Read Online This Book Does Not Exist by Mike Schneider - Free Book Online Page A

it to be true.
    “I have to go get her.”
    I turn to run.
    Geppetto grabs me.
    “You won’t stop me.”
    “I’m helping you. I shouldn’t have to say that over and over. Listen to me. The second you leave this room everything will speed back up. Either you won’t get to the car before it’s gone, or you’ll reach the woman after Kennedy’s been shot.”
    “I don’t care about him. I care about Naomi.”
    “The man next to her will have a hole in his head.”
    “Who’s going to shoot?”
    “If not me, then someone else.”
    I start to move.
    “At least let me finish. This isn’t some spurious sci-fi time traveling scenario where you run around and save Kennedy’s life, and then I open up the Door and you go back to your world to discover that everything has changed, as if he never was killed. The JFK assassination isn’t cosmically tied somehow to a series of actions and reactions that led to Naomi’s ‘disappearance,’ as you describe it. That’s not how this works. So, if that’s what you thought, you can stop thinking it now.”
    The President’s motorcade continues to progress along the parade route at an unnaturally sluggish clip. I could track every rotation of its tires if I wanted to, but all I care about is how to reach Naomi, which is what I tell Geppetto .
    “I can’t tell you that,” he responds, “because it’s not up to me. I will say this – your search has to go one way or the other. It has to end, or it has to persist. You could search for Naomi for the rest of your life, unwilling to accept the possibility she may not want to be with you, and the possibility, in fact, you may not want to be with her either. You chose, after all, not to move to New York so you could live with her. Don’t say you were worried about your career because right now you aren’t acting like that’s the most important thing in your life.”
    “What are you trying to say to me?”
    “You promised Naomi you’d leave LA with her if she needed to for med school – even though you weren’t sure you meant it. She may have her issues, Mike. But so do you. It’s okay. We all do.”
    “You’re questioning how much we love each other?”
    “I’m explaining some things you may have unconsciously chosen not to see. For instance, there is more than one way to end your search for Naomi.”
    He pauses, giving me room to let this sink in. “Say, for example, you were to use this rifle to shoot her… Then all of this would be over. No more incidents. No more visits to the Door . You’d absolutely, positively, one hundred percent be able to move on with your life. You’d have no other choice.
    “Obviously, there’s something to be said for that.”
    He goes silent, hands me the rifle and walks out of the room.

THE RIFLE
     

 
 
    I want to speak before he’s gone, but I can’t find the words. Instead I swallow saliva that feels like concrete. I breathe in oxygen, filling my lungs; I still think I’m drowning. The rifle weighs heavier in my hands, both literally and metaphorically, than the only other gun I’ve fired in my life – and I used that one to shoot BB’s at aluminum cans.
    I could never hurt Naomi. Geppetto seems to know everything else. He has to realize this, as well. Why would he even suggest it?
    Thinking back to the first incident, the only element that carried over to the real world was the psychological impact it had on me. I wonder if Geppetto is hinting at a similar effect here. Perhaps Naomi won’t die if I shoot her within this other world. Perhaps only my concerns about finding her will. Maybe she’ll be wiped from my memory…
    Then I remember the cuts on my arm.
    Geppetto’s words – “…the possibility she may not want to be with you” – come back to me. They are unshakeable.
    Assailed by doubt, I force the butt of the rifle into my shoulder and extend my hand down the barrel. I close my left eye and aim towards the car, just to see how it feels, I tell