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         Before he ever left, he’d made a conscious decision to leave his watch behind. He wanted to keep himself ignorant of Time, to somehow pretend it didn’t exist. But it wasn’t possible. Even when he stood still, he could feel it moving forward. Even when he threw his whole body against them, the clockhands never stopped twitching. He couldn’t make them stop. And if he lingered long enough, they’d catch him in a sharp vice, and cut him in half. There was simply nothing he could do.
         So he left his watch behind. What else could he do? It was something. It was a start.

* * * * *

         She had been dozing on her couch when the doorbell rang, the chimes a broad hammer dispersing the fog in her brain. Blinking rapidly, nearly falling off the furniture in disjointed surprise, it took her a second to remember where she was. In the dark everything was so unfamiliar, a different country altogether. Her nightvision, to say the least, was crappy, but she hated to put up a thousand nightlights. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, she just couldn’t see very well into it.
         Across from her the television stared back placidly, the faint afterimage of whatever program she was watching still etched in the muted grey square, hazy memories frozen and indistinct. She couldn’t even remember what had been on. The news, probably, at this hour.
         Her feet were on the floor and she was rising to a standing position when the bell rang again. Maybe it was the fact that she was tired, but there was a trembling, insistent quality about it. Her imagination obviously. It was only a doorbell. But who the hell was behind the door at this time of night. As she made her way from the living room into the kitchen toward the door, she glanced at the digital clock sitting on the counter. Half past ten. Jesus. The numbers glared at her from the darkness, lone islands in a voided sea. For a scary second she didn’t recognize them as numbers at all, just red lines on a black background. Sometimes when you stared at a word long enough it just became a collection of letters. Forest for the trees. Isn’t that how the saying went? Her head was a jumble of mismatched thoughts, a shelf of jigsaw puzzles come crashing down, the pieces all thrown together.
         Shoes scuffed on the floor outside, a distant scratch. Who the hell was at the door? It occurred to her that nobody with good intentions ever visited at this time of the night. That thought made her hesitate, slowed her forward motion. This was a safe neighborhood, but what did that really mean? Any kind of nut could be out there. No place was ever exempt from bad things. She might as well just go back to bed and forget she ever heard the doorbell ring.
         Something kept her in the kitchen, though. Footsteps shuffled again, almost shyly. Did criminals step a certain way? The absurdity of the thought made her giggle slightly. What the hell , she finally decided. No harm in looking, right? You only live once.
         Sliding up to the door, she pressed her eye against the peephole, getting a warped, bulbous view of the hallway right in front of her apartment.
         A man swung into view, the lens causing his head to somehow seem a million miles from his body. It couldn’t hide the expression on his face, however. Detached and pensive, she recognized it instantly even as its presence made her even more confused.
         As she stared, he started to turn away, a strange resignation in his stance. What was this? Now she was curious. Oh no you don’t , she warned to the retreating figure. Now that you’ve got me up, we’re seeing this through.
         Moving swiftly, she called out, “Wait!” as she unlocked the door, the edges of sleep causing her to fumble just a little. A second later she swung the door wide open, revealing a young man, still thin in a bulky winter coat, hands in his pockets and compact. Frozen in mid-motion, his body half turned away, his eyes widened slightly as light from her apartment spilled out over him. His shadow struck the opposite wall and seemed to split. God , she thought to herself, you’re still the palest one in the whole damn family. Are you ever going to get some sun?
         Leaning against the doorway, she rested her forehead on her arm and one foot over the other. She didn’t bother to speak. Not yet. Let him do the explaining. Wow, it really is him.
         Pivoting smoothly to face her, all he said at first was, “Hey,” as if he was just been passing by as she had thrown her door open and this meeting was a complete coincidence. You never change. I could go five years without seeing you, and it’d be like there was no time in between at all.
         “Hey yourself,” she answered, friendly but neutral. Let him squirm for a minute. She didn’t care if he was family, that didn’t mean she had to make this easy. “So what are you doing here? This can’t be just a social call.” Her voice was casual, but knife-edged. She’d been having a wonderful dream before the doorbell rang, too. She was sure of it. Everything had been light. “I know you wouldn’t wake me up just to say, `hey’, right? I know you’re a more thoughtful person than that.” She tapped her fingernails on the wooden frame of the doorway, the chattering sound the only real noise in the area. “So what brings you around?”
         He didn’t say anything for almost a minute. Then, spreading his hands out wide, he unleashed one of those odd, cryptic, yet strangely endearing smiles that she always thought him incapable of pulling off until he actually did it.
         “I missed the melodious sound of your voice?” he said in his quiet voice, offering both an explanation and the suggestion that if that excuse didn’t work, he had ten more waiting to try out on her. If her cousin was one thing, it was persistent. Sometimes she wondered if it was the only constant thing about him. Even if he never seemed to change one bit. It wasn’t something she couldn’t easily explain.
         Nor did she really want to. It was way too late for her to think about. Brushing some of her hair away from her face, she broke out into a grin, stepping back from the doorway and motioning for him to come in.
         “That’s enough to gain you entrance,” she told him. “But believe me when I say, Tristian,” she added, grabbing his arm as he came closer, stopping him, “that if you want to stay, you’d better come up with a more plausible excuse than that, or the only way you’re leaving is out the window.”
         “I see,” he answered, the word almost a thin murmur. The calm smile hadn’t left his face. Under his coat he seemed so wiry, his arm a cluster of taut cables. He made a move to step back into the hallway, saying, “I think we’d best take this conversation outside then, and save yourself the trouble of straining-“
         ”Oh, can it, you,” she sighed with mock indignation, “and just get in here,” half throwing, half leading him, through the door and into her apartment.
         The door shut almost of its own accord a moment later, submerging the hallway in emptiness.

* * * * *

         “Kitchen or living room?” she asked, already subconsciously clearing off the kitchen table. Several pieces of a newspaper littered the otherwise clean surface, though she did notice that all the pieces were from different dates. She wondered if she had ever realized that while reading them. None of the articles looked familiar anyway.
         “Kitchen’s fine,” Tristian told her, stepping forward to help her with the newspapers. He was too late, she had already gathered them up into a neat pile and tossed them onto the countertop. Maybe later she’d take them out for recycling, although she suspected the landlord simply threw it all out. Did it really matter anyway? What’s one pile in the scheme of things?
         “Works for me,” she agreed cheerily, pulling out a chair and plopping herself down into it, tucking one foot under her body. It made her feel taller when she did that and being that her cousin had over a foot on her, she needed all the help she could get. A bare moment later she had jumped back up, manners poking through the night’s haze. “Geez, do you want anything? Water? Coffee? Beer?” The last was said partly in jest, although it was possible she might have a few cans in the back of the fridge, remnants of a girls’ night out, or a summer party, or something.
         “No, nothing for me, thanks . . .” Tristian replied with his usual diffidence. His hands were still in his pockets and he was lurking at the opposite side of the room, pacing in a small line with uneasy steps. There was a distracted tilt to his gaze. He still hadn’t unzippered his jacket.
         Now that she was up she’d decided that coffee was a good idea. “Sure, you don’t want any coffee?” she asked as she dug out the can and started to scoop a few cups into the maker. “Or have you sworn off drinking all liquids entirely now?”
         “I had to drive later that night, I told you . . .”
         “In six hours . ..” she countered with an impish smile. “God, you must be the only person our age that I know who won’t take advantage of an open bar.” Measuring enough coffee for two, she filled the pot with water. About to pour it into the machine, she halted halfway, fixing her cousin with a piercing gaze.
         “Tristian, my dear, are you cold?” she asked in sweet, caring tones.
         The other man blinked, seemingly torn away from regarding his warped reflection in a smudged butter knife. “Cold? I . . . ah, no, not that I’m aware of . . .”
         “If there’s one thing I learned from my parents,” she said to him, steamrolling over his fumbling reply, trying to keep a teasing smile off her face, “it’s that in your home you can make everyone play by your rules.” Pouring the water into the coffee machine, she added with a stabbing finger, “And in this home, I’ve got two rules . . .” pointing one finger to the ceiling, she said, “One, if you stay for more than five minutes you have to find a seat . . .” a second joined the first, “and two, until someone changes the definition of inside or we lose power, jackets come off. I may not have the world’s largest closet but I don’t keep wild animals in there either . . . your coat will be safe, I swear.”
         He had looked away during her minor speech, staring at his splayed fingers resting lightly on the counter, his very posture suggesting he had been struck with absent violence. For a weird second she thought she had somehow offended him, which she had always thought to be utterly impossible. He was so passive, she used to tell him, that if someone asked him politely to stop breathing, he might just shrug his shoulders and do it. Her mother would always correct her. He’s just even-tempered, dear. Not everyone can be assertive. Maybe there was a difference. Maybe.
         Improbably, a smile cracked his face, a thin, weary thing. “These rules seem pretty . . . specific,” he told her with quiet humor. His voice betrayed nothing else. “Just how long have they been in effect?”
         “I decided a little while before you got here,” she shot back flippantly. “Call it foresight, if you want. I’ve always had that gift.” Tristian shivered a little as he unzippered his coat. That’s the problem with wearing that damn thing all the time, she wanted to tell him. It just makes the rest of the world seem cold. Smoothly he draped the garment on the back of the nearest chair, pulling it and seating himself without a word. Without the coat on he seemed even thinner than usual, all sharp edges and angles. She tried to remember what he looked like the last time she saw him and found that all his appearances blurred together. He had been born like that, as far as she could tell, emerging fully-formed. Which was absurd, but he was absurdly consistent.
         Speaking of odd, a snarled contour of light hovering near his hip caught her eye. Squinting and leaning forward across the table, she said, “Hey . . . wait . . .” reaching out and pointing at his waist, which hovered at about eye level now.
         Tristian, only half-seated, halted the motion, frozen. The edges of his lips twitched in what might have been a smile, maybe even in relief.
         “Hey, what is that?” she asked, pointing at the thing dangling from his belt, all strangely curved plastic that danced just on the edge of familiar. Her eyes flickered up to meet his. “Is that some kind of flashlight? You work for a mining company now?”
         “What?” he asked, in that frustrating way of his, playing dumb when he knew perfectly well what she was asking. He glanced down, following the direction of her finger, and seemed to notice the object there for the first time, engaging in an exaggerated pantomime of surprise, a ridiculous enough expression that she half-expected him to clap an open palm to the side of his face with a quiet Oh my. “Oh. That.” His brows furrowed, as if he hadn’t expected her to ask that question. “Can you take a raincheck on the explanation? For a little while? It’s a bit of a long story.”
         Mister Consistency. “Fine,” she sniffed, settling back in her seat. “Later, if you must.” But she couldn’t keep the devilish glint from her voice. “Still, you know, if there’s no later . . .”
         Somehow he frowned and smiled at the same time, looking down at the table. Always so damn dramatic. “It’s a sword,” he told her flatly, as if unsure he was using the right words, the right language. “You know, a glowing one, like in the movies. It was given to me by higher beings. I use it to fight aliens.” A muscle in his face was twitching quickly, like he was chewing the inside of his cheek.
         “Jesus, then don’t tell me, asshole . . .” she said with a laugh, shifting so that the foot she was sitting on was free. A second later she drew her other leg up so that her shin was resting against the table. “How you say those things with a straight face I have no idea . . . you ever try poker, Tristian?”
         “Once or twice,” he replied with a self-effacing smile. “But I don’t think I have the luck for it. I never seem to get the right cards.”
         “Poor baby,” she teased.
         He shrugged, the smile unwavering. “I’ll be okay.”
         Silence settled in, a falloff in the barrage. Scratching absently at the fabric on her pants, she said idly, “So, when were you going to tell me?”
         His eyes ever so slightly. “Tell you?” he asked and his words were bone-dry. “What would I . . .”
         Pulling her knee in closer and staring at him over the joint, she continued archly, “So your entire plan was to just show up here out of nowhere, make some small talk and then leave? Did you figure I don’t keep a watch or a calender?” He had folded his hands together, watching her talk, elbows on the table, one hand stroking the other wrist. Her words were kind but trapped with meaning. “I may not have graduated from college, but I’m far from a moron. I know you, Tristian. We practically grew up together. You’re only spontaneous when you get a chance to plot out how you’re going to do it.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, along with her voice. Distantly she wondered when Tristian had managed the perfectly expressionless expression. He was going to be a creepy old man someday, if he kept this up. Ah, everyone needed something to strive for. “So . . . what’s wrong, Tristian? Why are you here? And so help me if you try to lie, I’ll throw you out of here myself, and I don’t really care if you get the door open in time or not.”
         “If I lie, how will you tell?” he asked mildly, the murmured words almost a challenge.
         “Because you were never any good at it,” she shot back, more defensively than she intended. Goddamn, he was frustrating. No wonder the boy had always been single. She loved him, maybe more than she did most of the family, but sometimes it was like he deliberately tried to chase everyone away, by acting as obtuse as possible.
         “Well then . . .” was his only reply, was all he said.