Slices by Michael Montoure

heart. I just —
she just died a little sooner than she would’ve, that’s
all.”
    “That’s
all? That’s
all?”
    “I
know you must be upset. I’m going to make it up to you. You
just — we’ll make you a notebook. It’s easier than
you might think. Then you can have any kind of life you want. All you
have to do is — ”
    “No.
No. I’m not letting you — you used me, all this time. I thought we were friends.”
    “We are friends. This wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t care what
happened to you.”
    “Stop
saying that! You’re done, you understand me? Give me that
notebook!”
    “David,
it’s not that simple — ”
    “Give
it to me!”
    He
tried to pull the open notebook out of Mark’s lap.
    Mark
grabbed hold and pulled back —
    Something
happened. Something that struck like lightning, that nearly tore the
car apart.
    David
woke first. There was a hum in the air, a smell like ozone. His head
was screaming in pain, a pain that pulsed in time with his heart. His
fingers danced with sparks as he pulled off his seatbelt.
    Still
clutching his prize, he fumbled the door open, took one last look at
his best friend, and ran off into the night.

    “David,”
Mark said on the phone days later. “I’m — a little
surprised to hear from you. I don’t recognize the area code.”
    “Michigan,”
David said. “Don’t bother looking it up. I’m not
going to be here long.”
    “When
are you coming home?”
    “I’m
not.”
    “We
need to talk about this.”
    “We
are. We’re talking right now.”
    “That’s
not what I — ”
    “Mark,
just shut up. I’m just calling to tell you. My half still
works.”
    “Really.”
Mark held his ruined half in his hands, fingers trailing along the
ragged edge of its broken spine.
    “Does
yours?”
    “Well.”
Mark actually smiled. “I don’t know, do I? We’re
not going to know until, let me see here, next April.” He went
and stood at his window, looking out at the world. “What did
you change?”
    “Nothing
important. None of your business.”
    “David,
you have to be careful.”
    “No,
you have to be careful. You have to know that I have just as much
power over you as you have over me.”
    “You
don’t have to turn this into a war.”
    “It
already is. A cold war. You don’t dare change my future as long
as I can change your past.”
    “David,
you can’t use the notebook. You don’t know what you’re
doing. This isn’t about you and me. If you change too much, if
it doesn’t make sense anymore, you could break the world.”
    “So
you’d better promise me, then,” David said, his voice
sounding weak and distant.
    “Promise
you what?”
    “You
leave me alone. I leave you alone. Put the notebook away and never
look at it again.”
    “Even
if I promise, how will you know?”
    “What?”
    “I
can’t do anything with my half that would affect you until next
April. I could have already killed you and you wouldn’t know
until then, so what good would my promise do you?”
    There
was nothing but distant crackling silence.
    “David?”
Mark said.
    He
heard a dull laugh. “I’m just going to have to trust you,
aren’t I?”
    “David,
please come home. We can — ”
    But
he was talking to a dial tone.

    Months
later. April 9th. The day his half of the notebook ran out. David sat
in a bar, nursing the last cup of coffee he could ever afford. He
wasn’t even sure what state this was.
    He
hadn’t slept at all last night, and was sure that he looked
terrible. Not that sleeping in the car had been doing him that much
good.
    The
TV over the bar was talking about the war. It was talking about a
politician resigning after a sex scandal. It was talking about people
in New Orleans who still didn’t have homes to go back to. David
sat and watched it all.
    You
could break the world, Mark had said. But right now it looked pretty broken anyway. If the
world went away — would anyone miss it?
    What
was his life going to be like after tomorrow?