Adam Sandler, Catalyst

I'm sure we can all agree that memories are one of the things that separate us from the rest of the animals (with long division being the other differentiator). As I sat in the theater on Sunday, waiting for the DaVinci Code to start (twice, actually... I had the pleasure of sitting in a theater for five hours to watch one movie, but that's a potential topic for another blog entry) I saw an Adam Sandler trailer. It reminded me of a story I'd read, and it opened, for some bizarre reason, a doorway to memories.

I remember picking up my first pet out of the box with the rest of her litter. I remember the smell of our freshly cut front lawn when my brother and I played wiffle ball. I remember the pain in my right hand as I helped cut down the net after we won the state championship. I remember seeing my future (ex-)wife in a delightful summer dress on a sunny afternoon in Evanston. I remember my grandfather giving a toast at our last Thanksgiving with him. I remember my heart skipping a beat the first time I made eye contact with a certain beautiful classmate. And I remember the empty feeling of walking into my new apartment and feeling alone for the first time in my life.

The funny thing is that not all of my memories are actually from my life. Some of the things I think about and reflect upon the most are from books and stories that I've read: thinking of time as a string (A Wrinkle in Time), being chased through a supermarket by crazy people (Swan Song), reconsidering my definition of evil (A Fairly Honourable Defeat), and mourning the death of Robb Stark (A Storm of Swords).

Books have always been important to me. To stimulate, to entertain, and to supplement my memories. They also have the advantage of being able to be revisited... real life memories fade and distort, but the content (primary memories) established in books remain constant and we can simply reread it to examine our emotional (or secondary) memories that we associated with the primary ones.

I like Adam Sandler but I am not sure how often he's the catalyst for this level of introspection and inspection of memories and the importance of books. And if you're still reading this, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with anything.

Sandler's movie (*gasp* a comedy!) is about a "universal remote" that lets him pause, rewind, and fast forward time. It kind of reminds me of that Ashton Kutcher movie from a few years ago. And, of course, Wells's Time Machine.

It also reminds me of a short story that I read years ago. It was part of a "New Science Fiction" anthology, if I remember correctly, and was one of the most interesting things I've ever read. It had the following basic plot (to paraphrase Tenacious D, this is the greatest and best short story plot in the world... tribute):

-- protagonist (we'll call him "Adam" because I can't recall his name) is happily married
-- Adam meets "Ben" (again, can't remember his name), who claims he can rewind time and relive it whenever he wants
-- Adam doubts him at first, but Ben convinces him by making crazy predictions and such
-- Ben explains that he's lived innumerable lives. Done everything he's wanted to, and everything he can think of. If he sees an attractive woman, he might woo her, or rape her, or marry her and have kids with her. Or all three. He's been president of the US and king of the world.
-- Ben gets to know Adam and convinces him that Adam could have some of the same excitement Ben's known
-- Adam is ultimately convinced to kill his wife, in spite of his love for her, believing that if he's caught or if it's a mistake Ben will "rewind" and save him (and her)
-- Adam kills his wife, is caught, and realized Ben has either played him or that the rewind only affects Ben when he rewinds (leaving branches in time, including the Adam-as-wifekiller branch)

I love that story. It's made me think about love and mortality and morality and power and manipulation. Ben was looking for a challenge, and what could be more difficult than making a happy man do something terrible to someone he loves?

I would love to reread this story. I would be fascinated to see if it's as good as I remember, if I've embellished it in my internal retellings, or if there are subtleties that I missed.

But I don't know the name of the story. I don't know the author. I've searched through my books and on the Web and have come up empty. Over time, the story has become doubly dear to me both because of its content as well as that it's as inaccessible to me as my first kitten or the way I saw her or the crack of the wiffle bat as I put another of my brother's pitches onto the roof of our house.