Another short preamble prior to the revelation of the second law

I had to leave Martin's place. Been a bit of time in order to find someone new who would be willing to accept me, but here I am again. Sorry.

It was the Teliki, of course. I don't know which one, and I don't think it makes a difference. They're all the same, and you can't tell them apart, but they were displeased, to say the least. They made a threat, and I think they meant it.

The Officiant was there, and if he had had a face, I'm sure he would have been smirking at me. The Teliki didn't see him, of course. He was hiding, as he always does, just out of view. A presence, but one you can only sense, and very rarely see.

Martin is alive, for now at least. Being a Chrono-Nomad, you know how everyone ends up, and I know how Martin's life ends. I'm not going to spoil that for now, because it does tie in to some stuff later on, so I'll keep silent about it, but I will say this: He didn't deserve what happened to him. Or rather, what I think happened to him. I'm not really sure what happens when-

No, shut up, Ishmael. Spoilers.

A quick preamble to the second law.

Have you ever been tired, feeling bleary after a long day at work, and you come home to your empty apartment, drop your jacket in a corner of the room (you meant to hang it on a coat hook, but you misjudged the distance owing to that one bitch at work who insists on telling you how to do your job even though you already know), kick your shoes off, just barely missing the cat that your ex got for you cause commented once on how Morris the cat has disappeared off the societal radar (and you never liked that cat (or ex) anyway, but you keep it around because deep down you really do miss them), wander down the hall into the kitchen, open the fridge, stare moodily at the lack of food contained therein, give up in disgust, pour yourself a drink, knock it back in one slug, then wander into the living room, flop down on your Ikea couch (Morbo- it was black- and you were depressed over the cat ex), and turn on your Wal-mart tv to watch an episode of X-Factor, or Jersey Shore, or whatever shitass tv show you watch, and you're not really thinking about anything while you're doing it, and you turn your head because that damn cat knock over some cheap knick knack you've got cause your ex liked the way it looked, and you should just throw it away, except you can't really bring yourself to do it because your ex will come back to you when they realize what they gave up, and as you turn your head back, you see someone standing in your apartment who wasn't there a second before, and you turn your head to look and there's no one there.

Congratulations, dear fleshy. You've just seen one of the Teliki.

We'll talk more about them later.

More on my style of time travel

And I got completely sidetracked. I was talking about jaunting through space and time and all that.
The question was, why can I travel through time and not blow up the universe with the paradox of meeting myself?
That one's easy, though some of you may have your minds blown.
It's because I'm not there. I can't meet myself because there's only one of me. I don't jump through time, I travel with it, as I said, so I can't just pop in somewhere. I have to either fast-forward there, or rewind to it.
Because of that, my own personal time line and the Universe's time line, in relation to each other, are all skewed and knotted up. My own time line is an unbroken string of 3 happened after 2, which happened after 1.
To the universe, though, depending on how I move, it might see me do 2, then 3, then 1.
Things happen in order, though not always in the order you expect.
So I can travel to Point A and Time 1, and then pop off to Point B at Time 2, and then come back to Point A at Time 1, and I won't meet myself, because in my personal time line, it's Point A at Time 3.
Confused? Ask someone smarter than you. I don't want to deal with ignorance.

The Interment

After everyone had filed out, and the coffin had been moved, the interment took place. It was a fairly nice ceremony, a few words spoken. I watched the whole thing, and stuck around as everyone talked for a bit afterwards.

I moved around between little clumps of people. Some of them were talking about Kari, others were talking about the 8/23 attacks, and The Divide, some were discussing life and how you just never know, and one group of people was actually discussing Pokémon.

The stories about Kari continued, each one as true and unbelievable (at least to someone as cynical and jaded as I am) as the ones at the funeral. After the third story, I shook my head and turned, and found myself looking straight at a black tie on a white shirt. My gaze traveled upward to the smooth featureless face of the Officiant.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I mean, have you no sense of decency?"

The Officiant, as always, spoke without speaking. I have no sense of anything. I only am.
"Uh-huh," I said. "And was she within your jurisdiction? Is that it?"
She was one of mine, yes. 
"And you're here? Now? Don't you think that's a little tactless?"
She did not die from my... influence.
"But you still followed her around and did... whatever you do."
I did. I need to fulfill my purpose.
"And what, pray tell, is that?"
The Officiant's body moved not an inch. He didn't speak, he didn't make a sound. Technically, he never does.
"And what about Martin, huh? Did you have a hand in that?"
The Officiant raised one arm. His suit arm slid back as he stretched out his arm, revealing the slightly tendril-like appendage. I have no hands.
"You know what I mean, Eggshell."
I am not an egg.
I sighed. I don't know why I try to needle him. He never gets it.
"Martin," I said. "Grant," I said. "Did you have permission, or were you going rogue with that?"
I do what I must to fulfill my-Suddenly, he stopped talking. His head turned, looking at something off to the left. There was nothing but a milling group of people, talking quietly, and then he was gone. He moved without moving to a spot about twenty yards away, and stood completely still. I watched him, wondering what he was doing. His suit suddenly grew darker, and then right on the very outside range of my vision, a flash of a camera.
His suit faded back to it's normal color, and suddenly he was back, in front of me, looking down at me with those non-features of his.
"Really?" I said. "Here?"
I do what I must to-"Fulfill your purpose," I finished with him, "yeah yeah. Who was it this time?"
He didn't respond. Again.
I looked over where I had seen the flash of the camera. A couple of kids were scampering around, and their mother was trying to corral them together. The daughter was clutching a little stuffed monkey protectively, and kept looking over her shoulder at something, but I couldn't see what it was.
I turned back to the Officiant. He was still standing, unmoving.
I was suddenly overcome with a wave of loathing and disgust at him, and I pointed at his chest.
"Your tie's crooked, dude," and I darted off through the time stream to someplace where he wasn't.

If wishes were horses...

I'm going to pause here before moving on to the events of the reception. That will be a shorter story (or should be, but I can gas on when the mood takes me), but it contains some information you'll need to know for the future.

Also, it may throw some stuff into perspective.

Martin is sick, so my time is limited tonight, plus, I've been seeing some Teliki poking around. They'll find out about Martin soon enough, and I'll have to move on. I've known this day was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier. I've still got a little bit of time though, enough to finish the story of Kari's funeral, and the reception immediately following.

After that, though, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be staying here. I'll have to find someplace else eventually. The Teliki... they don't like what I'm doing here, to put it mildly.

Anyway. The Officiant was there at Kari's funeral. Considering the way she died, that seemed kind of tactless, but we all have our funny little ways. His more than others, I think. In all the... for lack of a better word "conversations," I've had with him, I've never gotten one iota of insight into what he wants, why he's here or where he came from.

I know where I came from. I distinctly remember my first moment of cognizance, but in all my time traveling, in all the years I've traveled through the time-stream trying to find out where he comes from or where he goes, nothing has ever presented itself. It's a mystery, and I don't like mysteries. 

Kari's Funeral, Take 4

“The bombs went off, and people died by the thousands. Are still dying. We won’t know the full death toll for months, if not years. Kari was just another one.
    “You all know she died in the Eight-Twenty-Three attacks, just like thousands of others. She’s no different from them, no more important. There are funerals being held all over the country today for those lost, and she’s just one. To ninety-nine percent of the country, she’s a no one. A nobody. There are hundreds of people who died who are more important than her, and thousands who suffered worse and longer than she did. She died quickly, so she was one of the lucky ones. Just another death.”
    The murmur grew a little louder. People were growing agitated at her words.
    “Except, out of tragedies, heroes rise. And Kari was a hero. To me, she was the most important person. When the bomb went off, and the world was nothing but smoke and screams, she came charging out of the chaos, dust covered, bloody and screaming.
    “Right toward me and this little girl here. Like an avenging banshee, she was there, then she was crashing into us.
    “Lila flew out of my arms, even as I tried to hold onto her. I found her through her screams.
    “Once she was safely back in my arms, I turned to confront the woman who had attacked us.
    “She was half-buried under the rubble of a wall that had been weakened, and then collapsed. Her body was crushed, and there was blood coming out of her mouth with each breath.”
    The audience had gone silent.
    “I stared at her. She looked at me, eyes not white, but red with busted blood veins, and then her eyes went to Lila, safe in my arms, and she gave me a weak thumbs up, and smiled. The next second, she was gone. I didn’t even know her name.
    “I knew her face, though, and when the newspapers published the faces of those who had died, I recognized her immediately, got her name. I found the funeral notice and here I am.
    “I’m not surprised by everything I’ve heard today. Someone who would sacrifice her own life for someone she doesn’t even know is some one special. Rest in preace, Kari.”
    She kissed her fingertips, and placed them on the coffin, and her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than a year old, and won’t remember this at all, did the same.

    Hers was the last. The stranger that no one knew, whose life interacted so briefly with their own. Everyone started filing out, silent and slow, speaking in hushed tones, or not at all.
    A sea of black. Women in dresses- different cuts, different styles, different labels and values, but all the same color. Men in suits. Dark, black, all the same.
    I was looking at the coffin, at the girl so revered and honored by those who knew her, so it’s probably excusable I didn’t notice the figure at the back of the room. Everyone was wearing a dark suit. I mean, it’s a funeral, right?
    The height- at least eight feet, probably closer to nine, if not more- should have given him away. Like I said, I was distracted though, and no one else looked at him either, despite his astounding height.
    Oh, and the lack of face. I should mention that, too. Tall, thin, dressed in a black suit with no face. 
    Ladies and gentleman, please allow me to officially introduce you to The Officiant.

Kari's Funeral, Take 3

I wish I could write longer than I normally do. I have a fair amount to get through, and only so much time available to me, which could be greater or lesser depending on how Martin is feeling. On nights like this, when he's been drinking, I know I have less time, so this might be a short one.
 ===
There were some other testimonials which, for the sake of narrative convenience I will skip over, but I am going to touch on one, just because I feel it’s important. Especially considering why I’m taking the time to tell you about Kari in the first place.
    A young mother came to the front, holding a baby in her arms. She stood for a moment, and then began to speak.
    “I’m not gonna talk long. I know we all wanna get to the reception and I’m not much for talkin’ anyway.” She looked back at the coffin, then at the gathered crowd.
    “My name’s Jackie. I’m a single mother. On August twenty-third, I was standing at the corner of Columbus and Collins. It was three-thirty in the afternoon. We didn’t know it, but Eight-Twenty-Three had just happened. The Divide had gassed Atlanta, though no one here knew it yet. At the same time, hundreds of bombs went off in twelve major cities, including this one.
    “We all know that. We know that Kari was caught up in one of the bomb blasts and killed. What you don’t know was the exact circumstances of her death, but that’s what I’m here to tell you.”
    A murmur ran through the audience. Surely this wasn’t the place or the time to recount her murder, right?
    Jackie proved them all wrong.