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Some push for what they
need; some push for what they want. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins,
just push. If they do it hard enough and long enough, something might
just push back . . . from the Twilight Zone.
Peter Jay Novins is a man who is not in
contact with himself or his emotions. He has alienated both of his ex-wives,
hasn't talked with his sick, elderly mother in months and doesn't seem
to want to ever again, and routinely sells his soul while on his job.
Peter is a taker, but he rationalizes everything he does by saying that
if he didn't do it, someone else would.
Then, on Sunday, while in a bar, he accidentally
dials his own number and his voice answers the phone in his apartment.
He immediately is sure that this is a joke, but quickly comes around to
the idea that he is talking to himself. Peter is stunned, but not as surprised
as we might expect. After comparing their lives, they set about trying
to get rid of the other. The bad Peter, who is called Novins, is stuck
out of the apartment, where he can take all of the money out of his accounts
and put them in new, safe ones, cancel grocery deliveries and other amenities,
and try to force his other self to leave the apartment. Novins takes a
room at a downtown hotel to wait out his better self.
But the good Peter, who is called Jay,
is stuck inside where he has access to all of the work from the office,
personal items, everything that makes Peter what he is. When Novins calls
him again, on Monday night, Jay has talked with his mother, apologized
for being such a crumb when he came to Florida last (at which time he
spent one day with his mother, told her he was going back home for work,
and instead had a wild time with a secretary he knew down there) and invited
her to stay with him for the rest of her life. Novins was furious but
helpless; Jay had just stolen his mother from him.
On Tuesday, Novins was feeling sick. On
Wednesday, Jay called him to tell him he'd patched it up with the last
3 or 4 women Novins had bad affairs with; Novins doesn't remember treating
the women bad. Jay had also patched up Novins' failing relationship with
his current girlfriend; another one for Jay. On Thursday, Novins talked
to no one; he lay in bed getting weaker and sicker.
On Friday, Jay showed up at Novins hotel
room. Jay looks healthy and vital; Novins is sitting in a chair by the
window, wrapped in a blanket and looking translucent. Jay tells him that
their mother is showing up this week; Novins asked if he'd give some money
to an acquaintance, possibly an old girlfriend, to look after a child,
possibly his. The story doesn't go into detail about this, but Jay's already
taken care of it. Jay goes to shake Novins hand, as a goodbye, but when
their hands meet, Jay feels no pressure. It's as if Novins is not there.
And he isn't; Jay can see right through him. He bids his other self goodbye,
and Novins slowly vanishes as the seconds go by. On Shatterday, Jay is
the only Peter Jay Novins in existence.
Peter Jay Novins, both victor and victim,
of a brief struggle for custody of a man's soul. A man who lost himself
. . . and found himself . . . on a lonely battlefield, somewhere in the
Twilight Zone |
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