Frustratingly, it seemed there was no way I could ever find out,destined as I was only ever to travel backwards. After much philosophising, Idecided to attach my colours to the multiverse theory, as that would at leastgive my life some purpose. I had been gifted a power and now I needed to decidewhat to do with it.
I could lead a hedonistic lifestyle, living only for the day,knowing I need never face the consequence of my actions.
I could become a force for good, Oxford City’s very ownsuperhero, righting wrongs and trying to make the world a better place.
Or I could just try and live as ordinary a life as possible,but with the benefit of hindsight.
In the end, I decided to go predominantly with the thirdoption, but with the opportunity to dip into the others as and when it suitedme. If it had not been for Stacey, I probably would not have bothered, but Ihad a responsibility to her as a father who would invariably grow over time asshe grew younger.
I had already worked out that there was nothing I could doabout my weight, but a more pressing problem soon came to light which I had towork out a way to deal with.
As the days of November passed and my health improved, Ibegan to feel a strange craving in my body. I felt nauseous and desperate forsomething, but I didn’t know what.
Then one day when I ventured out to Summertown to do someshopping, I saw a young woman standing outside a newsagent’s shop lighting up acigarette. Instantly I knew what my craving was: it was for nicotine.
The craving was all-consuming, but I managed to stop myselffrom smoking that day. Over the next few days the craving grew worse. I decidedI’d have to speak to Stacey about it in an attempt to get to the bottom of mysmoking habit.
Was it something I’d had a lifelong addiction, too? I hopednot, because if it was, I’d never get away from it. It wasn’t a question ofsimply giving up, because even if I never smoked again, I’d still wake up everymorning in a body that had smoked the previous day.
There was no way of getting around this. I had a choicebetween giving in to my cravings, and therefore sealing my future deathsentence from lung cancer, or suffering cold turkey on a daily basis for yearsor even decades.
It was Stacey who shed more light on the situation. On theweekend of November the 10th she came up to visit and, about an hour after shearrived, she commented on the fact that I wasn’t smoking. She seemed to have noidea about the lung cancer: clearly I hadn’t told her yet.
That was odd because I am sure she had told me it was her whohad forced me to go to the doctor about it. Perhaps I had lied to her about theoutcome to try and protect her. Whatever the reason, I didn’t see any point inupsetting her now, so I just told her I’d decided to give up.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I know it was stressful for you afterMum died, but I really wish you hadn’t started smoking. I don’t want to loseyou, too.”
That was encouraging. It seemed I hadn’t smoked for thewhole of my life. I knew by now that my wife had died seven years previously.Could I get through seven years without smoking? I wanted to try for Stacey’ssake, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
At least it was only seven years. If I’d been smoking sincemy teens, I’d be looking at nearly 40 years.
The temptation to smoke was to get worse before it gotbetter. On the morning of November the 3rd, the day I was due to get my testresults, I discovered a half-consumed pack of cigarettes on my bedside table,complete with a classic Zippo lighter.
Presumably this must have been the day that I stopped,because I’d never seen cigarettes in the house before, or the lighter. Maybe Ihad disposed of it in revulsion after I’d got my diagnosis. But it was therenow, and so were the cigarettes, seductively looking back at me. And they weregoing to be there every morning from now on, tempting me.
I tried to put them out of my mind as I got dressed andprepared myself for the trip to the doctor. I already knew what was coming, butI decided to go along anyway. Perhaps he could give me some information thatmight be able to help in some way in the future, even if it was only advice oncombatting nicotine addiction.
I left the house and drove the short distance to thesurgery, wanting to get this over with so I could get on with my lifepre-cancer.
Sex
December 2023
Today was to be an odd day. It was the anniversary of mywife’s death. Stacey was coming up for the day and we were going to visit thegrave.
It felt odd to be going to pay respects to someone I hadnever met. I had searched the deepest recesses of my mind over the past year tosee if I could remember even the slightest thing about her, but had drawn acomplete blank. But I knew that Stacey would be upset, and I vowed to do mybest to play my part as the grieving husband and father.
As I waited for Stacey to arrive, I had time to reflect onthe events of the past year. I had planned not to lead a hedonistic lifestyle,but I had had more success in some areas than others.
I was pleased with myself that I had managed to stay off thecigarettes. I still felt the cravings every morning when I awoke, but I forcedmyself to remember the terrible state I had ended up in at the hospital, inparticular the agonising pain that had racked my wasted body in the last fewdays. That
