Slipping Through Time

When in Rome, I Get Lost

I woke up and the first thing I noticed was that my head ached. I had fallen asleep to the feeling of hitting my cool, cotton pillow and slowly easing off into the night. But when I woke up, I felt something sharp digging into my skull. I quickly jerked up, leaning on my left hand, only to flinch as it touched crumbly dirt. My eyes quickly widening, realization hit me. I was outside. The sun's rays blinded me, seeming to pierce into my brain. Had I sleepwalked outside? But there were no dirt patches in my yard.

Squinting, my eyes struggled to focus on the blindingly bright world I was waking up to. The first thing that struck me as odd was the sharp chill dancing on the morning wind. The second was the angry man standing above me. It wasn't the man that shocked me; if I had sleep-walked into someone's yard, I would expect him to be a little ticked off. What surprised me was that this man was in full armor, with a heavy calvary sword hanging from his belt and reins in his hands, dragging a caramel colored horse behind him.

"Um, hello?" I mumbled, shivering slightly in the brisk weather.

"Get off the ground, peasant," the man roared. My friends and I called each other peasants all the time, but this wasn't in the same playful manner. His voice was laced with disgust and contempt.

"Sorry. Where am I?" I mumbled. I was squinting to look at him and could barely make out his angry face in the bright light.

"Stop playing ignorant! Stand up!" The soldier yanked his sword out of his sheath and pointed it down at me.

"Okay, dude. I get it," waving my hands in surrender. This guy was seriously rude. When I stood up, the sun no longer aimed at my face, the blood in my veins turned to ice. I was no longer in my suburban neighborhood in the middle of Missouri, with pristine green yards and large, structured brick houses. Instead, I was standing on a dirt road lined with crooked buildings of large, bumpy bricks. And there was a man dressed as a Roman soldier standing in front of me.

But no time to analyze my surroundings; I needed to deal with the angry man with the sword pointed at my chest.

"Whoops, sorry. Sometimes I'm a little disoriented when I wake up." I started to slip around him to an alley I spied between two buildings across the street. But the dirtbag soldier swung his arm to the side, barring my path with his sword.

"Who are you? And why were you sleeping outside? You are disrupting the town. And you should be with your family. Are you a nomad? No one is allowed free passage into Rome. Homeless wanderers are taken straight to jail,"

"Oh, no. I just took a walk and fell and I'll just be going-" Again, I tried to sneak around him, going faster this time, but then I felt a gloved hand roughly yank on my hair and whip my head back.

I jerked my head to the left to see a sword pointed at mine.

"Your suspicious behavior has earned you an interrogation and night in a cell," the soldier exclaimed harshly. He had dropped his horse's reins to trap me and his hand other trembled with sword, as though he yearned to thrust and send it flying through my body. I had never seen such violent passion in someone before. "I suspect a runaway slave."

I pulled against his hold, but with no result. My heart was racing and I had no idea where I was. The outlook was slim. Either I submit and get tossed in jail in this rustic town, or I get violently impaled.

"I, um," I stuttered. Am I being kidnapped? He seemed way too serious to be a crazy kidnapper.

"You better have some answers when we get to the court," he yelled in my ear, with so much force that his spit sprayed on my cheek. He stank of sweat and grime, like he hadn't showered in weeks. He could seriously use like five sticks of deodorant.