You are the best archeologist the Speedwagon Foundation has ever hired. But you know that your intelligence and capacity are not the attributes that keep you in this very important position in the company. And your salary? It's not enough to pay to...
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You had time to calm down, although you felt like you were coagulating into cubes of quivering jelly. Gyro and Johnny's efforts to keep you calm and willing to talk about everything you had discovered with Joshua Creed did not seem effectively helpful, for you knew that it was up to you; but you appreciated their efforts.
Though accompanied, loneliness consumed you. But this was not a new feeling; you had always been a lonely soul and not even the changing fabrics of time would change that. You were alone in the comfort of your home and your car, and you were also alone in the cold of the camp and the stench of the horses. You had what is called an inner life and you didn't know it until this moment. You always lived off yourself as if you were eating your own guts out. When you went to work, you looked like a meek madwoman, for as you ran from the house to the Speedwagon Foundation, you daydreamed in high and dazzling dreams and goals. These dreams, of such inwardness, were empty because you lacked many essentials. Most of the time, without knowing it, the only thing you had was emptiness temporarily filled by mediocre ecstasies.
But you had pleasures. On frigid nights, you, all shivering under the denim sheet, used to hug your boss or a stranger you met in a pub. You had the warmth of the radiator, the glow of the lamps, the practicality and efficiency of a stove and a refrigerator; and, also, the tantalizing distraction of the glow of color television. Remembering your simple and mediocre pleasures brought you nothing but melancholy and longing.
You saw Gyro take a canister from his bag, when he had already managed to get sparks out of the flint, and asked:
"What is it?''
"Alcohol.'' He replied. ''The fire will burn faster with this.''
Alcohol? But where was the label? Why was it kept in a can, and not in a whitish plastic bottle? Why no percentage or ''flammable product'' warning? Less than a century ago, people were so carefree? You remember studying 19th-century beauty products in your college years and spending sleepless nights cutting out old newspapers from the office, comparing the labels and other elements of makeup products and moisturizers. The ads you were most used to show, in full color, the open pot of a skin cream of women who just weren't you. The older ones, however, showed only exaggeratedly false advertising about the quality and provenance of the product.
''So this is how you light a fire the European way? Using alcohol?''
"Shut up, Johnny.''
And now what? What would you do? If you remained silent, you would be trapped in your own questions about the complexity of the space-time mantle and the enormous risks you were running to affect the future. By this point, you were convinced that there was no place in the 20th century for Johnny and Gyro, and apparently not for you either. Now, as such a traveler, what could you do? You knew that your knowledge of the future and the past is a tool you were given, like a castaway in possession of a knife or a fishing line. It would not be immoral to use it, but how could it be useful? Would Johnny be interested to know about the Apollo 11 mission? Would Gyro be interested in knowing about the assassination of John Kennedy?
