The Love Machine & Other Contraptions Read Online Free PDF Page B

presents I give this horrible child, the more pissed off she gets. The child separates us, stands between us, and keeps asking terrible questions. He suspects me. I can feel that. I have to get rid of him. Not to mention the fact that he must get back in order to make sure that I’m born. Nudnik . I told him the stupid lie about my artificial tan. Who came up with that piece of crap? Hanna had to buy him a computer, and if she knew who put that idea into his head, she’d probably kill me for real.
    I just can’t believe that this kid is myself. On the other hand, I really don’t give a damn anymore.
    ~
    October 11, 2000, 20:00
    Today, as I was walking down the street, a stranger asked me how I was doing. Reflexively I said that I was okay, and then I looked at him and I saw that he was some kind of a beggar, with really old and shabby and weird clothes. And glasses. And a moustache, which looked fake. I turned away and started walking, but then he asked me whether I was interested in something. Interested in a record. He made a you-know-exactly-what-I’m-talking-about face, and then added, “You probably understand that you’re not the only time traveler around here, and that someone has to keep an eye on you people.”
    I wanted to strangle him, but didn’t dare. What he said pissed me off, but not as much as his irritating, arrogant smile, and definitely not as much as the record that he pulled out of thin air. I had been looking for it for so many years. It was by a band called “Fatta Morgana,” and track number five was called “A Time Machine Bought Me an Uncle.”
    I told him that at least he could bring the real record and not some cheap fake, and he started blabbering out all sorts of technobabble and tried a silly story on me about how for this place and this time this record is the right one.
    I sent him to sell it to someone else. I can’t be fooled anymore, and I’ve already got the right record, thank you very much.
    ~
    January 1, 2001, 00:10
    The last year has arrived, the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t have to restrain myself much longer. The damned kid drives me crazy, but if I’ve been able to restrain myself till now...
    Sometimes I ask myself just how I’ve managed to do that, but that’s a dangerous line of thought. Very dangerous. I’ve killed enough people already.
    ~
    August 29, 2001, 22:30
    This is it. Today is the day. I took the record out of the attic, cleaned it, put a nice wrapping on it and added a silly greeting card. That’s it. The waiting is over. The little parasite will go, and Hanna and I will be left alone, to spend the rest of our lives together. Hanna complained that she has no money for a reasonable present, after the bloodsucker made her buy him that expensive computer last year. I wonder who gave him that idea. I gave her an idea of my own—this electronic journal. I won’t need it anyway, after the Nudnik is gone.
    That’s it. We’re going to give him the presents. Goodbye, dear journal, and we shall never meet again.
    ~
    — ??, ??:??
    I refuse to try to understand this universe, whichever one it may be. I want to die. Or maybe I’m already dead without knowing it. Or maybe it’s the universe that’s dead without knowing it.
    We gave the Nudnik his presents. He tried to hide his satisfaction but couldn’t. We both know him too well. He took them back to his room without a word of thanks. For several minutes there was silence, and then he listened to some songs, at a disturbingly high volume. Hanna shouted at him to turn it down and he didn’t answer, though he did turn it down a bit, and I tried distracting her by talking about other things. Or maybe she was also was waiting for something, I don’t know what. Anyway, the brat reached track number five, that horrible, abominable, endlessly repeating song, and then after that it got quiet. Total silence.
    “That’s it,” I said. “He’s gone.”
    “Gone?” Hanna said. “What are you