Further Into The Future!

Chapter 2

When I awoke a nurse's head was hovering in about the same place the child's was before. She had grey hair pulled back into a tight bun, but her skin was unwrinkled and a youthful pink color. She smiled when she noticed my eyes open.

"Hello, there," she said.

I rubbed my eyes and looked around confusedly. I was in a hospital room with white walls, white bed-sheets, and an opaque orb hanging from the ceiling that hummed as it bathed the room in chilly white light. I squinted my eyes while they adjusted to the brightness, and all I could see was a featureless white blob.

"How are you feeling?" the nurse asked as she lowered herself into a leather swivel chair that looked more comfortable than the bed I was in.

"My name is Laura," she said, pointing at her nametag.

My tongue made a clicking sound when I separated it from the dry roof of my mouth to speak.

"Can – can I have a drink of water?" I asked.

"Certainly," she said. She filled a paper cup at the sink and handed it to me. I swished the water around in my mouth until it was nice and wet again.

I handed the cone-shaped cup back to Laura and she refilled it. This time I swallowed it eagerly.

"You aren't a child," I said.

She laughed heartily, turning her head up to the ceiling and holding her stomach with her hand. "You are observant, sir. I am not a child."

She leaned forward and rested her hand on my shoulder. "I understand why that would come through your mind though, considering what brought you in here. That was one of the funniest stories I've ever heard in all my time working at this hospital. You must have run into an unusually rabid group of kids. The parents seemed embarrassed about it."

"Parents?" I said. "I didn't think they had parents."

She laughed. "Yeah, with that behavior it is a bit of a surprise."

I shook my head. "No, you don't understand. I just traveled through time here and I thought those kids and that mutant dog were part of a wild tribe."

Her eyes widened and she laughed again. "Well, this story just became even more interesting. I've never had the pleasure of treating a time traveler before. What time did you travel from, sir?" She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to make it clear she was humoring me.

"1949," I said.

"That was an interesting time." She nodded her head exaggeratedly. "But you don't look like a hippie."

"A hippie?"

A phone rang, and she got up from her chair and walked to the bare white wall across from my bed. She seemed to poke something with her hand – her back was turned to me, so I couldn't see what she was doing – then she started talking while she stared at the wall, which I found strange.

"Yes, I was just about to ask him. Yes, I know. Thank you. Goodbye."

She touched something with her hand again then returned to her chair. When she moved there was a picture of a man on the wall behind her, as if it were painted there. The picture quickly compressed itself into a black dot then disappeared.

"Sorry about that. Well, sir, I have a few questions to ask you, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all," I said, "but I'd like to ask some questions myself. What was that on the wall – "

"We can get to your questions later," she said, lifting a clipboard off the counter behind her and putting it on her lap. "I need to get your information. For some reason you aren't coming up in the database."