Old Acquaintance

11pm, on the 31st of December and just as I expected - the knock on the door.

I got up from my chair where I had been sitting comfortably for the last time, with everything ready, waiting. Outside in the cold night air the sounds of partying spilled into my hallway as I opened the front door and saw myself standing there.

“Come in,” I said to myself.

I, by which I mean, he, stepped inside and shrugged off the cold.

“Drink?” I said.

“Yeah, tea thanks.” I heard myself say.

We both walked together into the kitchen, he dropped his large coat on the sofa as he walked past.

“So, all ready then?” He asked.

“Yeah, pretty much. Well, still a few loose ends I would have liked to have got to, but you know, just ran out of time.”

“I know, tell me about them on the way, I’ll see what I can do.”

I nodded and remembered my own arrival exactly one year ago. My own outgoing version said much the same thing. Told me all about his plans that he hadn’t had time to complete, explained all his hopes and dreams to me, probably knowing himself that they were just as unlikely to happen during my term as during his.

The kettle boiled and I poured the water into the pot.

“Where to start, eh.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I almost didn’t have the energy or the will at that moment to explain any of it. Would it be so bad if I just let it all slide, let this new version of me carry on afresh, with no preconceptions, no instructions? “I suppose, just the important stuff, you’ll figure out the rest for yourself.”

None of it seemed to matter now anyway, all those ideas I’d had, the plans. There seemed to be so many things I’d wanted to do that I had no hope of ever completing them all, so why try? Ah, maybe it was the time of year. It went without saying that Winter always depressed me, in every version, but maybe it was this transition that put it into focus.

We drank the tea and I showed him around the house. There wasn’t much to tell, he would remember everything as soon as I made the transfer, but memory didn’t account for much, just what’s gone before, and it’s an unreliable version at best. The new one could do as he wanted; throw out all my old stuff and start again or carry it on, improve on it, learn.

We got into the car and I looked back at the house. I drove. We both knew the way.

“So. What about friends, tell me about them.” He asked, getting down to business.

“Well, there’s a few new ones, you should try to keep those up, and then the old ones, I’m not so sure you’ll have time for them all.”

“Time? I got a whole year to fill!”

“It won’t last long. Just keep in touch with the ones who seemed interested, the others, just ignore them.”

The car struggled up the steep hill and over the top, in front of us just stars and the road.

“Where am I going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he smiled back at me. “You’ll remember it all again once you leave.”

“The waiting room?”

“That’s right,” he said. I could see slight differences in his appearance now, apart from the clothes. One year older was hardly anything to look at.

“Where we all wait?”

“Wait our turn, yes. All the past and the future versions, that’s where you’re going.”

“There’s a set number then?”

“Of course. As the past gets more, the future gets less.”

We turned right at the top of the lane and soon we were at the main road. We stopped for a moment and I wondered what would happen if I simply got out and ran off. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. Maybe he didn’t want my life, given the choice, but then, soon it would be his, to make of it what he wanted, just as it had been mine for the last twelve months.

“You know,”

“Yes,” I said,

“It seems to me that you could have done a lot more.”

“I could have,” I said, “I wasted a lot of time, I know, but I didn’t know how things would end up. Are you really going to do any better?”

“I hope so.” I laughed,

“I had big plans too, when I was sitting where you are now. There was so much I was going to do, but most of it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, some of it just seemed a waste of time and effort and, well some of it did, that’s the stuff I’ll remember.”

“I know, we have the same conversation every year,” he said.

“What if this year was different, what if,” I almost managed to stop myself from saying it, “this time I didn’t go?”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“You can’t cheat, you just can’t.”

We reached the cross-roads and turned onto the dark back road, the last half mile. I started looking for the gate, almost impossible to see in the dark. The conversation stopped, while I slowed down to a crawl and concentrated on finding the entrance to the field. He pointed it out and I pulled in.

“It’s like the frames of a movie,” he said, opening the door. He got out and walked to the gate. Through the beam of the headlights, past his shadows and the gate I could just make out the outline. A few volleys of fireworks went up over the town, then seconds later I heard the boom of the explosions. I drove between the gateposts and watched in the rear view as he closed the gate again. I hated looking at myself.

He got back in and turned up the heat.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Individual frames, on their own they are just - pictures, but the whole thing when viewed from the ‘outside’, is a life. We’re just different frames in the same movie.” I reached up and felt for the tiny pin-prick at the base of my neck. A thought popped it open, ready to transmit the memory transfer. I got the feeling this one was going to do okay, I don’t know, there was something about him.

“Wait, not while you’re still driving,” he said. I pulled up beside the small hatch. “That’s what it’s all about, not all those versions in the waiting room, they’re just the past and the future, but that,” he pointed to the back of my head. “That’s the present, that’s the life, that’s why we keep on doing it.”

I looked at the ramp opening up and felt glad that I would soon be going home, now I just wanted to get it over with.

“Okay, ready?” He nodded and I burst a million Petabytes of information at him.

* * *

I sat there for a moment, trying to adjust to the experiences of a lifetime - someone else’s life flashing before my eyes. He looked drunk, but I knew it was just the effects of the transfer. I walked around and opened the driver’s door and helped him out. As soon as he saw the ramp he seemed to know where he was, the residual homing instinct.

He grabbed the hand-rail and pulled himself in towards the light and warmth of the passenger compartment and the ramp pulled itself up. The door closed and I got into the car. I looked at the clock, 00:01, and pushed the power button on the radio. Jolly Irish music spilled out as the tiny boosters kicked in.

“Happy New Year!” I shouted out the window.

There was a whole year ahead of me and I had big plans, so much to do, so many things to put right. But, I’d do all that tomorrow. Right now all I wanted was to go home, get a nice cup of tea and go to bed.