Upstream

You’d never call me an overachiever. I don’t care much about grades. I’m not in community college to shine. It’s more like a placeholder until I figure out what to do with my life. I’d rather fumble along and get so-so grades. That’s worked out quite nicely my first year in the graphic arts program at Kaufmann Community College.

Mom and Dad’s motto is simple. “Stay in school. Live at home rent free.”

Works for me.

So when I get the ominous summons from Dr. Peters, with the word ‘plagiarism’ on it, I don’t freak out. Much.

Plagiarism? Not in my playbook. I’ve done okay at Kaufmann without cheating, thank you very much.

Look, I’m not what you’d call popular. I’ve had a few, good friends. Not so many girlfriends but oh well. At least I own my own car. I’d say life is sweet.

Or it was until I found the fountain pen.

“When you gonna get rid of that old clunker, Wolfie?”

I look out my side window and see a familiar, grinning face. It’s Millie Simmons. The red-haired, freckle-faced bane of my existence who’s harassed me since high school. Her pretty, smiling face is in my window while she bangs the rusted top of my faded blue, ‘72 Beetle with her palm. This is our morning ritual.

“This jalopy’s older than Moses.” Her face is a wicked smirk. “Good luck getting a date with that junker, Wolfie. ‘All aboard The Rusty Blue Pill Bug!’”

“That’s funny, Millie,” I grunt as I get out of my car in the student parking lot. I wish she’d call me ‘Guy’. Or just ‘Woolfson’. Anything but Wolfie. “Maybe I’m waiting for a special girl with an appreciation for the classics.”

“Uh-huh.”

Millie whips her phone out faster than a gunslinger at high noon as she shrugs into her backpack. Then she’s down the social media rabbit hole, which means she’ll stop yapping at me. Good riddance.

Soon she’s pointed towards the Performance Arts complex. Millie thinks she’s an actress. My destination? The Graphic Arts building. I hardly think I’m an artist.

I head off, wondering about Peter’s note, when my foot rolls over something that feels as large as a bowling pin on the cement path. I spin in the air like a mad ballerina, and land on my butt hard enough to make sparks fly from my fillings.

“Ugh!”

When I look up, Millie’s amused face is staring down at me.

“Ouch,” I moan.

Green eyes squint down at me through a curtain of red hair.

“What’s that under your butt?”

I’m winded and gape up at her.

She sighs, squats down, reaches behind me, and picks something off the sidewalk.

“That’s a fancy pen, Wolfie!” She whistles. “You pooping out golden objects now?”

“Ha-ha.”

I snatch the thick, tubular object the size of a gun barrel from her and cock my arm, intending to chuck the pen that’s nearly killed me into the bushes.

“Looks expensive,” Millie mutters, a hungry gleam in her eyes as she drools over the glittering pen. “Is that real gold?”

“Huh?”

I relax my arm and examine the pen. It does look like gold. Or maybe it’s gold-plated. It might actually be worth something.

“That’s an old fountain pen,” she whispers. “Is that writing on it?”

My eyes hover over an inscription on the pen.

All Is Present

Millie’s keen interest in the pen makes me uncomfortable and I quickly tuck it into my shirt pocket. Her eyes dim as the pen vanishes. She shakes herself like a wet dog, all interest in the pen gone. Then she’s off again, her eyeballs French kissing her cellphone’s screen.

Thank god. This whole ‘my Precious’ act is getting pretty creepy.

I pick myself up and limp down the walkway. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the fountain pen feels heavy as it hitchhikes a ride in my pocket.

“Tell me, Guy.” Dr. Peters’s portly frame overflows his chair; he looks like he could’ve been an offensive tackle in high school. “How did you come up with your submission for this last assignment?”

His dark eyes consider me from beneath bushy eyebrows, a nice match to his thick, blunt, 1970s mustache.

“Oh. Um.” I realize I’m flubbing it and sit up straighter. His huge, long desk only adds to the football analogy as I imagine Peters at one goal post, me at the other. “I’m not sure. Kind’a took it and ran with it. I honestly don’t think I spent that much time on it.”

“Really?” His eyebrows rise like hairy black balloons. “The goal was to illustrate a scene from an imaginary movie, the theme and topic of your choosing. You turned in a fairly polished piece, Guy. Not your usual— how shall I say it— uninspired effort.”

He pauses, reaches into a drawer, lifts out a small canvass, and plops it down somewhere close to the fifty yard line on his desk.

There’s an index card in the lower corner of the canvas with my name, student number, and a title— ‘The Martian March’— all written in my handwriting.

The exquisitely rendered artwork depicting the Martian landscape in rich, red hues, pale skies, wispy clouds— with a marching band in full regalia and instrumentation— is impressive. It’s my idea all right. Just not the piece I handed in. Definitely not the work of a semi-talented, underachiever like Guy Woolfson.

“I think we both know,” hisses Peters, “this is not your work, Woolfson.”

I clamp my eyes shut and cradle my head in my hands. Just then I hear a small voice whispering.

All is present…

“When you gonna get rid of that old clunker, Wolfie?”

I jerk my head up. My eyes fly open. Millie’s speaking as her car door slams shut.

Again.

I’m back in the parking lot; Millie’s face is in my window. Dr. Peters, his classroom, the bogus artwork. It’s all gone.

“This jalopy’s older than Moses.”

I’m gaping at her, my blood is rainwater rushing through my ears.

“You’ll never get a date with that junker, Wolfie. ‘All aboard The Rusty Blue Pill Bug!’”

I keep staring, my mouth open.

“What? How did I—“ I stand there, mouth gaping like a dying fish gasping on the sand.

“What a weirdo!”

Millie rolls her eyes, turns, then stomps off down the cement walkway.

I take a few minutes to decide if I’m having a nightmare, or if I’m losing my mind. When the parking lot doesn’t go away, I draw a heavy breath. Maybe Dr. Peters’s letter has gotten to me.

“Let’s try this again.”

I barely notice the weight of the fountain pen in my pocket as I stumble down the pathway to class.

“Tell me, Guy. How did you come up with your submission for this latest assignment?”

I’m with Peters in his deserted classroom. Again.

This time, I decide to play it differently. I just stare mutely at his mustache. The silent treatment doesn’t go well. Peters digs out the canvas. This time he slams it down on the desk.

“I think we both know this is not your work, Woolfson.”

The shock of dejavú is strong. But there’s a difference this time.

‘The Martian March’ is now called ‘Starman Rising’. Instead of a marching band on Mars, there’s a provocative, color illustration of a naked, Bowie-esque figure on a cross shaped by two rockets; a crown of gold, moon lander aluminum wrapped around his head as he hangs in space. It’s both beautiful and terrifying.

“Can’t argue with that,” I mumble. Again the work isn’t mine. Despite what the index card says. “Just give me an Incomplete and let’s call it a day.”

I drop my chin and rub my eyes with my hands.

“When you gonna get rid of that old clunker, Wolfie?”

I shake my head and sigh.

“Bite me, Millie,” I grunt.

I look up and sure enough, it’s Millie, her hand raised, ready to pound the roof of my car.

But this time she doesn’t. She just glares daggers at me, turns, and stomps down the walkway.

“Have a nice day, Mills!” I call after her.

She throws a rude gesture at me over her shoulder.

I can’t decide what to do. Go home to look up a good therapist? Or tear off my clothes and run naked across campus until Security tackles me and hauls me off to the sherrif’s station?

A familiar voice behind me interrupts my pity party. It sounds like Dad.

“I always loved this car.”

I turn around, but it’s not Dad. The man leaning against the Volkswagen looks an awful lot like him. Enough to be my uncle. Only Dad has no siblings.

The stranger looks up and smiles, making the resemblance more eerie.

“Simpler times, Guy. But there will be more cars. More success. A special girl who appreciates the classics. No more being stuck.”

He chuckles and brushes back the dark mane of hair graying slightly at the temples. His clothes are somehow wrong. Not ugly. Just different. He seems like a foreigner. But there’s no accent.

“Who are you?” I take a step back. “Do I know you?”

“That’s a bit complicated.” He stands and straightens his shiny, pencil thin tie. It changes colors as I watch him.

I back up another step.

“Hey!” He holds up his palms. “I won’t bite. Besides, we’re kind’a related, Guy. Like you were thinking just now. Did you receive my little gift? It’ll get you out of that pickle with old Peters.”

I feel the weight of the gold pen in my pocket and I explode.

“Shut up!” I yank the fountain pen out and raise it over my head. I want to smash it to pieces on the cement.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He looks at me with that maddening smile on his face.

“Not until you hear what I have to say first. Then go ahead. Destroy the pen if you want.”

And just like that, the will to fight is gone. My shoulders drop; my arm falls in surrender.

“Let’s go to the quad,” he says. “I know the way.”

We sit on a bench in the quad. The stranger’s easy manner has a calming effect on me.

“Believe me, Guy,” he says, “I know how you feel. You don’t realize it, but you’re stuck. Like I was. Before I found the pen.”

The word ‘before’ sounds strange to me. I don’t know the difference between ‘before’ and ‘after’ anymore. I feel a headache coming behind my eyes.

“Here.”

He holds out his hand. There’s something small, round and pink in his palm. I squint at it and shake my head.

He laughs. “It’s not poison. That’s what I thought, too. The first time we met. Only I was seated there.” He motions at where I’m sitting.

“Oh, hell,” I mumble.

I grab the pill and pop it into my mouth. It melts on my tongue, leaving behind a hint of ginger. Suddenly, my head clears. I’m pain free; all anxiety whisked away.

When I look up, there’s a small white, cube resting on the bench between us. It’s pulsating with a bright, emerald glow.

“What’s that?”

“You need to see something, Guy.”

He taps the cube. Instantly it projects a postage stamp sized, holographic image above the bench. When more images appear I gasp.

Each hologram is a tiny piece of art. And they’re masterpieces! The colors. The shapes. The textures. Exquisitely rendered illustrations, all heartbreakingly beautiful. The emotional response I feel, the beauty that pours off each illustration, makes me want to sob. The insanity of this bizarre day fades in comparison to the genius of the holograms.

“Did you make these?”

The stranger smiles. Again there’s the sense I know him.

“Let’s say it’s a collaboration, Guy. Between myself and another artist.”

Absently, I reach for the images. My fingers merely pass through them.

“Another artist. Who?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You, of course.”

Suddenly, it begins to make sense. The pill I swallowed wasn’t just an aspirin. It’s seems to make me know things, too.

The holographic cube.

The clothes.

The stranger’s easy smile.

The dejavú day.

“I’m you,” I whisper. “You’re me. From—“

“I knew you’d get it! But I have the benefit of foreknowledge since I’ve been here before. Call me ‘Wolf’. That’s how I’m known in the artist community. Upstream. Thank Millie for the nickname. She’s not all bad. You’ll see. Some day.” He grins with my smile.

‘Upstream’? Millie and me? Fat chance. I frown.

“And the art? It’s brilliant. Way beyond me. How—“

“Yeah.” Wolf’s forehead crinkles the way mine does when I’m thinking. “That part’s a little dicey. Here. Before I forget.”

He reaches for my hand. I let him take it. Wolf’s skin is warm. Familiar. His flesh is my flesh. From out of his shirt pocket he pulls the golden fountain pen. My hands clench, but somehow I know it’s a different version.

Like Wolf.

He clamps the cap between his teeth, uncaps it, and writes on my palm. The ink is multicolored and glows faintly. A name, Pacala, and phone number appear on my hand. There’s a faint tickling sensation as Wolf writes.

“Tomorrow, you’ll visit Ms. Pacala.” He nods at my palm. “Owns a prestigious art gallery in Los Angeles. Pacala’s your agent. She’s expecting you. She’s one of us.”

“But I don’t have an agent.” I ignore the word ‘us’. “I have nothing to show her.”

“Today you don’t. Tomorrow you will. Just use the pen. Go Upstream. Our collaboration has been— will be— quite productive. Time to get unstuck, Guy.”

He back. The cube flickers and the magical illustrations vanish.

“What is it?” Something pushes against my chest. Like a puppy afraid of the pound. “The fountain pen.”

Wolf smiles with his eyes; fluffs his hand through his hair. He glances up as a gaggle of giggling girls fill the quad to roost on a bench nearby.

“Let’s call the fountain pen a powerful ‘quantum’ tool. It’s like the hand of a clock. Turn the hand one way; time moves forward. Turn it another; you go backwards. I moved you twice today with my pen. Your pen. They’re like magnets. Drawn to one another.”

“And everyone else? They don’t—“

“They’re part of the scenery. The pens move Upstream. Downstream. The rest of the world continues in blissful ignorance.”

“And if I destroy it?”

“Everything resets. All this. It never happened. You forget we ever met. But you remain stuck. Average. Wishing for something you can’t quite get to.”

“And the words? On the pen. ‘All is present’?”

“Ah.” Wolf’s eyes shine. “‘Without a present there’s no existence, since we live neither in the past nor the future. Yet, there must be a present. Therefore all is present.’ Socrates. I’m paraphrasing him, but you get the idea.”

I don’t but I say nothing.

When he caps the fountain pen I sense the meeting is over. Wolf lifts it, nib poised over his hand. He looks up at me and winks.

“This is it, Guy. Decision time. It’s up to you. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or not. Relatively speaking.”

“But how do I use it? Is there a manual, or— ?”

“You’ll know. Oh. What I said about possessing the pen?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Fair warning. It might be the other way around.”

He smiles one last time, writes a date far in the future on his palm. Then he, the fountain pen, and the cube, wink out of the quad. The girls don’t notice.

I sit there long after everyone else is gone. It’s much too quiet; my brain is a cave with too many unanswered questions fluttering around inside like bats. When the word ‘paradox’ threatens to rekindle my headache I wish it away.

Later, when the pink pill finally wears off, I feel empty, wondering if I imagined the whole thing. One thing’s for certain.

I do feel stuck.

If it is real, if I use the fountain pen and someday change my name to Wolf, then the wonderful art was mine. Is mine. I made them. Or I will make them. Or borrow them. Whatever.

It’s not really cheating if you steal from yourself, right? I just have to decide if I want to be Guy.

Or Wolf.

My shirt pocket moves again and I wonder about what Wolf said before he turned his clock hand and went Upstream.

It might be the other way around.

He never said if he regretted his choice when he tripped over the pen. Does Wolf possess the pen? Or does it possess him?

I stare at the name and number written on my hand. It’s glowing faintly in lovely, multicolored script. Proof that something happened today.

I gently slide the fountain pen out of my shirt pocket. It gleams, a bright golden clock hand in my palm.

All Is Present.

Suddenly, I realize I’m absent for class. But if I’m lucky I’ll slip into the back row and Peters won’t know I’ve missed half the session.

I sprint to the spot on the walkway that branches off in two directions, stop, and look towards the Arts building where Peters lies in wait for me.

Then I peer down the long, winding cement path to the parking lot where my Bug is parked, my cellphone hidden in the glove box. My hand, with ‘Pacala’ written on it, is buzzing.

Two directions.

Now.

Upstream.

I pull out the fountain pen and hold it under my eyes. My reflection is distorted on the barrel. Half my face looks like Wolf. The other half is Guy.

I slip the pen back into my pocket, my decision made.

I feel a sense of certainty as I turn, march down the pathway, and spy Millie strolling towards the parking lot.

“Hey Mills!” I call after her. “Wait for me!”