Call Back Yesterday Nancy Kress

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.CALL BACK YESTERDAY by Nancy Kress* * * *Nancy Kress has three books appearing in 2008: Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories, a collection from Golden Gryphon; and two novels, Dogs (Tachyon) and Steal Across the Sky (Tor).All of those concern genetic engineering in one way or another, but the following story deals with a much older and more mysterious idea: what changes time can, and cannot, make in human lives.* * * *This morning the bathroom mirror shows only a lone person—besides Caitlin herself, of course.Caitlin’s hair is dirty and there’s no time to wash it before Group, which starts in seven minutes.Time is always a problem for Caitlin; she’s not good at it.She washes her face, brushes her teeth, and tries the effect of pinning her dirty hair on top of her head.She looks like a dork.More of a dork.The woman in the mirror ignores Caitlin.Another person, the pre-adolescent boy, wanders out of the gray mist from wherever they live when they’re not in her mirror.The woman and the boy also ignore each other.They always do.“Fuck off,” Caitlin says experimentally.They don’t look at her, but the woman frowns and the boy grins at empty space.That’s the most that Caitlin has ever been able to affect any of them: the odd cuss word or the funny one-liner.Not that she’s any good at jokes, or at cussing.She will never be Seena.Usually Caitlin avoids looking in mirrors at all in the morning because a crowd of people that early is just too hard to take.But two people seem.if not manageable, at least bearable.She studies them both through the toothpaste flecks.The woman is maybe thirty-five.Too heavy but not really fat, dressed in wide-leg khaki pants and a yellow sweater.She carries an infant on one arm and may or may not be pregnant with another.Her hair is cut in a 1940’s style, side-parted with a wave falling over one eye.The boy wears what appears to be purple garbage bags strung with tiny glowing wires.His eyes are startlingly, aggressively blue, bluer than any sky Caitlin has ever seen.Otherwise, he looks like—“Group in five minutes,” calls Hardin, rumbling down the hall like a snow plow.“Josh, Caitlin, Seena, five minutes.”“Screw you,” Seena calls back from her room.That’ll lose her ten points, maybe even risk a session in the time-out room, but Seena won’t care.Caitlin drags the comb once more through her hair and tries tucking it behind her ears.No better.“Four minutes,” Hardin brays, plowing back in the other direction.Time.“Had we world enough and time.” “Time is money.” “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Quotations slide through Caitlin’s head, like pearls on a string.Where do they come from? How does she know all this stuff ?She scrubs a spot of toothpaste off her sweater and picks at a hangnail.Briefly, for just a second, the woman with the baby on her hip looks outward and her gaze meets Caitlin’s.The woman shows no recognition.The boy in the purple garbage bags has disappeared, but a man in a silver brocade waistcoat, knee breeches, and elaborately tied white cravat strolls into the mirror, calling over his shoulder to someone hidden in mist.“Caitlin!” Hardin bellows.“Coming!”She turns her back on the mirror just as the maternal woman and the knee-breeched man pass through each other like ghosts.* * * *“Let’s review what we know about Cathcart Syndrome,” Dr.Jensen says, and everybody groans.“Again?” Josh says.“Like we don’t already have this stuff coming out of our asses?”“Language,” Dr.Jensen says mildly.She’s a tiny, middle-aged woman in a white doctor coat.Caitlin, lying in bed at night, can somehow never picture Dr.Jensen’s features.Along with so much else she can’t picture.Josh drawls, “Are you asking what language ‘ass’ is?”Dr.Jensen ignores this, saying, “Let’s review the information for Seth,” and everybody looks at Seth, who blushes.Caitlin feels sorry for him.He can’t be more than thirteen, skinny and pimply and scared, with ears that stick out like mailboxes.He only arrived on their floor yesterday, when Michael was transferred to another ward, and Caitlin knows what lies ahead for him.Roth, that fat prick, is already sharpening his talons.To make it worse, Seth is sitting next to Josh, blond and green-eyed Josh, who is probably the hottest guy Caitlin has ever seen.The contrast is painful.Dr.Jensen says, “Who wants to start the review?”“I will,” Pam says.Of course.Seena rolls her eyes: Suck-up.Caitlin grins.Group is held in the lounge, a light-green room as windowless as all the others in the Manhattan Institute for Adolescent Behavior.A glass wall separates the room from the corridor where Hardin, three hundred pounds of fat and muscle, lounges on duty.Dr [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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