The Ghostwriter's Words

Sammy: One-Thousand Redux Too

One-Thousand years since my birth:

We'd made great strides in nanotechnology, which drove further advancements in many other fields...

Sammy's lips moved, but he no longer read aloud. He was thinking. So many of the technological innovations, which had seemed so wondrous to his six-year-old imagination, had long been the reality of his day-to-day life, thanks, in many instances, to his invention of them. Or re-invention, since many of those ideas came straight from the pages of his great-grandfather's book. He'd only needed to re-implement them from his perspective, which was no negligible feat, but he couldn't grant himself full credit for the ideas either. What others might think was their own business. He also owed Sara equal, if not entire, credit for many of these more recent re-inventions, re-discoveries, and re-implementations. Among her wondrous qualities were her technical genius and uninhibited imagination. She was likely a better software engineer than he'd ever been himself. She was surely more enthusiastic than he'd been since before Eve's death. By the time Sara came along, most of his discoveries, inventions, and enthusiasm had been decades in the past. But now, as in the book, thanks to Sara's efforts, he could have assemblages of nanobots manifest furniture or any other material objects he could imagine, seemingly from thin air, merely by wishing them to be there. Only the two of them had that ability, he and Sara - and, he'd nearly forgotten, her friend, Lady, since Sara had told him she felt the need to share her discoveries with someone other than himself. They'd agreed it would be imprudent to rush into sharing this technological innovation with the rest of the world, especially with The Faith. More so because it had been Sara's work, which would leave them as envious as it being one additional thing they didn't possess. No. So far, Sammy and Sara had kept Magick all to themselves. And Lady, who'd promised to be discrete, and other promises, such as if Sammy was ever feeling lonely. Like now.

No, no, no..., he thought, pleading with himself not to go off on tangents that would only end in guilt and regret. Whether or not his guilt and regret made sense to Sara, who'd encouraged him, many times, to visit her friend, Lady, if he was lonely. Like now.

Feeling a sudden need to sit as if to prove some point, Sammy willed a chair to appear, which one did, and he sat. He'd been afraid if he'd lowered himself down to the sand, in his present state, he might have a problem getting back to his feet. He thought it was unfortunate and disappointing that, since this section of his great-grandfather's book and the future it prophesized had become a reality, the words no longer held the magic they'd once had in his youth. That seemed a sad inevitability of prophecies fulfilled.

Mary stirred the morning of my one-thousandth birthday, burrowing her face into my side and straying a little low when she reached her arm across my body. Still not fully awake, her voice was throaty with sleep as she purred, "What you got there, Birthday Boy? Some morning wood? I think other presents will have to wait while I do something about that."

Wouldn't that have been lovely? Sammy thought.

There may have been a Mary, perhaps more than one, among those who'd occasionally warmed his bed over the past one thousand years while Sara was off on another of her wanderlusts, only to be chased away upon Sara's return. He couldn't remember how many women there'd been in total. Dozens for sure, but he supposed it could have been as many as a hundred once he tried to remember. A thousand years was a long time. But no matter how many it may have been, he couldn't possibly have accumulated near the numbers that he assumed the Professor had continued to roll up by then. Still, there had been enough that he couldn't remember them all. He couldn't conjure a specific face and say, for a fact, yes, that one, her name was Mary. He called nearly all of them Sara, at least once, during moments of passion or too much Scotch.

No matter their names, any of them warming his bed would have been lovely that morning since he'd woken alone again. He told himself he shouldn't have been surprised he didn't find Sara beside him when he awoke on his one-thousandth birthday. He'd opened his eyes every morning for the past twenty-five years, hoping to find her there, waking him in her favorite way, morning wood in her mouth. Once again, he'd been disappointed.

Without warning and with no idea what had summoned them, memories of the Professor further darkened Sammy's thoughts. No, the Professor's absence on his birthday was neither unexpected nor disappointing. He would be shocked if the Professor dared show his face without an invitation because Sammy wasn't sure how he'd react the next time the man was in his presence. And he'd sent no invitation. They hadn't spoken since Sammy's five-hundredth birthday, and Sammy had no plans nor intention of ever speaking with him again.

A wave of rage abruptly swept him back to his feet, or as abruptly as possible, given that he had difficulty remaining upright once he stood. Still, his chair would have been thrown over on its back from the force of his sudden leap to his feet if it had been real. Instead, its service no longer required; it simply vanished behind him. Shoving his great-grandfather's book beneath the arm that held his Scotch, he took several stumbling steps to pick up and hurl a rock into the waves with enough force that half the remaining Scotch flew from his glass, further infuriating him. It was extremely fine, old Scotch.

Adding that to the Professor's tab, he screamed, "You cock sucker!"