And You and I

As this year winds up, The Sunday Morning Transport still has surprises for you, starting with today’s tale by Jenna Hanchey, and next week’s story by Alex Irvine. We’ll also be sharing some favorites from early 2024, right to your inbox.

We hope you love this month’s stories — and all the stories to come in the new year — as much as we love bringing them to you on Sundays.

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For this month’s first, free story, Jenna Hanchey explores a web of envisioned possibilities. ~ Julian and Fran, December 1, 2024

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And You and I

by Jenna Hanchey

It all began with our daughter. I didn’t recognize her at first, just another little girl playing in one of those in-ground fountains, where children wound themselves in giggling spirals around the fluid pillars arising from the hot pavement, made bearable only by the water’s ephemeral presence.

In the vision, as in the potential reality it heralded, the pillars of water sometimes stopped all of a sudden, pulled back into holes in the ground like a tsunami tugging the ocean. The children knew what this meant, and most ran screaming in anticipation to the middle of the giant concrete circle. Suddenly the superpowered jets dotting a circumference erupted. Having collected the retreating water, they now sent it back in majestic arcs that met each other—and the dancing children—at the circle’s center.

But our daughter didn’t run toward the delightful downpour. Instead she ran to me. I still didn’t recognize her, not yet. I accepted a hug around my knees like I would for any child, gently smoothing her hair. I asked her about the fountain and whether she was having fun. Yes, she responded, with a goofy smile so like yours that I should have seen it then. But it’s so cold, she continued, shivering. I wrapped her in a towel and started to tell her about the fountain in my hometown—like this one, I said, but far to the north, where it’s so much colder than here—when my nephew walked by, patting me on the shoulder as he passed. Our eyes met and a shock wave spiraled down my spine.

He was years older than the time my mind had believed to be the present, but so clearly recognizable. Slowly, the realization dawned on me. This was the fountain in my home to the north, that small chilly city on the coast of Lake Michigan where my parents and siblings still lived. I looked at the girl in front of me, wrapped in a towel printed like the night sky, where I could just make out the rabbit in the moon draped across one shoulder. That silly grin, her dusky brown skin, poofy pigtails . . . and her eyes. Her eyes that were my eyes. Brilliant blue, brimming with feeling.

One thing that was mine, in a sea of us.

That was when it began, the possibility of you and me.

#

I had no reason to expect it. I’d never had such a personal vision before. Not that I had that many to begin with: after working with time for so long in the university lab, I’d come to intimately understand just how few wrinkles in the cosmic fabric there really were. For the most part, the universe was simply unfolding in the only way that it could, with every actor making the only decisions they could make as the being they were at the time, in the relations they were in when they were in them. It gave me great comfort, honestly, to skim along the surface of the vast ocean of time, once my colleagues and I figured out how, getting glimpses into the way the infinite relations could coalesce into something so beautiful as they spun out from one another. Especially when respect and reciprocity were shown.

The inability to actually control or change anything we saw—or even to place it in time or context—often meant we soon lost the big government funds. And the discovery of the Mbele Uncertainty Principle sealed our safety from militarized misuses: were we ever to be able to act on the glimpses of past or future that we saw, the possibility of seeing them at all went to zero. But there were enough rich white mystics out there—in Sedona and Marfa and the like—who were willing to fund a fascinating yet useless pursuit that we got by.

The visions didn’t start until years later. After I’d gotten so used to surfing the ocean of time that sometimes when I sat down alone at the large mahogany table for dinner, or laid my head back onto my little dog perched behind me on the couch, I still felt like I was being rocked by its waves.

And I was. Because those waves could move me, ever so slightly, into a different reality. Or move a reality I had glimpsed until it was no longer visible on the horizon. They were small things, usually, and often stemmed back to the choices made by the land, wind, and sky rather than humans. How much snow had fallen, whether or not it rained that day. Sometimes I would glimpse a future instant, and it would sooner or later come to be. But sometimes I would see something that the universe instead chose against, and as that moment wound back toward our time, to the instant of its unhappening, pressure would build and build and build until I was rocked by a giant wave. And I would know: the ocean of time had moved me into a different world than the one I’d glimpsed.

When I first saw our daughter, there was no way of knowing which type this vision would be.

#

I’d last seen you a few weeks before I jumped in time to meet her. No smile caressed your face then. We escaped the Temporal Dynamics conference, fleeing the too-chilled halls and too-heated egos to have ice cream down by the sea. You insisted on paying; money isn’t real, you said. And it all comes back around in the end, I added, tipping our cones together into a melty cheers. Mine stuck to yours, briefly, as we pulled them apart.

We sat on either end of a wooden bench, looking at the water instead of each other, as tears flowed from both of our eyes in shallow imitation of the mighty waves before us. We were both so lonely. I hadn’t realized you were divorced until the night before, when everyone else at the bar was dancing and you just sat slumped in your chair. Either drunk or distracted, you almost left your card at the bar. But I noticed, and brought it back to you. The ice cream was reciprocity, you said.

You talked about how your ex had thought you were too much, too emotional, too excessive. I, split from my ex for a year and a half, was still learning how not to dim my light for other people, how to just live as brightly as I desired. You talked about how hard it was to parent after the split. How much you loved your son. We both broke down describing how hard it was to find community. How hard it was to find your people.

Don’t worry, you said, enveloping me in a hug. We’re each other’s people.

#

Months later we found ourselves invited to the same lecture series on Time & the Other. I didn’t know how much of you I would actually get to see. You’re often busy. I am, as well, but more of my own making than the crowds your generosity naturally draws. But then, at the last minute, your lodging fell through and you needed a place to stay and somehow you ended up staying at the rental with me.

It was a musician’s house, and we’d been given a log for the wood-burning fireplace and permission to play the instruments. The first night, we stayed up talking until 2 a.m., not touching, just talking. But there’s no need to touch when static electricity has the capacity to arc between bodies, bridging any gaps. The only things that touched were our eyes, and they never broke contact until we finally gave in and shut them to close the day.

The next night, you went out with friends while I returned to the house alone, where I danced in time with the rocking of the ocean. I was going to go to sleep before you returned, but you asked me to wait for you. I’d settled into the couch by the time you got in, reading and listening to the album that always recenters me in the spirals of time, the one that my dad used to put on every night to relax, lilting in the background as a younger version of me drifted off to sleep.

You came in as my favorite song started, and I pulled you close to the speaker. Listen, I said. Isn’t it gorgeous? We held our breaths as Steve Howe delicately plucked harmonics on his twelve-string guitar, before allowing the melody to emerge. I didn’t tell you it was my favorite. But I noticed how attentively you listened. This time, the energy settled to a smolder as you held my hand.

Our last night, we made music together. You on the guitar, me singing along. Here and there, I could plunk out a melody on the piano. When you put aside the guitar, you held me instead. I laid my head against your chest and stroked your neck. I can feel your brain waves, you told me. You’d had some mushrooms. I hadn’t, but I could feel the waves too. We were both rocked by them, gently. I want to kiss you, you said, but I’m not ready. I know, I replied. And it’s so complicated, you said, by my son. I know, I repeated. You held my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead, instead, when we parted.

#

In the next vision, I was in my lab, surrounded by raucous graduate students. Class had just finished, and we were sharing a meal together. I reminded them, in between bites of sopapilla, that you were coming to guest speak next week, and they had better be on their best game. One student said, Ooo look, our prof’s blushing! They exchanged knowing glances, laughing. Worried what’ll be said about you? they joked. Why would I? I asked, tamping down the quite real embarrassment I felt that a crush had somehow been sussed out by my students. Well, you are married to each other, one responded. But that means they probably keep each other’s secrets, another one said, playfully disappointed, as the room descended into titters about love.

My eyes went wide, and then I was blushing. Like with the vision of our daughter, everyone else had known what reality we were in before I did.

My stomach tightened as the future dropped closer.

#

I might once have been excited by this vision, believed in its reality. But you’d called me the week before. We caught up at first, telling each other about the music we’d been playing, things we’d been thinking about, trips we’d taken. Feet placed in the ocean. Then you paused. I decided to reconcile with my ex, you told me, for my son’s sake. My chest was like a clamp on my heart. I admire you and respect your commitment to him, I said. I understand, I said. I added: I hope you find the love you deserve.

I didn’t cry. I did understand. I knew that the ocean of time, though impenetrable to us, holds only what it holds. You were making the only decision you could make, as the being you were at the time, in the relations you were in when you were in them.

That night, I saw our daughter’s hand, slipping into the sea, until all I could glimpse was a fingernail. It wasn’t a vision, though. This one was only a dream.

#

When I saw you at the annual Mbele Awards Ceremony, I was prepared to be friends. I scheduled coffee, kept it professional. Are we okay? I asked. Of course, you responded, seemingly surprised to have been asked. We saw a lot of each other that weekend, mostly in the company of others. We talked and we joked and we laughed and my heart expanded. Time may have its own plans, but it still knew: regardless of what form it took, we’re each other’s people.

One night, we ran into each other alone at the rooftop pool, both wanting to swim in the company of the full moon. We stayed in until the water got so cold, it made my teeth start to chatter, and yet the moon still hadn’t risen far enough to be visible atop the skyline.

I wrapped myself in a towel and stood on tiptoes on a patio chair. There, I said, I can see it now! You stayed on the ground, looking up at me, smiling a goofy grin. Send my greetings, you said, to the rabbit in the moon.

You told me the story: Once the moon shone as bright as the sun. But it shone too brightly, so the gods threw the rabbit at it to darken its face.

That’s sad, I said. Everyone should shine as brightly as they can. You have our greetings, I shouted, brave rabbit! And our comradery, bright moon!

This time when leaving, I was the one who hugged you. I’m glad to see you smiling again, I said.

#

It felt unfair to have the last vision, the one where you and I had passionate sex. You on top of me in the bed, me astride your lap in the chair, you lifting me up against the wall. The next logical step backward in time, I suppose, as my whole torso now felt the pressure of the alternate future rapidly approaching, spinning back toward the moment when it would finally come undone for good.

I did cry, when I came out of that vision. Hefty sobs that needed to be torn from the viselike grip of my throat.

#

The next time we saw each other, I knew that the moment had arrived. I could feel the pressure in every inch of my body, the weight of an alternate universe sitting on my shoulders. Earlier that morning was the only time I’d ever broken out of sync with the rhythm of time’s rocking waves, like cold water crashing over my head instead of the usual sun-radiated warmth cradling my body. I shouted at the universe, at time, at nothing at all, Isn’t there anything I can do?

But as my mind spiraled through possibilities, I began to find the rhythm once more, pulled ever back by the ocean tide, until I found myself again enveloped in the deepest and darkest of arms. For each scenario I could come up with inevitably spiraled away from me. It was never only about what I did. I could only make choices for me. And I could only, like anyone else, make the one I could make, as the being I was at the time, in the relations I was in when I made it.

How the universe unfolded was due to the constant movement of everything together in relation, swirling and rocking to a song in which only the ocean of time itself knew all the parts. It was never, and could never, be up to me. How lucky I was, I thought, to be held in such arms.

Arms that would let me, and everyone else, shine as brightly as they wanted, if we just decided to claim it.

I picked you up from the airport and drove you to my house. You had come to guest lecture, after all. As I should have known from all my sailing on the ocean of time, the important things never changed.

I’m glad you’re here, I said. Me too, you responded.

That was when it ended, the possibility of you and me.

When you smiled that goofy grin, my heart lifted and broke at the same time, as we settled into reality instead.

#

Thank you for joining our journey this week.

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Jenna Hanchey (she/her) has been called a “badass fairy,” and she attempts to live up to the title. Her fiction has been shortlisted for a British Science Fiction Award, and appears in Nature, Radon, and Small Wonders, among other venues. She’s a narrator for multiple podcasts, including the British Fantasy and Ignyte Award–short-listed Simultaneous Times, and cohosts the podcast Griots & Galaxies on African speculative fiction. Apparently, she’s also a professor. Follow her adventures on Bluesky (@jennahanchey.bsky.social) or at www.jennahanchey.com.

“And You and I,” © Jenna Hanchey, 2024.

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