The Inheritance Paradox
Nineteen (Eugene’s Story)
“SO, YOU SAY I don’t actually have to copulate in order to pass on this special cell thing? Your genetic thing?” Eugene argued with Galahad when he finally got free of his wife’s scolding for letting their son get hurt. She’d been shocked to find Alex bandaged and discover he’d fallen with his knife, which was always kept razor sharp. When she calmed down, Eugene went to the barn to check on their new cow.
It is transmitted much like AIDS.
“Like what?”
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Oh! It doesn’t really reach the United States until 1981. Sorry about that.
“What is it?”
A disease that does basically the opposite of what your cells are programmed to do. It prevents the body from fighting off any kind of disease. Its similarity is that it is also transmitted through the exchange of body fluids—most frequently through sex, but not exclusively.
“So, why should I be chasing down women through history to have sex with?”
How many people do you think you could convince to become your blood brothers? Or sisters?
“But I should look for opportunities?”
Perhaps don’t pass one up, but it takes a significant exchange in most instances for enough of the contaminant to be transferred to be passed down to future generations. Sex is far more efficient as it is transferred in the genes.
Eugene was not convinced, nor satisfied that his assignment was completely necessary. When he went to bed with Val that night to massage her and comfort her as she entered the final stages of her pregnancy, he had to admit that he wouldn’t exchange this love for anything.
Before mid-winter, baby Zora entered the world. Under Eugene and Val’s effort and guidance, the farm had become prosperous, providing most of what they needed for the family. Eugene had used some of the coins he had in his purse to purchase the cow and a pair of goats. Alex proved to be a hard worker when his daily instruction in swordplay ended. He had piled a full winter of wood near the house which kept them warm and toasty inside. The old woman had expected to freeze to death during the winter and join her departed husband, but she relished the role of grandmother to both Zora and Alex.
By mid-summer, Val was certain she was pregnant again. They certainly had not stinted on copulation. It seemed Val was always ready and willing to welcome her husband, and Eugene made sure she continued to enjoy it as much as he did.
Their second daughter, Danika, was born late the next winter. It was both a joyous and sad occasion. Widow Solace sickened and passed away soon after greeting the newborn.
“Why couldn’t I save her from the illness with my magic cells?” Eugene argued with Galahad again.
You’d have sex with the old woman?
“No! I could have given her my blood or saliva, couldn’t I?”
How? If you had suggested such a thing, you’d have been quickly declared to be a witch. To you it’s just science. To the people of the thirteenth century, it would be witchcraft.
“I was never this close with my mother. As soon as my father died, she moved to Florida and refused to come back north. I need to visit her soon.”
Eugene finished shoveling the dirt into the hole where they’d laid Widow Solace next to her husband. There was no question about the inheritance of the farm. The old woman had called the village elders to declare her will that Eugene and Val inherit the farm. They’d become rather popular members of the community, helping others to prosper as well. Eugene had even hired a strapping youth from a neighboring farm to help with plowing and planting.
Eugene redoubled his efforts to see that the family was provided for. The loss of Widow Solace had brought to mind that Eugene could not stay here forever.
“Husband, you have been worried. I feel it in your caress. Tell me what we have to be concerned about,” Val said as she stroked his body in bed one night.
The weather was beginning to get warmer and snow was melting. There hadn’t been much snow at the lower altitudes, though the mountains to the north remained white with winter.
“My time is coming,” Eugene said. “I will be forced to return to my world.”
“Oh, my love,” Val cried. “How will we survive?”
“I’ve tried to provide well for you. The house and barn are sound. Alex has proven to be a capable lad and is big for his age. With Fino to help, you can manage the farm. And I still have a few coins I can leave with you. I fear they won’t make you a princess again, other than in my eyes. But they will ensure you prosper,” Eugene said.
“I was married longer to the prince than I’ve been to you, but I don’t remember him at all. I shall never forget you.”
“Nor I you, my sweet.”
Yes, you will. It’s the nature of nature.
“Come, my husband. If you must leave soon, you must do your best to give me another child. If a boy, his name will be Eugen. If a girl, Eugenia. I shall tell her about her father every day and she will grow more beautiful than any in the land.”
“You paint a romantic fairy tale with words,” Eugene laughed.
Nonetheless, he did his best to drive the sadness away from his wife with renewed vigor.
It’s time to go.
“Why? Why must I leave my family. I want to stay.”
Eventually, even if you grew old and were near death here, you would return to your bed in Michigan one second after you left it. Can you imagine Lynn finding you an old dead man in your apartment?
“Lynn! How could I forget her?”
Just as you will forget Val. It is nature.
“I hate it.”
Say your goodbyes.
“It is as I feared,” Eugene said to Val and his children. “I have been summoned back to the Westland. I must leave you.”
“Will you fight brigands and dragons in the Westland?” Alex asked excitedly.
“Oh, not as we understand them here. There will be different challenges and other monsters,” Eugene said, hugging his son. “But you will have such challenges here. And since you will be the man of the house, you will need my sword and knife. You will always defend your mother and sisters.”
“Yes, father. I will remember all you have taught me.”
“We are well established here,” Val said.
Eugene picked up Zora and hugged her, kissing her on the head.
She will be fine. Your genes passed to her fully.
He held little Danika and kissed her as well.
Another perfect transfer.
“Remember me and your four children,” Val said as she kissed him passionately.
“Four?” Eugene asked.
He’d welcomed two children and had taken Alex as his own. Val pressed his hand to her stomach.
“Possibly by Solstice.”
“I should stay.”
No! You shouldn’t!
“We will be all right, though I shall live as a widow. With the coins you have left us, we could move to the city, and I could be a fine lady again. I won’t. I find the life of a farmwife is good for me.”
She pulled a ribbon from her hair and tied it around his wrist.
“My champion. You set my insides afire with your love.”
Eugene turned and walked toward the woodland. He saw Fino, the lad he hired for the farm, working in the field. He always joined the family for meals and slept in the loft of the barn.
He’ll be in your bed in another month.
Eugene looked back at the edge of the woods to wave the hand with a ribbon around the wrist at his wife and children, then disappeared into the woods.
“You look a bit worse for wear,” Wells said as Eugene fought off his disorientation from transferring to the Lab Between Times.
“Where am I?” Eugene started. Then he stopped and started again. “Oh. We’re between again. I’m so tired.”
“There is a cumulative effect when you stay for a long period in another time. How long were you gone?”
Three years.
“That means I’m three years older than when I left just a second ago. You should have just left me. I was happy there. I was married and had children. They need me,” Eugene said, fighting back his tears.
“You left them well-provided for. You didn’t even bring back your sword. According to the download from Galahad, all your children will survive and carry the messenger cell. A very successful trip,” Wells said.
Not to mention sex with a beautiful woman every fucking day!
“I want to go back.”
“I don’t think so. I’m detecting diseases you’ve been exposed to that don’t exist in your time, hence no immunity. We need to do a purge.”
“What diseases?” Eugene asked.
“Smallpox. Plague.”
And it’s a good thing you had a tetanus shot in the past couple of years.
“If my magic cells don’t prevent the diseases, how will my family survive?” he asked, alarmed. If he’d been exposed to all these in the brief time he’d been there, his entire family would have been exposed.
“Oh, your body has been effective in fighting off the diseases, but you are like Typhoid Mary—you would carry them to a world that had long since thought they were eliminated. Your family in the thirteenth century will survive fine. The people you meet back home might not.”
“Why did I have to leave them? I loved them.”
Play sad music here. It was seven hundred years ago.
“Did you love Mary?” Wells demanded. “Yet you got divorced.”
“Yes. I loved her, though I didn’t really know what it meant. But that was years ago. I’ve had time to heal,” Eugene said.
Seven hundred years.
“I was with Val minutes ago and now you tell me she was 700 fucking years ago! How am I supposed to deal with that?”
Eugene was getting worked up and tears were flowing from his eyes. His entire family, gone!
“Rest, Eugene. I can’t keep you here indefinitely. I don’t think. I’m here indefinitely, but I don’t think…”
“You have no fucking idea!” Eugene ranted. “This is all some kind of grand experiment to you. I’m not a lab rat!”
Rats! That’s how you were exposed to the plague. Rats in the barn when you arrived there.
“You are right, of course. It is a great experiment by which I hope to save humanity. And it is working—at least to some extent. You have planted the DNA successfully in different places and eras that are all on the migratory path to Michigan. If we stop now, the cellular DNA will still be discovered. But will it be in time? I’m sending you back in time as a genetic courier…”
“To fuck a bunch of women who have no idea they will be pregnant and abandoned,” Eugene spat.
“Who will carry the seeds of humanity’s salvation.”
I wonder if it’s worth saving.
The two men stared at each other and Wells went about strapping Eugene in the chair to download his data and purge him of the diseases he’d picked up in the Middle Ages.
“You broke a bone!” Wells said as he looked at his screen.
“Horse stepped on me a couple of years ago. Nothing serious,” Eugene sighed.
“Enough to cause you pain as you age. I’ll make a slight adjustment. It healed crooked.”
“Ow!” Eugene yelled, jerking against his restraints.
“Sorry. Had to rebreak it. Now it should heal correctly in the next hour or so,” Wells said.
What’s a little pain after all you’ve been through?
Eugene scowled.
“Why don’t you sleep for a bit? You seem to be mentally exhausted.”
“Is that all?” Eugene asked. He closed his eyes and slept.
“Now, let’s talk about how you’re feeling, Eugene,” Wells said when Eugene woke up from his nap.
Ah. Wells in his amateur psychiatry mode.
“I’m depressed and angry,” Eugene said immediately.
“I understand. You know, I left wives during my travels as well. I recognized it as part of the price I would pay for this incredible gift.”
“From my experience with you, I doubt your capacity to love. It’s something I doubted in myself when I agreed to do this,” Eugene said. “I thought I would simply fulfill my obligation, enjoy it if I could, and leave.”
“What changed?”
Fucking for humanity.
“I fell in love. I discovered what it meant. Not to love your neighbor as yourself, or as God so loved the world. To love… a person… a family… and lose them.”
“Yes. Every time you return, you bring back another token of the love you once had.” Wells pointed to the ribbon tied around Eugene’s wrist. “There is a danger that this life will become so routine to you that you forget each of these loves. Does that worry you?”
“Yes. Already the loves of other lives are fading as the memory of this one takes their place,” Eugene said.
“Just like your memories of Mary and the life you lived before you joined us.”
“I thought I knew what my life would be. It isn’t what I thought.”
Didn’t include divorce, did it? Or losing your ministry?
“But already, you’re forgetting that former life. You even like your new job. You like your new love,” Wells said.
“Lynn!” Eugene said sitting up straight. “I need to go back to her. I need to explain and ask her forgiveness. What will I do if I lose her, too?”
Hi, honey. Since yesterday, I got married and had three children someplace in northern Italy. Don’t worry, it was all 700 years ago.
“Shut the fuck up. I won’t lie to her.”
“You can’t really explain the concept to people who don’t already have a frame of reference,” Wells sighed. “You were back from your first mission before you were even willing to accept the possibility.”
“She’ll understand. She has a frame of reference. If not, I’ll quit traveling.”
“You know, the device is implanted in your brain. We can send you anyplace or time we want to.”
I’ve got your back. Don’t let him scare you.
“I know that you could try to do that, but even if you succeeded, there is still self-determination. I can simply sit in one place until I’m returned or meet my fate.”
“I wouldn’t do it anyway. I’m just trying to prepare you for the reality you could face,” Wells said. “I’ve told you before, Lynn is important to this project. It is traced through the matrilineal line, so I don’t know who her life mate will be. It could be you. So, by all means tell her all about being a time traveler and see if she believes you.”
“I should get to it, then. You can return me to my bed now.”
Your wish and all that garbage. You know it’s just after midnight. You might as well sleep for a while.
“Eugene! What happened to you?” Lynn exclaimed when they met at noon on Saturday.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You… um… your hair.”
“I went to a new barber this morning. Not good?”
“Did he shave the front of your head? I’m sure you had more hair than that before.”
Eugene got in the car next to her and pivoted the rearview mirror. He jumped in surprise and quickly turned it back. He had been to a different barber for a shave and a haircut that morning, but he hadn’t really paid attention to what he was doing. He hadn’t realized his forehead was easily an inch or more higher than before.
“I… guess he combed it differently. I didn’t realize I had such a long face,” he said. Then he quickly changed the subject. “So, where shall we have our picnic? That is still the plan, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t pack this basket so you could take me to a restaurant,” she laughed. She glanced at his receding hairline again and then picked up the map lying on the dash. “We’re not in a hurry, are we? Let’s go to Lakeport Park on Lake Huron. It’s a beautiful July day and will be lovely there.”
“That sounds like a grand idea. I have things I want to talk to you about, but holding the conversation in the car would be less than ideal. Can you tell me all about your week while we’re on the road?” he asked.
“As interesting as always,” Lynn laughed as they drove east out of town.
You’re sure you want to hear this? It’s the same as last week.
Eugene found her stories of waiting tables to be endlessly entertaining. Her observations of people were keen, even though she seemed to lack a sense of propriety when dealing with them.
“He patted me right on the bottom!” Lynn said during one story. “I turned around and held out my left hand. He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Where is my engagement ring? You know that territory is reserved for my husband.’ He started babbling about being married and not meaning anything by it. I pointed at his hand and said, ‘Then this should be reserved for your wife!’ You wouldn’t believe how big a tip he left me.”
“You’re quite liberated,” Eugene said. “I love how you simply deal with the situation and don’t dwell on it. And he’ll probably never pull that kind of stunt again.”
“Oh, I doubt it was that effective. He just won’t pull it with me. And if I’d been in a different mood, I might have slapped him. Or asked him out. I don’t do that anymore. The last guy I asked out came to my rescue and takes me out every week now.”
“I don’t recall you asking me out,” Eugene said. “Or are you talking about some other guy?”
“No! Just you, silly. I’ve sort of gotten used to going out with you and seeing you in the building each day. You’ve become a part of my life. Isn’t it strange how things become a part of our lives without our really being aware of it?” Lynn asked. “Oh, the park is a mile ahead. This will be fun and I can’t wait to hear about your week.”
“Work yesterday seems so long ago, I can hardly remember it,” Eugene said when they found a picnic spot and settled down with their basket. Lynn had made sandwiches and potato salad.
“Twelve hours can seem like an eternity,” she laughed.
“Or three years,” Eugene said. “Lynn, I’ve told you about my time travels. Well, I was sent traveling again last night. I was gone for three years back to the thirteenth century.”
“Three years?” Lynn said in wonder. She reached up and stroked his thinning hair. Then she reached for his hand and looked at the ribbon tied there. “That explains a lot. I’m just happy you remember me.”
Eugene told the story of being sent to a Central European province and rescuing a princess, then fleeing as refugees all the way to Italy. He told about the six-year-old boy he’d adopted as his own, the brigands he slew, and having two children with a third on the way. Then, he was suddenly called back and ended up in his bed just a second after he’d left it. Lynn listened with rapt attention.
“How can you stand to leave them?” she sighed. “I’m sure I never could.”
“I don’t have a choice. I’m called back to the between space and then sent back to my bed. Whether I stay three minutes or three years, I arrive back just a second after I left. And as you can plainly see, even though I’m only gone a second, I returned three years older. It was a stressful life in the Middle Ages.”
“I’ll have to ask Guru Ma Mahama about aging during meditation and past life regression,” Lynn said.
“You are so accepting of everything. Even when I tell you I was married for three years and had children,” Eugene said.
“You can’t do anything about your past lives. We all have different frames of reference. That’s what Guru says,” Lynn said. “You consider it traveling in time, and in a way, I suppose it is. I consider it past life regression that you experience in a transcendental meditative state based on the eighth chakra—the Star Soul Chakra. That’s my frame of reference. When we leave our bodies, we are free to travel to any place and time.”
Except you don’t leave your body. It goes with you.
“I’m glad you have a frame of reference that allows us to talk about these things,” Eugene said. “It bothers me that I do this. Or that I did this if it was a past life. It doesn’t seem ethical to have experiences—even if they are only in a meditative state—that are so lascivious. I never thought of myself that way before, but now I can hardly deny it. I don’t want to live that way.”
“I think it is something else Guru said,” Lynn nodded. “He said we are constantly striving to make the world a better place as we live our daily lives. And it often seems we are failing. But we must realize that it is not always our most noble acts that improve the world. It might even be in the act of accidentally squashing a bug. We know life is sacred. We should never take a life. But that one accident may have prevented an outbreak of disease or sickening a baby. That’s how I remember it anyway. Of course, it was wrong of you to have jumped the bandits and killed them. But if you hadn’t, your Val would have been captured and raped. You would have been killed. The thing you are passing down through your descendants wouldn’t get passed down, and whatever the benefit to humanity is to be, it wouldn’t be achieved.”
“You’re not angry about me having a lover last night?” Eugene asked.
“Last night? You remembered it last night. It happened 700 years ago. You were married and divorced here more recently than that.”
Eugene and Lynn had been physically reserved about their relationship. She knew he’d been married and divorced, though he wouldn’t talk about why. He knew she’d been a little wild during the two years she went to college and that this guru she spoke about may have taken advantage of her more recently. But they were making a connection on a different level. Perhaps a spiritual level.
That did not, however, stop the intense making out they did in the parking lot of the apartment building, or the passionate goodnight kiss at the door of her apartment.
That should give you both sweet dreams!
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
