Flash-Fiction

FF1970

Yes, I wrote this because I am going through heartbreak, and I loved this fanfic

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The Right Time

Naomi ushered into her house, letting out a sigh of relief as the cold air conditioning hit her. She wasn't ready for the intense heat waves that were brought by the Orlando air, and she certainly wasn't used to it.

Sitting down, her mind drifted back to London. She used to despise the gloomy weather, the harsh rain, and the cold, but now she moved to somewhere with the opposite climate, she is starting to miss it.

You always want what you can't have.

She rolled her eyes as she sat up. Her back strained from brewing coffee 8 hours a day, her muscles sore and painful. There was a burning sensation, and it felt like a dagger was digging into her arm as she rolled her shoulder.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP

Naomi jumped in shock, eye bulging in bewilder.

Turning around, her eyes set on the maroon, old fashioned telephone that sat on an oak stool in the corner. It was ringing, and Naomi couldn't help but wonder who it was from.

Finger wrapping around the handle, she pulled the receiver to her ears. She pondered on why someone would know this number, and why they would want to call it.

She wasn't ready for what was to come.

"Oh Nick! You won't believe it! The Beatles are splitting up, and Apollo 13 is launching! This year is absolutely crazy!"

Naomi stood there in shock.

"Nick, NICK!!!"

On the other side of the line, the voice she heard was nothing like she had imagined-the voice was smooth. She had no words on how it sounded so velvety, like silk. It flowed so effortlessly into her mind, penetrating all her thoughts.

"Hello?"

Noami whispered, her voice so small she reckoned he wouldn't have heard her at all, it was like that silent chirp of a bird in a haunting, ethereal forest. Like the smallest laugh in a bustling city.

When she had no response, she kept talking.

"Didn't that happen 54 years ago? There have been multiple Apollo launches since the thirteen, and the beatles split a long time ago!" she asked, confusion bubbling inside of her. She furrowed her eyebrows, wondering how a man could be so behind.

"It's April 10, 1970. They just released their split; how could it be 50 years ago?" The voice over the line asked, not a twinge of lies in his words. They were so genuine; Naomi could do nothing but believe him.

She shook her head, disbelief, but at the same time awe ran through her, sending chills down her spine.

"It's April 10, 2024. Are you ok?" She shook her head. She had seen movies where people lose sense of time, or did they just find the spark to time travel?

"Dude, you're in the future!" The voice sounded so full of both shocks, and a twinge of excitement.

Naomi just hummed along, her brain racing to process the information.

"Well, I'm Charlie, Charlie Sampson."

"And I'm Naomi, Naomi Ward."

The two continued to chat every single day, as if a spark had ignited between them. They became closer, and their daily chats seemed to be the light of each other's day.

"Dude, I just used green paint to stick a picture of my hand in my house, the person who lives there in the future must be so confused."

Naomi raised an eyebrow, turning towards the green handprint that was faded, old, but still there.

She rushed upstairs, grabbing a tube of blue paint. Squeezing a blob onto her own hand, and printing it next to the one from the past.

"Well, I just added a new one next to yours."

It was undeniable, that there was something more than friendship, something along the lines of love.

They would admit that, of course, but the silences when they would cross the line were so profound that neither of them needed to say a word to express their feelings.

"I like you, wrong number."

"I like you too, old man."

But one of them was in the past, one of them stuck in the present. Could they really be in love if their love was never supposed to exist?

In present, away from the telephone, Naomi has been spending time with a gentleman, George. He would often carry a notepad, recording, or ticking of boxes of things that Naomi did, or said. It was slightly disturbing, but he was nothing less of a kind man that brought some sort of joy into Naomi's life.

One night, Naomi didn't his call.

She waited, and waited, pondering in her room.

She waited, and waited, for the sound of buzzing.

She waited, and waited, but nothing came.

"Noami, please, my father is in the hospital."

She rushed out of her door with a crying George, who quickly explained to her that his father had pancreatic cancer, and he had specially asked him to bring Naomi.

Why?

As Naomi silently walked towards the old man, who remined her of someone.

Someone who didn't call her that day.

"He did call you that day."

Naomi's head snapped up, her eyes widening at the words that the old man spoke.

"He never got a reply."

Thoughts raced through her, her rain rushing to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

"Take care of those flowers, wrong numbers."

He referred to the flowers that had just bloomed yesterday, and Naomi had shared with him over the phone.

Naomi rushed back home, but she was a step too late.

George had cut the cord.

She fell to her knees, tears rushing, gushing, down her cheek like pearls, like diamonds, like rain falling from the sky.

"Charlie did this, he planned this 50 years ago."

On the other end of the phone, Charlie tried to call her.

But he knew, he knew the cord would have been cut.

Fifty years apart, Charlie and Naomi loved each other.