I tried to make the call almost a dozen times before I could hang on past the third ring. They said this would happen. I’m sure they learned pretty quickly that the company policy of only charging for answered calls would keep skittish customers like myself from feeling like I’d blown a bunch of money on nothing.
It was meant to feel like any other phone call: just open the app, put in the exact date and time, and enter the phone number like normal. Clearly all the complex processing was happening in some server somewhere, but all I needed was a regular ol’ data plan.
My therapist begged me not to do this. I mean, maybe “beg” is a bit heavy, but she wasn’t shy about her deep philosophical belief that this was a bad thing in just about every way; bad for the callers, bad for the recipients, bad for the universe writ large. She said it was a kind of “dwelling”, that it was antithetical to the process of moving on and letting go, that making just one of these calls would have unforeseen consequences that outweighed the potential benefits by a kiloton.
Evelyn, on the other hand, was the reason I’d even considered this in the first place. She said it was the greatest decision of her life, and now she was making two or three calls a week. Truth be told, it was just about all she wanted to talk about these days. Which I get. I think.
The day I made the call is honestly a little hard to remember at this point. I think maybe I was standing at the kitchen counter, like I’d just made a coffee or something and figured I’d give it a go?
It rang and rang and the sound of the ringing surprised me, it took me back. I knew exactly what day to call, it was very meticulous. I know my hand was trembling, I think I put in an earpiece so I could put the phone down. Which he couldn’t do. He?
The fourth ring was a milestone for me, and the closer I got to having to speak the more treacherous the first words seemed. But finally, an answer.
“Hello?”
He sounded very different than I expected.
They were very clear in their language that I should think of him as him. As someone else. They said it was vital to my understanding of what was happening, and how it might affect me and the world around me. They said that if it was “me”, I’d have some recollection of the call, that it would be some kind of loop playing out, but they insisted this was different. The technology depended on a reality in which this is the first “time” the call is happening, that nothing about my life could be changed, avoided, amended, it’s not like that. It’s just a call.
My throat shut. There weren’t any words to say now. I had so many. So much that I had practiced in the mirror, so much time I’d invested to prepare, and it all crashed.
I know that time has its way with all of us, but you don’t usually get faced with your own unwound entropy in action, no, in an interaction.
“Hello?”
I don’t know if it had been three or thirty seconds but the repetition slapped me to consciousness. “Uh yeah, hi! Is this…Arthur?”
“Yeeeeees?”
“Um, wow, you sound different than I remember.”
“Uuuh who is this?”
This was the hard part, the thing they always mentioned in the documentation about the process: you can tell the truth. You don’t have to pretend you’re some made up uncle in the U.P. who hasn’t been in touch for ten years, you can just be honest. It was basically the biggest selling point.
“Well this is gonna sound crazy, but I’m you. I’m calling from the future.”
Now I’d had about a hundred nightmares of this exact moment, the silence, the rejection. I’d heard about this. The company obviously tries not to make a big deal out of the possibility but you know how people get online, there was no shortage of negative outcomes.
I thought I could hear him breathing for a moment, like he was about to speak but couldn’t find the words. They also talked about this, about how to help get past this.
“It’s ok, I know it’s crazy. It’s pretty crazy for me too.”
“But how could…”
“Can I prove it to you?”
I tried so hard to imagine what this moment would be like for him, what he must be thinking, what I would have been thinking if it were…me? Because it…was? But not exactly.
“Is this a prank?”
“No no no, I promise you this is real as could be, and I’m not trying to scare you. I know things are crazy right now.”
“I just don’t understand…”
“May… I ask you a couple questions.”
“…like what?”
“Well, uh, ok. Can I ask how you’re doing right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“How are you? Has anybody asked you that today?”
“Uh…yeah, my mom asked me that a little while ago, but…”
“Buddy is your dad in the hospital right now?”
A silence. Then he said, “You kinda sound like him.”
He made me smirk. “No man, you sound a lot like him, and that’s not gonna stop.”
Another silence, this time a little longer, a little different.
“How are you calling me?”
“Uuuh, that’s really hard for me to say. I am calling you through…an app on my phone that lets me call any phone number on any specific day in time.”
“Yo what?”
I couldn’t not laugh; hearing it out loud made it sound so insane, but here it was, working. Just like all the ads. “Yeah! Isn’t that crazy?”
“Ok hold on, I’m not trying to like grill you, but…”
“You need proof.”
“I mean, yeah, I…what you just said sounds insane, but I could believe it.”
“But it could also equally be bullshit, absolutely.”
“Right, you can’t think I’m just not gonna ask questions…”
“Yeah, for sure, I get you,” I said. So casual? Is that weird?
“How old are you?”
“Uh…. I’m 38.”
“On shit, you’re not that old!”
“You’re goddamn right.”
“So like…this time travel shit is gonna happen, like, soon?”
This is not on the agenda, but they said to be truthful, I guess. “Yeah, well, I hadn’t thought…ok, so there was an AI revolution in 2028. I can tell you all the…details? But I’m not an expert at all, I’m honestly just a customer. I don’t know how it works, but you gotta believe that if you’re skeptical right now, I’m utterly convinced.”
“Do you remember this conversation?”
“I…don’t, and it’s hard to say why. I think we live on different timelines or something? Some multiverse shit they discovered when quantum computers really went mainstream about…two years ago?”
“Yo.”
“Yeah, I’m telling you, we’re both going through this right now.”
“Why did you call me today?”
The gravity of the situation returned. “Well, I knew…”
“You knew about Dad.”
“Where are you right now?”
“Uh…I’m in the theater.”
“Where?”
“At school.”
“Oh dude, what time is it?”
“I think it’s like 5:30. It’s been pretty quiet in here.”
“Yeah, no rehearsal?”
“Wrong season.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“Yeah, damn. So it was your birthday last week too?”
“Uhhh, yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
By this point I had made it to the sofa. This was not what I expected. I came with this plan, and it wasn’t working. This was so…easy? So friendly, like we were buds. I felt…I don’t know, it’s weird. The way that I felt right then was…seen? But of course I did, it’s like having somebody else tell you your own thoughts, that validation was…shocking.
“How is Dad?”
“Uh…yeah, he’s ok. He’s still in the hospital, it’s been a bit but he’s doing a lot better. I think they said it was a stroke, but it was like not that straightforward for some reason? I don’t really know. But yeah. We have so much food in the house. Hitchcock people went crazy.”
“Oh yeeeeah, I remember that. It’s weird, I feel like now I wouldn’t be able to eat any of that stuff.”
“Wait what?”
I wasn’t sure how much to divulge, but I guess I was opening up.
“You’re probably gonna be surprised to hear this, but I’ve been vegan for about four years.”
“Wait really?”
“Yeah, I cut out meat and dairy first, but then there was a massive bird flu pandemic, and it just became necessary to cut out everything else for long enough that I didn’t miss it.”
“That’s CRAZY.”
“It IS fuckin crazy. But I can’t believe that we all took so long to see it.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No no no, don’t worry about it, I don’t want to preach to you, look. This stuff can’t be changed. I don’t know how this call works but the long and short of it is that I’m not trying to warn you, or convince you to do anything. You just live your life. I’m nervous to tell you too much stuff about the future because—“
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He definitely had that anger I recognized. Still recognize.
“Yeah, the point is…”
“The point? There’s a point?”
“Look, no, that’s not what I mean. I can’t…change your life, I can’t…stop Dad from falling. I can’t make you break up with Katie sooner, I can’t tell you to start coding right away, it doesn’t make a difference. I can’t rescue you from the shit. I can’t stop you from fucking up again and again because that’s not how this works. But I can talk to you. You have to live YOUR life. I already lived that part of mine.”
That silence came back, re-gestating. The years between us seemed to stretch further apart like stars in an expanding universe, with swelling vacuums in between. I had gone too far. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t the way.
“Who’s Katie?”
Oh man, he really had no idea.
“Look, I don’t even know if it’s all going to play out the same for you, but I know that right now you feel really fucking lonely.”
He was silent, and it hurt so much, because I finally understood how much it had always hurt to be on the receiving end. But I knew he was trying to decide what to say: ruminating on whether the words he was bursting to release would help or hurt; would the repressed thought bound right behind his lips go too far; would the fear that his heart couldn’t speak truly ever go away?
“Hey what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know! I’m…this is the most fucked up thing that’s ever happened, and it’s happening RIGHT NOW.”
“Yeah I know I know, I didn’t call to make this harder for you, I…”
“So why did you call? Was this just for you? To make you feel better after you’ve already been through the shit?”
“No, please, that’s not it at all. The shit is the best part. If I told you all the secrets, you’d just follow the road map, but you wouldn’t live.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Yes it does, and I can only tell you that in hindsight. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’m calling to tell YOU that. I’ve been dreaming that I could see the light for the first time again. The dark time is a necessary step, everything without it is meaningless. It’s what makes you.”
The silent refrain. Processing.
“This is terrible though. I feel so helpless.”
“Are you still at the theater?”
“Yeah, I haven’t moved.”
“Go outside.”
I was sitting up now, electricity in my hands. I was there with him, walking uphill to the back of the auditorium, leaning on the door handle with a forearm, shouldering into the hallway, bee-lining it for the glass portal outside.
“Ok. I’m here.”
“Breathe.”
Breathe.
I said, “You don’t ever have to be alone.”
I could hear my heart, and his breath. Slow.
“Can you call again?”