Faces in Time Read Online Free Page A

about being helpless to alter any of those events, especially the last one. He has a shot at bringing this old dream back to life, and he wants to cling only to logic that will allow him to do so.
    He has to get somewhere where no one will see him, and he’ll find a way to test out the above.
    He reminds himself to slow down that he is far enough away from the gas station and that he should not draw notice to himself speeding in a thundering attention-attracting car down a quiet street painted in dusk. Reluctantly, his foot pulls back on the pedal, and the old familiar houses become less blurry. All the while, his heart races, and his finger with the faded scar twitches against the steering wheel.
    Normally he is much too cautious and calculated to speed in a residential area, but the drive to test out his limits in this time he’s shot himself into is too strong for his personality to hold back.
    The golden twilight that was present at the school field is fading into evening. The last hue of the sun hangs over the tops othe houses, lighting a candle on suburbia.
    Despite his later life in Hollywood as a writer, he’s never felt more at home than in these neighborhoods of one car garages, basketball goals in driveways, and modest, self-maintained gardens of periwinkles and inkas. There is an honesty and a sheer lack of pretension that allows you to operate without wondering what someone else’s angle might be or looking over your shoulder to see what’s coming at you. A pile of unchained bikes on a front lawn of a friend’s house is more comforting than a policeman on the corner.
    Without consciously deciding where to go, he turns corners in a familiar pattern that he has not followed in years. The sky above is swollen with indecision. Dark clouds loom, threatening an evening downpour, but they have not overtaken the lingering hue of the bowing sun, unsure if they’ll give birth to a crisp breezy evening or a sullen tempest.
    The engine hums as smoothly and powerfully as a white tiger moving through a Siberian terrain. It’s almost enough to comfort him. The feel of the slender rectangle in his pocket as it rests on his left thigh is a reminder of what he needs to do. Things are not quite as planned, and he longs to glance at the device, but he’s not far enough away from the eyes of others to take it out yet.
    The cockpit of the car is poorly lit. It’s one of the crucibles of car restoration to add modern lighting or to leave the expensive car, an accomplishment of time, dedication, worn flesh, frustration, and tears, with illumination as poor a smudged flashlight that is low on batteries. The faint light is a mockery of the quality of the rest of the vehicle, a masterpiece in an unfinished splintery frame. Some opt to add underdash or underseat lighting, and some balk at the idea of tampering with a classic, meshing it with technology of a later time and violating its factory condition.
    His interior seems dim to him like the failing glow of a dying fire, but it also makes it hard for anyone to see him. And right now, a little inconspicuousness is just what he wants. The car is sure to stand out, but its driver is harder to see.
    He had thought about upgrading the outdated, original stereo. He shopped around and even bought one especially made to fit his car without any gaudy installation panels to fill the extra space, but he could never bring himself to remove the original stereo. He felt like he had listened to it for so long that it was a part of him.
    The device in his pocket is capable of broadcasting music to the old stereo via FM signal, but he’s still not ready to risk taking it out of his pocket to operate it. It would be odd to hear modern digital music coming out of the ancient, feeble speakers. He hopes that his mad dash through time ends up being more than having his mature mind spout out the same futile lines through his young body. Like his device, he hopes he can spout a new line into the