ONCE IN A LIFETIME (A MAN KNOWS A MOMENT)

©2009 by Richard S. Crawford

about 2,000 words

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Impossible.

Im-fucking-possible.

Anthony Wood wiped the sweat from his brow and closed his eyes. Then he pressed his eyes shut, hard, with his hand. When the colors had swirled and turned into flashing lights, he opened them and looked down again at the pages of data in his hand. Still the same: the same columns of numbers, the same maps, the same timetable of events. But if it were true, then that would mean–

“Wood!”

Anthony jumped, involuntarily crumpling the pages in his hands into a tiny ball. He looked up and saw his boss, Thomas Bolt, a rotund man whose face always made Anthony think of an egg: round, pale, impossibly smooth. “Yes, Mr. Bolt?”

Mr. Bolt smiled, an expression that on his face looked both reptilian and beneficent. “Oh, just walking around, checking in on everyone, making sure everything’s up to snuff. What are you working on there?”

Anthony clutched his papers reflexively to his chest and cleared his throat. “It’s… It’s a secret,” he said.

The smile didn’t waver for a second. “A secret, is it? Well, that certainly sounds intriguing. Mind letting your old boss have a look at it?”

“I… um…” Anthony found that he was unwilling to tell Mr. Bolt exactly what he had found; the very thought of it made him queasy. “It’s really complicated. I’ll tell you when I’m done with the project, okay?”

Mr. Bolt smiled his big fake smile. “Well, all right then. As you know, we are all quite accepting of all new ideas and procedures here at the National Weather Service. In tough times such as these, we can’t afford to let anything slip by us. Do you know what I mean?”

Anthony nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure what Mr. Bolt wanted to hear from him so he figured it would be best to just keep a neutral stance. “Uh huh.”

“Good man!” Mr. Bolt slapped Anthony on the back, then sauntered away.

With relief, Anthony turned back to his papers. It wasn’t possible that what he was doing in the massive simulator could actually impact the real world, it just wasn’t. Such things could never happen. There was, actually, absolutely no precedent. Not in reality, at least. Maybe in science fiction, sure, but not in the real world.

He leaned forward and let the pages slide across his desk. The top page landed right underneath the picture of Laura Livingstone that he had cut out of the junior high school year book. He stared at the photograph for a moment, then forced himself to look back down at his printouts.

What had happened was this: the Massive Global Simulation Project was software that he had developed with a number of other developers in the National Weather Service. It was made possible by an algorithm he and two others, both women, had developed that would compensate for the inherent uncertainty that came along with trying to simulate the weather. He had called it a “Heisenberg Compensator”, though neither of the two women had gotten the joke. But the Heisenberg Compensator had done far more than simply predict the earth’s own weather systems; the infinitely subtle effects of planetary and interstellar events were also accounted for in the simulation. It wasn’t just the moon’s influence on the tides that was accounted for; the extremely unpredictable nature of the sun could also be accounted for, with remarkable accuracy.

It had worked well. The massive simulation had worked quite well at modeling the Earth’s weather patterns, and had successfully predicted major events that had transpired in the real world. A diverse network of powerful computers, all working in conjunction with each other, had performed the calculations.

Of course, Anthony’s curiosity was overwhelming. He couldn’t help tinkering with the simulation, inserting random events and seeing how they would impact the global simulation. Sure, there was practical application for that: if you could, say, increase the global temperature of the simulation by a few degrees, you could get a realistic simulation of how global warming would impact the earth’s climate. By moving, say, the simulation’s sun up a couple of degrees from the equator, you could really see some interesting stuff.

Such tinkering was harmless.

Until now.

Looking over his printouts again, Anthony knew the data were undeniable. On the whole, tinkering with the simulation’s weather patterns was harmless and had no repercussions.

Except.

There was one tiny little patch of northern California where his tinkering actually impacted the real world. If he started a swirl of storm clouds off the coast of Oregon in his simulation that resulted in a storm over northern California in the same simulation, there could obviously be no such storm in the real world. Except for over that one tiny patch.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where that spot was in the real world. It was the city of San Augustin, one of the larger cities in the state. Not as big as Los Angeles or San Francisco, of course, but about Sacramento sized. It was San Augustin and its surrounding county, Patwin County, that were impacted by the… the crossing-over effect of the simulation events to the real world. What was so special about that tiny little part of the world, he wondered, that made this possible?

The phone on his desk rang. It hadn’t rung in so long that he’d forgotten what it had sounded like; most of his communication with other people had taken place via email and instant messenger. He sat and stared at the device, dumbfounded. When it rang again, he managed to gather his wits together, and picked up the phone. “Anthony Wood,” he said.

“I know it was you,” the caller said. It was a woman, her voice sounding rushed and breathy.

“Huh?” Anthony tried to place the voice. He didn’t recognize it at all. “Who is this?”

“It’s Laura, Anthony. Laura Livingstone. I got your note.”

Anthony’s heart raced. “Laura! Wow! I never expected you to call.” The printout slipped from his hand, forgotten. A call from Laura was the only thing that could make him forget the strange thing that was happening with the massive simulation and Patwin County. He hadn’t heard from her in years. He took the photograph of her down from the wall and looked at it, wondering how much she looked like that now. Was she still as beautiful as she was then? Of course she was. Beautiful women like Laura Livingstone never stopped being beautiful. “Gosh, it’s great to hear from you. How are you doing?”

“Cut the crap, Anthony. Remember that note you left on my desk in the eighth grade?

Anthony thought back. Eighth grade was so long ago. And he had left a lot of notes for Laura. He hadn’t signed any of them; he’d made sure they were all anonymous. But there had been that one note. It had been simple: “I love you. Signed, Anonymous Friend.” Surprisingly, Laura had figured out it had been him, and had taunted and teased him about it for weeks afterwards. “I guess I do,” he said. “What about it?”

“Well, is it true? Did you love me? Do you still love me?”

“I…” He didn’t know how to respond. He glanced down at his desk, noted with some surprise that his pages and pages with data and figures were still there. Proof that he had achieved something. Something extraordinary that no one had ever done before. The thought of that gave him courage. “Yes. Yes I do. I’ve always loved you, Laura. I always will.” His heart swelled. He had wanted to declare his love to Laura for so many years now, decades, even, and now he finally had a good reason to do so: because Laura herself had asked him.

He expected that she would be happy at the news that he was still thinking of her in that way, and immediately squeal out her joy, but instead she was silent. Her long silence — it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but to Anthony it felt like hours — didn’t bode well. “Laura?” he finally asked.

“I’m still here.”

“How did you get my work number?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters, Anthony, is what I’m about to tell you.”

Anthony’s heart beat even faster. After all this time, she was going to see the error of her ways. She was going to tell him that she loved him too, that it was finally time to…

“Anthony, I’m getting married. To Jonathan Parker. Do you remember him?”

“Oh. Well. Yes, of course I do.” His mood had switched so fast he had vertigo. His mouth was working now without him consciously controlling it. “Well, I’m very happy for you, but why did you call? And why did you ask if I still loved you?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I was trying to figure out if I should invite you to the wedding or not. And it sounds like I probably shouldn’t because I think I would be hurting your feelings. So thank you for your input. I have a few other calls to make, so I should be saying goodbye now.”

For a moment Anthony couldn’t speak. He knew he should say something before she hung up the phone but for a moment his mouth was paralyzed. But then his autonomic nervous system kicked in. “Wait!”

“Yes?”

“Uh.” Anthony hadn’t thought about his next question much. “Where… Where is the wedding going to be? So I can send a gift?”

“Snowy Rock,” Laura replied. “The First Presbyterian Church on Burgher Street.”

“Where’s that?”

“In California. About twenty miles from San Augustin.”

“That far away? I thought you lived on the east coast.”

“I only went to junior high on the east coast. My family has always lived on Snowy Rock.”

“So that’s where you’re living now?”

“Yes, Anthony.”

Anthony recognized that tone of voice in her. He had heard it so often in junior high school. It was the voice that indicated she was tired of explaining things to him, that she thought he had the intelligence of a young toddler. He knew, of course, that once she saw him for who he really was, she would respect him and understand him as she should.

“Well, that’s great, Laura,” he said. “I’m very happy for you. I’m sure you and Jonathan will make a great couple.”

“Yes. Yes we will.” And just like that, Laura hung up the phone.

Anthony sat stunned for a moment. No proper goodbye or anything like that. Just an abrupt hang up of the phone.

Slowly, he replaced the telephone receiver in the cradle. There was something familiar about the city she had… Oh! Yes! San Augustin!

He turned to his computer and brought up Google in his web browser. Snowy Rock, she had said. And yes, according to Google, Snowy Rock was definitely in Patwin County, that odd patch of northern California that was oddly affected by the manipulations of his massive weather simulator.

A plan was beginning to form. Perhaps there was a way he could really prove himself to Laura after all. It would require a lot of work: moving to San Augustin, for one thing, and setting up his base of operations there. He would have to isolate large parts of the simulator so that his experiments and what he was doing with them wouldn’t be detected. And, quite probably, some people would have to die.

But, in the end, if he could make it work, then it would be worth all of it.

He settled back in his seat and began to plan.