This is a story about transitions, between times, places, events, life, death, and a lot of other heavier philosophical and existential things. When I first started writing it in January of 1991, my life was going through a lot of changes, and as happens so often with writers, what's going on in your life is reflected in what gets put down on paper. Fortunately, the Muse and other things conspired against me finishing it back then, because I think it became a better story for having waited until I was really ready to write it. Having gradually made our way forward to the present day (as of this writing), a lot of things would have and should have changed in the lives of our friends in Hill Valley; the major reason for the Introduction is to explain a bit of how we got from there to here. So please pardon me if some parts feel redundant. I guess it's my way of saying, "Pay attention -- this is IMPORTANT!"

By now, it should be fairly obvious to even the most wishful thinkers that the future of the BTTF universe is quite unlikely to be ours. (Rather in the fashion that George Orwell's 1984 didn't happen, Star Trek's Eugenics Wars of the 1990s didn't happen, H.G. Wells' Utopia really didn't happen....) In order for the things we saw in BTTF II's 2015 to become reality, a lot of things are going to have to start changing RIGHT NOW, and the likelihood of that happening is kind of remote, at least in the opinions of the various scientists with whom I've discussed such things. Which is fine by me, at least from a writer's standpoint, since it gives me a lot more leeway to use my imagination and think of what might be if only someone would make the discoveries and breakthroughs which made that world possible.

This is Act II of the "Other Realities" trilogy I talked about in the preface to 'Til Death Do Us Part. Act I could be defined as "The Me Who Was But Should Not Be," and Act II as "The Me Who Is But Is Not Me." Some threads that were laid down in Act I and left dangling will get tied off here, while some new dangling threads will be presented, to be tied in Act III, Until the End of Time.  A few side-notes:

1. There are three in-jokes in this story that come to mind. One I'm going to let people figure out for themselves, but it should be the most obvious. The second involves a certain archaeology professor's dislike of the nickname "Junior," which should be familiar to anyone who has seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I seem to have a strange fondness for bringing in little elements of other Spielberg productions when I write this stuff. The third concerns the town of Elmdale, mentioned in Chapter Sixteen. Elmdale was the original name for Hill Valley (and I am so glad they didn't use it; it sounds like it should be the hometown for Wally and the Beav), so when I needed a suburbish sounding name to use for a town just outside Hill Valley, this came to mind. What the hell.

2. As I have said before and will say again, I did not select Doc's birthdate. My husband did that when he was writing the first draft of OUTATIME, and the stinker used my birthday (the day, not the year). When I started writing this story (again) in May, I'd hoped to have it finished before July 20th, but alas, I didn't quite make it. Close, but not quite. Strangely enough, this isn't the last story in which that date will play a part. Maybe it's one of those points in the space-time continuum with a lot of causative inertia. After all, that was the date when Man first walked on the Moon.

3. Chapter Three is apparently my Tribute to Walt Whitman, since, purely by accident, the heading quote and the poem that appears in it are both by that author. The poem's title, by the bye, is "A Clear Midnight."

That's about it. I know this is another long one, but I'm just not a writer of short stories.  Enjoy.