Shrapnel
by Adam Cadre (2000)
Genres: Horror
Surreal
Time Travel
Historical


action: %
response: You came all this way and the door is boarded?

Is this supposed to be some sort of game?
action: About yourself
response: You are Bill Blake, co-founder of Whitman & Blake Dry Goods, one of the leading such outfits in all of Dixie. It was Whitman, your partner, who convinced you to come all the way out here to his estate tonight -- he'd been increasingly concerned that there might be trouble. Trouble from whom? God only knows. That mumbling milquetoast has been jumping at shadows lately.
action: You look
response: You are standing in an open field west of a white house with a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
It occurs to you that you have no memory at all of how you got here.
action: You go northeast
response: You walk around to the north side of the house...
...but before you can take more than a few steps, a trio of frenzied attack dogs comes bursting out from behind the house and tears you to pieces.
action: You go northeast
response: You walk around to the north side of the house...
North of the house
You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. To the north a narrow path winds through the trees.
action: About yourself
response: Introspection is Whitman's stock in trade. You are a man of action.
action: You go to the north
response: You set off into the forest...
In the pines
As you proceed along the path, the light trickling in through the treetops seems to grow brighter, as if it had been sunrise and not sunset when you began. And the trees... this isn't North Carolina anymore. This is, what? Maryland? Pennsylvania? You'd think a man would notice walking two hundred miles, but apparently not.
You hear voices in the distance.

"Hey, Green," says the first one. Even this is enough for you to pinpoint the accent: Carolina. So you're not caught behind enemy lines. Good to know.

"Yeah?" says someone, presumably Green. There was a Green in your regiment, you recall. Common enough name to be coincidence, though. "Have you been helped?"
action: You listen
response: You'll have to specify what to listen to.

The voices resume.

"How come you're here?" asks the first voice, in less a drawl than a whine. "You're no Southerner..."

"I'm a substitute, Einstein," Green says. "You get drafted, you shoot a couple creds to the local op, and some poor ellhead gets to dodge artillery shells in your place. And chances are this ellhead in't gonna be from the landed gentry of old Virginny, hm?"

The thing is, you vaguely remember this exchange. This is certainly the same idiot you remember from the war; at least the other immigrant substitutes just shit their pants when they got scared and didn't jibber in broken English. The strange thing is, with each passing moment you remember the conversation you've just heard more and more clearly -- but you still have zero recollection of what came next.
action: You listen to the voices
response: You can't tell where the voices came from; they seemed to echo all around you.

"Now," Green says, "the real question is, what are you two doing here? You're rich, educated... and you weren't even drafted, reh? So what gives? Just wanted to get fragged?"

"Well, it's not..." says the first man, trailing off into mumbling. "...duty to your homeland and..."

"Shut up," barks a third voice.
action: You wait a while
response: ...

"It's got nothing to do with 'duty,'" growls the third voice after a moment. "It's the exact opposite. It's about liberty. Freedom. Freedom to do as you please in your own house. A man's home is his castle, and if the state tries to stick its nose into the way you run your house, you cut the damn thing off. And it's the same thing one level out -- every state does things its own way, and if the federal government tries to change that, you burn it to the ground and set up one that'll let your state do as it damn well pleases."
action: Wait
response: ...

The voices cease.
action: You look around
response: You are walking through a forest nestled among low-lying hills somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon. The air is full of birdsong and the smell of gunpowder.
action: You listen to the birdsong
response: The sound of birdsong is all around you. Apparently the robins don't realize there's a war on.

You hear a rustling behind you.

"Hey!" says a voice. You turn around -- it's Whitman, only much younger, as babyfaced as he was during the war. "Identify yourse--" he begins, then cuts himself off. "You look familiar. Do I know you?"

Before you can answer, there is another rustling, and a tall man and some sort of foreigner come running up behind Whitman. "What the hell are you doing here, you fool?" the tall man shouts. "Hurry, damn it! There's a hill just on the other side of those trees and it's covered with Unio--"

The tall man doesn't get to finish; there is a loud roar and he is ripped to pieces before your eyes. Broken trees are hurtling toward you and it looks like the end, but before they can reach you, something explodes in the foreigner's pocket, and the light of a billion suns makes the world go white before everything suddenly goes black.

> restart

You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
[Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
action: Go east
response: You walk around to the back of the house...
Behind the house
You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door slightly ajar.
action: You enter door
response: You open the back door and step inside...
...and are immediately blown back out the door by a shotgun blast that rips a gaping hole through your chest.

> restart

You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.

Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
[Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
action: You take the door
response: You tug at the door, but the last hinge still holds.
action: You examine the corpse
response: Enh, you saw worse during the war.
action: You take corpse
response: The corpse is too cumbersome to handle by yourself.
action: You enter door
response: You open the back door and step inside...
Inside the house
It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point... is that large shape in the corner the stove?
Not that you have much time to dwell on this -- the man who shot you before is silhouetted in front of you, wild-eyed and hissing, and he still has one blast left in his shotgun. And before you can react -- your reflexes aren't a tenth what they used to be -- he uses it, jamming the barrel into his mouth and pulling the trigger. You close your eyes just before the blast. After a moment, you hear a thump, and open them again.

A headless corpse lies at your feet.
action: About yourself
response: Introspection is Whitman's stock in trade. You are a man of action.
action: You examine the corpse
response: You-- you can't stand to look at it. You've seen worse, yes. But you just... can't.
action: Look around
response: It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.

A headless corpse lies at your feet.
action: You go west
response: You proceed further into the house...
Inside the house
This... living room?... is just as empty as the kitchen before it. All the furniture is gone, save for a case where Whitman used to store his war memorabilia, now empty and thoroughly smashed. There is also a large, threadbare rug in the center of the room. Exits lead east and--

Wait a minute. This door was boarded shut. It would've taken an hour and created a huge racket to get that doorway clear. But here it is, door wide open, the last light before dusk streaming into the room.

This has ceased to be remotely amusing. Who the hell opened that goddamn door?
action: You look at rug
response: The pitter-patter of little feet has worn this rug down to little more than a rag.
action: You open the door
response: (the trap door)
The trap door is barred; you unbar it and take a look inside, but it's too dark to see much of anything. You let the door go and it swings shut with a heavy thud.
action: Go west
response: You step outside...
West of the house
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
action: Go southeast
response: You walk around to the south side of the house...
South of the house
You are standing south of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. However, one window upstairs is unevenly boarded, and you can see light shining through a crack between two boards.
action: You look in the window
response: Through the crack you see an attic, converted into a girl's bedroom -- Betsy Whitman's bedroom, if you're not mistaken, and you know you're not. The same dolls on the dresser, the same splashes of pink. Except... except...
Anyway, it makes no sense that there would be a lamp burning if the house has been abandoned, especially not in that room.
action: You go to the south
response: The forest is too thick in that direction to permit you to travel more than a few steps. It seems to thin out on the other side of the house, though.
action: Go east
response: You walk around to the back of the house...
Behind the house
You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.

Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
action: You go to the west
response: You open the back door and step inside...
Inside the house
It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.

A headless corpse lies at your feet.
action: You move stove
response: It's much too heavy.
action: You climb stove
response: You are carrying nothing.

That cannot be climbed.
action: You go north
response: There is a wall in that direction.
action: You move corpse
response: The corpse has nothing that you want.

Nothing obvious happens.
action: Go west
response: You proceed further into the house...
action: West
response: This... living room?... is just as empty as the kitchen before it. All the furniture is gone, save for a case where Whitman used to store his war memorabilia, now empty and thoroughly smashed. Exits lead east and west.

There is also a trap door in the center of the room.
action: You open the trap door
response: You open the trap door and take a look inside, but it's too dark to see much of anything. You let the door go and it swings shut with a heavy thud.
action: You look at the trap door
response: For a moment you'd forgotten about this trap door, even though you installed it yourself. How? Maybe it has something to do with the bunkum going on around here... or maybe you just wanted to forget.
action: You think
response: You try to think back, but every moment of the recent past slips away before your mind can take hold.
action: Xyzzy
response: You open the trap door and climb down the rickety staircase into the darkness...

It is pitch black.

You hear something growl in the darkness.
action: Go north
response: The growling intensifies to a terrible roar as you are torn apart.

> restart

You are standing in an open field west of a white house with a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.

Three snarling attack dogs fight with one another over the remains of your corpse.
[Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
action: You examine the outhouse
response: These heaps of wood are all that is left of what was once a small village of secondary buildings. Splintery, weathered, rotten wood. It's not good lumber -- hell, it isn't even decent firewood.
action: You go to the west
response: You open the back door and step inside...
Inside the house
It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.

A headless corpse lies at your feet.
action: You go to the west
response: You proceed further into the house...
Inside the house
This... living room?... is just as empty as the kitchen before it. All the furniture is gone, save for a case where Whitman used to store his war memorabilia, now empty and thoroughly smashed. Exits lead east and west.

There is also a trap door in the center of the room.
action: You enter the trap
response: You open the trap door and climb down the rickety staircase into the darkness...
Under the house
It is pitch black.

You hear something growl in the darkness.
action: Go upwards
response: The growling intensifies to a terrible roar as you are torn apart.

> restart

You are standing in an open field west of a white house with a boarded front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.

Three snarling attack dogs fight with one another over the remains of your corpse.
action: You look at the dogs
response: The dogs are ferocious Bull-and-Terriers, exactly the breed you'd choose if you were selecting guard dogs for your own home.
action: About you
response: By all rights, you should be dead. You are dead, if the corpse before you is any indication. Yet you feel fine. As fine as you ever get, at any rate -- half-deaf and half-crippled, but not bad, considering.
action: You go to the west
response: The forest is too thick in that direction to permit you to travel more than a few steps. It seems to thin out to the north, though.
action: Go southeast
response: You walk around to the south side of the house...
South of the house
You are standing south of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. However, one window upstairs is unevenly boarded, and you can see light shining through a crack between two boards.
action: You open the window
response: The windows are boarded shut. They cannot be opened.
action: You knock on the window
response: This seems like a waste of energy.
action: You go to the northeast
response: You walk around to the north side of the house...
North of the house
You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
action: Go southwest
response: You return to the front of the house...
West of the house
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
action: You look through the crack
response: Through the crack you see the bedroom of Betsy, your business partner's youngest daughter. Why a lamp is burning in an abandoned house you cannot guess.
action: You take corpse
response: The corpse is too cumbersome to handle by yourself.
action: Go east
response: You return to the kitchen...
Inside the house
It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.

A headless corpse lies at your feet.
action: You close the door
response: You try to close the door, but it swings open again. The latch isn't catching.
action: You go east
response: You return to the yard behind the house...
action: You go east
response: You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.

Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
action: Go north
response: You walk around to the north side of the house...
North of the house
You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
action: Go west
response: You return to the front of the house...
West of the house
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
action: You go east
response: You walk into the house...
Inside the house
So this is what Whitman was afraid of, the reason he summoned you all the way out here -- he was afraid of his own brats. Three of them this time, busy clearing the table after what seems to have been a small banquet: William Junior, nearing thirty and still a menial bank clerk; Ann, the ugly daughter, twenty-five and still unmarried; and your old friend Johnny, younger now than when he blew his head off, but still twitching like a damn Shaker. Good God, what a sorry lot.

"Where have you been?" Junior asks, pouring you a glass of wine. "You missed dinner entirely! And after we went to all the trouble of making you this meal..." He shakes his head. "But at least there's some wine left," he says, pressing the glass into your hand.
action: You examine junior
response: William Jr. was always a bookish little worm, more concerned with the schoolmarm's opinion than his own father's -- not that Whitman was much better than the schoolmarm. Setting aside money that could've been used for the business to send Junior to Hahvahd... took a damn war to convince him of the idiocy of that plan. The cash infusion really helped the business. And dipping into the money Junior made from his work at the bank? Well, you didn't hear him whining about all the free meals he ate growing up. Little ingrate.
action: You examine the wine
response: If you were Whitman, you'd have drained this glass already -- he was never a big drinker before the war, but he picked up the habit quickly enough, even before he had any physical pain to dull. By the time the two of you got to the hospital, he was drinking more than even the surgeons. Your own tastes ran more to chloroform.
action: You look at the table
response: Whatever it was that the others had for dinner has been carried into the kitchen.
action: You examine the rug
response: This rug has seen better days, but it is still in far better condition than it was when last you saw it.
action: You move the rug
response: "GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Johnny shrieks.
action: You look at case
response: Whitman used to keep his memorabilia from the war in this case... no telling where it went.
action: You look at Ann
response: It's hard to believe that Whitman's younger daughter and this one come from the same stock. It was clear from the time she was a small child that Betsy was going to become just the model of the perfect Southern belle, but Ann -- one minute she's an annoying snotnosed kid always in your face with the questions and then you get back from the war and she's turned into an old maid overnight. And now with her chances of ever getting a husband dwindling, it looks like she's going to be a drain on the household and, more importantly, the business, for the rest of her days. Useless.
action: About yourself
response: You're feeling quite well for someone who's died several times over.
action: Go east
response: Johnny produces a pistol and points it at you. "You're not going anywhere," he says, his voice shaking violently.
action: You throw the wine at Johnny
response: The shrapnel in your body makes throwing things too painful to be worth the effort.
action: You examine shrapnel
response: Most of the shrapnel is in your lower body -- your hips, your thighs, your knees. But there's a smattering in other places. A small spur in the back of your hand, for instance, right above the knob of your wrist: it's thickly calloused over, a deadened bump you can poke and prod, but every time you flex your wrist just so, the metal slices through a nerve and it is all you can do to keep from trying to tear the shard out with your fingernails.
action: You drink the wine
response: You take a swig of the wine and slump down deep into the easy chair. After a couple of minutes you start to feel very tired.

As your eyes begin to droop, Junior walks up to you, his steps tentative. "Father," he says, "please try to understand what is happening to you..."

You start to protest -- do I look like your goddamn father, you imbecile? -- but stop short. All these resurrections, and the way the house is different every time you turn around... could you be inhabiting Whitman's body? You try to look at yourself, but you're just so damn tired...

"This isn't about stealing my money," Junior says. You squint: suddenly there are two of them, then four. "This isn't about me at all," they say. "Or about Mother, or even Gregory. No, this is about Betsy. Betsy was the last..."

Junior no doubt has a lengthy harangue memorized for this occasion, but his voice grows quiet in your ears and soon he is talking to himself.
action: You drink the wine
response: West of the house
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.

[Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
action: You go to the east
response: You walk into the house...
Inside the house
You walk back into the house to find the three Whitman children sitting around the table, talking quietly. They don't seem to notice you until you slam the door behind you. Then, in unison, they all look up.
Johnny looks at you, then down at your corpse slumped in the living room chair, then back at you. He screams. He screams, and runs through the back door out into the yard and the woods beyond. You can hear his inhuman caterwauling even as the back door slams shut.
action: You kill Johnny
response: Junior faints dead away.
Ann, however, seems curiously unaffected. "So," she says. "There really are two of you. So which are you really? Whitman or Blake? Or is that even a meaningful qu

estion is, do you really want to know? It takes a while to drop the phat info-b0mbz, and chances are your scattered little nineteenth-century brane couldn't begin to comprehend the tale. But it's your call -- want the story?
action: Yes
response: You are in a dim, empty living room, with only a corpse slumped in chair for company. A rug adorns the center of the room. Exits lead east and west.
action: Go east
response: You proceed further into the house...
Inside the house
It is almost too dim inside to see anything, but you can make out enough to tell that there isn't much to see. You're reasonably sure this was the kitchen at one point. The door is to the east, while a larger room lies west. A staircase once led upward, but most of the stairs are now missing.

A headless corpse lies at your feet.
action: About yourself
response: You're feeling quite well for someone who's died several times over.
action: You go east
response: You return to the yard behind the house...
Behind the house
You are behind the white house, where the husks of the other buildings on the estate stand: the stables, carriage house, outhouse, niggers' quarters, all are just collapsed heaps of weathered wood now. The house itself stands to the west, the back door hanging from the doorframe by one hinge.

Your corpse lies sprawled on an expanse of blood-stained grass, a gaping hole through its torso.
action: Go north
response: You walk around to the north side of the house...
North of the house
You are standing north of a white house. There is no door here, and all the windows are boarded. The forest to your north, though thinner here than elsewhere, is nonetheless impenetrable; the path you took earlier has vanished.
action: Go west
response: You return to the front of the house...
West of the house
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, illuminated by the bright light streaming through the open front door. Towering Carolina pines loom all around this clearing, silhouetted in the dusk; soon it will be night.
action: You go to the east
response: You walk into the house...
Inside the house
You are in a dim, empty living room, with only a corpse slumped in chair for company. A rug adorns the center of the room. Exits lead east and west.
action: You examine corpse
response: The corpse stirs as you approach. And that's when you realize: this isn't you, it's Whitman. And he's not even dead. Merely drunk.

"...goddamn brats always making such a goddamn racket..." he mutters. You don't hear anything, but then, you rarely hear much of anything over the constant roar in your ears.

But a moment later you see what he must be talking about, as the boys, Johnny and Gregory, come tearing into the front room, fighting as always -- this time it's not an exchange of blows but just a frantic wrestling match, over, what? A toy? Or are they just

You're doubled over. The pain, god damn it the pain -- that kid smacked right into your leg, drove the shrapnel right through half a dozen nerves, like the whole limb was being blown open all over again... and you, you seem to have thrown him across the room, and he hit the wall... that's a load-bearing wall. His head is bleeding... must have hit a wall stud...

A doctor, Johnny is crying. Gregory needs a doctor.

A doctor, a doctor, Whitman whimpers. He is doubled up next to you and for a moment you are back in the forest with Union shells going off around you. Except they're not called doctors in wartime, they're called surgeons. And making noise and thrashing around just means you'll get a bayonet in the gut from some goddamn Yank. Oh god, my son, Whitman mewls, and you punch him in the face to shut him up.

That gets Johnny's attention. Someone has to take control here, and though you can barely see from the pain, Whitman sure as hell isn't up to the task.

So there will be no goddamn doctors. No one is to know about this. You, Johnny, are to take little Gregory down to the basement. If he dies, he dies. If he recovers, he recovers. If he ends up somewhere in between, well, Johnny, that's your responsibility. I'm not cleaning up after some idiot kid.

Oh, now Whitman's picking himself up off the floor. See here, he's saying. This is my house, and you aren't going to--

Shut your goddamn mouth. This is my house. I built it. You just sat there. The same way you just sit there while your bastard children are running amok, have to keep calling me over anytime you need to establish a little discipline. That means I make the rules. Got it?

Anyone else want to order me around?

How about you?

Well, to hell with you too. I don't care what you want. Nobody messes with Bill Blake, and nobody orders him around. Not snotnosed kids, not impotent cripples, not the nigger-loving Union government, not God the fucking Almighty. The Grim Reaper has no say over Bill Blake, and neither do you. If your commands and what he wants to do happen to coincide, well zip-a-dee-goddamn-doo-dah.

And right now he's getting the hell out of here.

The dogs are back, still chewing on that corpse... but wait. If the corpse in the easy chair was actually Whitman, alive, then this one... need a closer look...

But the dogs are gone.

The dogs are gone, and the sun is bouncing around in the sky like a rubber ball. And... it was so clear a moment ago... had a plan in mind, but now... don't know what to do, where to go... don't even know who's asking the question...

Help... please, help...
action: About yourself
response: This body, these hands... these hands are full of shrapnel, but whose are they?
[Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
action: Describe the surroundings
response: A white house with a boarded front door lies to the east. Forest is all around. Little else can be said for certain.
action: Go west
response: You open the back door and step inside...
Inside the house
You are back in the kitchen of the house, as empty and desolate as ever--

Wait. The staircase is intact. How did that happen?
[Please type a command before pressing Enter.]
action: Up
response: You climb the stairs...

When you get to Betsy's room, you find her sitting on her bed, crying her eyes out. Whitman is sitting next to her. His belt is undone and he is smeared with blood. "It wasn't me, it wasn't me," he is saying.

"It was him!" He is pointing at you.

You look down. You are also covered in blood.

You are standing in the front room of a white house. You know this because you are staring at yourself from across the room. He doesn't see you, though; he's looking at someone else. And though you can't see that person's face, it seems to be--

"Tycho Green," he says. "You may remember me from such wars as the American Civil War. I'm betting you've been wondering what's been happening to you. The question is, do you really want to know? It takes a while to drop the phat info-b0mbz, and chances are your scattered little nineteenth-century brane couldn't begin to comprehend the tale. But it's your call -- want the story?

"Yes," says the man with your face.

And then he vanishes.

"Frag," Green mutters. Then he turns around and spots you.

"Dammit, stop bi-locating," he says. "All right, here's the scoop. I am from what you would call the 22nd century. We'd call it something more like Window 2101-2200 Sphere 123488.59588 Track ZZ9, but then, reckoning of the date got vastly more complicated once time travel was invented. Little thingawhoozits about the size of a hockey puck -- have they invented hockey yet? is that 19th century or 20th? I always get those confused. Anyway, you key in your temporal coordinates, blip back to wherever you want to go. Only goes backwards, y'skate. Can't go forward because there's branching. Bifurcation? Try bajillionifurcation. At any moment there are something like seven point six times ten to your mom little subatomic blips that could blip some other way. It's like a tree -- you can follow any branch back to the trunk, no decision-making necessary. But finding the right branch from the trunk, well, you have to choose wisely. The hockey puck can't choose because the calculations would take quite literally forever and also it would melt and also it can't just pick at random because most combinations of subatomic blips lead to the universe spontaneously combusting without so much as a 'Bye bye, grandpa loves you.'"

You are standing east of a white house, surrounded by smaller buildings which are collapsing and building themselves back up before your eyes. A carriage wheezes out of the carriage house, then vanishes. Green emerges from the outhouse and taps you on the shoulder.

"So most people don't bother blipping back in time," he continues, "because they can't get back. But me, I met this girlie and I decided that she would be mine. Except that she'd been dead for two hundred years and I didn't want to dig her up because, eww, gross. I'm talking about Ann Whitman here. Not too shabby, hmm? You've got your Homer, your Bill Shakespeare, your Ann Whitman and I guess now your Thu Minh Tran though, just between you and me, I think she's overrated. But Ann, now, her littachur just struck a chord with me. Me and eleven billion other people, key, but still. So I decided I'd review some tapes, learn your dialect, blip back, sweep her off her feet, the whole bit. Key, that means she'd never actually get around to writing her books, but no paradoxes here -- soon as you show up in the past and start changing stuff, you get bifurcated off the tree right away and can't hurt the original branch. Unless..."

The same dolls on the dresser, the same splashes of pink. Betsy is hanging from a noose tied to the crossbeam. She is fourteen forever.
action: You examine betsy
response: Green arrives at the top of the stairs. "Well, I'm getting ahead of myself," he says. "See, the reason Annie was able to crank out these incredible Southern Gothic novels is because she'd lived this incredible Southern Gothic life. Like, her little brother had his head thumped with all sorts of brane damage and got locked in the basement like a monkey -- with another brother assigned to feed him and clean up his shit... that guy blew his head off, gee I wonder why... oh, and her little sister had been raped by her father and then hanged herself." He glances over at Betsy's dangling body and shakes his head. "So the leftover kids got together and offed Daddykins... oh, yeah, and let's not forget Daddykins himself. He wasn't just some random monster -- see, he got tagged by an artillery shell in the war, lived the rest of his life in excruciating pain, and spun off this whole second personality based on some dreadnok thug who actually got fragged by the shell. Bill Blake, big ol' tuff guy. Tuff enuff to stand the pain that Whitman couldn't. So Whitman spent more and more time as 'Blake' -- even brought him into the business, presented himself as Whitman to the people he needed to kiss up to and as Blake to the people he had to browbeat into submission, wrote himself two different paychecks and deposited them at two different banks. But then 'Blake' started showing up at home, and, well, we all know how that turned out..."

"So I blip back in time to when Ann's beginning her literary career," Green says, "but while she's a freakin' sooper-jeenius, she's also completely psycho, I mean mental to the point that you can't conduct a conversation with her without the whole thing ending in tears and maybe some blood. So, no smoochies with Ann while she's like buried under the bell jar, so back some more, this time to get Pops out of the way of the shell so that she can actually live a happy smurfy life with a sane parental unit. Except...

"See, there's one teensy little problem with these hockey pucks -- you break 'em, you've bought it. It's like, take a piece of paper and draw a line on it. Then from the end of that line draw a bunch of branches. Then from the end of each of those branches, draw a bunch more. That's time.

"Now take that tree you've just drawn. Put in on a desk. And empty your inkwell onto it. That's what happens when a time machine blows up.

"When I went back to the war to keep you from getting tagged by the shell, I took a piece of shrapnel right in the ol' hockey puck," Green says. "And when that exploded, this whole timeline got stuck inside the blast zone. The timelines that are enough bifurcations away from us'll be fine, but for us, time is in smithereens and there's no piecing it back together. From here on out it's just fragments, past, future, present, future, past, all jumbled together. No cause and effect, so choice dissolves." He shrugs. "If it's any consolation, I'm stuck here t

You are standing west of a white house with a boarded front door.

You are standing west of a white houseYou are standing westYouhere on out it's just fragmentsYou are standing westtrio of frenzied attack dogsthe same splashes of pinkmumbling milquetoast has been jumping at shadowsman's home is his castleI make the rulesleast there's some wine leftchoice dissolves*** You have died***

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