Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You
10:24 PM
The transition is dizzying. “I’m all alone,” you sob. “I’m dying.”
“No,” she says, her hands clenched tightly about your wrists. “You’re right here. You’re with me. You’re okay.”
“But he’s not. He’s me. I saw myself.” Your eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden darkness of the car’s interior. You squeeze them shut and then immediately open them as the ghostly silhouette of the dying boy floats into view. “I was wearing the same clothes. I was running from someone. He shot me. I…”
“Was it night or day?
“Day.” Her hands, you realize, are icy cold against your sun warmed skin.
“You see? Then it already happened. It’s in the past.” She relaxes her grip on you, slowly releasing your arms. “There’s nothing you can do to change it.”
“The past?” You raise yourself up on your elbows, the smell of pine air freshener already beginning to overpower the memory of damp earth still lingering in your nostrils. “I was in the past?”
“Yes,” she says, “but—”
“Then I can go back.” You sit up completely, pulling your feet beneath you so that now you are facing her where she sits cross-legged in the driver’s seat. “Give me another.”
“But it’s not your past.”
“I know what I saw.”
“You’re not listening,” she says, shaking her head. “There are too many threads, too many possibilities. The chances are zero that you—”
“Please, Jai.” You reach for her. “Let me try.” When you touch her bare knee, she flinches away from you, clasping her bag more tightly to her chest. You immediately withdraw your hand. “I’m sorry, I…”
“I knew this would happen.”
You squeeze your eyes shut, unable to face the judgment in her eyes, and wrap your arms around your own chest. But there he is again crawling toward you in the sand. Robert? You hear him say. He thought you were your brother, his brother, come to collect him. “How many do you have?” you ask, trying to keep your voice calm. You need to warn him, maybe distract the dogs. “How many left?”
“Enough to get you killed.”
You open your eyes. Meet her gaze. “Please?”
She stares back at you and for a long moment does not respond. You see yourself wrenching the bag from her grip. You only need one.
“Fine,” she says. “Fuck it. What do I care?” She reaches into the knapsack, takes out a blue capsule, and places it in the open palm of your hand.
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she says, turning away. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
You put the pill in your mouth and swallow.
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THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.