The months that followed were heaven, if living the life of a lower-middle class, out of shape, bald auto mechanic sharing a house with his father and son could be heaven.
But to Simon, it was. He wanted nothing more than to live this way forever. He still remembered the night, now almost a year ago, when he and Jay and Bryan played with the Chronivac and changed their lives. But he found he was remembering it less and less.
Simon's changes had gone unnoticed by his family. They had successfully reclaimed the 9 years lost when Jay fiddled with the settings on the Chronivac. Simon was 28 again, Bryan 48, and Jay only 8 years old. They would move forward from here.
Jay's memory of any previous life had also been wiped. Only a shadow of it remained, which Simon noticed at times. He'd be driving Jay to little league practice, for instance, and would catch his son looking at him intently, as if he were trying to remember something. Simon would notice and worry.
"Whatcha doin' there, kiddo?" he'd say nervously, then reach over and muss up his son's hair, which broke Jay's concentration and returned them back to their reality as father and son. Simon's paternal affection for Jay, which was daily becoming more and more deeply rooted despite Simon's occasional self-coachings NOT to forget that they were NOT actually related. In a short time, however, Simon stopped talking himself out of these moments of happiness. He soon allowed himself to look at Jay, his very own son, so small, but so much like him, and let the pride and joy of being a father wash over him.
If Jay's memory of their transformations hadn't been altered, he might have been disappointed to learn that his modifying the temporal flow had done almost the opposite of what he thought it would do. Where Jay had hoped to age five years in one day, what he had actually done was slow the time in which they would return to their 14 year old, UNrelated selves at the end of seven days.
Now, each "day" of the week the Chronivac had allotted to their transformation experience was five YEARS. Which meant they wouldn't return to their sleepover selves for another 35 years. Jay would be 43, Simon would be 63, and Bryan would be...83 years old. If he even lived that long, even being the picture of perfect health (Simon had seen to that). How long could they expect to live? Would the Chronivac let them die while under its power?
They had just celebrated Jay's 9th birthday. Jay's friends had gone home and Bryan was happily polishing off the rest of the cake and ice cream. Simon was cleaning up torn wrapping paper.
"I wish this day could last forever, Dad!" said Jay.
"You had a good time?" asked Simon, bending down to stuff more paper into the wastebasket.
"Yeah!"
"I'm glad you did. You know, your granddad--"
Simon looked at Jay sitting at the table. Something was wrong.
"What's wrong Dad?" asked Jay?
"Nothing...nothing..." Simon whispered. But that wasn't true.
Jay was changing. He was morphing. He was growing older and taller in his chair, into a 14 year old boy who Simon recognized from another life.
Simon looked, horror-struck at his father. But it wasn't his father. It was that obnoxious kid Bryan.
"Thanks for having us over, Simon," said Bryan. "It was fun. Let's come over again next weekend and play with that machine again!"
Bryan got up out of his chair and ran for the door. Jay--the different Jay who was NOT Simon's son--stared blankly at Simon.
"Yeah. Thanks Sy," he said.
"Sy? Don't you mean DAD?" Simon barked.
Jay shook his head.
Simon looked down at himself. He was 14. Scrawny, with a head full of hair. He was no longer a paunchy, balding man. He was just a kid. And he was holding the Chronivac.
"I have to go or my Dad will wonder where I am," Jay said. Then turned to follow Bryan.
"Wait! SON!" Shouted Simon. "I mean--JAY! Come back!"
But Bryan and Jay kept running. Simon's feet felt like lead. He was glued to the floor, powerless to stop his friends as they ran out the door and slammed it with an echoing BANG.
"NO! NO! Come back! Jay! You can't! Come back!"
"Sy! Sy!"
"JAY! JAAAY!"
"Sy! Wake up!"
Simon suddenly woke. His vision was blurry. He felt two big hands on his shoulders.
"You were having a nightmare."
Simon looked up. It was a middle-aged, bearded face, fat, etched with heavy lines.
"Dad?"
"I've gotcha, son. You were just having a bad dream."
Simon leaned forward and hugged his father as tightly as he could, but not out of gratitude as Bryan suspected. Rather, he squeezed and clutched at his dad's fat shoulders and back.
"You're real. Oh Dad, you're real. Thank God."
"Of course I'm real. You just had a bad--"
"Jay!"
Simon cut him off and jumped from his bed. He ran down the hall. His gut bounced slightly with each heavy step. He reached up and felt the stubble on his face and his bald head.
He reached the door to Jay's room and opened it.
There was Jay, his son. Sound asleep, just like every other night.
Simon stood there, panting, tears of joy filling his eyes, when his father came up behind him and quietly led him out of the room.
"What's gotten into you, Sy? You'll wake Jay."
"I--I don't know..." Simon stammered as they shut the door behind them. "I had this dream. I--I lost both of you."
"You lost us?"
Simon paused. He looked into his father's eyes, eyes that he had inherited. "It's too hard to explain. I was just...I was just so sure I would never see you or Jay again."
They sat on the couch.
"Son," said Bryan, "This doesn't have anything to do with...you know. When we were 14?"
"You remember?"
"Oh good. I was afraid you'd think I was crazy for saying that. Don't you remember...even though we've lived here all our lives, it really couldn't have been more than a year now... We did something. We messed with some machine."
"I remember."
"It's impossible, really. I remember raising you. I remember your 14th birthday. But somehow, I also remember being 14 WITH you. And Jay."
"You remembered it right. We were."
"Yeah." Bryan paused. "You're afraid we'll change back, aren't you? That you'll lose Jay and me. We'll go back to being best friends instead of father and son."
The memories began hitting Bryan. The conversation had unlocked them. Simon could tell.
He tried to restrain himself, he tried to remind himself that Bryan wasn't really his father, but it came out anyway.
"I don't wanna lose you, Dad," Simon said, bursting into tears. He bent his head forward and cried into his father's chest. Bryan hugged Simon and patted him gently.
"I don't wanna lose you either, son."
"But we can't keep doing this. You're NOT my dad. I'm not really your son, not really. And Jay's not mine."
"Look at this." Bryan passed a framed picture to Simon. In it were three men. They were different ages, and Bryan was a lot fatter than Simon or Jay, but it was obvious, they were related. They were family.
"I miss Lisa," Simon said.
"I know you do, son."
"But if we have only been here for a year, I never actually KNEW any Lisa, did I? Lisa wasn't Jay's mother and she didn't die in a car crash. But I remember all of that! I remember her! I remember everything about her. I remember Jay being born, I remember the fight. How can this NOT be real?"
"It IS real, Sy."
"You don't want to go back, do you Bryan?"
Bryan grimaced. "Don't call me that. I'm your father."
"We can stay this way. I can figure it out, the machine, I mean. I caught Jay messing with it last year, about the same time I realized we might be stuck like this."
"So?" Bryan laughed happily. "If we're stuck like this what's the big deal? This is what we want, son. Leave it alone!"
"I just want to be sure, Dad. I need to get that machine back out and make sure."
Simon stood up and started walking back to his room.
"SY," said Bryan in a raised voice.
"Yeah, Dad?"
"Don't change anything without asking me first."
"I won't, Dad."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Simon went into his bedroom and closed the door. He reached underneath his bed, past a suitcase and some old, lost socks, and pulled out the Chronivac.