"I did not see that coming!" I said. "How can you be me, if I am me? There cannot be two me's. I am me, not you. Otherwise neither one of us is either one of us."
"It's simple, really, " he said. "I am you as you will be in your future, while being the you that God has intended before the foundation of the world. I am you without all the bother of linear time. Don't get bogged down in the details. They're beyond your current understanding. Suffice it to say that I am a glimpse of things to come."
"But I don't like you!"
"But you do! What's not to like?"
"You're, well, unnerving. And a bit conceited."
"How's that?"
"You think you're better than me."
"That's not conceit. It's true. I am better than you. In every way, but so what? I had nothing to do with it."
"I don't like being inferior. I want to be best."
"I'm afraid you're puny idea of best is rather meaningless here. You would not want it any other way, believe me."
This being Dead Man, and talking with a guy who said he was me, who seemed to morph seamlessly from one age to the next, without so much as blinking, was disconcerting. I felt off my game, unable to grasp what was really going on, and trying to desperately to figure out just what kind of dream this was. Because it could't be reality. It had to be a dream. And an annoying one at that.
"Think of it this way," he advised, "you are not dreaming. You are on the balcony of Heaven about to look down over the railing of existence. True, full-dimensional existence, which is not really anything like the skipping-across-the-surface-of-time kind of existence that you're used to. It will be upsetting at first, knowing you (And I do know you, don't forget), but it'll be OK. I promise."
"I hate it when you give me that all-knowing smile after you tell me something that proves you know what I'm thinking."
"You liked my smile before now. You thought it added to my aura of amiability."
"Yeah, but now I know who you are, and I don't like it."
"Ah! So you believe me, then?"
"Let's just say I'm willing to suspend my disbelief in the hopes of bringing this to some kind of sensible closure. And maybe getting outside this room into the sunlight. It looks really nice outside, like the world used to look when I was a kid, before I knew what it was really like."
As soon as I voiced the desire, I was outside - on a balcony, no less - gazing out over the most fantastically satisfying landscape I had ever scene. It was perfect in every aspect, with that magical proportion of light and shade, brilliant colors, pastel shadows, grand sweeping vistas of majestic terrain, interspersed with intriguing views of cozy woods, undulating, grass-covered hills, and sparkling, seemingly endless bodies clear blue water. And all permeated by a sense of peace and rightness that made me gasp.
As I looked more closely (and here I marveled again at the acuity of my vision, as if I had both infinite-distance and microscopic focus at the merest thought), I saw more species and varieties of plants and animals than I could ever have counted. They seemed to span all know terrestrial climates and ages, extinct, futuristic, massive, minuscule, flyers, crawlers, creepers, swimmers, floaters, and some with inexplicable forms of mobility.
There was a lot to take in. I could have spent millennia from just this one balcony vantage point and not exhausted a tenth of what I was seeing. A millionth.
"You need to breathe," he said gently. I glanced his way for just a millisecond, unwilling to look away from the amazing panorama before me for more time than that, and was not surprised to see his eyes shining in wonder as much as I imagined my own had to be.
"You said I'm Dead Man," I reminded him quietly, gazing back over the railing. "Why do I need to breathe?"
He laughed at me then, kindly, affectionately.
"In some ways," he said, "we haven't changed a bit."
