The Chasing of Moons

On the Topic of Mikey's Eyebrows

Frank collapses onto his bed as soon as he gets home and he has a panging fear of the book he now has to try to read in one night so that he has enough time to write an essay on it. He makes a whining sound before he actually pulls himself up, looks around his room and tries to find where he put the book. Frank's mostly just glad that it's not some massive book like War and Peace, but to be fair, he doesn't want to be reading Slaughterhouse-Five either. Frank finds anything and everything to do with Vonnegut somewhat perverse and creepy. And when it's coming from someone who's seen several hundred horror movies, you know you've done a successful job at writing a freaky-ass book.

He sees the book wedged under his desk chair, where he put it because the chair wobbled considerably and it was the perfect size to keep it still. Frank makes a groaning sound, one that he's sure even his mother downstairs can hear, and he stands up sulkily. He's probably going to end up just reading the SparkNotes and bullshitting the everloving fuck out of this report. He won't get anything higher than a C, but what does one C matter in the grand scheme of things? Literally nothing at all whatsoever.

Frank picks up the book, after pushing the chair to the side and he scowls at it, skimming the back cover and then riffling through the pages quickly. It's at this point that a piece of notebook paper falls out and lands on the floor. Frank looks down at it, assumes that it's some bookmark or other that the person who last had the book forgot there, and he leans down to pick it up. And that's when he realizes that there's words on the lines of the paper, which he now realizes is a couple sheets, and it's addressed to him.

The writing is in pencil, particularly messy, in somewhat large print, but readable all the same. Each sheet of lined paper, three in total, is double sided.

Frank doesn't know what to think as he looks at the top page, because Frank is a common name, it isn't necessarily addressed to him, but he starts to read what it says anyway.

Dear Frank,

Okay so, wow, okay, jeez. First things first, an introduction is in order. I know you and you know me, it's just the handwriting that maybe you're not familiar with quite yet, but it's me, Gerard. If my assumptions were correct, and they probably are in all likelihood, you're reading this about three, maybe four days after we first met. I, well, this is going to be a complicated letter to write for me, because, well, you'll see. See, I knew you wouldn't start reading this book until a few days before your report on it is due, which, on that note I have to say, I'm really unimpressed Frank, wow, you put it off for this long, jeez, some things never change. Second, I had to write this letter, because, without it, you'd never have figured any of this out.

Basically, and I'm just going to be perfectly blunt about this and then explain a little further afterward, but basically, I, well, I time traveled. Okay, before you start thinking "whoa he's fucking crazy", let me explain a little more. What happened was, as far as, uh, I was about to say "as far as Frank and I have figured out" but then I realized, you are Frank. I know that. I meant future Frank. Future you, the guy I'm married to. As far as we've figured out, the reason I had to time travel backwards is because otherwise you would never have looked twice at me. I don't even really blame you, I know how awkward I was back then, I was such a ditz, I wouldn't have wanted to talk to me either, so I'm not angry about that. Well, a little bit, but I'll get over it someday I assume. Ha, maybe another future me is going to travel back in time to tell me that I'm never going to be fully over the fact that you ignored me. Fuck, let's hope not, this is already confusing enough.

Sorry, I'm digressing. I'm supposed to explain what's going to happen here to make sure that you know what to do. First of all, I'm just going to say this now before I forget, don't even bother trying to propose to me at that stupid fucking duck pond near our house, because you got goose shit on your shoes and it really made the whole 'will you marry me' thing much less romantic. Second of all, there's some things that are really important for you to know, one of those being that you need to make sure Mikey stays home sick on Earth Day because that's the day that he burned his eyebrows off in chemistry. It was really amusing, but he still grumbles about it at Thanksgiving, so I figure I'll do him a solid and make sure it doesn't happen.