Excerpt: Cassandra's Effect

Chapter 1
A Dimensional Traveler Walks Through A Bar

"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of." -They Might Be Giants

Thirty days, my time, that's how long you have.

"Have for what?" Cassandra half mumbles in her sleep. Her tired voice fails to echo around the small cell. The padding on the walls have seen to that. But what's remained unseen was the source of the man's voice because it only echoes within her head. She's been aware of him for some time now, weeks perhaps, but this is the first time he's addressed her directly and as the edges of her dreams skirt the fringes of her reality she vainly struggles to remember to listen for his reply...

Thirty days, my time, until the destruction of the eArth.

"Why are you telling me this? What do you mean 'your time'?" Even in her sleep her mind remained inquisitive and probing.

I'm telling you, Cassandra, and ultimately it will be up to you to decide what you do with this knowledge. And by "my time" I simply mean that I'm somewhat outside of your timeline and moments will pass differently for us. You might have more than 30days, possibly much more, but again, that's not entirely up to me.

The strangeness of the conversation forced her brain to slip into at least a low gear of consciousness and pay it more attention. As the last visions of a half remembered dream of sneaking thru a junkyard in the middle of the night, and of being happy, faded from her mind and the soft pale walls materialized around her partially open eyes, she was forced to accept the fact that she was now awake but still hearing the voice in her head.
"Huh, go figure, the doc's were right afterall, I am fucking crazy."

Truly crazy people don't think to question their sanity.

And truly sane people aren't in insane asylums, um hello, you're inside my head, you'd think the least you'd be able to do is take in my surroundings, wow, apparently my alternate personality is an idiot.

Cassandra, we're not exactly getting off to a great start here.

"You think? I've been sitting in this room for over a week now, all but ignored, and now suddenly it turns out that the whispering voice I've been hearing in the back of my mind really IS real and I'm supposed to be happy that my sanity, and the lack there of, truly is cracked? Ok, give me a minute to work thru this...well you're not some alternate personality or we'd never 'meet', right? Never mind, don't answer that. So I'm going schizophrenic, which makes you God right? I mean that's how you're telling me about this future destruction of the planet, right?"

I never claimed to be God. Let's just say I'm in a unique perspective to be able to give you information about things you'd never be able to know otherwise, and I'm willing to do so for about the next week and a half...again, my time, after that, you're basically going to be on your own.

"Ok, there you go again with the your time/my time crap, what gives?"

Let's just say I might also be able to change your perception of the passage of time in relation to my own.

"Wow, who knew God knew temporal technobabble, listen up Majaha Spazzleton, look at me, I'm a chick sitting in a padded cell in an insane asylum. Let's just say, your new age babblement there is kind of missing the mark buddy. Do you have eyes? I mean are you just in my head head or can you see me? Can you read my lips? I'll spell it out slowly for you... What... the... hell... are... you... talking... about??"

I'm an author. Um, more specifically, I'm your author. I wasn't sure I was going to tell you this right off the bat, but there it goes...You're in a story. A story that's being written as we speak.

Did you say your name is Arthur? You know, you're not really helping me in the sanity department, so golly gee, you mean this is going to in be MY very own chapter in the Never Ending Story??? Oh Atraeu, lets ride our luck dragon or wish dragon or lick dragon or kiss my ass dragon, or whatever it was, um no thank you. Pass. I think I'll stick to totally bonkers for $200 Jack.

It was Atreyu by the way, and honestly I don't care one way or another which side of the sanity coin you decide to land on yet, you can look at it however you want to, but the truth is, by the time I get to the end of writing this book, either eArth, YOUR eArth, the planet on which your and everyone and everything you've ever known is destroyed or you've figured a way to stop it. It will be done in thirty days 'my time' and over this next week maybe we'll work out along the way how long it's going to be for you.

You're not claiming to be God but you say you've created me and my entire universe? AND, not only that, but on a whim you've also decided to destroy it for fun. Hmmm, sounds like pretty godlike powers to me.

Can you lay off the God thing already? Look, just because a dimensional traveler pops thru a wormhole right in front of you and says he wants to dispense vast amounts of cosmic knowledge to you doesn't make him a god or even some fucking scholar or scientist.

Now you're saying you're a dimensional traveler?

Shhh, no, just listen, I'm giving you an example...just because he CAN travel thru wormholes doesn't make him smart...he could have been a burger flipper in his universe and one day on the way home stumbled across a dimensional bridge aligner or temporal focus maginifation device or whatever, pushed a few buttons on the thing because "ooooh it's shiny", and accidentally opens that bridge to you and ah haaa, suddenly you're learning secret cosmic knowledge from Zoltar the burger flipper, good luck with following that one. I'm just saying that just because I CAN do what I can do, doesn't mean I'm anything more than a burger flipper with a neat toy.

Great, I'm going to be killed by a kid with a toy, are you like intentionally trying to make yourself look like an idiot? I mean, if so then spot on Spakrey, way to go!

So, I don't know, call me crazy...oh wait, soooorry, scratch that remark...um, maybe there's a flaw in your universe that I haven't realized yet because you see, over here if someone has godlike powers, as you've already pointed out, maybe, I don't know, just maybe you'd want to be NICE to someone like that so they don't, oh, I don't know, maybe make you realize that not only are you stuck in a padded cell, but that when they'd doped you up with your nightly meds, which I've been so kind as to wake you up from for this conversation, they'd also shackled your wrists and ankles to the sides of the hospital bed.

Cassandra's eyes, no longer half open slits, go wide and buggy as she trys for the first time to sit up in the bed and discovers it's true. After a few futile attempts at struggling at her confines with the metal chains clanging loudly against the beds metal railings, she's forced to lay back once again, now left to stare at the yellowed water stained ceiling tiles nearly 20ft overhead. Her anger simmers hot just beneath the surface as her horse voice announces into the night, "Wow, and you're a dick too. Great. So really, chains and mannacles, isn't that just a wee bit cliche'?"

Well, the chains are important for later, you'll see. But listen, we're reeeeallly not getting off to a good start here. Tell you what, truce? I'll take the cuffs away so you can at least get out of bed, and I'll even take the memory away that you even had them on, deal?

"If you really did have all these powers," Cassandra says while sitting up for the first time and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. They dangle several inches off the floor and slightly swing in and out as she talks, "like if you really could do anything, why not get me out of here? An author huh? THEE Author, huh? Ok Art, write me out of here already! I've got it, put me in a Pub. I know you've been spending a lot of time at one recently...come on, start me out there, I can be drunk and talking to one of the local university's professors about quantum singularities and wondering why there's so many of them...yeah, and I don't have to be in here, any place but here."

I'm sorry Cassandra, I can't do that...at least not quite yet...I mean, what if it turns out you really are crazy and should be kept away from the general public for safety reasons, their's AND your's. And...wait, how do you know...I mean what makes you think I've been spending time in a pub recently?

"Um, hello, if you're in my head that means, by default, that I'm in your head as well, ha. And by the way, just HOW do you function with this thing? It's like Upchuck-e-cheese's for grownups in here, wow. I bet you are never ever ever bored are you?"

Hey, get used to it chicko because until you figure out the working of YOUR brain and its working, you're going to have to share off mine. And as for just writing you thru an easy story, well, nobody would want to read an easy story...oh, I got drunk with a scientist, we discovered a flaw in the universe that was going to cause the universe itself to collapse in upon itself unless we could convert the last bits of the tequila alcohol molecules into sugar in our bloodstreams, and poof, three rounds of tequila shots later the universe is safe once again, yayyyy. Hmmm, actually I'd kinda' like to hear that one, but that's a short story NOT for now, because now is your time to shine...eh, ok, now is your time to exist, and I hope you'll shine, and I expect you to and I'll help and push and steer, but soon you'll be on your own.

"Wow, now you're going all Obi Wan/Yoda on me...I don't want no spirit ghosts following me around telling me to 'let go let go' and shit like that. Why do I get the felling that my meds are bleeding thru and kicking in with you? ha seriously, who writes like that? Well, apparently you, sigh. You know what, maybe it's time we both wrote ourselves out for the night. Tell you what, now I'll make YOU a deal...you write me into a nice dream free deep relaxing sleep that won't have me waking to that thorazine hangover"

I don't think they use thorazine anymore, but I'll look it up tomorrow for you...

"Um, whatever, let me finish...let me have that rest and I'll let you have the same thing, deal?"

Ha, oh you will, huh? And how do you propose to make me have that?

"I only know that you'll have just the opposite if I'm talking in your head all damn night as you lay there and don't let you get to sleep...hmmm, kinda' like what you're doing to me now. Shall we take this up in the morning?"

Well, let's get some sleep, but I'm not sure yet how much we'll get to actually talk tomorrow because you've got an early appointment with Dr. Hivard who's apparently found some interesting notes concerning your um, unique situation.

"Seriously Art, we're going to have to have a talk soon about the Yoda babblement shit, ok? I'm going to tell you right now it's going to get on my last dick nerve real quick."

Wow, this is going to be fun, ha. Good night Cassandra. Dream sweet.

"No dreams tonight, dreams tomorrow, tonight just deep dark rest."

Chapter 2
Ehhhh, What'zzup Doc?

"The only difference between me and a madman is I'm not mad." -S. Dali

Nine forty-five A.M., Dr. Ray Hivard sits back at his desk, the bright morning sun, blocked by the wide vertical blinds on the wallsized windows behind him behind him cast beam like slats of light along his back and across the desk. Cassandra's eyes take a moment to adjust to the light as the Orderlies escort her into the room. The dimmly lit room with the seeming bars of light glowing brightly behind him was a stark contrast to the glare of the hallway's bare flourescents bulbs and sickly green walls.

"Good morning Cassandra. And how are we doing this morning?" Dr. Hivard addresses her without looking up from the clipboard before him and continues slowly looking thru the papers, seeming to have no less than half infinity's time to wait for her reply.
The Dr. not looking up to even acknowledge her was a rather annoying habit Cassandra had noticed he had from their first 'session' and had been getting more annoyed by it with every subsequent meeting, today makes their fifth. She hadn't quite figured out yet if this was just because he didn't realize he was being rude and was just lost in the medical notes he had on her, or, and more likely, if he's intentionally ignoring her to show his power and psychological dominance and how it all tied in with his choice of meeting time to ensure the proper placement of the sun outside and the window's vertical blinds choice to make the glowing, angelically inspiring cell bars?. Cassandra also wondered if these overthinking line of thoughts like this were Art's fault. But she didn't need him to tell her the answer to that one. And besides, none of that really mattered now because the only thing most deserving of her mind's full attention at the moment was how best to deal with smug ole' Dr. Hivard...

"How ARE we this morning? How are WEEEE this morning?" Cassandra's voice dripped with sarcasm syrup. Well hmmm, are we speaking the Queen's proper English as in the royal 'we'? I'm guessing you weren't using French because that's just completely the wrong use of the word 'yes' in that sentence. Or were you asking about both our present states, in which I can only reply with a response concerning my own as I've only just seen you for the first time today and have no idea what circumstances have transpired in the immediate past moments of your life before I came in here to see you this very moment, just now. I was going to say I'm fine as can be expected given my particularly unpleasent present state, but now I must confess I'm much more interested in hearing just how WE are this morning! How ARE we Dr. Hivard?"

"I'd say you've already said it more elequently than I might have, and I hope you don't mind if I quote you there..." Dr. Hivard quickly scribbles across the 'SESSION OPENING OBSERVATION REMARKS' section of the state form on the clipboard before him. "Patient's own words, 'particularly unpleasent present state.'" and mumbles the words to himself as he writes. It was one of the other rather annoying habit Cassandra had noticed from their first 'session' as well, and as with the first annoying habit, this one had also been getting more annoying with every subsequent meeting.

"So what's it to be today doc? Wroarshack blots or word association, mom, dad, up, down, red, fire that sort of thing? How many ways can I tell you I'm not supposed to be in here?" Cassandra leans back in her chair, not even bothering to pretend to be interested.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something a little different today, specifically about the times you went to that sleep clinic when you were 14." As he's finishing the sentence he tilts his head slightly upwards from the paperwork so he can judge her body's first physiological responses and is pleased to see her eyes grow wider for just a moment. Good, she remembers he thinks to himself, and smiles to himself knowing he's knocked the smart-ass out of her for now.

Cassandra's heart instinctively quickens from just the mention of the sleep clinic and it takes more than a bit of effort to retain her cool, it's worked though, he's got her attention.