Getting Up: Finding My Way Back in a Flash, 2011-2014

Time Travel and Love Undone

***

Sonic Theory
Mark covered Jane's mouth with his own and pinched her nose. The rip had tossed her body into the surf. Her head was submerged when he pulled her upright. The salt water clogged and stopped his watch. He blew air into her depressed lungs. He felt the crack of time moving behind him and watched it dissipate into a haze of static. The blue tinge around her lips pinked up. He did chest compressions until she started to vomit up the seawater. He turned her on her side and rubbed her back until she found her voice.
Jane rolled into his chest. "How...am I dead?...Mark..."
Mark saw figures moving along the beachhead in front of him. "Jane...trust me now...we gotta go, baby...can you stand?"
Jane heard the sounds of yelling and whipped her head around. "What's happening?"
Mark dragged her to the horse. "Lab rats baby...they're gonna kill us both if we don't get to Roanoke."
The sonic gun pulsed a wave behind his head. It opened a hole in the air that tried to suck them in like a vacuum. Jane screamed and vaulted up onto the horse using Mark's handhold. More blasts erupted on either side of their escape route.
He shouted over the screaming wind. "The rip they created, grabbed us in Afghanistan and threw us out in Roanoke. Those idiots have fired enough holes in the air that it's circulating along the beaches on this side. Somehow they have figured out how to open up the planes of time, and they don't like the fact that I'm here with them."
Mark pulled up the horse and watched the air. "Jane, I couldn't help it when I saw you...don't hate me for bringing you through."
Jane grabbed the lapels of his flight jacket. "Where are we Mark?"
Mark watched the Afghani scientists adjusting switches. They were a half-mile down the beach.
Mark rubbed his eyes and faced Jane. "North Carolina, 1587."

***

Mid-Morning Clouds

Miranda rocked slowly and watched the butterflies spin over the tufts of grass. She tucked her left arm behind her head and gazed at the mid-morning clouds. A copy of "Lacey's Interlude" lay in her lap. Her husband sold real estate. Their children attended day school. Their gardener mowed the grass beyond the garden. Every turn, he pretended not to see her.
Miranda kicked her flip-flops off and twisted her toes around the dandelions beneath her feet. Her button-down print dress hung loosely just above her knees. She picked up the book and pretended to read. Those mid-morning clouds kept drifting by. The mower spun closer and louder. His dark hair dipped up and down on the other side of the rose bushes.
Her cell phone rang. She picked it up. Her husband gave complete instructions that dinner was to be ready for 10 guests before 4 p.m. She protested that the cook was away. He quietly told her it was possible for her to pretend to be a gourmet for the day. They both clicked end.
Miranda smiled to herself. Catering was but a chirp away. The children wouldn't be home until 3:00, and sent to their rooms for independent study. Her husband worked three hours away. The gardener rode by in front of her. The mid-morning clouds were her friends.
The gardener stopped in front of Miranda, stepped toward her, and kissed her soundly.
Miranda's husband sat in his car with an unobstructed vantage point. He had ten, high-resolution telephoto shots in a manila envelope on the dash. His children read to themselves in the backseat.
Those mid-morning clouds turned their backs on Miranda.

***

City Romance

The frost-covered windows of the library obscured the bleak outside. I slouched further into a cloth chair with my paper, doing mental jumping jacks, getting grouchier as the minutes stretched past the half-hour mark, my brunch partner late.
I made the effort today. Lipstick. I never wore it much. A shorter skirt. Well into my forties, the thighs were heavier, but my legs still held their glamour.
I put the publication down and just watched the other patrons move between the stacks. Some sat apart at wooden tables, writing, studying, absorbing words into their systems, leaving their bodies for other worlds and situations, far away from the madness of being routine and stagnant.
I rifled my purse for a tissue and wanted to leave. I made this plan and now that it had not materialized, I faced my sadness every time someone different pushed through the double front doors.
I felt like that world quilt, cut-up squares of every place and every person I had been prior to sitting alone in this library. I compared each square and the sum total made it all seem worse. I wanted so much to leap out of the constraints of that quilt and make a mark where I could breathe, and not keep running for the darkness.
I stepped out into the street. The noise, cars slushing around corners, even some jerk peeing on the sidewalk a block over made me feel better in a way. Not so lonely.
I felt a tug at my sleeve and looked up into polar blue eyes, short thick blond hair, a grinning reddened mouth with a hint of mustache. Not the one I had been waiting for.
"Hi, I'm Michael. You look cold. Wanna walk with me?"
I laughed. "I'm Alice. It's freezing. Where's your coat?"
He punched at the air. "It's how I stay in shape, a man battling the elements kind of thing."
I let him take me under my arm. "I would say it's more like I don't have a coat thing."
He chuckled. "Wanna get some coffee? I see you in there sometimes, a lot of times actually. I like you." He got uncomfortable and looked away, far off.
"That would be great." I said.
Not the one I had been waiting for.