FutureImperfect by Stefan Petrucha Read Free Book Online Page B

curved tops of trail after trail before he finally came to a stop.
    But the Fool knew where to find him. Thud, thud, thud.
    â€œThat you probably could have figured out yourself. Ever see anyone other than you unable to enter their own past?”
    â€œUh…no.”
    â€œThat’s because the rules of your filter don’t permit you to enter your life trail. It’s the way you set things up.”
    Harry shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. It’s a rule of A-Time. I didn’t make this place up—the Quirks, the Glitches, the trails! I just named them! I only see it because my linear-time filter isn’t working. I don’t control reality!” Harry said.
    â€œNo,” the Fool answered. “You don’t. But you create and control yourself. Scorpion stings the turtle. Harry gets answers in a way that thwacks him. Language makes the world. It’s better to hear your name than to see your face. Get it? It’s a joke. Godzilla versus Cremora . And you really should lighten up a little.”
    â€œBut…,” Harry began. He gritted his teeth, trying to come up with the right phrasing. He thought he had it once or twice, but he didn’t want to get hit for nothing.
    As it waited, the Fool lay down in front of him, flopping on its belly across the terrain, resting its head on its white-gloved hands. It raised its gargantuan feet up, crossing them at the ankles and letting the moon-sized bells on its boots jingle. They sounded like the chimes of a thousand churches.
    Its eyes glistened. It smiled invitingly.
    â€œGo ahead,” it whispered. “Ask. You know you want to; you want to bad. And yeah, I know the answer.”
    The words appeared on the tip of Harry’s tongue, as if the Fool had conjured them. It was the question Harry’s father had always wanted him to answer. So he asked:
    â€œHow does reality work?”
    It used a full fist on him this time, and didn’t hold back.
    POW!
    There was pain, great pain, really, really great pain, then flying, falling, landing— thud, thud, thud —and an answer at last.
    â€œIt doesn’t,” the Fool said.
    Harry’s head listed to the side. He worried he might pass out, but he didn’t. It was a cheap answer. A cheat. The world had to make sense—it just had to.
    The Fool shook its head. “Working, not working, they’re all just what you call filters. They’re masks really. Everything is. Everything. Got that? Everything . All that terrifying, life-taking, debilitating, crippling, killing, overpowering, numbing, cracking, crunching, hating, separating, cultivating, inspiring, integrating, degradating, carbon-dating, creating, writhing, withering, deadening, deciding, hoping, coping, loping, doping, troping, trapping, winking, thinking, tree-hugging, exonerating, ozone-depleting, freedom-fighting, resource-wasting, conservating, renovating, aggravating, abdicating, syncopating, calculating, blinking, blanking, indicating, medicating, habituating, levitating, eradicating, irritating, flagellating, focusing, locusing, heat-seeking, exiting, activating, scintillating, decapitating, transposing, excruciating, invigorating, pixelating, cherry-picking, gerrymandering, deficit-spending, crawling, falling, mauling, calling, scrawling, scrolling, rolling, doling, molting, gloating, kicking, mixing, fixing, nixing, abstaining, abstracting, faxing, adultering, appropriating, backtracking, bloodsucking, counterpunching, nesting, resting, besting, testing, cresting, jesting, knowing, glowing, fascinating, compromising, condescending, fixating, obfuscating, breathtaking, whitening, brightening, canceling, carousing, normalizing, corroborating, agitating, characterizing, epitomizing, fantasizing, cleansing, clouting, clowning, lightly browning, napkin-tying, flirting, blurting, burning, boring, whirring, turning, tracing, facing, lacing, devastating, ingratiating, energizing,