He d been dozing， sleep touching him so lightly that had it not left，
like a fingerprint upon a pane of glass， the filmy residue of a dream，
he would scarcely have realized he d slept at all. This dream (already
turning colorless， resistant to memory) had taken place at homePnot
Boston or Cambridge， which over the last two years he d grown to
think of as home， but with Mom and Dad in Michigan. His gaze
drifted from his hands， open in his lap， the left palm lopsidedly
bunched with the scar of a burn he d picked up in college， to， miles
below， the Pacific， which under its glazed crust seemed to stir and
ripple with its own indwelling dream. He d never seen the Pacific until
today. It was so big--he d read somewhere--that if it were emptied
the other three oceans could be poured into the resulting cavity， and
still there would be room to spare. His watch told him nearly an hour
had passed since he d last checked--although all measurements of time
were tricky and somewhat illusory on a journey of this sort. It was
as if time itself had turned a little elastic; he felt himself allied with
those select astronauts who return to earth some infinitesimal but none-
theless calculable fraction of a second younger than the rest of us.
Noiseless barriers， transparent boundaries， the time zones one after
another were dropping away behind him. Soon he would cross， if he
hadn t already， the International Dateline， as this aircraft floated ef-
fortlessly， the first time he d ever made such a leap， into tomorrow.
He d been using， unwisely it now occurred to him， his passport to
mark his place in one of the books， Beginning .Japanese， ranged on the
empty seat beside him. He plucked the passport from the textbook
and intently read his own name (Daniel Chapman Ott)， birthdate (Oc-
tober I， I957)， and Michigan address (2135o Richhaven Ave.， Heather
Hills). He would turn twenty-three in a few weeks. He scrutinized
again the color photograph， in which his hair had come out redder
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