when someone doesn't obey then I guess they just get punished with a nice little car wreck, is that it?" Both she and Jason were sobbing in chorus now, two wide square mouths spouting despair. "And the horrible thing, the horrible thing is it really happens!" she screamed.
Intolerable. Completely intolerable. He fumbled angrily through his shirt for the rewinder, his ears assaulted by the sound of the crying. "Useless to talk to you now," he shouted. "'Cause none of this ever happened." He stabbed down on the rewinder button. It really was useless to stay around. The only thing that would stick would be something said to her this morning. Very well, he would be more precise.
For the third time that morning, before leaving the house, he counseled her. Last time, he had said, "Take Alvernon." This time, he said, "Do not take Park."
But when he got home that evening, the Accord was crumpled identically. Their following argument lacked the same energy; he was simply curious as to what the hell made her do the exact opposite of what he said. It was some insipid version of the same thing she'd said before. Just couldn't trust him, was what it was. Ingratitude. He had to rewind the whole miserable day again.
The fourth time that morning, before leaving the house, he lied to her. He mentioned casually that Park was under construction; she should take Alvernon or some other street.
But the Accord that night was no less wrecked. He was nearly ready to kill her. She protested that she had just gone down Park a little ways to see if it really was torn up, and it hadn't been, and so she thought why not... and the argument tumbled down again to the same place: why didn't he ever make a mistake and why shouldn't she be able to choose her own way to the airport, for God's sake, and how she was strangling under his constant supervision and advice, how it was turning her into a stupid child, and on and on. He had now been forced to experience this tragic and pitiful scene no less than four times in the same day. This time he slowly gave up arguing, and just listened to her babble, his eyes glazed. There seemed to be no way around this obstacle. There was some merciless inevitability to this car wreck; no matter how he played it, it would happen. Destiny.
Well, destiny was for other people, not for Kevin Bisby. He had run into this kind of problem before. It wasn't destiny. It only meant that he hadn't gone back far enough yet to fend it off. Something had gone critically wrong and he had to find out what it was. There was no such thing as a necessary evil. Only mistakes that were not corrected in time. And Kevin had all the time he needed to correct any mistake he had made. Any mistake at all. So what was the mistake this time?
He knew the answer. He delayed his decision for a day, however, sitting almost immobile at the kitchen table, staring into space. Becky interpreted this as shock and tried as hard as she could to make amends for the wreck. She seemed eager to take on the responsibility of talking to the repair shop, the lawyers, the insurance companies. But Kevin had always shielded both of them nicely from all such details. Neither of them had been forced to deal with the aftermath of any unpleasant incident for years. It showed in her entire approach. She would open up the Yellow Pages and start to call a number, and then ask, somewhat unsteadily, "Kevin? Do you think these people are okay? Does that sound like a good deal?"
"Why don't you decide," he would reply in a dull voice. It didn't matter. It wasn't worth using the rewinder to find out which mechanic gave the best deal on body work. The simple solution was to avoid the crash entirely. Which she just would not do. And that was the real mistake. He had been attracted to her partly because she appreciated the perfection of what he could do with his rewinder, beginning with their wedding. She liked perfection, like him; had come to expect it and insist on it, like him. Only now she couldn't trust him. A deep character flaw. Had he seen it in the beginning? Was there anything he could have looked for? As he brooded over their years together, he realized that it had been there all along. So many times when "trust me" wasn't enough, when elaborate and subtle reasons had to be manufactured. It had become such a habit for him that he hadn't noticed. But why should he have to dance that deceptive, tiresome dance? Perhaps in the face of the first few dozen decisions. But how many times did he have to be right before she would simply trust him? She was the wrong woman for him.
The wrong woman. He had married the wrong woman. The bile rose in his throat. Eight calendar years. He could not even estimate how many years of their marriage he had experienced in his own continually unraveling timeline. His breath came short. The wrong woman. How much effort had he wasted trying to salvage this bad decision? How many times had he been troubled about her reaction to something he said but ignored the warning sign or worked his way around it somehow? Like that entire Disneyland incident. He had been so blind. So stupid. He would not make this mistake again.
Dimly he realized that Becky was talking to him. "Well, Kevin, I found someone to handle the insurance... I don't know if they're the best but if they're not we can always change, right? What's that?" she asked suddenly as he dug the rewinder out of its holster. "Where did you--"
He pushed the button. He held it down firmly as eight years of marriage unraveled in front of him. It took less time to undo the years than it had taken to build them; so much less time. He pressed harder and harder on the rewinder button and the scenes of their marriage peeled away faster and faster, moving into a blur. There was a flash of lace and tuxedos; he released the button.
He was single again.
For a few days, he lived his bachelor life in a trance, experiencing again what had been just memories before. He spent a lot of time thinking about whether he should marry, and if so, who he should marry instead. He had married many women. Had he mistakenly rewound a marriage to the right one? There had been that girl, Cindy, whom he had rewound past after their honeymoon because she seemed to lack a certain "fire" or "spunk". The foolishness of youth. Now she seemed perfect. Back then he had liked the idea of an independent spirit; now he saw that as the obstacle to perfection that it was.
He married Cindy. The wedding and reception were perfect. It was an outdoor wedding, and the weather was also, of course, perfect. The honeymoon was perfect. They bought a perfect house and he helped her get a perfect job.
When the kids came, they were also perfect. They had wanted a boy and then a girl; their first child had originally been a girl but Keven took care of that. Nine months was certainly a long time to relive but he was stronger now and could steel himself to that grim and laborious prospect. He had the iron in his character to refuse, absolutely refuse, any unwanted consequence. He despised the phrase "That's life" and people who used it. Even though he knew that those other people didn't have rewinders and couldn't help it, he hated the sentiment and the temptation to just let things happen.
It was true that he became very lonely. He wasn't really close to Cindy (not that he ever had been) or their kids. He was too busy steering them on their precarious path to get to know them. The fact that he did have that control over events fueled his compulsion to live out every possibility, and that was exactly what he did, accepting the crushing weariness without question. He was separated from the world around him and the people in it; everything was insubstantial, flowing around him in furious faceted flux as he sat in the center of it and decided what would be.
To Kevin, his life seemed to last forever. But it was finite. Every time he let a perfect decision stand, the earth would ratchet forward in its orbit around the sun and time would advance until Kevin's next decision. And so old age rocked up on him, inevitably, because no matter what he did or what he tried, he could not keep even his perfect life from coming to its perfect end.
In time, he lay in a hospital bed, one gnarled hand clutched on the rewinder under the sheets, hovering at the edge of death. There would be a pain in his chest, the heart monitor would sound its alarm, and with his last strength he would stab down on the rewinder, going back to that morning, or sometimes, the evening of the day before. In those intervening hours his mind raced. Why couldn't he let go of the rewinder? He couldn't spend eternity like this, reliving the last few miserable hours of his perfect life. Hadn't he known, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, that this day would arrive? What better way to die than being able to look back on a perfect life and know that you did the best you could in every situation? To have never made a mistake? He didn't want to rewind the last ten or twenty years and relive them--he already knew, intimately, how those years should be lived. What reason was there to go back and live them worse?
But when he tried to look back on his life, it nauseated him. He had lived dozens of lifetimes, in fragments, only keeping the perfect scenes. Why did he hate what he had done? Cindy and the kids, well, face it, they were somewhat of a disappointment. Not that he would ever have to worry about them. They had good careers and were well provided for. He would leave them a substantial amount of money when he finally threw away this rewinder and let himself die. But they were shadowy, somehow. Little husks of people, timid, hesitant, and dull--not how he thought it would turn out. And so was he, really. He was still terrified of mistakes, after all this time. Perhaps more terrified now than before; he hadn't lived with one in so long, so very long.
What had he done wrong? He hated the life he had made. He hated himself. Just let it go, he thought. The next time that monitor goes off, just let the device clatter onto the floor and be done with it. There was a pain in his chest; the heart monitor sounded; with a groan, he pushed the rewind button briefly and suddenly it was yesterday. Like some sodden creature trying to keep from being pulled into the sea, he thought. He started to sob quietly in the darkened room. He would never have the strength to let it go. He would just keep pushing that button forever, bouncing back from the cold end. He knew it could happen, too. Every time he went backward, even a day, so did his age, his entropy. The rewinder had turned him into a pathetic waste of a soul who couldn't even die right.
He had tried, once, to live without it. Those first few days married to Becky. And then that damn ice cream cone had ruined everything--always some stinking trifle to ruin what could have been perfect--
No. No. He had ruined everything. He remembered a near-infinite number of evenings out, staring at the menu, trying to decide what the perfect order would be tonight. Eating the meal two dozen times before letting something stay put in his stomach, until all he wanted was to be out of there, having obtained the thin comfort that he couldn't have eaten a more perfect dinner that night. And here he was at the end of his life with nothing but the knowledge that nobody could have made any fewer mistakes.
He ground his face miserably into the antiseptic sheets, writhing his frail, liver-spotted limbs. He wanted to throw all of it away, all the compulsive investigation, all the gnawing fear that he would be ripped off somehow, all the trembling worry that what he really should have done was something else, so that he could just have enjoyed what was.
And then he realized that he could.
With a cry he pulled himself up on the bed. One of his IV's teetered on its stand and fell over with a crash. He clenched the rewinder in his hands, one arthritic thumb knuckle over the other, on top of the rewind button, with all of his aged strength. His life began to unwind around him with blurring speed. He wouldn't let go, he wouldn't let himself. He twisted his hands beneath his body and fell down on them, feeling the bones of his hands and the angles of the device stab into his body. The scenes from his life hurtled by in reverse, sunsets and sunrises blurring into a dim orange-yellow glow. He squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to recognize anything, didn't want to be tempted to let go. He would not stop.
* * *
It was quiet. He sensed nothing. There had been a faraway din of all the sounds of his life undoing themselves; it was now gone. He could not feel his heartbeat or hear his own breath. But he did feel the pressure of his knuckles against the rewinder.
He opened his eyes. He was standing on the shore of a lake, next to a small footbridge that arched over the creek that fed it. The sun was setting. The weeds on the lakeshore were bent, but he felt no wind. The alien spaceship that had picked him up long ago was directly overhead, as motionless as a Christmas tree ornament. This was as far back as the rewinder could go; he had no history with the device before this point. His hands--young and strong now--were still clenched white-knuckled on the rewind button, holding time motionless at this instant.
He ran silently up the bridge, taking no breath, like a ghost, to its highest point. The rigid lake shone steadily beneath the sun. He gripped the railing with one hand and hurled the device out over the lake with the other.
Immediately the wind struck his face, the weeds began waving, the lake glittered and coruscated, his heart began beating, his lungs filled with air. Traffic droned on behind him. The rewinder was spinning over the lake, disappearing into the sun, making a whickering sound as it turned end over end. Don't look! he told himself. Don't see where it lands! He turned away until he heard a faint splash through the whistle of the evening wind.
He searched the blinding surface of the lake but could see nothing. The alien spaceship had also disappeared in that instant. He was standing alone on the wooden planks of the footbridge. What have I done? he thought. What did I do? I shouldn't have thrown it away! He clutched at the place on his chest where he had holstered it for--decades? centuries?
It was gone. He had, at last, made a decision that could not be undone. He felt giddy, faint. He held onto the railing with both hands, letting the wind whip at his shirt and his hair, telling him, this is real, this is solid, this cannot be overturned.
He stood silently at the railing, watching the sunset over the lake, as the weakness left his knees. It was the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. There would never be another one exactly like it again. He watched in awe as it sank beneath the horizon, turning the lake from gold to lead.
Subdued, he stepped down off the bridge and made his way to where his car was waiting. How long had it been since he owned that car? He smiled a little at the familiar smell as he dropped into the driver's seat. He had forgotten that the right rear wheel of his car had sunk into a muddy patch of weeds. He accelerated too quickly and dug the wheel deep into the mud. He could not drive out.
He got out of the car and went back to stare at the disaster. It was getting cold and dark and it was three miles back to the dorm, he remembered that now. His hand fluttered over the familiar spot on his chest. Nothing could be done about it. He laughed. He would have to walk all the way home in the dark and the cold. He would probably catch the flu. He laughed louder. He stepped up to the road and began walking toward the lights of the university on the horizon. Why, he would have to take time out tomorrow to come back with someone and help him get his car unstuck. He laughed again, sucking in deep breaths of the evening air, and broke into a run. His whole life, unknown and untried, stretched out before him.
Copyright 1998 Derek T. Jones