A differing perspective can sometimes help, but I don't think that this will be one of those times.

Not Part 13!
Family Life

Edited by Erin Halfelven for posting on BigCloset and Sapphire's Place

Something to tide everyone over until part 16 is finished. I hope that will be soon. My creativity has been erratic of late. So here's a little bit about Elan's Parents. Nothing TG and a little too much politics and history, but I hope everyone doesn't hate it.

Definitely Not Part 13 - Family Life

Hello All, I am Grace Winter, mother of Elan / Elayne, and I hope you've been enjoying the story thus far. Now I know you are thinking, "Whoa, his / her mom is in on the whole thing!" well, sorry to disappoint you all, but I'm not. At least I wasn't then. Elan's given you pretty much the story, as it happened to him, but I thought I'd tell you a little about how that first week went, for the rest of the family, and especially me. Don't worry, I won't spoil any of Elan's Story, just tell you a bit about life in 2029 and some more - shall we say - unbiased details about the family.

Now Elan has told you that I'm a mathematician, which is true. I have a doctorate of applied mathematics and number systems from Cal-Tech, where I now teach doctoral candidates how to write very long papers that only a few hundred people in the entire world can even begin to comprehend. This is, of course, very rewarding, ha ha. I also do research, as strange as that might seem, and no, before you ask, I am not trying to discover new numbers. I get that a lot.

I am married to a wonderfully sweet man, who hates it when I call him that, but I do it anyway. Ethan lives in a world of artifical humanoids and yet he is the most amazingly real human I've ever met, then again, look who my father is. We met in college, instantly hated each other, spent months arguing and once even came to blows, although only in a VR boxing simulation my roommate invented. Then Ethan started dating my roommate, which of course made us fight even more. Finally, during finals of my freshman, his junior year, we got into this huge screaming match right in the middle of the campus. I was mortified when the gathered crowd gave us a standing ovation. Of course, since they weren't sitting to begin with, that wasn't saying much.

I went home for the summer and plotted my revenge, and oooooh how sweet it was going to be. Ethan went to Japan with Lizzah, my roommate and I didn't hear from her all summer. Finally, a week before school get back in, I get a email from her saying that she's dumped him to start dating a drummer and that she's taking a year off from "dullsville" to party like its 2099, as she put it. She never did come back to school, but her last album did go triple platinum, and her daughter is the frontwoman for my son's favorite band.

When I got back to school, ready to gloat about how badly he had been dumped and renew my war on Ethan with a truly memorable bit of revenge, I found that all the joy had gone out of it. Ethan was devastated, crushed as totally as I had only dreamed of, but I hadn't done it. I wanted sooo much to still hate him, but I took him out for coffee and pizza so we could talk about it instead. 6 years and a total of 7 degrees later we were married. A year later Lawrence was born, then Samantha 7 years later, then Elan a little under five years later, and finally 3 years after him, Michelle, which, no matter how often Elan has called her Pig, is her real name and she's not as bad as he says.

I love my family, even when they fight, bicker, plot to conquer the world, or just eat all of the cookies before I get any. Of course, since both Ethan and I work, we hired Wei Ya-min to look after them and she's been wonderful with them, and with us. She's a marvelous chef, even if she does tend to make far too much food and smile knowingly all the time.

The week in question, the one where the first of the gifts arrived - and let me tell you, if you think Elan's caused some problems, that's nothing compared to the effect some of the others had over that year -- I was still pretty much of a wreck. My dad had died a fortnight before and everything was a mess. I'd let papers that needed to be marked build up and finally assigned them to be reviewed by peer evaluation, you know, everyone grading everyone else's papers. I missed a deadline, something I'd never done before.

I'd been dealing with my siblings, Lacy, Tricia, and Robert, who had been, respectively, and in their own words, "Totally Bummed, Man!", "Unable to adequately deal with the grief load and self medicating.", and "Too busy to grieve, but most likely in need of counseling, which I should have room for in my schedule after the first of the year."

Lacy is a professional hacker, and has been since computers were invented, it seems. For the mother of six, you'd think she'd be a little more mature, but then again, she's related to me, so why should I be surprised. Of course she kept calling me so she could cry on my shoulder and rescue her from the tides of "Bummerdom." Gee, its soo nice when a sister 3 years older than you needs you to be the stable and supportive one. So in the midst of my grief I had to conspire against the brother 7 years my senior to re-arrange his schedule and force him to take some time off. I had to call Thesally, Tricia's adopted daughter (Thesally's parents had been Tricia's best friends growing up and had been killed in the Muslim War.) and tell her that she needed to take a few weeks off from school and take care of her mother and sisters.

But life goes on, and I knew that Elan's birthday would be a chance for the whole family to relax, unwind, and celebrate life instead of dwelling on death. Anyway, I wasn't going to let Dad's death ruin Elan's birthday; that would just have added insult to injury. So we all put on happy faces and pretended that we hadn't spent the last two weeks crying our eyes out when the children weren't watching. I still haven't forgiven dad for putting us through that, and Tricia won't even speak to him, but I'll say no more about the future past.

The party turned out wonderfully, and really did help us all. It was cathartic. Tricia got off the anti-depressants she'd put herself on and back to work. Thessally went back to school. Robert's wife, secretary, therapist, and I agreed that he could go back to work, as long as he took it easy. And Lacy was back to being "Psyched up, Buzzed with the whole Life thing, and Back in the Zone, DUDE!" I hate it when Lacy calls me Dude, but it's not like I can blame an entire decade, right?

Even I felt better, still sad, but ready to move on with my life. I actually sang along with the radio as my car drove me to work that Monday morning while I watched the other vehicles zip along down the hy-way in computer controlled harmony at 300 kilometers per hour. I even flashed the Customs Scanner a smile as I crossed the boarder into SoCal and she smiled back. My classes went off without a hitch, the papers had actually been fairly graded, as strange as that sounds, and I got a very nice note from my boss saying that I'd been given a month extension on my progress report.

I left campus at lunchtime, ate at this simply wonderful Vietnamese place on Wilshire and went in to the office. Things went well, better than they had since the funeral, and I was so in the zone that I almost screamed and wet my pants when Elan called me up out of the blue. For a minute I was sure something horrible had happened, but when it turned out to be nothing more than him playing with that accursed watch I really wanted to throttle both him and dad. I had to remind myself not to think ill of my offspring or the dead.

I left a little early to get home on time for the trip to New York, stopping at the Votomat so I could vote on all the new governmental proposals and referendums from the last week. There was one local matter about funding a park, two state matters about increasing the taxes on cocaine and paper, and a couple more federal budget items, mostly having to do with funding our troops over in the Middle East fighting what the history books are now calling the New Messiah War, but what we called then "that trouble over there" or "The Middle East War".

When the Votomat was first introduced, I was so bad about getting around to Voting every week, but after I got the yearend total of how much I owed in fines from missed votes, I made sure I got to it every Monday, no matter what. I remember how outraged Ethan was when the IdentiCards were introduced, how he felt it was an invasion of his privacy, but eventually he came to see them as little different than a Driver's License. He was also outraged when voting became mandatory and we had many arguments about whether voting was a right or a responsibility. I don't think he's ever really been convinced, but he's stopped fighting it these days. On the other hand, I was the one who practically threw temper tantrums when the Virtual Democracy Amendment was passed, requiring every bill, law, referendum, or resolution that City Council, State Legislature, or Congress created to be placed before the voting public of that area for approval. I was outraged that instead of having to vote once or twice a year I now had to vote once a week. On the other hand, it's worked out pretty well, although we now have to blame ourselves instead of the Government when things work out badly, and I don't really miss the political parties anymore.

Anyway, enough political history. When I arrived home, Elan looked so cute dressed as our "beloved" ha ha, ex-governor, and although there seemed to be something strange going on, I chalked it up to excitement. The show was marvelous, simply wonderful, and Elan really enjoyed it and the surprise afterwards. He even seemed to open up to the cast and crew of the show, which I was thrilled to see, because he was such a quiet and introspective child, totally different from Lawrence, the born leader, and Samantha the, well, tease. Even Michelle was more outgoing, although mostly physically, and not always in a good way. Then that thing with Diamond happened, and of course that was only the beginning of that whole mess, but I won't say anymore or Elan will scream at me for giving away too much of his story. I was so freaked out when Elan disappeared and then, when that Hex-Head chased him past I swear, if I had had a gun I would have blown the back of his head through his teeth, not that I have the faintest idea how to shoot one. I got my Citizenship before the Citizenship Amendment passed, of course, since that had been only the previous year in the Restructuring and Reratification of the Constitution.

Elan was so brave, and I still think so, even though I know the truth of what happened that night, and I'm still amazed at how rapidly he rebounded. Karen was and is a wonderful friend to him, although I've always had doubts about her taste in clothing.

I noticed other things over the course of that week, let me tell you, although most of them I chalked up to adolescent antics and nothing more. Especially the whole "transvestite" period. I simply assumed that Elan was trying to annoy Michelle. Wouldn't any reasonable parent have assumed the same? When I did find out, well, never mind, you'll hear about that soon enough I suspect. Secrets have a way of getting out, especially when, well, never mind. Still, Elan did look cute in that cheerleader outfit, although I... am saying way too much. And as for my present, it was less impressive than the watch, but let's just say I like swimming a lot more now.

Anyway, I won't bore you anymore with my meanderings, so without more ado, back to Elan's version of the story.

To be Continued whenever I feel like adding my two centicredit's worth.

Elan, his family, friends, and Story are copyright 2002, 2003 by Jesse Rabbit, who may be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to distribute as long as you do it for free. Anyone who wants to adapt this into any other medium (Like a movie, hint hint) should leave me a comment with an email addy. :P Thanks and enjoy. -- Jesse Rabbit