Full Steam Ahead

The clang of the bell and clatter of metal broke the tense silence; and a whirlwind of energy burst forth. Muscles, taught and rippling, sweat dripping, hoofs pounding, manes and tails flying, a blur of horse and rider, browns, blacks, greys, reds, blues, and greens spread across the track like paint splashed from a can.

Sarah was right in the middle of the pack, perched atop her mare, Dustdevil. She smiled as she looked forward, through the horse’s grey ears, at the track in front of her that was slowly clearing as the mare surged forward around the first turn. There was a series of jumps next, hedges, and Sarah wound her fingers through the taupe mane and held on, preparing to fly. She could feel the mare’s muscles gather through the thin leather of the saddle, and then they were soaring over the first jump.

Two more jumps and the track was empty, everyone was behind them. Sarah hastened a glance back, peering through the pink silks framed gap between her elbow and her waist. Yes, everyone else was back there, way back there. Sarah smiled They were going to win. She wasn’t surprised. Dustdevil was an amazing horse. Strong, and fast, though no one else thought so. She was sickly when she was born, the fourth disappointment from her dam, Gracie, and Sarah’s father had decided to sell the pair. Sarah couldn’t bear the thought, though. Not because they were going to be sold somewhere bad, but because Sarah had fallen in love the moment she looked into the foal’s big brown eyes. Sarah knew she was special.

It took a lot of pleading, and begging, and use of her own puppy-dog eyes, but Sarah convinced her father to let her keep Dustdevil. Nine months later she was weaned, Gracie, was sold to a riding school, and Sarah started Dustdevil under saddle. From the moment Sarah settled herself onto Dustdevil’s back, two became one. They couldn’t be separated. Every day Sarah and Dustdevil rode together across the fields and through the woods, running, and jumping, and training for this moment.

When Sarah told her father she wanted to enter Dustdevil in the yearling race at the State Fair, her father wasn’t sure, but her mother worked her quite magic, and now here they were, racing quickly toward the finish line.

Dustdevil cleared the last jump like she had wings, and the pair turned the corner and entered the final stretch. There was nothing but Dustdevil and Sarah, moving together as if they were one. All Sarah could hear was the pounding of hoofs, and the pounding of blood, and the deep, steady breathing. Then she realized she could hear something else, her name. Someone was yelling her name, and there was something else too, something about dinner.

Sarah stopped. Her mom was standing in front of her, holding oven mitts.

“What are you doing honey?”

“Nothing.” Sarah replied sheepishly.

“Okay, well please put the patio furniture back where it belongs and then come inside. Dinner’s ready.”

 

 

                                                                                                                     

 

One Step at a Time

 

Two lines on the at-home test

Five days measured by blister pill packs

Six pills per-

separated by color.

By shape

Golden sun

Silver sliver moon.

I wish they were numbered too

Since side effects may include

restless legs and insomnia

By the end of my quarantine

I can’t tell between

The morning sunshine

And the evening moon beam

It all blurs together

Bad movies

Rough Kleenex

And watery bowls of soup

Until the last pill is gone

And I’ve made it through

I can’t wait for that day

When my smell

And my taste

And my ability to string words together

Comes back too

By and By

 

“I can see the whole world from up here,” I said between breaths as I gazed upon the view from the top of the straw yellow hill that stood tall at the edge of town.

“I can see the future from here,” he whispered into my ear, his breath grazing the spot on my neck that always caused goosebumps to rise down one side of my body and back up the other.

“Oh yeah, and what does that look like?” I turned back, away from the edge, and met his gaze. His brown eyes were a cliché, alluring and playful.

He grinned, and he placed his hands on my shoulders and gently turned me back around, before pulling me back into his embrace. “There,” he said, raising one arm away from my waist and pointing out across the valley. I followed his finger, but saw nothing in particular, just the endless rows of suburban housing grid, repeating itself across the valley before stopping abruptly against the hills on the far side.

“Where?”

“You don’t see it? It’s the English countryside, and across those green fields is our stone cottage. You are inside, still asleep.”

“Oh,” I replied, “but why aren’t you sleeping next to me?”

“Because our daughter woke up early, but I thought I would let you sleep, so I took her out to feed the horses.”

“We have horses?” I turned back to face him again.

“Of course,” he smiled, and he pulled me to him again.

As I stared at his face, I could almost feel his lips pressed against mine, the way they had on that hill top twenty years ago. For so long those eyes, the ones I now saw staring back at me from my computer screen, had only existed in my memory, but now here they were again, though now they were framed with the creases of the time that has passed.

I scrolled down to the “view profile” button. I clicked it and silently wished that he wasn’t one of those that hid everything from those not on his friends list. A second later the screen refreshed, and I wanted to take back my wish.  

There on the screen in front of me was exactly what I did not need to know. His relationship status, married. His current home, Leicester, UK. Children, one. The life he had dreamed about with me, he was now living, with somebody else.

A voice broke my trance, “what’s wrong honey?”

I closed the incognito tab, “nothing.”

“You sure? You looked like you were about to cry.”

“Just allergies,” I replied as I shut the laptop and set it on the table, “hey, how about we go to dinner tonight, perhaps that new pub that just opened? I have a sudden craving for fish and chip

Over and Over

 

Steve’s right index finger hovered over the blue button. It wasn’t the right color blue. The one on Amazon had been more turquoise, and this one was definitely royal. That’s not the color he’d imagined, the billion times he had day-dreamed about this exact moment. Oh well, there was nothing that could be done about it now. And at least it glowed, so that was something.  

He pressed it, and held his breath.

Nothing changed. The room was exactly the same as before.

Then he realized he was talking to himself, only his mouth wasn’t moving. He whipped around, and, wait a minute, had there always been a mirror there? Except it wasn’t a mirror, it was him, another him, same clothes, same hair, everything. Except this second him was talking, and he was pissed.

“What the fuck is this?” second Steve was screaming.

“I don’t know, this wasn’t supposed to happen.” Replied original Steve.

“Right,” replied second Steve,” I was supposed to jump into another timeline, not create a carbon copy of myself.”

“Exactly, wait, you’re the copy, not me! I’m the one who pressed the button, then you appeared.”

“No, I pressed the button,” before first Steve could react, second Steve had shoved past him and was now standing poised with his finger hovering above the button, “just like this.” Second Steve pushed the button.

First Steve hadn’t noticed it the first time, but this time he was aware of a barely perceptible change when the button was pressed. It was as if the universe held it’s breath, just for a second.

And then there were three.

“What the actual fuck.” Were Steve number three’s first words.

Second Steve shrugged.

First Steve rubbed his temples, “great, just great, now there are two of you.”

“You mean THREE of US.” Second Steve seemed to have anger issues.

“The good news is I’m pretty sure I know what I did wrong, and all I have to do is,” before the first two Steve’s could react, the third Steve pressed the button.

And then there were four, but before the newest Steve could speak the original threw his hands up in the air, “DUDE,” he exclaimed, “why would you do that? You didn't do anything different, you just pressed the button!”

The first three Steve’s started arguing about who, exactly, was at fault for the predicament they were in. Things were said, words were exchanged, there was posturing, and gesturing, and as fists started to ball in anger, Steve number four cleared his throat. 

“Guys,” he said.

The other three Steve’s stopped what they were doing, suddenly aware of how crowded the room had become.

“Oh fuck, how many of us are there now?”

Dozens of eyes blinked back, wordlessly.

“WELL?!”

“Now Steve, just calm down, yelling never solved anything.”

“Yeah, and I suppose you have the solution, hmm Steve number… wait, what number are you anyway?”

“That hardly matters, because at least I’m not you. I would never make a mistake this idiotic. Because what do you do when you press that button, hmm? You make a choice, which creates a new timeline. But the button, it prevents the new timeline from breaking off into it’s own new reality, and now this one is clogged up with far too many Steve’s. I figure, though, there are enough of us now that if we put our heads together, we can set things right."

Four by Four

 

The sun came in through the gauzy curtains warm and syrupy, like summer. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, and as my brain pulled itself from the fog of sleep, I realized, it was summer. As of yesterday, I was free for the next three months. I rolled over the pulled the blankets up over my head. The entire summer stretched out before me, no sense in starting it off sleepy.

Someone screamed. At first it worked its way into my dream, but when it just kept going, I woke up. I don’t know how long I had been sleeping for, but the sunlight in my room was different. I leaped out of bed and pushed the curtains outside, but no one was out there. Still the screaming persisted.

I ran across my room and threw open the door. The screaming got louder.

“Hello?” I called out.

The screaming stopped, and suddenly she was there. My eight-year-old sister, wearing her pajamas, and holding her left arm to her side at an unnatural angle.

“Miranda, what happened?!”

Her eyes glassed over with tears.

“Okay, okay, where’s mom?”

“Work” she sobbed.

That’s what I was afraid of. Mom worked on the bay. It would be nearly impossible to get in touch with her.

I pulled Miranda close to me, as my mind raced with what I should do. Just then there was a knock at the front door. Miranda froze, her tears momentarily quelled by fear.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, “just wait here, keep quiet, I’ll go see who it is.”

I carefully padded down the stairs, making sure to avoid the one that squeaks, and slid in my socks across the hallway to the front door. I peered through the peephole, where I saw a young man waiting on the other side. I recognized him as the son from the family that moved into the house across the street a few weeks before. I exhaled with relief and opened the door.

“Is everything okay in there,” he said, “I heard screams.”

“Yes,” I said, “well, no actually, I think my sister has broken her arm, or dislocated it at least.” I hesitated, should I tell him we were alone? I could hear Miranda start to whimper again upstairs. “And our mother is at work,” I continued, “she wont be home until tonight.

“Oh, your mother works?”

Miranda started wailing again, saving me from the questions that were soon to follow.

“Oh gosh, I need to get her to a doctor, you don’t happen to have any gas we could borrow? I know its expensive, but I’m sure we could pay you back.”

“Of couse,” he said, as he turned and trotted back down our front drive, “just stay here, I’ll be back in just a sec.”

A few minutes later I heard the distinct sound of hoofs, trotting up the driveway, and in the next minute he was there, in a wooden cart pulled by two chestnut horses.

“Come-on” he patted the empty bench seats next to him on the cart.

By now I had helped Miranda to the porch, where we both stood waiting.

“But you said you had gas?”

“Not me, them,” he gestured to his horses.

I cocked one eyebrow at him.

“Hop on, let’s go. We’ll get you to the doctor,” he winked at Miranda, “and after a few minutes of sitting behind these girls,” he gestured to his horses again, “you’ll have your fill of gas.”

“Eww,” Miranda exclaimed. She seemed to have forgotten all about her pain.

I put my arm around Miranda, and helped her into the wagon. A free ride was a free ride, even if it was a bit stinky.

Two by Two

 

There is a small room behind the principal’s office, and inside is a molded plastic chair, which is orange, a chipped white Formica side table, and an eight-year-old girl with stringy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a neutral expression on her face. Her name is Anne, and she knows she is in trouble. How much though, she isn’t sure. She’s been trying to listen to the whispered discussion on the other side of the door, but its hard to hear, and she’s been told to stay in her seat until her mother arrives. It didn’t matter though, she knew what they were saying, plus she figured it was best not to add to the list of reasons why her mother was going to be lecturing her on the car ride home.

The moment the whispering stopped the heavy wooden door swung open, and there was Anne’s mother. She didn’t say anything, which was to be expected, the lecture wouldn’t start until they were alone, in the car.

Anne took her mother’s lead, and wordlessly fell in step behind her, as she turned and headed out of the office into the bright spring sunshine.

The first three stoplights between the school, and Anne’s house, were green, but the fourth one was red. That was when Anne’s mother spoke.

“Holding hands?” Anne’s mother said, while making eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.

Anne didn’t respond, she just looked away.

“And with three different boys, Tom, Lance, and Brian? Why would you do that, you know you’re too young!”

Anne continued to avoid eye contact, perhaps if she didn’t look at her mother.

“ANNE”

The scream caused Anne’s head to swivel forward. Her mother had turned in her seat and was now staring directly at her, no reflection in the mirror to soften the glare.

“I’m sorry mom, I just…”

“You just what?”

“I just wanted to find my pair, like Sarah, I thought if I could then maybe I could leave, and go be with her at The Station.”

The look on her mother’s face softened, but the sound of a car horn signaled the light had turned green. Her mother turned forward again and resumed driving toward home.

A few minutes later, she spoke again. “Anne, I know you miss your sister, but you are far too young to find your pair. Even if you did somehow manage to locate them, and hold their hand, a link wouldn’t occur, not yet. That part of your mind won’t even develop for another couple of years. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Anne looked up; her mother was watching her in the mirror again. Her eyes were glassy, as if on the verge of tears. Anne nodded.

 “Good,” she sighed, “and listen, when you sister is done with her year one mind control, we can go visit her at The Station. Does that sound good?”

Anne nodded again, but inside she was thinking “are you hearing this?”

“Yup,” came Brian’s voice in her head, “but she’s lying.”

“I know,” Anne thought in return.

One by One

 

Sarah went first, well before the sunset, but it wasn’t a surprise. She was sick. The sick never lasted very long.

Then it was Kevin, snatched away so quickly he didn’t even finish his beverage. It sat, half drunk and quickly warming on the table, forgotten.

Taylor and Thomas were next. It was fitting, since they rarely left each other’s sides. They were twins, after all. Fraternal, not identical, but they still seemed mostly the same to me.

There were five of us left when the sun started to set, and it was decided we should probably go inside. 

For a long time, nothing happened, then Katie had to go to the bathroom. Katie was my best friend. We both had blonde hair and blue eyes, and we were both only children, so we had a lot in common. And just like Taylor and Thomas, we rarely left each other’s sides, but Manny thought it would be safer if he went with her to the restroom. So, I stayed behind with the others in the relative security of the room.

When Manny returned, he was alone. As he walked back through the door without Katie, my heart dropped. We locked eyes, and then I looked away. He didn’t say anything to me, he didn’t need to.

Now there were just three of us left. Me, Manny, and Chaya. We sat quietly in the room, alone together. Manny was behind the desk, writing. Chaya was at the table, reading a book, or at least pretending to. And I was on the floor, with a puzzle, that just a few minutes before I had been working on putting together with Katie. I looked at the picture on the box, a horse. Katie loved horses. With a sigh I started pulling the pieces apart and putting them away. There was no point in finishing it now.

I was trying to shove the puzzle box back on the overcrowded shelf when there was movement by the door. In the blink of an eye Chaya got up and ran, and before I could say anything, she was gone. I couldn’t believe it, now it was just me, left here alone with Manny.

At the front of the room Manny sighed. I could tell he was upset. He stood abruptly, the chair scraping across the floor as he did. Then just as suddenly he sat again.

“Sorry,” he said, “it’s not your fault.”

I just nodded.

Time seemed to be passing slower now. I watched the hands of the clock march around it's face. It was nearly 6:30. Manny was now tapping on the desk with a pencil, an outlet for his exasperation. Then, just as the minute hand settled on top of the 6, the door flew open. It was my mother. A wide smile spread across my face, and I stood to run toward her.

Manny stood too. “Mrs. Cockcroft, this is the third time this month. Daycare closes at 6, if you can’t pick up your daughter on time, you will have to find somewhere else to take her after school.”

 

Step by Step

 

I could just say it I think as I lie there in the pitch-black room, staring at the ceiling, listing to the rumble grumble slumber coming from the pillow next to me. I could just open wide and let the words tumble out. I even tried it, opening and closing my mouth several times, like a fish caught high and dry on the muddy shore, gasping for air. And I realize that is exactly what I am, stuck, and floundering.

I roll over, pull the covers up, and bury my head under my pillow. It works to drown out the snoring, but not the din inside my head. “Tomorrow”, I whisper, “just let me go to sleep tonight, and I’ll start tomorrow, I promise.”

A sliver of sunlight pierced my slumber, and before I even open my eyes, I know I’m going to have to hold up my end of the bargain.

“Fuck” I whisper.

“What’s wrong” comes a concerned voice from downstairs.

Fuck Fuck Fuck! I think

“Honey,” I say out loud, “can you come in here?”

The sweat sprouts from my brow in anticipation of the next words I’m going to say. It’s 64 degrees in the bedroom, but my skin is hot and damp.

I hear footsteps in the hall, then on the stairs. Any moment now. My brain tries to organize my sleepy thoughts, but its no use, everything is still sluggish, thick like molasses. There will be no sugar coating it. Eloquence is not yet awake. I’m just going to have to blurt it out.

My partner steps through the door, he looks more confused than concerned. I take a deep breath, my brain grasping one last time for a way out, but this time my mouth overrides it.

“I have a problem,” I say. My voice is threatening to catch. My brain is threatening me with tears, but I hold them back.

My partner cocks an eyebrow, but otherwise reveals no emotion.

With a sigh of resignation, I reach for the handle to my bedside drawer, and yank it open dramatically. My shame tumbles out into a giant crinkly pile on the floor.

“Wow”, my partner says, stifling a laugh, “that’s an awful lot of candy wrappers.”

I lose the battle with my emotions and feel tears escape, and start to roll down my cheeks.

“Oh no, no, don’t cry, why are you so upset?”

“Because we’re meant to be doing No-Sugar-November. I didn’t even make it a day.”

“Well clearly,” he said, still trying to reign in his giggles, “we’re only five days into the month, but that looks like the remnants of a Halloween size bag of Hershey’s.”

I could feel my lip quivering.

“Wait,” he said, “is that why we ran out of candy so early on Halloween night?”

I nodded

“We had to turn off the porch light and hide from the trick-or-treaters!”

“I know” I wailed.

“Oh, it’s okay honey,” he put his arm around me, “we’ll work though this together, baby steps, we’ll slay those sugar cravings!”

 

Side by Side

 

The pulse of the day is a heartbeat growing louder as the Grey May morning gives way to a bright and sunny summer Saturday. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been choreographing my life. Two stepping through the morning routine, coffee, toast, yogurt, fried eggs if I’m feeling fancy, all while ignoring my neighbor in his kitchen, dancing the same dance as me, separated by single paned glass, and about twenty feet . Briefly our eyes lock, me wielding a spatula, him a frying pan, but we spin away, sashay-shante, I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me. That’s life in the little city.

Breakfast done, chores begun. The Saturday shuffle is in full swing now. But it’s summer, which means at some point in time we all dip into our backyards. A million lives played out side by side in our postage-stamp green oasis. A patchwork of gardens, a patchwork of blocks, a patchwork of neighborhoods, the quilt of humanity.

The kids are first. Yelling in the backyard that backs up to mine. Their brand-new Christmas swing set hasn’t yet lost it’s luster, but then again, summer has just begun. Next it’s the new neighbor in the one bedroom rental next door. She’s throwing a garden party today. Then the raking starts from the other new neighbor on the other side, the one who so kindly pretends he can’t see me in my jammies every morning as I make breakkie in my kitchen because I refuse to close the blinds to the morning sun, but then again, so does he.

I come in on my que, joining the symphony with the rhythmic tinkling of water from my hose, coaxing the plants I had failed to water for a bit too long back to life. From elsewhere in the neighborhood, dogs barking, and more kids, a birthday party probably, and the sound of a basketball thumping against a slab of concreate.

The beat of the neighborhood is an orchestra accompanying my outside chores, while the breeze shakes the leaves in the trees like maracas, where the birds sing their melodies, but then a scream brakes through the piece. It wasn’t part of the song, it was as if the conductor said stop, the mike dropped, and record scratched to a halt. Something was wrong.

The shriek left a rift of silence, but no sooner had it fallen then the murmurs began, and as if on queue the shuffling of feet as we all ran to our front doors to stand on our porch scratching our heads.  Where had it come from, was somebody dead? All up and down the street, neighbors on their stoops, wondering what to do next. Then the sirens started. We shuffled about, exchanging looks of concern, as the wailing drew near, then passed us by.

 So that was it then.

Perhaps this is a musical, off Broadway of course, the script snatched up cheap and destined to become made for tv movie, with an ultra cliche ending. This is the last number, the scene is drawing to a close. The camera pans out to a bird's eye view of the great tapestry that is life in near suburbia as we all head inside, instep, and follow the beat to our own backyards to resume our scripted chores. Fade to black.

But what happened with that scream? Well, stick around to find out because after this commercial break, we'll be right back.

I Can't Wait To Hear What You Have To Say This Time

 

One of my favorite things about Anne was she let me tag along with her, no questions asked. That was rare these days. In general, most people seemed to only want to look after themselves, but even if they were game for a little company, I wasn’t the type of company they were looking for. Not Anne though. Sure, she thought I was on drugs. She never came out and said it, but she called me Druggie Dave, so I had my suspicions. I’ll admit, the rhyme was kinda cute, except my name wasn’t even Dave. I could see how someone might make that mistake though. Not that my name was Dave, but that I was on drugs. The truth was exactly the opposite. It was the lack of drugs that caused me to act this way.

When I was a kid, my mom thought I had an overactive imagination, but when I failed to grow out of my imaginary friends, my mom decided I needed help. It turns out I have a dash of schizophrenia. Not enough to make me dangerous, just enough to occasionally have solo-conversations on street corners. A little bit of medication went a long way, though, and as long as I took my daily pill, I was a-okay.

Like everyone else, I raided every drug store I came upon, you know, after the world ended, but of course the drugs were all gone. Fucking idiots using them to get high, oblivious to the needs of people like me. So now I talk to myself, so what? At least the voices kept me company when no one else would. But then one day Anne showed up, an angle rising out of the winter muck. We made a good team, and for a little more than a year we were inseparable, wandering from little town to little town in the Central Valley. I never asked her why, it didn’t matter to me, being with her was all I wanted.

Sure, in the beginning I thought maybe, just maybe, we could become more than friends, but that ended about the 5,000^th time she called me Druggie Dave. Oh well, a friend who calls you names is better then no friend at all. Or at least that’s how I used to think.

We’d spent the winter in Bakersfield. It was a lovely, small, close-knit community now. Much nicer than it had been before the world ended. All winter long I had asked myself what I would do when Anne decided to move on. The people of Bako had just been starting to warm up to me, and I liked it here.

I think I followed her out of habit. Like a dog I was loyal, even though she kept kicking me. So as the winter warmed to spring I found myself following her along the trail, back up the Central Valley again. It wasn’t long before I realized I’d made a mistake. I tried to tough it out, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. The name calling, the looking down on me, but it wasn’t until we were just outside of Kings City that I finally decided enough was enough. She was singing, a song from the Wizard of Oz, and it made me laugh. She turned to look at me, and the expression on her face, like I was a child.

I screamed, something weird from my schizophrenic brain about the police, and I turned and ran back from where we’d come, trying to get as much distance between us as possible before I could second guess my decision. I just hoped the people in Bako would accept me back.

Come Alone, No Police

 

 Its moments like these I forget that anything has changed at all. The sky is bright blue, the clouds lazy puffs of white, the grass is electric green and the dirt path cuts a seductive trail through it, to the infinite horizon. I’m out for a hike. A vacation. One of the many backpacking trips written in dry erase marker on the whiteboard stuck on my fridge. Then Druggie Dave starts muttering to his hallucinations behind me, and I snap out of my daydream. This isn’t a bucket list trip; this is life. Just me and Dave and an eternity of endless roads, shuffling from town to town, looking for fuck knows what. At least that was my story. Dave was looking for drugs, always. Addicts didn’t stop being addicts just because the world ends.

It was springtime though, which was lovely. There was nothing like velvet hills covered in a watercolor pallet of wildflowers to rekindle my love for meandering. During the dark days of winter, I’d almost considered settling down. The only thing that stopped me was where I’d found myself, Bakersfield, or at least what had once been Bakersfield. Of course it was much nicer now the smog fog of the Central Valley had dissipated with the death of the combustion engine, but it was still Bakersfield. So, I moved on

We were now just passing through King City, and the earth was in bloom. It was like that moment in the Wizard of Oz, suddenly everything was in color.

“Follow the yellow brick road!” I sang, a spring in my step.

Dave giggled behind me

“You remember that movie, Dave?”

He didn’t respond. I snuck a peek over my shoulder to see if he was still with me, or if he had been distracted by one of his hallucinations. He found some mushrooms a couple of days ago, and had been living off a steady diet of them ever since.

I saw he was still shuffling along behind me, neck craned back, staring at the sky. Probably seeing flying monkeys or something. I shrugged to myself, and continued walking. Around the next bend in the road a field of poppies spread out in front of me, a million golden heads bobbing in the breeze. I bent to pick one and when a did I heard a screech behind me. It was Dave, face white as a ghost.

“Now you’ve done it” his voice was deep with fear, “the police, that’s illegal, the police!” he turned and ran faster than I would have believed he could, back towards where we came. I didn’t bother going after him. I could do with some time by myself again. Perhaps I would head to the coast, get out of the Central Valley before the summer heat set in. The last time I’d been near the ocean it was obscured by the smoke of the city burning to the ground, but the fires were most certainly out now. Who knows, perhaps my house was still standing. I thought again of my whiteboard, my bucket list, on my fridge, and I started walking towards home.

I Swear It's Not My Fault

 

I realized I forgot my headphones about ten steps from my house, but I couldn’t be bothered to go back. It was only a few blocks to the bus stop. It was a beautiful morning, the air tinged warm with the promise of spring, and the blue-black sky was just beginning to blush. I figured I could use a little time with the morning birdsong and my own thoughts.

Have you ever been waking down the street when suddenly a childhood rhyme about mothers with broken backs pops into your head? Of course it makes you realize, right at that moment. That you’ve just stepped on a crack, so you do the only sensible thing. You perform an elaborate dance-hop-skip-over-the-cracks, sing song rhyme, ending with a kiss blown to the universe to save your mother, only to have all hell break loose because as it turns out, the superstition was actually true, only you mis-remembered the words, or the dance sequence, or something, and instead of un-breaking your mother’s back, you accidently opened a portal into another timeline? Have you ever had that happen? No? Just me then?

Well, I still maintain it might not have been me. There are nearly 8 billion people on the world, who knows what they were all up to at that exact moment in time. And the portal opening in my town, just a block away from where I was dancing around like I had ants in my pants in the early dawn light, well that was a just a coincidence.

They say it was a magic spell, an ancient one. Of course, before that day magic was something that existed only in children’s books and angsty teen's bedrooms. But since then, many more magic spells have been discovered, or uncovered, or rediscovered, or whatever. Now people are running around curing cancer, or summoning lightening bolts from the sky to vanquish their enemy’s, or eradicating their acne. No one has figured out a love spell yet, which sucks because I really wish the guy who drives the Jetta and lives in the apartment on the corner would finally notice me, but its probably for the best. The world is in enough chaos as it is, without having to deal with the messy moral implications that would come from making whoever you like fall in love with you.

Now, you may be wondering about what happened with that portal into the other timeline. Well, nothing bad really came from it. The earth in that timeline didn’t exist, probably obliterated by an asteroid or something. Mrs. McClatchy’s cat fell into the portal, but some orange cones were erected around it to keep that from happening again, and after a few days the spell to close it was discovered, so that was good. And I’ve sworn off magic since then. I’ve seen what it does to people, to your friends, and family, and those you love. I can screw up my personal relationships well enough on my own, I don’t need magic’s help.

Consider This A Warning

 

Photo by ArrImAPirate (that's me!)

They say “red sky at night, sailors delight”, so as I munched my fresh from the ocean sushi and watched the sky turn more shades of red then there are probably names for, I felt relaxed knowing I had a night of gentle winds and calm seas ahead of me.  That was my first mistake.

My second was being lax on my watch schedule. Normally I’d set my alarm to wake me every 15 minutes, so I could pop my head out of the hatch and scan the horizon to make sure I wasn’t about to careen bow first into a giant oil tanker, but I was out in the middle of the Pacific now, half way between California and French Polynesia, and far from any shipping lanes, so I decided to let myself sleep for a full 60 minutes at a time. I’d been out at sea for 13 days; I needed the extra z’s.

I think I rested too much though, and I missed my alarm. Instead, what woke me was a bucket of water to my face. At first, I was confused. I was alone, so who could be throwing buckets of water? Sure, the hatch was open. I’d left it open so I could pop my head out and look around between naps. It wasn’t the hatch being open that concerned me, it was the change in the view from my bunk. When I’d fallen asleep, I was under a blanket of stars so thick it was nearly impossible to tell where one star ended, and the next began. But now, all I saw was black. The kind of black that makes you dizzy to look at.

I threw the sopping wet blankets off and dropped down from my mattress, into a pool of water. Apparently, the wave that woke me up wasn’t the first to make it in my cabin. Or at least I hoped that’s where the water came from.

“Curse that red sky at night saying”, I muttered to myself as I waded through knee deep water. My mind grasped at straws as if I could collect enough of them that I could drain all the water from my bilge.

I grabbed my life vest and flew up the three wooden steps into my cockpit. Outside, I found it wasn’t raining, at least not yet, but the seas were confused. The wind was howling through my rigging, but something was wrong, the sails were flogging wildly. Just as my eyes were adjusting to the blackness, a flash of lighting illuminated the night, and on the horizon, I saw a great bulk of a ship. The next second the thunder rolled, but there was another noise, my radio. I could just make out a staticky voice over the rumble of the thunder, “small sailboat” it said, “we may have collided with you,” crackle crackle, “changing course,” crackle crackle, “coming back to get you”

Well, that explains it, I thought, and I grabbed my ditch bag to await rescue.

I've Never Done This Before

 

I’m an avid listener of beeps; the pling-plongy ones that periodically sound over the announcement system on an airplane. My underlying fear of flying, coupled with far too much air travel means I’ve deciphered the secret code used by the pilot to communicate with the crew. I know how many plongs signal it’s safe for the flight attendants to get up; I know how many plongs signal it’s safe to begin the beverage service, and I know the sequence of plongs I just heard probably means there’s something wrong, because I’ve never heard that many plongs, in that sequence, before. The other clue, of course, was the rather panicked look on the flight attendant’s face when as she talked on the galley phone that connects to the cockpit. Sure enough, the fasten seatbelt sign came on, another plong.

Next came the announcement over the intercom, totally vague of course. There was something wrong with the plane, we were going to make an emergency landing. Everyone make sure your seatbelt is fastened tight and all your stuff is stowed away so it doesn’t fly about the cabin and take off the head of the lady in 14 B.

I wondered if the oxygen masks would drop down. And if they did, would I remember how to put mine on? How many times had I ignored that demonstration? And what about the life vest? Was it under my seat? Oh wait, we weren’t flying over water. I couldn’t remember where we were going, but it defiantly wasn’t over water.

Time seemed to be passing incredibly slowly, but the plane still felt normal, so far. Finally, I mustered the courage to look out the window, past the woman whimpering in the seat next to me. It appeared that the ground was still the appropriate distance away. I began to breathe a sigh of relief, but of course, right at that moment, the plane tilted alarmingly forward. I looked down the aisle, toward the cockpit, which now seemed to be downhill from my seat. I turned away quickly, and met the eyes of the older lady sitting across from me. Not the whimpering one, but the one on the other side. This one was not whimpering. In fact, she looked impossibly calm. As our eyes met, she gave me a warm smile, and said “Is this your first plane crash, dear?”

“What?” I responded, but my reply was drowned out by a new, loud beeping. Another one I’d never heard before. Only I had heard it before. It was the sound of my alarm. I looked back towards the whimpering woman, but instead of her crumpling face I saw my bedside table. I flailed my arms out and smacked the alarm. I couldn’t see what time it was, because my vision was blurry, my eyes still focused inward on the ground drawing ever closer out the airplane window in my dream, but that was okay, because it was just a dream. Oh thanks goodness, it was just a dream. 

I Told You So

 

Photo by ArrImAPirate (that's me!)

The door slammed and I counted. One, two three steps across the hollow wooden landing, five down the first flight of stairs, and five more down the second. It should have been six, but the last step was concrete and didn’t make a sound when size thirteen shoes stomped down in anger.

Next was the car door, another slam. He must've really been made because he babied that car. A second later the engine roared to life, and with a squeal of the tires he was gone. Part of me thought he would just circle the building and come back, but a few minutes later the only sound I heard was the chirping of the birds singing summer’s song, and I knew he wouldn’t. Not for a while at least.

Okay, so I had to know though. For when he got back. I had to prove I was right. I sprung up from my moon and star blanket draped futon and strode across the tiny living room of our brand-new apartment, and into the bedroom, where the computer sat on a thrifted flat pack desk, shoved in the corner. I shimmied around the bed and slid into the dining room chair that had been repurposed as a computer chair. It didn’t matter, my dining table only had space enough for two. And for those that are counting, that meant I still had one extra dining room chair. It sat on the front porch, next to the camping chair that had a rip in it’s nylon seat. The same front porch he had just stomped across to leave after our first big fight. The same front porch we had been enjoying every balmy Colorado summer evening for the first week after we’d moved into our first apartment together.

I wondered if we’d be sitting out there again tonight, sipping our sun tea and laughing about this incident. Oh, or maybe he would get one of his friends to buy a six pack of beer for us. Maybe that's what he was out doing, as a peace offering. I wondered when he would come back.

I shrugged away the thought, turned on the monitor, and waited for the computer screen to flicker to life. After it did it lit up the dark cave of our bedroom, and I clicked the icon for Internet Explorer. I was so glad the apartment had Ethernet, and I didn’t have to wait for the computer to dial up to get online. Next, I typed: https://www.askjeeves.com. The familiar yellow screen loaded, and I entered my question “Is the Great Wall of China the only man made object you can see from outer space?”

I clicked on the first website, read a few sentences, and shit, I pressed the back button and went to the next website, then the next, and the next. Well fuck, they all said the same thing!

With a sigh, I closed the web browser, turned off the computer screen, and slunk back to the futon to wait for him to return. I couldn’t believe it, our first real fight, and I was wrong.

It's Happening Again

 

Photo by ArrImAPirate (that's me!)

It’s sunny in the kitchen, too sunny. The pleasant warm glow of my vision begins to redden and I realize too late that I don’t have enough time to make it to the couch. The best I can do is try and sit down on the wooden floor so I don’t hit my head on the sharp corner of my fake granite countertop again.

The first thing I noticed after I woke up was the pleasant warm glow of late afternoon sunlight had been replaced by a harsh glare. Overhead neon lights. Gingerly I turned my head to the side, checking for any signs of injury. I seemed to be fine, but the crowd of beeping machines that entered my field of vision told me I was in the hospital. The next step was to try and sit up, to try and further assess what had landed me here, but as I did a familiar voice came from the other side of my bed, and a hand, big, warm, gentle, urged me to stay laying down.

“Hi Charlie” I whispered, “am I okay?”

“Well, nothings broken.”

The room was silent for a moment, aside from the rhythmic beeping that let me know my heart was still doing its job.

“I went time traveling again.” I said finally.

“Yes, I found you on the kitchen floor.”

“Mmm,” I paused for a moment, trying to catch my breath, “it came on too quickly. Sure would be nice if I could learn to control it.”

“Yes, well.”

“I don’t remember where I went yet, but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

“Don’t push it, you should try and rest.”

“You’re right, it takes a lot out of me.”

I don’t know how long my eyes had been closed, but I was still awake when the doctor came in the room. They obviously thought I was asleep, though. I wasn’t, I heard everything. My husband reassuring the doctor I wasn’t in need of a psych evaluation after the nurse I wasn’t aware of was in the room and overheard our time travel conversation. The doctor reassuring my husband that my little kitchen tumble hadn’t done any permanent damage. And of course, that other thing.

I opened my eyes after the doctor left, and found Charlie staring at my face, his big blue eyes shadowed by worry.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it. “I still can’t remember where I traveled to this time,” I tried to force a smile.

“Sarah?”

“Yes”

“Can you please just stop? Didn’t you hear the doctor?”

“Yes” I whispered.

“So you know, there is nothing else they can do. You have to start taking this seriously Sarah.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t!”

“But Sarah, you have cancer.”

“No, I’m a time traveler, now leave me alone!”

I turned away, so Charlie couldn’t see the tears threatening to betray me, and waited for the sound of the door clicking shut to let me know I was alone.

 

 

You Promised You Wouldn't Tell

 

Photo by ArrImAPirate (that's me!)

I met the man of my dreams at a malt shop. And no, it wasn’t 1965, the Malt Shop was a speakeasy at the back of this bar, but that doesn’t matter. What matters was how perfect he was. Perfect hair, the color of molten honey, beautiful blue eyes, an enchanting smile, and he could run really fast. That last part I wished wasn’t true.

Mr. Perfect asked me out to dinner and a movie. I know, a bit of cliché, but we did meet in a malt shop. It was a perfect spring night. The air was kissed with the promise of the summer to come, the kind of evening meant for a stroll, which we did, because the movie theater was only two blocks from the restaurant.

At the theatre we decided to share a large popcorn and a box of M&Ms, which I thought was a good sign. We each got our own drink though. Apparently, we had meandered a bit too slowly, because when we got into the theatre, the movie had already started. Luckily it was nearly empty inside, finding seats wasn’t a problem. I scootched as close as I could to my date, without it looking like I was trying to be as close as I could to him.

The first thing I saw when I looked at the screen, in big yellow letters, like ten stories tall, was my ex’s name. With the words “directed by” hovering ominously just above. It couldn’t have actually been my ex though, right? Sure, he was a movie buff, but there were probably a lot of Beauregard Trascruxes in the world. The very next thing that came up was the name of the movie, “Surviving Sarah Stevenson.”

I must have made a noise, because Mr. Perfect was asking me what was wrong.

“Nothing, it’s just, that’s my name”

“Sarah, yeah, I know”

“No, my full name is Sarah Stevenson, and the director, Beauregard Trascrux, that’s my ex.”

It was at that moment I regretted not asking ahead of time what movie we were going to see.

Mr. Perfect started to respond, but then, the movie started, and the massive screen filled with the massive face of a woman who looked remarkably like me. Mr. Perfect gave me a half smile, and then he grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze, so that was something at least.

He let go of my hand when movie Sarah had a bit too much to drink and woke up with the fire department knocking down her door and a forgotten pizza smoldering in the oven. He moved as far away from me as he could in his seat when movie Sarah broke her potential future mother-in-law’s heirloom vase, and then tried to blame it on the dog. And he left when movie Sarah confessed that she still had naughty dreams about her high school boyfriend. Mr. Perfect didn’t come back, which was probably for the best, because I had no good way to explain all the things movie Sarah did.

I, of, course stayed until the end. I had to know just how much of our relationship was immortalized on film. I have an appointment with a judge to change my name next week. I never heard from Mr. Perfect again.