<p>Part V is sizzling. Typing it as I write this.</p>
<p>I just wish I had a little more time to edit Part IV though to make the transition of ideas smoother! Oh well. Who’s waiting for Part V?</p>
<p>I am! With great anticipation :)</p>
<p>*Part V – Change one thing, change everything. </p>
<p>Like father, like son.*</p>
<p>December 12th, 1986, I dated the letter. And as I signed my name in purple ink, I kept replying it in my head. </p>
<p>I would slip him the letter. After we met under the mistletoe, of course. I’d slip it into his back pocket and he’d find it at home, probably just before taking a shower, and he’d read it, and he’d remember me, and he’d think about me, and he’d talk about me with his boyfriends. I would wonder what he’d say about me. He’d probably babble first about my loopy, gorgeous cursive. Then after the self-consciousness wears off and the narcissism builds up he’d probably …</p>
<p>I don’t mind. After all, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Twenty seconds. </p>
<p>Twenty seconds of insane courage. </p>
<p>I had already spent the first fifteen seconds with the entirety of my face pressed up against his. </p>
<p>Now the last five seconds. My forehead on his forehead, I carefully slip my hands into my back pocket. It’s still there. I remove the envelope, and …</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“… in closing, I’d like to borrow a few lines from a poem that’s always been with me, if only in spirit. A dear person indeed, I like to think that our two souls undergo not ‘A breach, but an expansion, / Like gold to aery thinness beat.’”</p>
<p>Ahem. </p>
<p>“And … let you not hold back, and live as if each day were your last. We all live as if we aren’t on timetables. Unfortunately, we are all on timetables. Let that be remembered.”
Diminutive applause, followed by whispers. </p>
<p>“They were a cute couple.”</p>
<p>“Agreed. What could have been …”</p>
<p>-</p>
<ol>
<li>I welcome the birth of my first son. I ordered tests immediately. He was fortunately homozygous recessive for Huntington’s. </li>
</ol>
<p>Sometimes, when looking at adorable bundle of joy, I do think perhaps he – the likely father – had he not jumped off the 37th floor balcony, made the right decision. </p>
<p>I witnessed it all … </p>
<p>*“I can’t live. There is no point. I’m homozygous dominant for Huntington’s. Any child we have will be doomed.”</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>“I must.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be your Juilet! Well, I do, but …”</p>
<p>The corners of his lips slightly upturn. Then they collapse. </p>
<p>“It’s the right thing. I’m a harm to society. I have no utility to society. You’ll find someone infinitely better than I am. I’ll always remember you as someone who trusted me with her deepest secrets, and someone in whom I could confide my deepest secrets. That mistletoe incident … thank you for infusing my life with that much needed joy. It really helped offset the brunt of the report from the genetic counselor. This is it.”</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>“Good-bye. Perhaps in another life.”</p>
<p>I could only stare.*</p>
<p>After all, it was his own, autonomous decision. And perhaps sometimes no law, no matter how well-intentioned, and no sentiment from others, no matter how well-intentioned, can reflect the true wants and desires of another human being. And to impose the law, or others’ sentiments, upon another, is to rob them of that trait which makes them essentially human, and that is their free will. </p>
<p>But now he’ll never be the father of my son. </p>
<p>And perhaps that is all the better. </p>
<p>Otherwise my son would have had Huntington’s. </p>
<p>Sometimes I do speculate about these “alternate realities.” The term is oxymoronic to me, since there can only be one reality. In any case, speculation is fascinating. Perhaps my son, affected with Huntington’s, would have taken carpe diem to heart, and have lived an immensely satisfying thirty years. His thirty years on this most excellent canopy of air would likely have far outweighed anyone else’s seventy or so years. Knowing his timetable, he might pursue all the delights of life, and live actively, and not passively, as do most people. He would not wait for good fortune; he’d seek it out, and when the time came for him to finally be strapped down to a hospital bed … he’d be able to say “I made the most of my thirty years.” </p>
<p>But no matter how happy he might have been, I would probably not have been able to stand the death of two very dear souls – my husband and my son. So perhaps it is all for the better. And perhaps my current, actual son can also take carpe diem to heart … it might be a little harder, for he is healthy and has a reasonable shot at a good seventy years, but one can dream. </p>
<p>To me I’ll always have two sons. My actual son, and the figment of my imagination – the one “afflicted” by Huntington’s. </p>
<p>What could have been … !</p>
<p>Get this pulblished or else</p>
<p>^^ agreed!</p>
<p>And that’s that. </p>
<p>As I was perusing through the story, I kept noticing the motif of duality. The double bed in Meursault’s Paris hotel room. His two plane tickets. The two souls - Meursault’s and his long forgotten true love. The two plane tickets. The two hands. The two sons. The two similar trajectories of Meursault and his father. </p>
<p>The latter two parts may be a little hard to understand - I know I did not integrate the latter two parts smoothly into the story. Basically, Meursault, by taking the prison door, effects some change in the deep past … yes, the story has dived into the realm of science fiction by now. And this change causes his would-be father to get genetically screened BEFORE having a child, and when his would-be father finds out the bad genetic news, he commits suicide.</p>
<p>The dates are provided to help one with the timeline, but I know I could have made the latter two parts fit better into the framework of the existing story. Perhaps I could have done so, even without introducing the supernatural or invoking science fiction. In any case, I just had to have the door scene … the picture “1000 doors” just thoroughly fascinated me.</p>