TimePlagued

TimePlagued; chapter o2

Chapter Two.

 

May 1st, 2000.

Worst Morning of the Millennium

 

The middle-aged man next to me in bed is sound asleep; it’d be a wonder if he’d wake up to a bulldozer though those snores. However, his wife is very, very awake, and her shrill voice is soon bouncing off the walls of the cheap motel room. The acoustics here must be really terrible, I decide, because she sounds like she’s being dragged to Hell by her hair, rather than simply finding a small freak of a teenage girl in her bed. I’m not really sure what I was thinking, going to bed here instead of somewhere where I would be less likely to be found a year later, but she apparently doesn’t appreciate my lack of foresight in the least.

 

“Look, Ma’am, I’m really sorry. It’s a really long story, and I don’t know -”

She cuts me off by slapping me in the face. To be expected, sure, but painful nonetheless. I can’t help but grit my teeth and grab her wrists angrily before trying again.

 

“Just fricking hear me through, you stupid -”

She interrupts me with an even more painful reaction - that shriek of hers. If I thought the stinging sensation to my face was bad, my ears were nowhere near being prepared for this woman’s final assault.

 

And apparently, neither are her husband’s. The man wakes up with a start, and surprisingly, grabs at the woman before even glancing at me, the intruder.

 

“Martha, will you shut the hell up, please? If Henry hears you up here, he’ll wake up for sure! Is that what you want, Martha? Do you want us to be frickin’ found out for good? Well, do ya?”  By the way he’s slurring, it’s obvious that he’s drunk, and his words suggest that he is not, in fact, Martha’s legal beau. How awkward for me. To be sent into the future and land in the midst of a scandal. 

 

“H-H-Howard she’s hurting me!” Martha whines, and Howard’s attention is finally turned to me. His eyes widen, and for a second, he looks much younger than the 30+ year old he probably is. He doesn’t look like a drunken adulterer, just an innocent kid with soft blonde hair and angelic blue eyes who just saw a dead cat in the road for the first time. It makes me wonder, first, if people are ever even changed by time in the first place, and secondly, whether or not the life I live has made me completely insane. And then, in an instant, his features contort from bewilderment to rage.

 

Before I have the chance to dodge him, I’m wrenched away from Martha, and pulled off the bed by my right arm. Howard’s pulling me out of the room, and I manage to keep halfway on my feet, stumbling after him as we make our way down the hallway. We look like some twisted circus act, dancing down the hall. Harold can’t shut up, and the noise brings an audience out - poking their heads through the doorways one by one - to see the show.

 

Together, this balding mess of a man and I make quite the entrance into the lobby, but  the man at the front desk doesn’t seem to appreciate our grandeur. He’s a stranger to me, and I’m confused for an instant over Mr. Franklin’s disappearance.  I can’t help but figure that he’s dead. This new guy looks enough like him to be a grandson or something (same muddy hair color, same greasy shirt, same perpetual frown), somebody to inherit the legacy. Some legacy.

 

Harold’s so mad he can hardly speak coherently, and me, I just blink absently at Mr. Franklin 2.0, too occupied with finding my center of gravity and avoiding being thrown around like a rag doll as Harold flaps those arms of his around to come up with an excuse.