All You Zombies

“The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty-five years old, no taller than I am, immature features and a touchy temper. I didn’t like his looks—I never had—but he was a lad I was here to recruit, he was my boy.” 

The narrator/time traveler works as a bartender at Pop’s Place. He’s been expecting the Unmarried Mother—a young man who makes his living writing an advice column as if he were a woman—whom the narrator must manipulate so that the timeline will work out properly.

“His fingers tightened on the glass as he seemed about to throw it at me; I felt for the sap under the bar. In temporal manipulation you try to figure everything, but there are so many factors that you never take needless risks.” 

The bartender’s time-travel job requires him to insert himself into the stream of events at just the exact moment, and behave precisely, to create the correct effect on the timeline. This is very hard to do, and problems happen, which is why time travel can be so dangerous. 

The bartender’s time-travel job requires him to insert himself into the stream of events at just the exact moment, and behave precisely, to create the correct effect on the timeline. This is very hard to do, and problems happen, which is why time travel can be so dangerous. 

The bartender’s time-travel job requires him to insert himself into the stream of events at just the exact moment, and behave precisely, to create the correct effect on the timeline. This is very hard to do, and problems happen, which is why time travel can be so dangerous. 

“[…] bartenders and psychiatrists learn that nothing is stranger than the truth.” 

The bartender explains to the Unmarried Mother that the young man’s stories won’t shock the bartender no matter how weird or unbelievable. In fact, the narrator already knows the story, having lived it.

“No one in my family ever marries. All bastards.” 

The bartender-narrator hints to the Unmarried Mother that they have similar backgrounds. In fact, they’re the same person, but the Unmarried Mother doesn’t know that yet. 

“The Worm Ouroboros . . . the World Snake that eats its own tail, forever without end. A symbol of the Great Paradox.” 

The bartender wears a ring in the shape of a snake with its tail in its mouth. This symbolizes the work the bartender must do as a time traveler, including manipulating events to ensure that he survives his own strange history. 

“‘I stood darned little chance of getting married—for the same reason I hadn’t been adopted.’ He scowled. ‘I was horse-faced and buck-toothed, flat-chested and straight-haired.’” 

The Unmarried Mother hadn’t yet learned he was anatomically both male and female, which may have influenced his appearance. His physical uniqueness sets the stage for an extraordinary time-travel adventure.

“‘Who cares how a barkeep looks? Or a writer? But people wanting to adopt pick little blue-eyed golden-haired morons. Later on, the boys want bulging breasts, a cute face, and an Oh-you-wonderful-male manner.’ He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t compete.’” 

The Unmarried Mother notes ruefully the biases of people who only want to adopt pretty babies instead of smart, stable, capable ones. 

“Vocabulary shift is the worst hurdle in time-jumps—did you know that ‘service station’ once meant a dispensary for petroleum fractions?” 

Time travel forces a time agent to brush up on expressions that change wording or meaning over the decades. An agent doesn’t want to mispronounce or misuse words and draw unwanted attention. 

“I liked him. He was the first man I ever met who was nice to me without trying to take my pants off.” 

Jane doesn’t realize it, but her lover is herself, a time traveler from the future who has returned to 1963 as a man to impregnate her and give birth to them both. Jane will carry the baby to term, not knowing the baby will grow up to be her. 

“‘Eleven more months of that grim place and three operations. In four months I started to grow a beard; before I was out I was shaving regularly . . . and no longer doubted that I was a male.’ He grinned wryly. ‘I was staring down nurse’s necklines.’” 

Jane gives birth to a healthy baby girl, but, in the process, doctors discover she has two sets of sexual organs. The female parts become seriously damaged by the birth, but the doctors manage to save the male organs. The physical changes that ensue occur gradually and predictably, but what’s more difficult for Jane is her struggle to adjust to being a different gender. She didn’t pick sex reassignment—it picked her. Most such patients are eager for the change; with no preparation, Jane must reckon with it quickly and adapt to the new reality. The culture of the early 1960s didn’t make it any easier for Jane.

“‘What would you say to high pay, steady work, unlimited expense account, your own boss on the job, and lots of variety and adventure?’ He stared. ‘I’d say, ‘Get those goddam reindeer off my roof!’’” 

The bartender offers the Unmarried Mother a job as a time agent, something the young man will have to become to complete the time manipulation that will turn him into the bartender who convinces him to join the Temporal Bureau. Because of a time paradox, the man effectively is talking to himself in a bar.

“It’s a shock to have it proved to you that you can’t resist seducing yourself.” 

The bartender takes the Unmarried Mother back in time to when he seduced his younger, female self and impregnated her so that she would give birth to … him. The time paradox explained, the Unmarried Mother finally realizes that he is the same person as Jane, her baby, and the bartender. 

                              “Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.

If At Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Billion.

A Paradox May be Paradoctored.

It is Earlier When You Think.

Ancestors Are Just People.

Even Jove Nods.”

The bartender’s real job is as a time traveler who fixes problems in the timeline. One of his tasks is to fix his own timeline. Having done so, and after 30 years of time-travel recruiting, he notes that the old sayings on the wall no longer inspire him.