The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction NovemberDecember 2013 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 127) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2015-01-06T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

They met for lunch the next day.

* * *

Five months later, as Dan and Zinnia sat beneath the cherry blossoms in High Park, Zinnia said, "Um, Denny, I still totally respect your chivalry towards me. I know you don't believe in sex before marriage. But I'm gonna bust if we don't do something that gets us a little closer to more, uh, intimacy, you know? Would you feel better about our future if you met my parents?"

Dan knew he had been deliberately living in a fool's illusion, trying to string Zinnia along for the pleasure of her company without committing to a more complex relationship. (She didn't even know his real name!) It wasn't fair to her or to himself. But he couldn't help his intense attraction to her. It was chemical, mystical, spiritual. He couldn't let her go.

(Letting Panthea go, however, had been easy. When he came back to the Lofts on January 2nd, they had a raging fight, during which he said harsh things about the hypocritical, shallow platitudes of "social justice" that angered her more than any personal affronts. Then he told her she had a week to clear out. She took only 36:08:11 hours, according to her smart phone.)

And so Dan had been expecting with dread Zinnia's proposal to meet her family.

But now that she had uttered the suggestion, a curious wave of acceptance and peace suffused him. Meeting the older version of himself would only be like looking in the mirror and talking to himself, right? True, all the shit would hit the fan, and his chance for personal happiness with Zinnia would evaporate. But wait: whenever he finally left the twenty-first century for good, he was somehow going to have a life with Marigold and create Zinnia! That would be satisfying, surely. Had been satisfying.

Dan's head began to ache with the paradoxes and the inability of language to keep up.

So he just said, with affected nonchalance, "Sure. Good idea. The semester's over next week. I'll buy the plane tickets today."

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