Although they’d never divulged much about their background – how they came to be super-genius seagulls – they had been my friends – the only ones I’d had since I was a child.
I shook my head in awe of those magnificent creatures.
I was going to miss them.
I hopped in the van and pulled out onto Highway 101, down the hill heading south. I had a feeling I would keep doing some of the same things I’d been doing, even without the birds. Like the library books. I’d become accustomed to reading every day, and couldn’t see myself not continuing to be a voracious consumer of information. I’d probably even keep reading out loud – it was just the way I was used to doing it.
I wouldn’t be continuing my business, though. There was no way I could go back to combing the beaches myself in search of a paltry few shells – I’d gotten to used to having one of the best selections on the coast. Besides, somehow the thought of doing it alone made me feel empty inside.
No, I would use this crazy Chooser ball to somehow bring myself a fortune I could survive happily on.
This was a gift, and I was going to make the most of it.
#
My first opportunity was only two days later.
I’d traveled as far south as Brookings, and had decided to camp about five miles up the Winchuck River along the north bank.
I was only about six miles from my turn to head inland from 101 – just coming down the hill past Harris Beach State Park - when I spotted the dreaded flashing lights in my side mirror.
Busted.
I really couldn’t afford this. It wasn’t so much the speeding ticket, but the fact that I hadn’t held a driver’s license in nearly twenty years.
I also had no insurance.
The husky state trooper took a few seconds to climb out of his cruiser and lumber up alongside my van, hoisting his britches a little as I rolled the window down. He took off his shades to look me directly in the eye.
“License and registration?”
Oh yeah – I didn’t have registration either. “Uh, I’ll have to dig in the back for that stuff, officer – sorry – this van is my mobile place of business and my filing system is, well – let’s just say I could use a good secretary, haha.”
No expression. “You aware of how fast you were going?”
“Well, no – I’m guessing a little too fast?”
“I clocked you at sixty-three. Are you aware the limit drops from fifty-five to thirty five as you come into town? There were some big signs that tell you that – just a couple miles back?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, must’ve missed those.” I looked at his name tag – the name seemed familiar but I couldn’t place it.
“Look, I’m going to need your license and registration. Why don’t you step out and get in the back and do whatever you need to do to produce those for me?”
“Uh, sure,” I said, unfastening my seatbelt. The officer started to stroll toward the back of the van. I wondered how long I’d be able to rummage around in the back, stalling, before he either gave up on me or hauled me into jail. I quickly realized he wasn’t going to give up, and I really didn’t want to go to jail. Not again.
So I threw it into gear and stepped on it, spinning my rear wheels and throwing up gravel from the shoulder onto the hood of the cop car.
In my rear view I saw the cop move faster than seemed possible for such a portly fellow, and soon he was in his car and flying after me with lights blazing and sirens screaming.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
One of those things where each moment ticks away, making things worse, and worse . . . and worse. Digging a hole.
Digging my grave.
I held my foot to the floor and glanced at the speedometer every few seconds as it curved past sixty, seventy, eighty.
Up ahead, the Brookings Harbor Bridge came into view. A tow truck pulled out from the left into my lane. I swerved around it on the right, my right-side tires going off the edge of the shoulder.
I over corrected as I got back on the pavement, fishtailed, and hit the sloping concrete barrier at the edge of the bridge’s superstructure. The van lifted up off the ground and spiraled clockwise like something from The A-Team.
As my life flashed before my eyes, I found a vision of the Chooser filled my mind.
And time seemed to slow to a stop.
The world around me melted away and I saw several scenes at once.
I know that makes no sense, but like hearing an orchestra play a symphony, you can hear the music as a whole, but also pick out individual instruments or group parts. I knew that each of the scenes I saw represented a reality – an alternate life that I could choose.
Each scene began at the moment I had decided to step on the gas and flee from the state trooper. The first thought that crossed my mind was pure amazement at the fact that I had billions upon billions of possible choices at that instant.
At the time, I’d only seen two: jail or jet.
To my wonder, the possibilities had been literally endless.
And somehow, the one that appealed to me most came through to my mind, as if a clarinet had broken into a solo – it was the only thing I could hear, the only thing I could see, the only thing I could feel.
Suddenly, it was the only thing I was experiencing.
Reality changed around me, and the accident that was about to kill me, did – only I was no longer in that existence.
I’d used the first of my three genie wishes.
And I think I chose wisely.
#
The state trooper approached my window, and I rolled it down. He removed his shades and looked me in the eye.
“License and registration?”
I looked closely at his name tag and smiled broadly. “Trooper Pokrovsy? Are you related to the Pokrovskys of Medford?”
I had completely caught him off guard.
“My father was Anatole. You know him?”
“I served in the Navy with Anatole’s son, Michael. He’s a good sailor – a good man.”
“Was. My brother passed away last month.” He paused and looked me over, peeked at my cages in the back. “Look, about that license and registration – forget it – you just need to make sure and slow down as you come into town, okay? Take it easy, sir, and have a good day.”
Wow. It was that easy.
I clutched the Chooser as Trooper Pokrovsky walked back to his cruiser, brought it up to my lips and gave it a little kiss.
A second chance.
A new life.
And two more opportunities ahead of me.
I decided I would plan those a little more carefully than the last.
#
I kept the Chooser close, never letting it out of my sight.
I take that back – I rarely ever looked at it – but I kept it on my person at all times.
For months I obsessed over it. Wondering how I would use it again, and ever so slightly hungry for that phenomenal experience of picking a reality out of a sea of possibilities. Listening for that one perfect note in the symphony, searching for that one star in the vast heavens to shine on me alone. It was thrilling, yet terrifying.
One thing my first Choice had taught me was that there are far more options than the two or three or dozen that you can see in the moment.
I began to train myself to think outside that limited scope of choices, and try to imagine many, many more paths that I could take at any given time.
Having given up on my career as a purveyor of trash washed up by the ocean, I racked my brain to see the possibilities – a relative few of the infinite number of possibilities – and decided that I could try my hand at living a less transient life.
I traded in the van for a black ’98 Accord, got a two-room apartment in Rockaway Beach – a couple of hours north of where I’d last seen my seagulls – and took a swing-shift job busing tables at Sam’s Roadhouse Bar and Grille, a slightly over-priced diner with good f
ood and a steady clientele both in and out of season.
It felt weird to be living life like “normal” people, but it also felt good. There were benefits to having your own little space in the world – even if it was rented.
But after four months of the daily grind, I started to get restless. I was sick of the same old faces at work, the same four walls when I got home. I sat slumped on the ripped brown leather couch in my living room with the shades drawn shut to keep out the bright overcast light of late morning. The place smelled like cardboard pizza and cat litter (though I had no pets). I could faintly hear the traffic outside on 101, and the whistle of the tourist train as it pulled away to take sight-seers back down to Garibaldi.
I pulled out the Chooser.
As I contemplated the choice I was about to make – a “Should I Stay or Should I Go” moment – I was reminded of those magic eight-balls and had to laugh to myself.
What was I doing?
Did this thing really even work? Maybe that whole experience last year had been a dream – or some kind of weird drug-related flashback.
But I did still have this strange glowing ball that tingled and played in my hands as if it were alive.
I decided to do give it a try.
I stared at the ball and tried to imagine what would happen – what could happen – if I were to quit my job, pack up my few belongings and head out in any direction.
My breath was sucked out of me in an instant as I felt like I was pulled into the ball.
This time, the experience was far more intense than the van crash incident.
Last time, the possibilities had been infinite. This time, they seemed more infinite. I felt like I was swimming around in this great universe of choices and outcomes for hours and hours. A cacophony of paths to choose, a myriad consequences, the lives I could lead as numerous as the sands of the ocean.
I was amazed at the sheer potential of my life.
Yet here I was wasting away in a dead end job in a dead end town.
As I flew through the multiverse in my mind, I was surprised to find myself coming back, again and again, to the same choice result.
Oddly, it was a choice that kept me right here in Rockaway Beach.
To obtain the happiness that the Chooser was now allowing me to see, hear, taste, smell and feel, all I had to do was go to work tomorrow.
The one choice I had not been considering.
I opened my eyes.
I was sweating profusely, my hands shaking. I put the ball down on the table, and leaned back on the couch.
No earth-shattering warping of the space-time continuum this time – just the feeling of assurance that by staying on my present course I was making the best choice I’d made in my life.
And to think – I’d almost run away from it.
#
The next day at Sam’s I saw her.
She was sitting alone in a corner booth. She’d had lunch, then stayed on, drinking cup after cup of hot chocolate while she tapped away furiously on a laptop.
A writer.
And the most beautiful woman I’d even seen in my life.
For so many years, I’d never allowed myself to even consider getting close to a woman. I rightly convinced myself that no decent woman would be interested in a drifter like me.
But my life was different now. I wasn’t some executive or business owner, but at least I had an address.
And there sat this perfect woman – long, wavy strawberry blonde hair, deep brown eyes, flawless pale skin, slender fingers pouring out her mind and heart into the keyboard with intensity.
I approached her table to clear away some of the cluttered dishes and wipe down a little excess water left behind by condensation from a water glass.
“Can I get that for you?” I asked.
She typed a few more words then looked up into my eyes. My heart leapt. I knew she would do that – I had witnessed it in the Chooser. I didn’t realize how powerful a feeling it would be.
She breathed deeply, then smiled a sweet, genuine smile. “Oh, yes, thank you.”
I proceeded to clear up. “What are you writing?”
She pursed her lips and gently shook her head. “Supposed to be finishing up a novel – I’m on deadline – but I keep having to rework the ending. Every time I think it’s done, I read it back to myself, then delete it and take another run at it.” She chuckled in exasperation. “It’s starting to drive me crazy.”
I clunked the last of the used dishes into my gray bus tub and used my bleach-scented white terry hand towel to wipe down the table. “Choices,” I said, leaning over to reach the far side of the table. “So many ways to play out the story, yet you must choose only one.”
“That’s my problem exactly!” she said with a smile. “Makes me wish this were one of those old Choose Your Own Tale books from the 80s. Then I could write all of the endings I want to write. It’s so hard to choose the best one – the one that will satisfy the most readers.”
“Why not just choose the one that satisfies you? Forget everyone else - do something for yourself.” I picked up my tub and stood for a moment as she looked up at me, her lips parted.
She slowly nodded. “Huh. Why didn’t I think of that?”
I smiled and walked away.
I knew she’d be back.
In fact, I knew she would one day be my wife.
#
The years passed.
My life with Elizabeth was blissful. We lived in a little bungalow surrounded by gold, pink and magenta wildflowers, overlooking the ocean, at the north end of Lincoln City. She made a comfortable living with her novels, allowing me to spend my time with my hobby – a throwback to my younger days of beach-combing – shining up shells and making artistic little sculptures and etchings out of various flotsam from the sea.
I often thought of Riker and Troi as I strolled along the beach, wondering if I’d ever see them again.
And from time to time I thought about the Chooser, wondering if I ever even needed to use up my third wish. Life seemed perfect – no need to choose another reality when this one was just fine. Another use would have to be for something very important, for sure.
I always kept the Chooser’s existence to myself – I felt somehow that Elizabeth would think I had cheated my way into her life if she knew about it. No longer alone, I couldn’t carry it at all times – I had to just put it away.
Silly, really. We were happy. No reason to keep the secret. But somehow, although Conthu (via Riker) had not warned me to conceal it, I thought that something bad would happen if anyone knew about it.
I was right.
It was three days before Christmas, the sky was dark with rain and the wind gusting against our doors and windows. Elizabeth was trying to find a good place to stash my present. She ended up finding my hiding place for the Chooser.
She brought it to me, fascinated.
“What is this?” she asked, intrigued, holding it out to me as I sat in my easy chair buffing a spotted conch.
I nearly had a heart attack. My hands shaking slightly, I put down the shell and said, “Let me see,” reaching out for it.
“I found it up in the closet” she said. “Look at how it glows.”
She started to sit in the chair opposite me, but staggered and bounced off the arm, crashing to the floor on her side.
She screamed out in pain, and held up her hand – the one that had held the Chooser.
It was turning black and shrinking, as if being fried to a crisp.
Elizabeth’s whole arm then shriveled as she cried out in agony.
It all happened so fast, I barely had time to jump out of my chair and kneel beside her before she was consumed.
A shallow mound of fine black powder formed her silhouette on the hardwood floor.
In my grief and anger and pain and confusion I stared into the Chooser and yelled, “No!”
I was sucked back into the multiverse.
/> I floated among countless lives, countless forks in the road.
But no reality called to me, none felt right.
I was confused at my choices. There was no clarity and no relief, only a series of choices that seemed to offer pain, more pain, and excruciating pain. There was also agony, misery and woe. I couldn’t see how to “fix” what was happening to Elizabeth.
As I tumbled endlessly between the realities, hours, days, weeks seemed to pass. Finally, I started to see the truth: Elizabeth’s death was inevitable – it existed in every one of the infinite possibilities that sprung from my most recent Choice – to stay in Rockaway Beach and meet her, and fall in love with her, and marry her.
There was no escaping it.
For Elizabeth to live, we could not be together – but I could not undo that choice, because it was the result of the Chooser.
I was literally going to be the death of her.
No matter what.
Condemned to this heartbreak, I selected the only viable reality – the one in which I was already living. None of the other possibilities mattered – Elizabeth died in all of them anyway.
To think, I’d basically wasted two of my three chances.
The happiness we’d shared was worth wasting a million chances – but her sudden, horrible death wasn’t worth an infinity of possibilities.
And then I remembered the final condition of the Chooser.
I was to decide whether to accept my three Choices, or return to the beginning and enjoy none of them.
The beginning.
That car chase with the state trooper.
The one that would be my end.
Well, I knew in a heartbeat what my choice would be.
Holding up the Chooser, I spoke to it sternly (having no idea how this part worked), “Okay! Take it all back, then! I renounce you! Hit the rest button!”
Apparently, that was good enough.
The world was spinning, my van’s engine was revving, and the ground was getting closer.
I felt myself slip forward in the seat – I’d removed my seatbelt back when I was pulled over.
I heard the branches cracking under the force of the vehicle as I hit the bottom of the ditch.
Glass shattered.
My head and chest exploded in fiery pain.
Blackness and silence.
Then whiteness.
Two bright seagulls floated toward me, welcoming me home.