December 24th, 2007
File X-07-ADV-b-xvii
CONFIDENTIAL
Transcription of interviews taken at Facility X
Recent photograph of Victim D, “M8s”
SESSION BEGINS
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And I speak into this, do I? Do I need to lean over, or…? Okay.
Well.
What’s it like? I’m not sure I can really answer that, I mean, what’s like being born? What’s like dying? You know? They’re the same sort of question. What is it like to fully leave time and space, and observe it from the outside? How can I answer that?
It wasn’t painful, if that’s what you mean. I mean, I’m okay now. The moment I was sucked into the Snowman’s slipstream it was as if the universe popped around me like a bubble, and I suddenly knew that’s all it has ever been. Just a thin membrane, with a glimmer of colour somewhere inside. Outside, I suddenly felt the size of the world around me. Yes, it felt bigger, not smaller.
Oh, you – you mean what was the murder like?
Well, not like a murder, that’s for sure. I think it might have been more Dooper’s idea than the Snowman’s. They talked it out, worked out what would be best, what should be done. Burgess of course knew all about it already, he came drifting down the staircase smiling from ear to ear, proud of them for working it all out for themselves. Dooper and the Snowman walked away, and only one of them came back.
For my part, I wasn’t physically present. They didn’t know I was watching them at all. I could see and hear, but there wasn’t anything else to me. I think the transition out of time and space, but without holding the quantum chocolate, did something to me that separated myself from myself, if that makes sense. It was exhilarating, but I’m glad to be back together now.
Then after the deed was done, the Elf world started to react to it. Ha, I even got to see the day that newspaper came out! I don’t know who took the photograph, but I recognised the expression. I did feel weak and shocked by what was going on. I’ve never been ripped out of time before, and I never thought I’d see the Snowman and the world’s nicest Elf plan his death. Either way, it meant I come out on photographs, which was interesting. I even discovered I had a reflection – I just couldn’t be seen in real life. Like a reverse-vampire. I think the universe knew I was there and couldn’t fully compensate for my… well, not being.
In any case, then the Snowman returned to the future, and I followed, and I did get to see the way things would have been.
“For Dooper!!”
He yelled, and it was just like they said of him later in life. You could actually hear his voice on the wind, drifting like snowflakes. But this wasn’t a kindly voice at all, there was a terrible sorrow in it, and I knew straight away that it had worked. In this reality, Dooper had recently died, and of course none of them could understand why.
Not even Burgess. Or, perhaps he had some inkling, but it would be knowledge of another reality, knowledge he couldn’t fully access.
It worked, that’s the thing. Claus and his reindeer finally had the drive to succeed, to make that tricky loop. The present was wrapped, and everything was done.
I couldn’t see the Antisanta any more. He had disappeared from the roof, along with Beazie. Of course, if you asked me now where they are… I’d have to say “Nothing is known of their whereabouts,” wouldn’t I?
And so here I was in this new world, in which Christmas was a sorrowful time of mourning for the death of the most well-liked Elf in all Lapland.
Except…
I saw on the Snowman’s face a sudden flash of realisation, almost of shock. His hand curled, and I knew what he must be holding in it, of course. He walked over to the wall of the school, wrenched something from it, and then he was off again, sprinting, leaping across the school grounds.
I was afraid of being torn in half yet again, and of what might be left of me this time, since I was already without a body. But I followed, and once again was sucked into his slipstream.
He flew as gracefully through antispace as through space, walking in time the way a dolphin swims.
When we arrived, I saw that he had returned to the moment when he gave Claus the scarf. I could tell that was a moment he wanted to preserve, he wouldn’t meddle with it. He had to give the scarf to Claus, so that Santa Claus could give it to the other boy.
Then the Snowman walked away from the children.
He gave himself the chocolate. The Snowman – the one who now I’m sure thought of himself as a murderer – handed it to his former self, his innocent self, and told him to eat it. And of course, he did.
Such a strange encounter. One man finally looking into his own eyes and seeing himself for what he really was. Which of them came out of that moment the better, I wouldn’t want to guess.
Even after what happened next.
“It’s better,” he insisted, “trust me, far, far better. You haven’t yet gone back and done the deed, you still have this chance.”
His double protested, but the Snowman was insistent.
“Better this,” he said, “than become a killer later.”
I wish I could describe to you what it was like to watch time knit itself back together again. Dooper’s life was strung out before me in a tapestry of light and feeling, and its light shone against the darker hues of the Antisanta’s plot, and drowned them out. Such darkness could never prevail under the glare of such a light!
It’s the Grandfather Paradox, or something close. If you go back in time and kill yourself, then how were you ever there to go back in time? It’s a paradox, and the universe doesn’t like those. It likes to break them off and toss them away like little hoops of time. But not this time: the earlier Snowman was still chewing on the quantum chocolate even as he melted away. And that, I think, is what saved everything.
The two universes combined. Dooper is alive, and yet the box was wrapped. And I’m not sure anyone but me remembers why. I don’t think they know what happened at all. Claus has never successfully performed the Super Dooper Looper, he didn’t need to. Dooper never died. None of it ever happened…
and that’s what I had to tell a distressed David Bowie as he clawed at the things around him, shoveled snow between his fingers, tried to get some solid grip on where he was. He was ranting and raving about a murdered Vendequm – the local name for the Elves – I suspect the Snowman told him at some point something of what he had to go back and do. Beazie… what he may or may not remember, I don’t know, but he isn’t here. I don’t know where he is.
So I don’t think there’s anyone left now who actually remembers what happened.
You’ll have to ask him, of course. No, not the Snowman, I mean the boy. No, the other one. The one who buys the calendars. His viewpoint on this must be the most important, mustn’t it?
Of course I’ll do what you’ve asked me to.
I just don’t know what to make of any of it yet.
They’ve told me I begin tomorrow. Maybe we’ll see the end of this then.
Tomorrow…
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SESSION ENDS.