Iterations and other stories (collection)

Lubomir Dudek, member of the Toronto Local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, came to the last house on his route, a large side-split with a two-car garage. He didn’t want to finish, didn’t want to drop off a copy of the Jesuit journal Compass for a man who was now, because of that fateful day in 1973, one of Toronto’s better-known podiatrists instead of a Father in the Society of Jesus. Lubo envied the foot doctor, just as he envied Jacob Coin, writer-about-to-turn-fossil-hunter. They went on from this point, with new vistas ahead of them. Their alternative lives beat the hell out of his own.

Lubo had known that the two realities would have to be reconciled. He, too, had made a fateful decision two decades ago, back when he was a press operator in a printing plant, a time when his own hiccups had drowned out those of the universe. He’d been pissed to the gills, celebrating—for the life of him he couldn’t remember what. Wisely, or so it had seemed at the time, he had decided to call a cab instead of driving home from the Jolly Miller. It should have been the right choice, he thought sadly, but we play the hand that we’re dealt.

For a long time he had wondered why he had been selected to be one of those helping to set things right. He’d tried to convince himself that it was because he was an honest man (which he was), a good man (which was also true), a man with a sense of duty (that, too). He’d waited patiently for his own letter carrier to bring him some exotic mail: a copy of a trade magazine from some new profession, maybe, or a dues notice from some union he didn’t belong to, or even a dividend check from a stock he didn’t own. But nothing of the kind came and finally Lubo was forced to consciously face what he supposed he had really known all along. His one brief moment of free will had let him live when he should not have. In the reunited universe, Jacob Coin would have his thunder lizards, the podiatrist would have his brethren, but Lubo would have only rest.

He came to the end of the driveway and lifted the lid of the foot doctor’s mailbox, its black metal painfully hot in the summer sun. Slowly, sadly, he dropped in the sale flyers, bills, and letters. He hesitated for a moment before depositing the copy of Compass, then, with a concern not usually lavished on the mails, he gingerly inserted the slim magazine, taking care not to dogear its glossy white pages.

Just Like Old Times

Winner of the Aurora Award for Best Short Story of the Year

Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story of the Year

Finalist for Japan’s Seiun Award for Best Foreign Short Story of the Year

Author’s Introduction

In 1987, I gave up writing short fiction: the pay rates were a tiny fraction of what I was getting for nonfiction, response times from SF magazines were ridiculously long, and I was mightily discouraged by having been unable to sell “Lost in the Mail.” Five years went by during which the only fiction I wrote was novel-length.

And then came Mike Resnick.

In July 1992, Mike asked me if I’d agree to write a story for the anthology Dinosaur Fantastic he and Martin H. Greenberg were putting together.

Note what Mike was doing: he was commissioning a story. My work wouldn’t have to languish for the better part of a year in a magazine’s slush pile.

This was a very appealing notion. Throughout the 1980s, I had made my living as a freelance nonfiction writer, specializing in high technology and personal finance. I’d done over 200 articles for Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, almost all of which were commissioned in advance of my writing them… and I liked it that way.

I accepted Mike’s offer, but with trepidation. I hadn’t written a short story for half a decade now. What if I’d forgotten how? Or, even worse, what if, as the apparent failure of “Lost in the Mail” had demonstrated, I never really knew how in the first place?

“Just Like Old Times” turned out to be quite a success: Mike and Marty used it as the lead story in Dinosaur Fantastic, and I also sold it to On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Writing. The On Spec people reprinted it in their “best-of’ anthology, On Spec: The First Five Tears; Marty Greenberg scooped it up for his unrelated hardcover anthology Dinosaurs; Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois reprinted it in their Dinosaurs 77; and David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant bought it for their anthology Northern Stars.

After that, there was no turning back: I knew writing short fiction would always be a part of my life. Still, since that day in 1992, I haven’t written any short fiction without a specific commission; I just don’t seem to find the time for short work otherwise.

* * *

The transference went smoothly, like a scalpel slicing into skin.