March 13, 2007

There was no way. We ran every morning. We ate healthy. His family did not have a history of heart problems. He's only twenty-six years old! There's no way. Absolutely no way he could have had a heart attack.

Except there was.

The Death Note.

But why?!

December 14, 2003

"Mary come look at this!"

"Hm?" I hummed from my desk. My attention broke away from the monitor and the mess of computer chips strewn about on my desk. Jay's desk was on the other side of the room. It kept us from being too distracted. "What is it?" I asked as I made my way over.

"Apparently there's a mass killer on the loose."

"That happens from time to time."

"But this one's different."

"How so?" I said from Jay's shoulder. I began to read. 'Unexpected Criminal Deaths! God Punishing the Wicked of Heart?'

"So a killer of criminals?" I blinked as I scanned the next few lines.

'...unexplained supernatural deaths by heart attack...'

'...coincidence..'

…

'...Kira.'

I looked at Jay who looked back at me with his best 'earnest' look. I had to give it to him. He was a good actor. He always had been. I grinned. "I see you've discovered Death Note."

Jay managed to look innocently confused. "Death Note?"

I roll my eyes. "You totally wrote that article."

Jay scoffed. "What?"

I laughed.

"Ah Jay. Save me! I can't take this deception any longer!" I put a hand to my forehead and pretended to faint. My body flopped onto the bed and bounced once before going still.

"Mary… I don't-"

"How many chapters have you read?" I asked, snapping back to where I had been before. "I haven't seen Death Note in forever!"

"Mary. I'm not joking. This is a real news source."

I looked. I saw.

I blinked.

Unexpected Criminal Deaths! God Punishing the Wicked of Heart? The title repeated. I looked to the cube at the top left corner of the monitor. Box News. It read. Huh. I was wondering what kind of idiotic conservative news network this was.

Of course.

But that didn't give me plausible deniability. It wasn't even April. "Uhh." I stared, dumbfounded, and began to sway. Jay was on his feet instantly. He put his hands on my shoulder to steady me. "Hey, are you OK?"

I gulped and sat in Jay's chair. I took ahold of the mouse and began scrolling through the article. Then, I went on to google and looked up "Death Note."

Several suicide-related articles came up.

No manga.

Maybe Death Note wasn't released yet? When did they release Death Note again? I couldn't remember. I look up "Kira Heart Attack". The names of several big news sources blinked onto the screen. CBC, New York Times, BBC...

Holy Shit. I clicked into the CBC article titled 'Criminals Dying by the Dozen Under Strange Circumstances. And I began to read.

Holy mother of all that is profane. Kira is real.

"Yeah. It's surreal." Jay said from behind me. I reach up to touch his face to make sure that he was real. Then, turning on the chair, I kiss him.

It was 2 A.M. Jay had fallen asleep over an hour ago, and I had classes tomorrow. There was no way I could sleep. How could I? Yagami Light was a real person, and he was in Japan right now, writing into a little black notebook and killing, killing, killing. When my name had been Leanne, Death Note had been one of the few manga that I'd read and enjoyed. There were moments that I would never never forget. The Death God Ryuk's laughter. L's defeat. The last smile of victory in Light's eyes as his nemesis dies in his arms. I'd wanted L to uncover Kira so badly that the moment had put me in a sort of shock. No way. L loses. That genius detective who'd managed to track the untrackable, to find the impossible, to corner someone he should've had no way of even pinpointing from among six billion people.

I'd dropped the series then and had never sought it out again. Until now. And now, the series was gone. In its place were real people. People who lived and breathed the same air that I did, who existed in the same universe that I did. Unbelievable.

I looked at Jay whose breathing was soft and unperturbed. Of course it was. This was his universe. He knew of no other place. He wasn't like me. In fact, there was probably no one else in this whole world who was like me.

I was in Death Note. Literally, and I'd been oblivious for twenty years. It was one helluva revelation, and I wasn't going to get over it in a single night. What should I do now? Do I go and make myself a relevant character to the plot? There was a part of me that wanted to rearrange all my goals. To throw away everything I'd done up to this point to travel to Japan. To save L. To defeat Yagami Light. I would get a chance to meet the man in real life. Like meeting a movie star. He would definitely be handsome. Of that I was certain.

I groaned and clapped my hands against my cheeks. There was no way I was going to go off track. What happened in Japan between Light and L had nothing to do with me. Nothing at all. They were worlds away. Sure Light would begin killing some people who didn't deserve to be killed, but what were a few sacrifices compared to the world peace he'd achieved? It was most likely that neither Jay nor I would have our names ever put into the Death Note. That applied to most people. Most lives would go on without any harm. In fact, with the end of war, cruel government and organized crime, humanity would be enjoying a peace that it would never achieve otherwise.

And then there were the Kira fanatics that caused unrest. Light would eventually see the harm that they contributed to society, and they would be quashed.

Yeah. There was no reason for me to throw my life and plans away to help capture Kira. I was OK with this. Jay and I would live a long happy life without the worry of nuclear war that had been threatening to come about in my time, a time when antagonistic international relations, genocide and war were reluctantly accepted norms.

…

Sorry L.

March 13, 2007

The rain roared at me with all the din of a chorus of infinite infinitesimal drums. I shut the door, returning the living room to its quiet peace. This was bad. Staying indoors would be nice, but I had no such luxury. Where in the world did I put that umbrella?

"Hey Jess. Have you seen the umbrella?"

Jess looked up at me from her position on the couch, the glow of the TV giving her face a nice, bright cast. She flipped her eyes back to the TV screen.

"I think Jay took it this morning." Jess said after a moment. "He said he was going to the office."

I immediately take out my phone and dial Jay's number. The dial tone rang once. Twice…

Three times.

"Hi. This is Jae Song. I'm currently unavailable. Please call me back later. Thank you. Good bye."

Jay. What the heck are you doing?! Our pitch is today!

I opened the door to give the weather another peek. At the same time, Jess raised the TV's volume twofold. The TV blared loud. Too loud. It fought the rain valiantly for control of the sound-space in our apartment.

Yeah I got it Jess. Shutting the door, I went into the room to give my raincoat another chance. It was blue. The raincoat. Blue and useless. It was almost a camisole with its white center and its long transparent sleeves. I had absolutely no idea what possessed me to buy the thing. Then I remembered. Jay said it looked nice.

Well looking nice wasn't going to keep me from being wet and miserable. Stupid Jay. Getting me to buy useless clothing and then taking my umbrella when I needed it most.

I pulled on the camisole-cum-raincoat. This was going to suck.

"Wow. Are you seriously going out into that?"

I looked over at my roommate who was sunken deep into the couch with a blanket shrouding her form. All that could really be seen of Jess was the head coming out from the top of the mound and the feet coming out from the bottom.

"You know how it is."

"Yeah yeah." Jess replied dismissively. "Those corporate people would be unhappy and you could lose everything if you don't get there freakin' an hour early."

I smiled. Jess's voice was dripping with sarcasm. But if any delays happened, I would have an hour-long buffer. If I arrived early, I would have time to steady my nerves and review what I would say.

"Hey look." Jess sat up out of her blanket burrito. "I don't know about those corporate people but if I were doing a meeting thing and the weather looked like that, I'd 100% totally not care if you didn't arrive early." I shrugged uncertainly and Jess sighed. "Oh well. That's Mary for you."

"That's me." I opened the door again and the living room immediately lost its rosy, warm feeling.

""You really should just get a car."

"Uh huh. Give me the money and I'll buy us both cars." I said. And a raincoat. A personalized raincoat, I thought. One that I wouldn't be sharing with anybody but myself. Jess was right. I wanted a car.

"Jess, achète-moi une voiture."

Jess looked away from her so-called news to grin up at me. "Achète-mois un manoir d'abord."

"m'Achète-mois?" I made a chopping motion with the blade of my hand.

"What?" Jess stopped for a moment. "M'achète-mois, M'achète-mois.." She repeated with varying degrees of incredulity. "Seriously?! I can't believe you just… m'achete-mois?!"

"Achète-moi une voiture et j'arrêterais de massacrer la langue française."

Jess looked at me. "M'achète-mois." She giggled. "Butchering the French language isn't going to help you convince me."

I made an exasperated noise in my throat. "But it's raining Jess! S'il te plaît?"

"Hey. Your fault for having a shitty raincoat and no backup umbrella."

"Mm." I frowned and took a third look out into the pouring rain, as if looking would make it better. "You want anything from the store when I get back?"

Jess's reply came almost before I could even finish the last syllable of my question: "Ice cream and pizza!" She said.

"How about just ice cream?" I suggested. "We still have groceries to cook away."

"Yeah but it's all healthy food!" Jess complained. "I want pizza. The kind with bacon and ham and all the meat and grease I could ever get."

I nodded. "Monkey-brain and dog-liver pizza then. With lard-paste instead of tomato sauce." Throwing open the front door, I shied away from the sheer volume of water in front of me.

A tiny "ew-gross", almost inaudible against the rain, emitted from behind me. How could water be so loud? I slipped on my sandals and picked up the garbage bag I had left at the door. "Well!" I declared loudly to myself. "At least I have it better than most people!"

Carrying the garbage bag, I forged out into the rain and was immediately soaked. Yeah. Thanks raincoat. You were most helpful. Umbrella is infinitely superior..

Oh my umbrella. Jay probably had it sitting forlorn and unused at his office doorway.

Vestibule.

I'd thought Jay knew that we had that pitch today. Why was he at his office? And why hadn't he gotten back by now?

The clouds grumbled ominously as I went down the stairs of cement carved into the hillside. Then there was the parking lot., a long stretch of road, and the bus stop.

Two boys stood at opposite ends of the bench under the bus-stop shelter. Both of them had umbrellas. One of them looked away when my eyes glanced over at him. Cute.

Taking up the space between the two of them, I fell into silent contemplation.

If Uber had existed in this timeline, this afternoon wouldn't be so bad. The thought made me feel a bit better about being cold and wet and miserable. I was from the future. 2017, about a decade from today. Jay and I could totally build Uber when mobile devices became more ubiquitous. And invest in Google. When I have more capital - which should be soon, I'm putting it all into Google. The best time to buy would be during the 2008 recession. Then I could watch it appreciate fivefold. Sure I never was very invested in the stock market per se, but I did remember seeing Google jumping from one to seven hundred when I wasn't paying attention.

Money hacks were an awesome part of knowing the future. In fact, if I had known that I would be born again in 1981, I would have memorized some past lottery numbers before the heart attack. Not even the rain would stop me. I could do anything. If I wanted, I could easily get a nice, cushy high-end job with the academic and career record I've managed to wrack up. I could be a wealthy woman. Much wealthier than Leanne Sun had been in 2017 before her twenty year old heart had given out for no reason. Some might consider the thought small-minded. Some might say that it was my duty to devote my time to preventing world tragedies that I knew of. Right. As if I could somehow stop a plane from crashing into a building that was nearly 2000 miles away. Where would I even start? What could anyone possibly expect me to do? Why would coming from another timeline make me responsible for everything that happened in this one? I was only one human, a fairly average one at that.

I deserved to live my life the way I wanted. To live my life to the fullest before my inevitable second death. With Jay. Money hacks were great. Money hacks, social aptitude, an early awareness of what I needed to achieve in order to do well. These were all gifts given to me by my having lived it all once before. I was lucky. Blessed, and I would use my blessings to their fullest extent.

And then, when I'm more settled down, I could maybe entertain the thought of having a kid or two. A boy and a girl, just to be even. Jay would make a wonderful father. I just know it.

My hair was wet and I was sneezing in fits by the time I walked into the office. I was barely on time. There had been a bus delay due to traffic. It seemed everyone wanted to drive their cars when it rained. It was a good thing I'd left two hours early. Ha! Take that, Jess!

I sneezed twice more as I entered into the interview room after having explained who I was and that I was alone to represent my 'company'. Thanks a lot Jay. Behind the large, shiny desk, two men and one woman watched me walk in with their pitiless eyes. "Hello Ms. Oldsman." Said the woman with a kindly smile. She paused.

"Hello." I said, despite my developing headache. One of the men looked at me with an unreadable expression. The other was blatantly scrutinizing me. Only the woman exuded any feeling of comfort. She was the good cop. The other two were the bad cops.

I sneezed; a suppressed compression of air that left me feeling dizzy.

"Please sit down."

I nodded and tried to feel dignified as I strolled to my seat.

"My name is Julia Sand. These are my colleagues, David Tu and Calvin Herbertson. We are the company's representatives that will be speaking with you today."

David pushed a tissue box across the desk. "Here young lady. You look like you'll be needing those."

"Thank you." I said gratefully and reached for the box.

"Now." The woman named Julia said with her kindly voice. "I'm sure you know who we are and what we do here at this company. What you've presented to us was… interesting. If you'd please, Ms. Oldsman, tell us more about it. Tell us more about your company, and tell us why we would want to invest in this system of yours. " Julia folded her hands in front of the desk. She looked smart with her dress shirt and her tie. Her hair was very well done. I'd bet it took her most of her morning to put it up in those curls. Not like mine. Damp and clingy from the rain. The only saving grace I had was my formal wear that I'd managed to keep dry in a garbage bag during my trek through the torrent rain. Oh well. It wasn't as if they were here to buy my hair..

I looked down at my notepad for reassurance. Then, looking back up at this gathering of entrepreneurs, I began to talk.

-Intermission-

I could have called any number of people to pick me up from the office and drive me back to campus. I looked through my contacts list. Amy, Alliyah, Arnold, Ben #1, Ben #2, …

I scrolled down.

Jared. Jamie B, Jamie W, Jane.

Jay.

Standing under the overhang sticking out the company office building, I stared out into the rain. This was his fault. I hated calling for such a stupid favor and wasting people's time, but I hated the idea of walking through the sheer wall of rain again. Jay could be so thoughtless sometimes. He was so getting an earful the next time he hears from me. I grumble something to the same effect.

A few feet ahead of me, I could see a rapid torrent of water racing along the sides of the road, splashing up onto the sidewalk against some protrusion: a clot of branches getting bigger and more clotted as debris being carried along the stream gathered. Yeah. I wasn't going out into that.

I flipped open my primitive flip phone and decided to dial Bennie. She had a car. I'll promise to owe her a favor. We could go out on a double date. I get to hang out with Bennie and I get to get out of this horrible, horrible rain. As I waited for Bennie to pick up her phone, I saw a dead squirrel floating down the sidewalk river.

Yeah.

No.

Intermission

"So.. did you get it?" Bennie asked offhandedly almost as soon as I got into the shotgun seat of her purple 1990 Toyota. It was warm. It was dry. Thank god for AC.

"What? Get what?"

Bennie put a hand to the shoulders of her driver's seat and gave me a deadpan. "Mary. I'm kicking you out. Sorry. My car only drives honest passengers."

I widened my eyes with theatrical horror. "Oh please Bennie's car. I won't do it again. I'll be a totally honest girl from now on. Please don't kick me out." I pointed at the dead squirrel outside. "I'll- I'll die out there!"

Bennie looked outside and saw it. "Whoa." She said in astonishment. "Fine." Without another word, she turned back to the wheel. Goodbye squirrel, I thought as we pulled away from the sidewalk.

"I want Brit and Chips, Mary."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight's as good as any."

"Is Ben #2 free?"

"He should be. And stop calling him Ben #2."

I grin. "Let's go pick him up."

"Wow. Someone's generous today."

"I know. And what do you think about Ikanos?"

"Ikanos. Costs too much. Would never go there."

"What if I told you I have two million dollars of down payment sitting in my bank account right now."

Bennie gasped.

"And we're getting 5% for every device that uses our system."

"YOU DID IT!" Bennie exclaimed and jumped. She hit her head on the low ceiling of her car. "Ow!" She rubbed her head. "You did it!" She repeated a little less vehemently.

"Yeah." I couldn't help but smile. "We did it."

My best friend began to laugh and cry at the same time. And then, before I knew what she was doing, Bennie jumped at me and suddenly, I was being squeezed to death in her arms. "Ah!" I choke out. "Bennie! You're driving! The car! The car!"

The car began to swerve, and my heart jumped to my throat. I made a wild grab at the wheel and managed to avoid what would have been a head on collision straight into oncoming traffic. It was at this point that Bennie realized what she'd done. She returned to the wheel. "Woops! Sorry!"

I sink back into my chair with relief. "You almost killed us!"

Bennie giggled, the euphoria still running high in her head. "I'm sorry Mary. I can't believe it. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" She shouts. "You're rich!"

Bennie's mood was beginning to affect mine because I started laughing too. "You'd better believe it. I can't wait to tell Jay. If only he'd turn on his phone. I've been trying to call him for a while now."

"He's probably writing his blog. Blogging. I still can't get over that word. Anyway, you know how he gets when he's writing."

"Yeah." I agreed, unconvinced. Jay always had his phone on just in case I decided to call him and vice versa. The only time he had it off was during the night where he'd have it charging on our bed stand. He was very regular about it. Meticulous. I guess even Jae Song could slip up on his quotidian habits.

As we neared Bennie's apartment, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Fishing it out from my pocket, I saw Jay's number scrolling across the screen. About time. Stealing my umbrella and missing my calls? Unacceptable. I answered the phone. "Jay! Did you know the pitch was today?! And it's raining?! And that I delivered it alone?! Hello? Say something!"

"Mary." The voice that answered me was not Jay's voice.

"Uh. Who are you?"

"It's me, Kelvin… Mary, I uh-..." Kelvin trailed off. Right. Kelvin. One of Jay's co-workers. Jay had invited him to our apartment a few times. The guy with the nicely managed facial hair. That guy.

"Right, Kelvin. Hi. Is there any reason you're calling me from Jay's phone? Where's Jay?"

I heard Kelvin gulp audibly, as if he was going to cry. "Jay is…"

I began to worry. My guts start to sink, and the high I had been feeling only a few moments earlier dissipated completely.

"Mary?" Bennie asked, looking at me with concern. The car was parked now. On the roadside.

I stared at Bennie. "Kelvin. Tell me."

"Jay had a heart attack. They couldn't save him. He's.. he's-"

"What?" I blink once. Twice. Ten times.

"He's-... I'm sorry. I'm at the Health Centre right now. At the ER. We-"

I dropped the phone. Bennie was looking at me with horror. I stare right back at her. What day was it? What was today?

My body began to shake violently. Gasps of air went in and out of my lungs. Papery. Hoarse. My eyes were hot. My throat felt stuck.

heart attack

couldn't save him

A small wail escaped my throat as tears began pouring out. Like rain. It was still raining outside. And they couldn't save him.

There was no way. We ran every morning. We ate healthy. His family did not have a history of heart problems. He's only twenty-six years old! There's no way. Absolutely no way he could have had a heart attack. Except there was.

I sagged in my seat, every muscle loose.

Oh my god.

Bennie was holding me. Comforting me.

This is a joke.

My nose was running freely. Bennie's coat was being soiled. I couldn't see. My throat constricted, and I was gasping. Spasming. Sobbing several hiccups a second. i couldn't stop, could hardly breath.

Why?!

Rewrite! :-)