LotS/The Story/Puny Human Birthdays III/Happy Birthday To Me

It was Keegon's tenth birthday.

The walls were decorated and beribboned, festooned with balloons and bedecked with crepe paper and signs of all shapes and sizes.

The couch had been moved from the center of the room to the wall, to allow for the rowdy play of children.

The floors had been swept and polished, and the curtains drawn back to let in all the sun and cheer the room.

A table had been laid out with a colorful cloth, the one with the spaceships on it that Keegon had been allowed to pick special from the store. On top, on the one side, a space for presents. On the other, bowls of chips and candies and (optimistically) carrots and fruits, plates of cheese and crackers, and a great big cake right in the very center.

The day before his birthday, Keegon had sat at the table before it was covered in snacks and cakes and cloth. With a stack of papers and a box of markers and a pile of envelopes he had made out the invitations to the party. It was his birthday, so he had wanted to do them himself. Especially as his parents were always at the lab, and never had time for things like that.

"It's Keegon's tenth birthday!" the cards had said, in block letters, in a word bubble spoken by a dinosaur. And everyone had gotten one. A card for each boy and each girl in the class, placed on each and every desk. He'd arrived at school early, to make sure he'd have time, and left school right on time to rush home and wait.

And wait.

And no one had come.

So Keegon sat on the couch by the wall, and he looked out the window as the cheery sun went down.

He hoped, a little, that maybe he had written down the wrong time. But in time, the world outside the window was dark and all it showed him was a reflection of his own forlorn face and a big empty room with the balloons and the table with a big empty spot for presents, and he didn't want to look anymore.

So he closed his eyes, and after a while he dozed.

He awoke with a start, some time later, at a sound he couldn't recall hearing.

"Hello?" he said, and looked around. The room was empty and dark, the curtains were closed, the snacks put away. There was no one there, and nothing made a sound. But as Keegon eased off the couch, he saw the gift on the table.

It was a red box, with a big silver bow. Perhaps, he thought, his parents had gotten him a gift to lift his spirits and left it before rushing off to the lab.

He went to the table and pulled at the ribbon until it came apart. He pulled the lid off the box and peered inside, and saw an odd little watch on a long copper chain sitting on top of a folded slip of paper. He lifted the round little watch by the chain, and as it rotated slowly in the air, he saw that there were no numbers at all on its face. In little letters, it said "TOO SOON" on the left, and "TOO LATE" on the right, and there was a thin silver arm that shivered indecisively between the two.

Keegon frowned at the curious watch, and slipped it in his pocket. He pulled the folded paper from the bottom of the box, and this is what it said:

Keegon,

Hope you had a spiffing birthday! As you can see, someone came. And someone brought a gift. So that was all right after all, wasn't it.

Remember to carry the watch, it's more useful that way.

Best,
Keegon

He brought them both to his room, and for days was much too confused to remember to be sad, but in time accepted that some things just happen and we don't always know why, and forgot about it.

But he remembered to carry the watch.

---

It was Keegon's 15th birthday.

He was in the nurse's office, and the walls didn't have any decorations at all, unless one counted the quite large poster about sexual health. It had been designed to be more alarming than informative, so Keegon looked out the window instead. Life was alarming enough without threatening posters.

His lip was bloodied and the bruises on his face were just starting to color enough to prove that he would be all yellows and purples the following morning, and one of his eyes was likely to swell shut. His feet were propped up on the nurse's desk, because the nurse was away and Keegon found that being beaten around the face on his birthday had made him a bit rough and belligerent.

"DING!", went the watch in the pocket of his jacket, which it had never done before, and Keegon startled so violently he kicked a mug and a picture frame off the top of the desk and they crashed to the floor as the door to the nurse's office swung open.

"I'm so sorry," Keegon began as he leapt from the chair to pick up the pieces of the mug, and then looked again and said, "Hold on, you're not the nurse."

"No," said the man striding into the room, "that's true. I am just on time though, glad that little bugger still works! Have a seat, no worries about that."

The man kicked the bits of mug nonchalantly under the desk and eased into the chair. He was wearing some sort of absurd outfit made of leather and hoses and a flight-cap with goggles. He looked something of a cross between a comic adventurer and an ordinary lunatic, who was also perhaps an enthusiast of classic aviation.

"You're...not the nurse," Keegon said again, because it seemed a safe option.

"Yes," agreed the man again, "I'm more of a guide in a troubled time. A counselor to help you through a rough spot, you might say."

"A guidance counselor?" Keegon hazarded, as the man rummaged through the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a silver flask from under some papers. He unscrewed the cap and took a sip.

"As you like," the man said, and frowned at the poster on the wall, "Ye gods, I'd forgotten about that. Nightmares for years. So, young Keegon, it's your birthday, isn't it? Why are you in the nurse's with your face all mashed in?"

Keegon's already colorful face flushed a darker shade of purple.

"Davidson," he muttered, "he said mum and dad were nutters and that the incident at the university was probably their fault, so my birthday gift was that they were gone. So I thumped him one in the eye."

The man grunted.

"Cracking! Sounds alright so far, then what?"

"Well then he and Pelton beat the shit out of me, didn't they."

"Ah, well that's not as good," the man sighed, and took another pull on the flask, "Well, what would you like to happen next?"

"Principal said I'd get detention, on account of I started it. Then he sent me here."

"I didn't ask what was going to happen next," the man said sternly, and leaned forward in the chair to point at Keegon from across the desk, "I asked what you'd like to happen."

"What I'd like," Keegon said, "is my mum and dad back. And for Davidson and Pelton to never have been born."

"There we are! Didn't remember those two anyway, probably said the same thing at your age. Can't fix the lab accident though, sorry. Some things are the way they are," the man sighed, and stood from the desk to brush himself off, "I'll be off then. Happy Birthday, Keegon! Chin up."

The man tucked the flash into his belt, and strode from the room.

Keegon looked after him for a moment, and then frowned, wondering why he was loitering around in the nurse's office. He was feeling quite well, actually. Upset stomach? No, that wasn't right.

So shrugged, got up, and went off to class.

---

It was Keegon's 25th birthday.

He was sitting at the bar, nursing a whiskey, and the little pocket watch was sitting on the bar in front of him. Face up, its silver needle was wavering uncertainly, as it always did, as it had been for hours. One way or the other, back and forth. But today, it wavered a little less each time as it slowly sought the the sliver of green just at the center point between "TOO SOON" and "TOO LATE." It slipped across one way, faltered, and tipped the other. And then, at last, it stopped.

DING.

The stool next to him scooted out, and a man in an eccentric adventurer's outfit slid into it.

"Ah. Thought you'd turn up this year," Keegon said, and held up two fingers to the bartender, "still a drinker I assume?"

"Course I am," said the man as he clapped Keegon on the back like an old friend, "but you don't seem at all surprised. Figured it out then, have you? Get into the old notes in the lab? Gearing up to chase them into the void and all?"

"Too right. That and the face in the mirror became quite familiar, I must say."

"Well, seems this'll be the last time I'll be looking after myself in this timeline then! Worth drinking to," the man said, and raised his whiskey to toast. Keegon smiled at himself, and clinked the glass.

"I think I've almost got the device working. The watch helped me calibrate, of course," Keegon said, "Any advice?"

The man drained his glass, and thought it over for a while.

"None of my own. But I'll tell you what I told me, and I have the feeling I knew what I was talking about because I've more hands leftover than I did then, you know," he said.

"...sure. What did I say?"

"I said, 'stay bloody well away from Rak-Thun Prime' and I shook my hook hand in my face. And what do you know," the man raised both his hands up and wiggled his fingers.

"Good enough for me," Keegon said, and felt that he had very little left to say to himself.

The man, likely sensing the same, scooted back his stool, got up, and left the bar.

DING.

Keegon frowned and glanced down at the watch, then looked up as a man with a hook for a hand sat down on the stool next to him.

"I know, I was already here. Rak-Thun Prime, got it," Keegon said, and bought them both a whiskey for their birthday.