Peter and Alena walked on a path along a river in Kennedy called the Riverwalk. On either side of the river were various storefronts, restaurants, and cafés, and they would frequently pass by a bridge crossing the river.
"You seem upset," Alena said. "More upset than you would seem about a trip to Jupiter. I guess you heard about Kim."
Peter held his breath momentarily, then responded.
"Yeah, actually, I probably know more than you do. Carlton's already having an affair. But I try not to think about it."
Another moment passed before Alena spoke again.
"I guess you haven't heard, then. Carlton--" Alena struggled to finish her sentence. "Carlton caught Kim cutting herself on their honeymoon. She's in the hospital now."
Peter stopped walking. He started to stare blankly at the ground for what seemed to Alena to be a long time, then he closed his eyes and started to shake his head, almost violently.
"I don't-- I don't know what to do with this," he said. He moved to the side of the path and covered his eyes with the back of his hand, trying to hold back tears.
"Pete, you can't keep blaming yourself for what happened. You have to move on. She needs to move on. But she's in the right place now; she'll get the help she needs."
For another length of time, no words were spoken. Alena patiently waited for either Peter to speak or for a flash of enlightenment to reveal to her something else that she could say. People that were passing by tried not to look at the man crying on the side of the Riverwalk, hoping to not intrude or get involved.
"Look," Alena continued, "I'm not really worried about her right now. She's getting help. I'm more worried about you. I know you have a tendency to be... morbid. You're about to go on a seventeen-month trip. That can either go really well for you, or really bad. You can't just ruminate over this. You have to move on.
"Do something to distract yourself. Throw yourself into your work, read funny jokes, or listen to music. 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive', right?"
Peter brought his hand down from his face.
"You're right. It doesn't help to keep thinking about it. Thinking about it makes it worse. The best thing I can do is leave it alone. Still, it's hard to remember that. Every time I'm reminded of it, I just feel horrible about what I did. It makes me wonder if I'm some kind of monster."
"You are not a monster," Alena said, almost angrily. "Kim couldn't understand why you made that mistake, and she didn't realize how much it hurt you, too. And-- Look, we shouldn't talk about this anymore. It's not going to do any good analyzing it. You're a good person who's doing amazing things and you will continue to be a good person who does amazing things."
"Still, that's not the reason I was upset. I didn't know that about Kim."
"Then, what is it?"
Peter looked around to find a bench, and sat at the first one that he found. Alena sat next to him. He knew he couldn't tell her about the proprietary information from the meeting, but he could tell her about the nightmare.
"It's this dream I've been having," he said. "It's just disturbing. I'm in this giant room, like a warehouse. I mean, it's not actually a warehouse, it's just a big room, but it looks like a warehouse. And every human being that ever lived is standing in this room, all lined up. You and Mom and Dad are there, too. I'm not in the line, I'm next to it, and everyone is facing off away on one side of the line. And behind them, in the direction that they're not looking, is a bomb. Sometimes it's the Fat Man, sometimes it's the Little Boy. But there's a digital timer on the bomb, and it's counting down to the time that it's going to go off."
Peter stopped briefly, then continued. "Eighty seven years, one hundred and three days, thirteen hours, seven minutes, and thirty three seconds."
He again stopped, his mind wandering away from the dream, then continued.
"I keep telling everyone," he continued, "we have to get out, we have to get out. But nobody believes me that the bomb is there. I keep trying to get them to turn around to see it, but nobody will. They just tell me I'm crazy, and that everything's fine. And then I look back at the bomb and there's a snake wrapped around it. And this snake, it looks at me, looks me right in the eye, and starts talking to me. Its voice sounds like a fire in a furnace. It says 'Now you have become Death, the destroyer of worlds'."
"That's what Oppenheimer said after the Manhattan Project," Alena interrupted. "From that Hindu book."
"The Bhagavad Gita, yeah. That's when I wake up."
"Well, you don't think that it means something, do you? You don't think that you're the destroyer of worlds. For God's sake, you're doing more for mankind than anyone has in centuries!"
"Well, whether it means something or not, I've been seeing this every night for months, maybe a year. I haven't had a full night's sleep since it started. And that snake, the look in its eyes. You know, usually my dreams are really vague, and they don't make any sense from one second to the next. But what really terrifies about this dream isn't really what happens, but that it actually does make sense."
"I can't make sense of it," Alena said.
"No, you know what I mean. It has a progression, it has a rhyme and reason, continuity. My dreams never have that. I can't help but think about what that snake says to me, and it always brings me back to Kim."
"Oh, so that's it. This is still over you feeling guilty."
"Yeah, I know we were just talking about it. I do try to move on, I really do, but then it just slams back into my mind, worse than ever before. And that dream... If I'm a destroyer of worlds, I certainly destroyed her."
"That snake is your devil."
"It's not the devil in the dream; it's just a snake."
"No, it's your devil, your accuser. That's what the word 'devil' means. And it's like the devil-- It's your ultimate enemy, and it's using your greatest weakness against you, your guilt."
Peter smiled, and said, "And what do I do to resist the devil?"
"I don't know," Alena said after a time. "I know a few things a German monk said, but I doubt it would help. I wish I could help you, but I don't know how to deal with a recurring dream. I can only imagine that it's recurring because you have such a tendency to be so melancholy while you're awake. I just think you need to do something to be okay with the past. I don't know what else could help."
Peter thought about his conversation with his sister for some time after that. In spite of its dreary nature, it served as a good distraction. Nonetheless, it didn't help what was really bothering him: Eighty seven years, one hundred and three days, thirteen hours, seven minutes, and thirty three seconds.
