Ethan Worth carries
his TV dinner to the walnut coffee table in the living room. The
eighteen-year-old watches the television screen, across which a motivational
speaker speaks to the audience seated around him.
“Everyone chooses
his or her own path,” says the motivational speaker. “The trick? You must—” (Ethan
whispers along) “—believe in the destiny you choose.”
Ethan sits, after
dinner, at the cluttered desk in his bedroom. He adds his high school diploma
to his scrapbook. Trophies crown every surface around him. Blue ribbons smother
corkboards. Plaques hang from walls.
(forward)
The next morning,
Ethan seats himself upon a chair fastened to the naked, cement floor, inside
the visitor’s center of a women’s prison.
A TV, protected by
a metal cage, hangs from a brick wall. Ethan sets his scrapbook upon the cold
table in front of him.
A guard leads Faith
to the table. She sits, her eyes glued to the TV.
Ethan swallows.
“Hi, Mom.”
“You bring me my
cigarettes?” Her eyes don’t drift from the TV.
He removes a soft
pack from his pocket, hands it to her. “I have something for you.” He gestures
towards the scrapbook.
She stares at the
TV.
Ethan clears his
throat. “Have you heard from Dad?”
She finally looks
at him. “You live with him. You ever see
him?” Her attention returns to the TV. “Unless you’re money, he doesn’t know
you exist.”
Ethan tries to
grin. “I guess I’ll have to get my face on a dollar bill, then.”
(forward)
Ethan and his
girlfriend, Hope, spend the evening on a stroll across a carnival. They pass a
table at which an old woman concentrates upon her crystal ball.
“Care to hear your
destiny?” the old woman asks Ethan.
“No thanks,” Ethan
says. “I’ve already picked one.”
Hope offers him a
playful elbow. “What’s your future?”
“Greatness is my
destination.”
Hope sighs. “Once
you reach it, you’ll wish you had slowed down, enjoyed your journey.”
Ethan buys her a
snow cone. They sit at a picnic table.
“Have you
decided?” she asks between bites. “Will you join the Army? Or will you play
football for the Miami Hurricanes while attending law school?”
“I’m determined to
enter politics,” Ethan says. “People vote for lawyers and soldiers. Either path
will take me there.”
Hope rolls her
eyes. “Since it doesn’t matter . . . ” She displays a quarter. “Heads, army.
Tails, you play football for the Hurricanes.”
The time is 4:30
pm. The coin is airborne. Sunlight glistens off its metal. Ethan tries to catch
it. He misses. It lands.
“Tails,” Hope
whispers. “Guess you better pack.”
(forward)
Ethan attends law
school in Miami for the next few months. He plays football. He excels not only
at law, but also at science. He studies theories such as the Multiverse.
He learns that
Einstein considered time an illusion.
(forward)
Ethan trips, one
sunny afternoon in autumn, across the football field during practice. He tears
a muscle in his leg. The doctor says he’ll recover after a few months in a
cast.
Hope leaves NYU,
jumps a plane to Miami. She cares for Ethan, helps him recover. He
eventually returns to the football field. Hope remains in Florida, watch Ethan graduate law school.
(forward)
The time is again
4:30 pm. Ethan and Hope sit in a diner. Ethan tells Hope that the Seattle
Seahawks offered him a position.
Hope asks Ethan to
return to NYU with her, instead.
Ethan sits, stunned that she would suggest that he
turn down a chance at professional football.
(rewind)
The time is 4:30
pm. The coin is airborne. This time, Ethan catches it.
He leans across
the picnic table centered in the carnival. “I don’t need a quarter to tell me what
to do,” he tells Hope. “To hell with law school. I’m joining the Army.”
A few months
later, Ethan graduates both basic training and AIT.
Ethan, throughout
his military career, thinks only of how he shall ascend the next rung in the
promotional ladder. He realizes too late that his self-centeredness alienated
him from his fellow soldiers.
Major Huffman
arrives in Ethan’s barracks during the last week of Ethan’s contract. Huffman announces
his assembly of military unit sworn to shut down a domestic terrorist group called
Black Curtain.
Black Curtain
targets “unimportant,” American buildings. Bookstores. Dentist offices. Daycares.
They want Americans to feel threatened everywhere.
The clock displays
4:30 pm. Ethan must either join Huffman’s team . . . or complete his contract
and start his political career.
(rewind)
4:30 pm. Ethan and
Hope sit in a diner. The Seattle Seahawks have offered him a position. Hope
wants Ethan to return with her to New York.
Ethan cannot pass
up an opportunity to play for a professional team, and he abandons her.
He plays for the
Seahawks. He plays well. Children plead for Ethan’s action figure.
Collectors seek his rookie card.
Ethan feels loved.
He talks big and boastful, and the public embraces
him all the more for it.
One day before the start of a game, he lines up beside
his teammates, who hold their helmets against their hearts, a demonstration of mourning for those killed by the terrorist group,
Black Curtain, in New York.
Ethan worries that
the terrorist attack harmed Hope. Distracted, he drops the ball that would’ve
carried his team to the Super Bowl. The world of sports turns on him.
Ethan learns that
Hope remains alive and well in New York. She works as a veterinarian. She
always held a soft spot for injured animals.
The next football
season arrives. Ethan publically swears to redeem himself for last
year’s fumble. He doesn’t.
His coach benches him after twenty consecutive
fumbles. He cannot show his face in public.
He calls Hope one
lonely night, begs her to meet him. She agrees, because she always held a soft
spot for injured animals.
They agree to meet
at her favorite Chinese restaurant in New York.
(rewind)
4:30 pm. Staff
Sergeant Ethan Worth joins Huffman’s antiterrorist team.
Ethan volunteers
for every assignment. His superiors praise his proactivity. Their praises feel
warm. He swears to stop Black Curtain, who recently attacked New York.
He sleeps often
with Sergeant Hatchet, another member of Huffman’s team. She kisses him, as if
she tries to siphon time from his lips. She turns her back to him whenever he
claims to love her, as if angry with herself.
The night before
Ethan ships out to spend several months on a training exercise, he dismounts Hatchet. He says with a sheepish smile, “I owe
you an orgasm.”
She kisses his
nose. “You owe me seven, but who’s counting?”
Ethan discusses their
possible future together, and she grows angry. She breaks down and screams. “I
won’t be here when you return.”
Cancer. The sort
one doesn’t bother to fight.
She swears that
she never expected him to fall in love with her. She just couldn't spend end her life in an empty bed.
"I’m Schrodinger’s cat," she says, after a silence. "Alive and dead."
Alive. Dead. It
only depends on whether or not anyone pays attention.
True to her word,
Hatchet does not await Ethan when he returns from his training.
Ethan works
relentlessly to discover Black Curtain’s next target: a Chinese restaurant in
New York. But which one? The terrorists will escape if Huffman's team vacates every
Chinese restaurant in New York.
If Ethan wishes to
capture Black Curtain, he must catch them by surprise. The restaurants must
remain open.
Ethan grabs the
first flight to New York.
(rewind)
4:30 pm. Staff
Sergeant Ethan Worth does not accept Huffman’s offer to join his antiterrorist unit. Ethan starts his political career,
instead.
He earns a place
for himself in Washington, calls attention to his military service, speaks often
about the importance of improving the military’s strength. He swears that any
sign of weakness will embolden America’s enemies.
By luck, Black
Curtain attacks New York.
Support for
Senator Worth skyrockets. He makes influential friends. He collects power.
People respect his power.
He becomes a key
opponent to the proposed, single-payer, national health care program.
He runs into Hope,
one evening, in New York. He meets her husband and their infant . . . in a
Chinese restaurant.
(rewind)
4:30 pm. Ethan and
Hope sit in a diner in Miami. The Seattle Seahawks have offered him a position. Hope
wants Ethan to return with her to New York.
He agrees.
He passes the New
York State bar exam. Many of Ethan’s coworkers consider him lazy, because he
prioritizes Hope over his career.
He and Hope marry
in June. She conceives a child in November.
He never suspected
such happiness could exist.
He drops her off, one December morning, at her doctor’s office. While he searches for a parking
space, the doctor’s office explodes.
Black Curtain
planted a bomb inside the building.
Hope loses her
baby in the blast. She does not lose her life. Not quite.
Time passes. She
does not regain consciousness. Medical bills pile.
February. He sits
at her bedside, rotates her joints, cuts her hair, ignores his mounting debts.
March. Hope awakes,
but her memories seem fractured. She cannot walk. Twice, Ethan explains to her that their baby
died.
Nevertheless, he
feels relieved to have her awake and mostly aware.
He takes her to
her favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate her return.
(pause)
Staff Sergeant Ethan
Worth, dressed in civilian clothes, storms the men’s room inside a Chinese restaurant.
He searches the stalls, finds the bomb he cannot hope to deactivate in the next
thirty seconds.
Its timer continues to tick.
No choice but to
evacuate.
He races outside
the bathroom, yells for the diners’ attention.
His eyes lock with Hope’s. She
sits at a table with another man. An infant sits upon her lap.
(pause)
Ethan the Football
Player shakes hands with Hope’s husband. The three of them seat themselves within the restaurant.
(pause)
Ethan the Politician
accepts the seat that Hope offers him. She introduces her husband to him.
(pause)
Ethan the Lawyer
leans across the table and takes his wife’s hands. He squeezes them. Hope
smiles her broken smile.
To her, he realizes, the explosion at the doctor’s
office just happened.
(play)
The bomb in the
bathroom ticks off its final few seconds, and all four of Ethan’s journeys end.
The time is 4:30 pm.
The coin remains
airborne.
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