Hazards of Time Travel. Joyce Carol Oates

Just us, kids! We’re hanging in here.

      Except right now Dad wasn’t smiling. Turned a little from me so (maybe) I wouldn’t notice him wiping tears from his eyes.

      “We aren’t supposed to ‘recall’ Tobias. Certainly not provide information to a child. Or look at pictures! I could be arrested if—anyone heard.”

      By anyone Dad meant the Government. Though you would not say that word—“Government.” You would not say the words “State”—“Federal Leaders.” It was forbidden to say such words and so, as Dad did, you spoke in a vague way, with a furtive look—if anyone heard.

      Or, you might say They.

      You could think of anyone, or they, as a glowering sky. A low-ceiling sky of those large dirigible clouds rumored to be surveillance devices, sculpted shapes like great ships, often bruised colored and iridescent from pollution, moving unpredictably but always there.

      Downstairs, in the vicinity of our electronic devices, Dad would never speak so openly. Of course you would never trust your computer no matter how friendly and throaty-seductive its voice, or your cell phone or dicta-stylus, but also thermostats, dishwashers, microwaves, car keys and (self-driving) cars.

      “But I miss Toby. All the time. Seeing medical students his age … I miss how he’d be a wonderful uncle to you, and to Rod.”

      It was confusing to me. I’d forgotten what Dad had said—Vaporized? Deleted?

      But I knew not to ask Dad more questions right now, and make him sadder.

      Exciting to see photographs of my lost “Uncle Toby” who looked like a younger version of my father. Uncle Toby had had a frowning-squinting kind of smile, like Dad. And his nose was long and thin like Dad’s with a tiny bump in the bone. And his eyes!—dark brown with a glisten, like my own.

      “Uncle Toby looks like he’d be fun.”

      Was this a stupid thing to say? Right away I regretted it but Dad only just smiled sadly.

      “Yes. Toby was fun.”

      He’d tried to warn his brother about being involved in any sort of free speech or May Day demonstrations, Dad said. Even during what had appeared to be a season of (relative) relaxation on the part of the Homeland Security Public Dissemination Bureau; during such seasons, the Government eased up on public-security enforcement, yet, as Dad believed, continued to monitor and file away information about dissenters and potential SIs (Subversive Individuals), for future use. Nothing is ever forgotten—Dad warned.

      At such times rumors would be circulated of a “thaw”—a “new era”—for always, as Dad said, people are eager to believe good news, and to forget bad news; people wish to be “optimists” and not “pessimists”; but “thaws” are factored into cycles and soon come to an end leaving incautious persons, especially the young and naïve, vulnerable to exposure and arrest and—what comes after arrest.

      After Uncle Toby’s disappearance (as it was called) law enforcement officers had raided the house and appropriated his medical textbooks, lab notebooks, personal computer and electronic devices, etc., and all pictures of him either digital or hard copy that they could find; but Dad had managed to hide away a few items, at great risk to his own safety.

      Saying, “I’m not proud of myself, honey. But I knew it would be wisest to ‘repudiate’ my brother—formally. By that time he’d been Deleted, so there was no point in defending him, or protecting him. I guess I was pretty convincing—and your mother, too—swearing how we didn’t realize we were harboring an SI—a ‘traitor’—so they let us off with just a fine.”

      Dad drew his sleeve across his face. Wiping his face.

      “A devastating fine, actually. But we had to be grateful the house wasn’t razed, which sometimes happens when there’s treason involved.”

      “Does Mom know?”

      “‘Know’—what?”

      “About Uncle Toby’s things here.”

      “No.”

      Dad explained: “Mom ‘knows’ that my brother was Deleted. She never speaks of him of course. She might have ‘known’ that I’d kept back a few personal items of Toby’s at the time but she’s certainly forgotten by now, as she has probably forgotten what Toby looked like. If you work hard enough to not think of something, and wall off your mind against it, and others around you are doing the same, you can ‘forget’—to a degree.”

      Brashly I was thinking Not me! I will not forget.

      Touching one of my lost uncle’s sweaters, soft dark-wool riddled with moth holes. And there was a yellowed-white T-shirt with a stretched neck. And a biology lab notebook with half the pages empty. And a wristwatch with a stretch band and a blank dead face forever halted at 2:20 P.M. that Daddy tried to revive without success.

      “Now you must promise, Adriane, never to speak of your lost uncle to anyone.”

      I nodded yes, Daddy.

      “Not to Mommy, and not to Roddy. You must not speak of ‘Uncle Toby.’ You must not—even to me.”

      Seeing the perplexed look in my face Dad kissed me wetly on the nose.

      Gathering up the outlawed things and returning them beneath the floorboards and the worn carpet.

      “Our secret, Adriane. Promise?”

      “Yes, Daddy. Promise!”

      SO YES, I knew what Deletion was. I know what Deletion is.

      I am not likely to emulate my uncle Toby. I am no longer interested in being “different”—in drawing attention to myself.

      As I have sworn numerous times I determined to serve out my Exile without violating the Instructions. I am determined to be returned to my family one day.

      I am determined not to be “vaporized”—and forgotten.

      Wondering if beneath the floorboards in the attic there’s a pathetic little cache of things of mine, gnarled toothbrush, kitten socks, math homework with red grade 91, my parents hastily managed to hide away.

       THE WARRANT

      Hereby, entered on this 19th day June NAS-23 in the 16th Federal District, Eastern-Atlantic States, a warrant for the arrest, detention, reassignment and sentencing of STROHL, ADRIANE S., 17, daughter of ERIC and MADELEINE STROHL, 3911 N. 17th St., Pennsboro, N.J., on seven counts of Treason-Speech and Questioning of Authority in violation of Federal Statutes 2 and 7. Signed by order of Chief Justice H. R. Sedgwick, 16th Federal District.

       “GOOD NEWS!”

      Or so at first it seemed.

      I’d been named valedictorian of my class at Pennsboro High School. And I’d been the only one at our school, of five students nominated, to be awarded a federally funded Patriot Democracy Scholarship.

      My mother came running to hug me, and congratulate me. And my father, though more warily.

      “That’s our girl! We are so proud of you.”

      The principal of our high school had telephoned my parents with the good news. It was rare for a phone to ring in our house, for most messages came electronically and there was no choice about receiving them.

      And my brother, Roderick, came to greet me with a strange expression on his face. He’d heard of Patriot Democracy Scholarships, Roddy said,