Author’s Note: The following scene suggests an alternate ending for The Loss of What Is Past. If I’d included it in that book, it would have been the final scene of the Epilogue. Fair warning that it goes beyond the realm of science fiction. But it resolves some unanswered questions from both Loss and The Lightning in the Collied Night. I hope you enjoy this final flash fiction story for both novels.
SPOILER ALERT: There are spoilers below for The Lightning in the Collied Night and The Loss of What Is Past.
Date: Unknown
Kapono’s eyelids slowly opened. He was lying in a bed, facing a large window. Rose-colored early morning sunlight filtered through its sheer curtains. I think this is the bedroom in Lai’s apartment in Boston! he realized with surprise. How the heck …? He turned his head and saw he was alone in the bed. He smelled a wonderful aroma of brewing coffee, then he noticed a blue terrycloth robe draped over a chair beside the bed. I used to have a robe like that. He got up, put on the robe, and headed for the kitchen.
Lai was standing at a counter in the tiny kitchen, wearing her most cherished possession: the floral silk kimono robe her mother had given her on her 25th birthday. Otherwise, she looked exactly like she did when Kapono had first met her in a drab, gray corridor of the underground Prometheus base in Kansas. She was pouring coffee into two mugs; she looked up and beamed when she saw him. “Good morning, sleepyhead!”
“Lai!” Kapono cried with joy as he rushed to her and wrapped his arms tightly around her. “I can’t believe it’s you! I’ve missed you so much!”
“I’ve missed you, too, my love.”
He stepped back from his embrace, his hands on her shoulders. “But … how can you be here? And how did I get here?” And, why am I here, of all places?
She nodded toward the coffee mugs, smiling enigmatically. “Let’s sit and talk.” She led him into the living room, and they sat down on the red overstuffed sofa. She took a sip of coffee, and he did also.
“Kona coffee?” he asked.
“Of course! What else would it be?” She set her mug on the coffee table. “What’s the last thing you remember before you woke up this morning?”
“I was dreaming about my mission to the wormhole in Chronos 3. Aileen and I made it through the wormhole, but the ship had been damaged by a micrometeorite, so there’s no way we could’ve made it back to Earth. I hoped Earth would send a rescue ship, like in your dream. After a couple of hours, a spaceship did arrive, but it flew right past us and plunged into the wormhole. Then there was a blinding flash, and … I woke up.”
“That wasn’t a dream, my love,” Lai said gently.
“What do you mean?” Kapono asked anxiously. “Lai, how did I get here?” A chill shot through his body as he wondered, Am I dead? “Is—is this heaven?”
A car’s horn blared from the street below. “This is Boston,” she replied with a droll smile. “As for how you got here … ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”
That’s from the Bible—the New Testament, Kapono recalled.
“You’re wondering if you’re dead—if we’re both dead, aren’t you?” Kapono nodded once, slowly. “What do you know about biocentrism?”
He was surprised by the question. “I remember reading a paper on it at Cal Berkeley. That’s the quantum physics theory that says space and time aren’t the solid entities we perceive them to be, but instead are constructs of our consciousness, right?”
“Bingo. In a timeless, space-less universe, there’s no such thing as death. That doesn’t mean there’s some kind of perpetual existence in time, but rather an existence outside of time altogether.”
Kapono stared at Lai as what she’d told him sunk in. “Holy shit.”
She grinned at his use of one of her favorite expletives, then she savored another sip of coffee. “Remember when you asked me, right before you left on your mission to the wormhole, if I believe there’s something beyond the physical?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I wasn’t sure, then. I wondered if there’s a God, and if so, what God is.” She took another sip of coffee. “I think I know, now: God is infinite and absolute forgiveness. And … God is love. We’re both here because of that boundless forgiveness and love.”
Kapono struggled to absorb what Lai had just said. “Who, um, who else is here?”
She smiled tenderly. “Our parents are here, Kapono. And Liam, Daniel, Katherine and Patience, Haruto and Meira, Anong and Minwaadizi and Bizaan, Kaleo, Agueda, Hannah and Ben, Jared, Jim, Miriam and Jonah and Joshua, Francis, José ….”
I don’t know how I know most of those people, Kapono thought. But they’re familiar, somehow … and someone important is missing. “Yinuo?”
“No, not yet. She’ll be here soon. An, Linda, Witi, and Aroha, too.”
Kapono recognized those names, too, although he wasn’t sure how. He nodded as his eyes began to glisten. “I don’t suppose Akela …?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Lai said with a bright smile. “Everyone’s here.” She paused and reconsidered. “Well, not quite everyone. Remember what I told you about what Francis said about forgiveness? That to be forgiven, a person must be heartily sorry, sincere in asking for forgiveness, and willing to make amends?” Kapono nodded as he thought, She must mean Pope Francis II. I recall now that Lai met him once in Boston. “Not everyone does that before their time on Earth is up. So, those people are given a chance to think about it for a while … maybe a hella long while, for some of them.”
“I see. Where are they?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But wherever it is, I have a feeling there’s no Kona coffee there.” She picked up her mug and took another sip. “Oh, before I forget—thank you for my memorial service. It was really nice. It made me cry.”
Kapono had a sudden, intense memory of that sad day. “You saw it?”
“I was there, my love—right beside you.” He stared at her in amazement. “Do you remember what Minwaadizi told us about how there’s a spirit that follows each of us, that keeps us connected to the end of time?”
For a moment he didn’t recall who Minwaadizi was, then her face and what she’d told them solidified in his mind. “Yes….”
She looked out the tall divided-light windows for a few seconds, then turned back to Kapono. “I always wondered why my parent’s car stopped dead when I tried to drive it over the cliff when I was 20. I know now what happened: I punched the Stop button without realizing I’d done it. I didn’t know I’d done it because your hand guided mine to the button.” Kapono’s eyebrows raised. “And that voice I heard that said, ‘Don’t do it, Lai!’ … that was your voice, Kapono.”
He started to reply, but she continued, “Wait—there’s more. We wondered how Aileen was able to pilot Chronos 2 back to Earth when it was crippled, something she wasn’t programmed to do, and saved my life.” Kapono nodded. “She had help—your help, my love.”
“But those events were years ago!” he exclaimed. “How could I have been there?”
“As I said, time and space have no meaning here, Kapono. That’s why both of us remember all the events that were supposed to happen, but also everything that happened because of your travels through time.”
Kapono suddenly realized he’d never before been in Lai’s Boston apartment, because she moved there after his mission to the Wagamese Wormhole. Yet he remembered its every detail and the happy times he, Lai, and their daughter Yinuo experienced there after he returned to the past. Other memories he never knew he’d had coursed through his mind like a raging river: meeting former President Daniel Bennett in Boston; cradling his newborn daughter in a hospital in San Francisco; saying goodbye to his father Keone and beloved lab Akela right before World War III; his desperate flight to Miranda, Australia after that war with Lai, Yinuo, and Anong Wagamese; and many other shadows from his past, and his future. Three different timelines—three different lives—and I remember all of them!
He shut his eyes tightly as he remembered the sickening sound of a truck’s brakes and tires screeching before it slammed into Lai outside a cinema in Miranda. He also remembered two conflicting memories: sitting at Yinuo’s bedside, holding her hand as she lay dying of cancer; and a much younger Yinuo caring for him in her home when he was terminally ill. He remembered telling his distraught daughter that she and her son An must not allow Chronos 4 to be discovered by An’s wife Linda in West Texas, to ensure he would not reach Earth of the future after he’d traversed the wormhole in Chronos 3. And, he realized what the blinding flash was that he thought he’d dreamed about before finding himself in Lai’s bed.
The stream of memories ceased and he opened his eyes when Lai continued in a quiet voice, “We can go whenever and wherever we wish—wherever we’re needed.” She looked into his eyes. “Do you remember when you were a little boy—you blamed yourself for your mother’s death in the Maui fire?”
“Yeah, I remember,” he said in a strained voice.
“You had a really tough time of it back then. I know Keone did everything he could to help you, but you were in a deep, dark place—like I was after I got out of prison. And, just like you were there for me when I was at the end of my rope, I was with you when you were young. I held your hand; I hugged you. I told you everything would be all right, in time.”
Kapono remembered having feelings of being embraced, of soothing warmth and love, while lying in his bed some nights as a boy. “That was you?”
“Yes, my love. And, I was with Daniel when he buried the love of his life—his fiancée Sahra—in 1993, and when he was mourning President Pendamai in 2036. I was with Yinuo when she was struggling after I was hit by that truck. And I was with her, An, and Linda when Liam died.”
“What about that elk that ran in front of our car at exactly the right time and place in Alberta, after World War III? That was no coincidence, was it?”
Lai smiled, “That was Minwaadizi.” She leaned forward on the sofa. “My frosh roommate at Stanford, Rahmah, told me once, ‘Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear.’ After being sexually assaulted multiple times and my two hellish months in prison, I thought she was full of crap. But, she was right, Kapono. Except she left out the part about our getting help when we need it most.” She blinked as tears began to pool in her eyes. “Sometimes that help isn’t enough … the pain is too great to bear. But we have to try to help.”
She grasped his hands and looked into his eyes. “We’re not here just to sit on our butts and drink Kona coffee. You and I have a lot of work to do.”
He squeezed her hands and smiled. “I’m ready, ku’uipo.” But … I’d love to see my parents. Could we do that first?”
“Of course, my love. You can see anyone you wish. They’ve been looking forward to seeing you again. And, I know you knew my dad at Berkeley, but my mom would love to meet her granddaughter’s father.” She looked at his old robe and smiled. “But, put on some clothes first, okay? I want you to make a good first impression.”
Kapono looked at her with love. “Whatever you say, sweetie.”
( Image by Freepik )
