beauty of her telling making it, somehow, believable.
âMost of our meetings were by chance,â she went on. âA trip on a ferry boat, a voyage on a ship, a descent in an elevator, a collision going through doors, a place at a table, a passing glance on a seventeenth-century street, but somewhere in time we gave pause and asked where we came from, what we were doing, and how old were we, and saw the lie in each otherâs faces.
ââI am twenty, I am twenty-two, I am thirty,â we said, at tea, or drinking in a bar, but the truth was not there. We had been born during Victoriaâs reign, or when Lincoln was shot, or as Henry VIII laid his queenâs head on the chopping block. It took many years for the truth to rise, one here, two there, until our real births were revealed. âGood Lord,â we cried. âWe are Timeâs twins. You ninety-five, yes, and I one hundred and ten.â And we searched each otherâs face, as in mirrors, and saw soft-showered April and sun-filled May instead of raining October, dark November, and Christmas with no lights. We wept. And when the weeping stopped we compared long-lost childhoods and the bullies who had tormented us for being different, and not knowing why. Friends abandoned us when suddenly the friends were fifty and sixty and we still looked fresh out of high school. Marriages failed and the grave shut out all the rest. And we were left stranded in a great mausoleum that echoed with the laughter of school chums now incinerated or, if still alive, wielding crutches and piloting wheelchairs. Soon we found, by instinct, that it was best to keep moving, on to new towns to take up new lives, old souls in new bodies, lying about our past. We were not happy, then. We became happy. How? The rumor, after centuries, of a new town reached us. The myth held that a man on horseback crossing a great desert got off in emptiness, built a hut, and waited for others to arrive. He placed an ad in a magazine that extolled the young weather, fresh times, new circumstances. It contained multitudinous hints that might be unraveled by similar freaks in Oswego and Peoria, fellow lonely ones who watched the fall of friends all around and heard the earth thunder on too many coffin lids. They felt their limbs, still as limber as on graduation day, and wondered about their desolation. They read and reread the strange travel ad that promised a haven, a new place, as yet unnamed. A town that was small, but growing. Only twenty-one-year-olds need apply. Well, there, you see? Hints! No direct pronouncements. But lonelies everywhere, from Deadfall, Dakota, and Wintershade, England, felt the hair rise on their necks and packed their bags. Maybe, they thought, it would be worth the time and travel. And what was once a roadside bypass became a post office, a Pony Express standby, and then a jerkwater train stop, where strangers scanned each otherâs faces and found yesterdayâs sunrise instead of tomorrowâs midnight. They were driven by more than birthright. They were driven by one final terrible fact: at last, none could give or produce children.â
âIt came to that?â whispered Cardiff.
âYes, it finally happened. We lived longer but at a price. We had to be our own children, having none. So, year by year, strangers got off the train, one way, or rode up on horseback or walked the long walk and never looked back. By 1900 Summerton had its crops planted, its gardens full, its gazebos built, its social life established, and world communications running out but not in. No radios, no TVs, no newspapers, well, almost none. There was and is the Culpepper Summerton News, with not much news, for no one was born and almost no one died. Occasionally someone fell down a flight of stairs, or off a ladder, but we tend to mend fast. No cars, so no fatalities. But we were all busy, busy raising food, socializing, writing, dreaming. And then, of course, there
âMost of our meetings were by chance,â she went on. âA trip on a ferry boat, a voyage on a ship, a descent in an elevator, a collision going through doors, a place at a table, a passing glance on a seventeenth-century street, but somewhere in time we gave pause and asked where we came from, what we were doing, and how old were we, and saw the lie in each otherâs faces.
ââI am twenty, I am twenty-two, I am thirty,â we said, at tea, or drinking in a bar, but the truth was not there. We had been born during Victoriaâs reign, or when Lincoln was shot, or as Henry VIII laid his queenâs head on the chopping block. It took many years for the truth to rise, one here, two there, until our real births were revealed. âGood Lord,â we cried. âWe are Timeâs twins. You ninety-five, yes, and I one hundred and ten.â And we searched each otherâs face, as in mirrors, and saw soft-showered April and sun-filled May instead of raining October, dark November, and Christmas with no lights. We wept. And when the weeping stopped we compared long-lost childhoods and the bullies who had tormented us for being different, and not knowing why. Friends abandoned us when suddenly the friends were fifty and sixty and we still looked fresh out of high school. Marriages failed and the grave shut out all the rest. And we were left stranded in a great mausoleum that echoed with the laughter of school chums now incinerated or, if still alive, wielding crutches and piloting wheelchairs. Soon we found, by instinct, that it was best to keep moving, on to new towns to take up new lives, old souls in new bodies, lying about our past. We were not happy, then. We became happy. How? The rumor, after centuries, of a new town reached us. The myth held that a man on horseback crossing a great desert got off in emptiness, built a hut, and waited for others to arrive. He placed an ad in a magazine that extolled the young weather, fresh times, new circumstances. It contained multitudinous hints that might be unraveled by similar freaks in Oswego and Peoria, fellow lonely ones who watched the fall of friends all around and heard the earth thunder on too many coffin lids. They felt their limbs, still as limber as on graduation day, and wondered about their desolation. They read and reread the strange travel ad that promised a haven, a new place, as yet unnamed. A town that was small, but growing. Only twenty-one-year-olds need apply. Well, there, you see? Hints! No direct pronouncements. But lonelies everywhere, from Deadfall, Dakota, and Wintershade, England, felt the hair rise on their necks and packed their bags. Maybe, they thought, it would be worth the time and travel. And what was once a roadside bypass became a post office, a Pony Express standby, and then a jerkwater train stop, where strangers scanned each otherâs faces and found yesterdayâs sunrise instead of tomorrowâs midnight. They were driven by more than birthright. They were driven by one final terrible fact: at last, none could give or produce children.â
âIt came to that?â whispered Cardiff.
âYes, it finally happened. We lived longer but at a price. We had to be our own children, having none. So, year by year, strangers got off the train, one way, or rode up on horseback or walked the long walk and never looked back. By 1900 Summerton had its crops planted, its gardens full, its gazebos built, its social life established, and world communications running out but not in. No radios, no TVs, no newspapers, well, almost none. There was and is the Culpepper Summerton News, with not much news, for no one was born and almost no one died. Occasionally someone fell down a flight of stairs, or off a ladder, but we tend to mend fast. No cars, so no fatalities. But we were all busy, busy raising food, socializing, writing, dreaming. And then, of course, there
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