The Palanquin Ride

“Are we out of the town yet?”

The muffled voice from inside the enclosed palanquin startled the palanquin bearers. It was sweet and lilting – that of a young girl in her earliest spring, approaching the cusp of bursting into blossom.

The two bearers were brothers. The younger one in front, Dae-Ho, hesitated before finally answering: “Yes, mistress. We have left your town and are now on the main road to Seosan.”

The older, sterner brother, Dae-Hyun, who bore the palanquin from the rear, registered his disapproval in the way he ever-so-slightly altered the cadence of his loping stride, so that Dae-Ho’s own rhythm was jarred.

The voice spoke again: “Are there many people on the road? Are there warriors in shining armor marching? Are there merchants on caravans bearing wondrous cargo? Are there noblemen in silk robes and tall hats riding on horses?”

Dae-Ho glanced at the old man they were passing, who was shuffling forward slowly, bent over by the bale of hay on his back. In the distance, up the dusty road in front of them, were three or four peasants walking the opposite way, towards them.

Dae-Ho said, “No, mistress. There are not very many people traveling at this hour.”

“Oh,” the girl said, that one utterance freighted with disappointment. After a mile or so had passed, she spoke again, hopefully: “Are we passing groves of cherry trees with pink flowers? Can you see castle walls with banners waving? Are there snow-capped mountains in the distance?”

Dae-Ho’s eyes swept through the rice paddies that quilted the countryside, the farmers’ hovels huddled at the foot of the modest hills to the south, the spindly trees and brush that lined the road. “No, mistress. We are in a poor, quiet part of the country.”

From behind, Dae-Hyun’s gruff voice rumbled, “Dae-Ho, be quiet.” Then, in a softer, subservient tone: “Mistress, we beg your pardon. My brother is young and impertinent – and should know better than to address one of his betters with such familiarity.”

A cheerful laugh sounded from within the palanquin. “Oh, there is nothing to forgive. He was only answering my questions.” Then, in a more somber tone: “It’s just that I’ve never been outside of my father’s house, much less outside our town. This is the first time I am traveling anywhere. But I cannot see anything from inside here and only wished to know what there is in the world outside.”

Dae-Hyun looked at the swaying tassels of the fringe that lined the palanquin and obscured its air holes. He had not considered it before, but inside the box, the girl was in darkness, her legs doubled over and wrapped in the tight binding of the silk gown that someone of her station wore; she would barely be able to move. Inside, the air must be hot and stifling. For an instant, Dae-Hyun’s chest constricted, and once again, the brothers’ rhythm was interrupted with a slight jolt.

The girl continued to speak: “Once I am brought to the widow Lady Choe’s household, there I will likely remain for years – perhaps even for the rest of my life.”

A silence fell. Then, to Dae-Ho’s surprise, his older brother asked a question: “You are to be married into the Lady Choe’s house, mistress?”

“Perhaps someday. For now, I am to be her handmaiden and companion, to keep her company in her old age. She has sons, but she also has many handmaidens for her sons to choose from. I am sure all of them are prettier than me.” She went on: “She is very rich, you know. My mother said that her compound covers an entire city block in Seosan. And there I will stay, for as long as she wills it, just as I have always been confined in my father’s house.

“My father was once a rich merchant himself, but he has fallen into difficult times. He has had to sell off his property little by little to keep my family’s station. Most of his land, most of his warehouses and goods. And now me.”

Dae-Hyun thought back to when he and Dae-Ho had entered the merchant’s courtyard earlier that morning to pick up the palanquin. The merchant’s wife was weeping, the merchant himself was stone-faced. Their servants were shutting the palanquin’s hatch and the overseer was locking it up with an iron lock. The brothers had not even caught a glimpse of the girl; she was already inside the palanquin when they arrived. The overseer, who had hired them for the job of bearing the palanquin, went to them with instructions, warnings, threats: the brothers were to bring her to Seosan directly; they were not to stop on the road; they were to protect the cargo – the girl – with their lives. Any failure on their part would mean flogging and imprisonment – and eternal dishonor to their families.

Dae-Hyun ventured, “You must be sad to leave your family.”

She said quietly, “Yes.” And after a pause: “And afraid of going to live with strangers I have never even met. What – what if they are cruel?”

Then she said, wistfully: “If only I could see out. I have never seen anything outside of my father’s house and garden. All I know of the world comes from the stories I am told and the paintings on our walls. What wonders must be out there!”

Dae-Hyun scanned the poor landscape about him. “Well… there are no noblemen or castles presently, but we are coming to a bridge.” And indeed, they were approaching a small, wooden bridge that spanned across a small creek.

“Oh, oh!” the girl said excitedly. “What does it look like? Is it made of marble?”

Dae-Hyun hesitated. It was Dae-Ho who answered: “No, mistress. It is made of silver and gold. Oh, how it blinds me!”

They crossed the bridge. Dae-Hyun hoped that the girl did not know difference between the sound of footsteps on wood from that of footsteps on metal.

“What else do you see?” the girl said. “Oh, please be my eyes.”

Dae-Hyun looked up in the sky. A crow was making its way from one tree to another, cawing as it flew. He said, “An eagle, mistress, flying high in the air, with wings spread as wide as… well, as wide as a dragon’s wings.”

“Oh!” the girl said, her voice filled with delicious fright. “Are we in danger? Will it swoop down and snatch the palanquin and carry me away?”

Dae-Ho said quickly, to allay her fears: “Oh, no, mistress. This kind of eagle only eats barley.”

“Oh? I have never heard of an eagle eating barley.” She sounded confused – and a little disappointed.

After a moment, Dae-Hyun said, “My younger brother is trying to assuage your fears – or else he is ignorant. This kind of eagle can carry off cattle, if it can swoop on them unawares. Do not lie to the mistress, Dae-Ho.”

“But surely it will not swoop down on us?” The note of excitement and fear had returned to her voice.

Dae-Ho said, “Do not worry, mistress. Your father’s overseer gave us spears to protect you with. We will keep the eagle away if it flies near.” After a moment, he added, “Please excuse my misleading you before. I did not want you to be frightened.”

“Please, I quite understand. I trust that you will keep me safe. Please tell me: what else do you see?”

“Umm…” The two brothers cast about. They saw a rabbit start at their approach and turn and run into its burrow. Dae-Ho said, “Mistress, you must be quiet now. We are approaching a cave where it is rumored a dragon sleeps.”

Dae-Hyun whispered, “Even our spears would be useless against such a beast. Our only hope is to walk softly by.”

The palanquin closed into itself in silence, a heavy, palpable thing. After the brothers had carried the palanquin some distance, Dae-Ho said, “We are safely past the cave now, mistress.”

A loud gasp of relief came from the palanquin. The palanquin itself seemed to lighten with the release of fear. She said, “Oh, you must be such brave men to court such dangers.”

The two brothers smiled. Dae-Hyun said, “Oh, not so brave. Everyone faces such things daily.”

“What else is around us?”

After the dangers they had put her through, the brothers sought to describe to her more pleasant things: an enormous temple with sweeping roofs far away that thousands of people visited each day; a forest of mulberry trees, their branches heavy with black fruit; a river laden with boats carrying precious jewels and exotic spices; mountain peaks that reached almost into the clouds. And as they approached Seosan at midday and the traffic began to get heavy and noisy, they were able to give her the noblemen and warriors and merchants she had desired. Once in the city, they conjured through their words the castles and banners she had asked for.

In time, they came to the house of the Lady Choe of Seosan. The large wooden gates opened and they were admitted into the courtyard, where they were finally able to lay down the palanquin and stretch their sore arms and legs. The lady herself came out and stood on the porch entrance, accompanied by servants and her steward, who had the duplicate key to the palanquin’s lock. Dae-Ho and Dae-Hyun glanced at each other, then frantically looked around the courtyard. They saw a stack of bamboo off to the side by the wall. They went to the stack and each grabbed a pole. The steward looked at them in surprise, as if he thought they had gone mad, then went to the palanquin and proceeded to unlock it.

Servants swung open the latch and helped the girl out. She was a tiny thing; she could not have been more than twelve or thirteen. She swayed as she stood up and hung on to the servants for support. Even as she blinked in the sunlight, she looked not at the lady, who was smiling down at her from the porch, but around the courtyard, as if she was searching for something.

Despite their fatigue, Dae-Hyun and Dae-Ho straightened their backs and stood up their bamboo poles alongside their bodies – like flagpoles, like spears. The girl saw them standing at attention as if they were soldiers and smiled. Then the servants closed in around her and brought her up the steps to the lady, and they all went inside the house, leaving the steward to show the brothers out the gate.

(May 2013)

Mirror, Mirror

Sophie was having a hard time getting out of bed. In an endless stream of blah days, she just knew this one was going to be extra blah.

“Duenna,” she said to the air, “a pick-me-up, please. I’m feeling low this morning.” Nothing seemed to happen, though she knew the appropriate meds were being released into her bloodstream from the pharma implant inside her. Had her despondency been more severe, Duenna would have administered the correctives automatically. In any case, the meds took effect and seemed to help. Enough, at any rate, to enable her to get up.

She shuffled to the wall along her bedroom. “Duenna, full length mirror,” she said. A rectangular shape appeared on the wall before her, a reflective surface.

She looked at the woman who looked morosely back. A shade under six feet tall, wavy blonde hair that welled up from the widow’s peak on her forehead and flowed all the way to the middle of her back. Green eyes; smooth, pale skin. Perfect figure; flawless face. She looked about twenty-two (or what people way back when would have judged to be twenty-two) – but then everyone in the world looked about twenty-two. And she knew her stats. Her body was so close to the norm – deviation typically ranging from 0.9 to 1.2 – that there was only one word to sum up her appearance.

Plain.

Her sleep gown dissolved and cycled into the carpet. She stood before herself naked. Her body was unembellished except for a mobile tattoo along the side of her neck: a white, downy feather whose fuzz seemed to flutter every now and then in a changeable breeze. Her single affectation.

“Perhaps you’d like to wear something different today, Sophie?” Duenna’s disembodied voice asked hopefully.

“No, Duenna.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps morphing clothes?” A shape-shifting, multi-hued body suit appeared on her reflection. “Some holographic accessories?” Abstract shapes began hovering behind her head. “Living cosmetics?” Moss blush sprung up on the side of her face.

Sophie waved them away impatiently. The accouterments vanished, revealing her nondescript self again. “Just the usual.”

Tendrils sprouted from the wall beside the mirror and waved about Sophie’s body, assembling her outfit. For a minute she seemed lost in a haze. Then the tendrils retracted into the wall, taking the haze with them, and she emerged wearing a simple black frock coat over turquoise tights. She slipped into the sandals that had been set on the floor before her.

Duenna sighed. “I understand how wearing the same thing day in and day out might have been a novelty at first, but you’re starting to worry me. There are so many things you can do to make your appearance stand out.”

“And it’ll be just plain old me under the crap. There’s no covering up the reality of my ordinariness.”

“There is so much more to you than…”

“Duenna, please. I’m invisible. Everyone in the world looks the same. All the women are my height, my body shape, my proportions. All the men are six-foot-four and chiseled. Everyone looks the same age.”

“Oh, you’re exaggerating. There’re still a lot of differences in people.”

“Sure, sure. My friend Luisa might be six-one. The woman next door might be an inch and a half shorter. You know as well as I do that the range of physical variation in people has all but vanished over the years.”

“It’s an understandable progression. It’s a convergence to the optimum. All parents want their kids to have an optimal balance of traits, including physical features.”

“It’s a convergence to banality. All parents want their kids to be like everyone else – because they’re afraid they might stand out and be outcast. So they have them engineered and modified to an ever-narrowing standard.”

Sophie continued, “I even read somewhere that given the continued mixing of the gene pool, skin tones will finally blend to the same brownish hue in a couple of generations.”

“Well, that’s certainly one way you’re different. Not very many people retain your white complexion.”

Sophie shrugged. “So my family didn’t have the openmindedness to breed outside their race. A very small distinction.”

“But that’s why people wear different things: to mark their individuality. I keep encouraging you to try on something new, maybe even consider some surgical alterations, or cybernetic augmentation…”

“I’d be just another freak in a city of freaks desperately trying to disguise their insipidness. I just get depressed when I walk down the street and see all the grotesqueries that people have on them. No, thanks.”

“Sophie, perhaps I should schedule another therapy session for you with a psychiatric AI. It seems clear your body issues are getting worse again.”

“No, Duenna. Eighteen years of therapy is quite enough for me.” She bit her lip, trying to stanch the desperate need that suddenly gushed within her. “Duenna, perhaps you could… could you show me some… some historical videos again? Maybe even just a few photographs? From, say, the early twenty-first century?”

“No, Sophie. I’m prevented by your psychiatric protocols. You know how you get when you look at those images. And you’re just confirming my concerns.” Years before, Sophie had fallen into a rather pernicious addiction, in which she spent months on end perusing images of people from the distant past, fixating on the dizzying variety of their shapes, sizes, colors, and even imperfections, blemishes, deformities. She had to undergo therapeutic intervention to be weaned away from her obsession.

Sophie knew that Duenna was adjusting her meds again, for the overwhelming desire slowly faded away. But that didn’t stop the mind from thinking.

“Duenna, what would have happened if I hadn’t been modified when I was conceived? What would I have been like?”

“Probably not much different. You weren’t modified very much. The genes in your line have been cleaned of flaws and abnormalities for generations. You had very few imperfections to adjust.”

“Enhancements were made by my parents, though. They wanted me to have a creative personality, an aesthetic sensibility, so they had the potential for those traits incorporated into my genes.”

“Among others, yes.”

Sophie wondered again if those genes hadn’t manifested themselves in her deep, lifelong yearning for authenticity and uniqueness – and if the impossibility of finding expression for those desires wasn’t the source of her doleful temperament. “What would I have looked like?”

“Oh, that would require specialized programming for genetic profiling and projection. To forecast one’s physical appearance from embryonic gene sequences requires…”

“Can you download the programming?”

“Yes.”

“Please do so. And then show me what I would have looked like.”

There was a pause as Duenna accessed the necessary capabilities. Then Duenna said, “Here’s your probable physical appearance extrapolating from your embryonic genome prior to genetic modification.”

Her living reflection was replaced by a naked, frozen image. She looked the same. She didn’t look very different at all, though Sophie imagined some subtle change in the curve of her jaw.

“What if my parents also hadn’t been modified? Can you extrapolate my physical appearance then?”

Duenna hesitated. “Yes.”

“Show me, please.”

A longer pause. Then the image cleared and reappeared, and the changes were more perceptible. Her hair was thicker and darker, her eyes set wider, her shoulders a little more rounded.

Sophie frowned. “Duenna, let’s go all the way. Assume that none of my progenitors had undergone any modifications. Pretend that genetic engineering had never been invented, and my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and so forth had produced offspring the old-fashioned way – helter-skelter, subject to the vagaries of genetic chance – and ended up with me, except a version of me that would have been completely free of all genetic alterations. What would I have looked like?”

“Sophie, that would be incredibly complex. You’re talking about going back five and six generations to find your progenitors who were first modified. The further back I go, the more uncertain the calculations become. It’s not as if gene mapping and extrapolation are perfect sciences. Mutations, environmental factors, medical interventions, any number variables make the answer indeterminate.”

“Can you make a best guess?”

“Well, yes. As long as you understand the limitations.”

“I understand.”

This time, the pause stretched to minutes. Sophie had sat down on her bed to wait and was about to inquire when Duenna finally said, “It’s ready.” Sophie stood back up to face the mirror. But only her reflection showed within it.

Sophie said, “Well?”

Duenna replied, “Sophie, I’m a little hesitant to show it to you. Would it dissuade you if I told you that without genetic modifications over generations, the chances of genetic disorders would have increased significantly? You would have had a higher susceptibility in later life for diseases called rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, breast cancer, and a neurologic condition called chronic subdural hematoma. Moreover, clearing all modifications would mean voiding all longevity and aging-cessation enhancements.”

Sophie did waver, suddenly fearful. But she finally responded, “I’d like to see anyway.”

“As you wish. What age should I make the image?”

Again, she hesitated. “My age.”

“All right.”

A person appeared in the mirror, and Sophie gasped. The woman bore a family resemblance to her, but she was half a foot shorter, and stooped. Her hair was white, her face was fleshy and mottled and lined with wrinkles; her breasts sagged. She was stocky; her arms and legs were thick and round and blue-veined.

Duenna was momentarily stymied by the wild mix of hormones that surged through Sophie; it took a while to figure out the assortment of meds it would take to pacify the flood. And so for a minute or two, Sophie was free to weep her astonishment and awe and profound, profound grief.

“Oh, oh!” she cried. “I would have been so beautiful!”

(March 2013)

Fever

I hung back behind my mother and sister as we made our way to our den in the forest clearing. I did not know why. My belly was full from the night’s foraging; we were nearly home and about to be warm and safe underground. But something hot had made its way inside my body and was coursing through my veins, making my head swim, making my pulse thrum in my ears.

My mother turned towards me and said sternly, “What are you mucking about for? You’re slowing us down.”

“I’m – I’m thirsty,” I said. “I think I’ll go to the stream and have a drink.”

My sister Iris said, “You mean go to the stream and see that buck we saw earlier.”

“No, no…” I shook my head, both to deny my sister’s accusation and to shake away the cobwebs that spun themselves inside my head.

“Are you all right?” my mother asked.

I said, “I’m just really thirsty. I’m fine.” But my body belied my words. My hind legs gave way, trembling, and my forepaws slid flat on the ground, so that my belly kissed the cold earth. I closed my eyes and tried to push away the image of the buck from my mind.

* * *

My mother, Iris, and I had been clawing through a carpet of leaves and scraping under the mud for grubs under a stand of beech trees earlier that evening, in the gathering dusk, when we became aware of something approaching through the brush. My kind can barely see; more than a few body lengths away the world is a blur. But our noses and ears are keen, and, anyway, very few creatures will bother us for fear of the noxious stream we can spurt into their eyes. Nevertheless, my mother moved at once to put herself between us and the scratching, shuffling noises from the bushes. She sniffed the air for danger and raised her tail preemptively in warning.

Long before it appeared, we knew from its scent and the sounds that it made that the stranger was one of our kind. The undergrowth parted and he emerged, wary but curious. When he was close enough, I could see he was a yearling, sleek and strong, a self-assured, even brash air about him. The strip of white fur on his back caught the meager crepuscular light from above and made the air above him seem luminous.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” my mother said brusquely. The buck pulled up short.

“My name is Basil,” he said affably. “I mean no harm. I’m just passing through.”

“Pass on, then. You’re in our feeding ground.”

“Ahhh,” he said, and looked past my mother at me – and my breath caught in my throat. I felt frozen in place, the way I had been once when I was a kitten outside the den on a dawn forage with my siblings, when a white-tailed kite had swooped down and plucked one of my brothers and flown away with him. My mother had run up to us hissing her rage and despair, her tail shimmying in the air like a branch in a harsh wind – far too late to do anything.

My mother stepped between me and the buck, stamping her front paws, covering my view of him. “No,” she said to him in a menacing tone. “There’s nothing for you here.” I craned my neck to peer over her and saw the buck staring at her, his dark eyes almost lost in the blackness of his face. He shrugged, then turned to amble away in the direction of the stream. He disappeared into the gloom under the trees, like a dream.

* * *

Through the haze in my mind, I felt my mother’s nose nuzzling my snout as I lay shivering on the ground. I opened my eyes. Our eye locked, and for several long moments, we breathed each other’s breaths. There was no hiding from her gaze. I felt myself laid bare, like a dandelion whose seed heads had blown away in a breeze. And through her eyes, I saw what she saw; I saw myself as I was.

“Lily, you’re too young. You’re not even a yearling yet,” she said, hoping to forestall the truth.

“I’m not,” I answered back hotly. “I’m old enough. I’m ready.”

She continued to stare at me. Finally, she sighed. “Perhaps you are at that.” She lowered her eyes. She whispered, almost inaudibly, “I suppose I had hoped you wouldn’t grow up quite so soon. But no mother gets to keep her children young forever.”

All at once she had turned away and was nuzzling my sister homeward. She said back to me, “Be wary of owls. And be home at the den as soon as you can.”

* * *

I headed towards the stream, pulled by an ineluctable force, following my nose to the smell of water. I felt, in waves, frantic and preternaturally calm, so that I would sprint in stretches, then slow down to a more measured stride. Soon I heard the tinkling of the stream, and could whiff, over the scent of pine and water primrose, the strong musk of a skunk buck.

Basil was waiting for me in a patch of short grass by the stream. He had heard and smelled me coming. When I got close enough, I could see his black and white fur shining lustrous under the moonlight; I could see that he was grinning. “You followed me,” he said. It was all I could do not to swoon.

“Yes,” was all that I could say.

“Was that your mother earlier?”

“Yes.” I added, scrupulous, “And my sister.”

“Your mother’s quite fierce.”

“She’s very protective. There were nine of us in her litter when she gave birth last summer, but we lost my brothers and sisters one by one. So she does her best to keep us safe, now that there’s only Iris and me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It was a terrible winter. Sometimes, we couldn’t stir outside the den for days on end. You know the stupor we fall into when it gets really cold. Five of my brothers and sisters starved to death. They just got too weak to forage outside. My mother had to drag their bodies out, to keep the den clean.” I had swung from being tongue-tied to not being able to stanch the flow of words. “We couldn’t – there wasn’t enough food.”

“That’s really unfortunate.”

“Thank God it’s finally started to get warm and there’s enough food to be found.” All at once, I felt my face flush with embarrassment. Even though I had started to gain weight since the winter, I still felt thin and bony, especially now, beside Basil’s solid bulk. I wondered if he was making do with me tonight just because I was available. I wondered how many does he had already been with, if he hadn’t already sired other litters.

“I’m – my name is Lily,” I said, in connection with nothing.

Even as I kept up the spate of words, Basil had been nuzzling my rump, my flanks, and my back, sending shivers shooting from wherever his nose got through my fur to touch my skin. My eyes began to get heavy and slowly closed shut.

Valiantly, I tried to continue. “Iris almost didn’t make it either. She was the runt of the litter, which is why she’s so much smaller than me and not as… not yet mature. It’s surprising she survived when the others didn’t. Ohhh…” He had reached the back of my head; I could feel his warm breath on my neck.

“You’re very beautiful,” he murmured into my ear.

All of a sudden, he stopped and pulled away. I opened my eyes, puzzled. He was looking carefully behind me, and when I saw what he was looking at, I understood. My tail was standing straight up – of its own accord, for I had not even known it had done so until I saw it myself.

Basil turned to look at me, to make sure the gesture was an invitation and not a warning. When he saw that my eyes were heavy-lidded and slowly blinking, he smiled again and grasped my shoulders with his forepaws, his claws like talons digging into my skin, pinioning me. He swung on top of me, and I staggered and sagged under his weight. He mounted me, entered me, and I gasped, my mind flying away, flying like my brother taken by the hawk.

* * *

After an interminable time (the space of several breaths?), the beating of my heart began to slow down, began to fall into a deep, even rhythm. I felt something like a chill breeze waft inside me, a wet coolness that slowly washed away the fever. With a strength I didn’t know I had, I shrugged Basil off me.

He squatted beside me like a large squirrel, still grinning like a fool. He said, “I could stay around for a while. We can do it as often as you like till we know you’re carrying.”

I tilted my head to one side, frowning. Everything seemed suddenly different. The forest sounds had returned, but deeper, somehow more resonant; smells were drifting in more strongly than before. The very air seemed clear and charged. I could see through it to what was to be.

I said, “No, that was enough.”

“But just to be certain…” For once his confident demeanor slipped and his voice took on a tremulous tone.

I was already turning away from him. “No, I’m sure.” And I was. Even as I walked away, I felt that my legs were carrying a different body, a heavier one, assured in its certainty. “I would suggest that you get out of our feeding range by morning,” I said to Basil over my shoulder. “Or else my mother will come after you and spray you till you’re doused in it.” Not as a threat or warning, but just as something that was true.

* * *

My mother knew that I had changed the moment I entered our den that night. She could sense it in me, smell it in the dark, hear it in my heartbeat as it echoed in the close confines of the den. She said, shaken at the abruptness of my transformation, and without much hope, “You know you can stay and raise your litter here if you like. This is still your home.”

I touched noses with her. “I know. But I think it would be best if I moved away. There would be more food for my litter if I foraged in a different part of the forest.”

After a moment’s silence, she said, “Yes, of course.” Her grief was a living weight in the darkness, as if she was crouching over another dying child. She nuzzled Iris, who was soon to be the last one left to her – and who herself would be gone before long.

But I could not dwell much on this. Already my mind was reaching for the morrow. I wondered what direction I should take to find my own den. I began scratching my claws on a stone, sharpening them, in case I could not find a burrow ready made and would have to dig one for myself. I thought of the leaves I would gather and line my nest with. I thought of my kittens-to-be mewling in the leaves, looking up at me with blind eyes.

(April 2013)

Blasé

She gave up on the date three seconds after he came into the restaurant. There was just something so stylized and predictable about his entrance: the way he paused, swept the room nervously, saw her where she was sitting, mentally matched her to her online pics (which she just knew he’d spent hours clicking through), and broke into a grin (before he remembered to play it cool and dialed it down). Everything so unswervingly on cue that her brain immediately began shutting itself down.

As he made his way over, a familiar low buzz started in her head, muting the sounds of people chattering and cutlery clinking on plates. The light grew brighter and began to turn gauzy. She stood up and shook the hand he offered. “Jade, wow,” he said, his voice fading and reverbing, like he was climbing down a manhole. “So glad to finally meet you. You look great.”

She thought to herself, You, on the other hand, do not do your photos justice. It wasn’t that he was bad looking, but he exuded geek. Even from across the room she had caught a whiff of it. And just as she’d suspected, he was tubbier than his pictures had led on. She was confirmed as to why he mostly posted head shots.

All she said aloud, though, was “Evan, hi.”

They took their seats. Her thoughts turned viscous. The buzzing kept getting more insistent, until it crested some obscure tipping point, and she got up from her body and moved to one side, a few feet away.

The buzzing slowly faded away. She observed the scene: herself nodding and smiling noncommittally across the table; Evan starting in on his opening spiel. Yeah, I’m going to kill Courtney, she thought. Her overly solicitous roommate had taken it into her head to play matchmaker and had pushed this dork of a co-worker of hers on to Jade. Jade had given in to her nagging and included him in her online social circle, but that hadn’t satisfied her. Courtney got on her to respond to his messages, kept at her to say Yes to his invitations to meet. “Evan’s a great guy, Jade,” she’d said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to step out of your comfort zone now and then.” Which, okay, Jade had to admit was ironic. Worn down by her persistence, she’d finally agreed to have dinner with him.

Jade looked around the restaurant, antsy. She didn’t feel like staying and watching people stuff their faces, so she decided to wander around outside for a while. She waited until someone left and followed him out before the door swung shut. She went up the street, weaving between pedestrians who were not even aware she was breezing by past them.

So, yes, this was something she could do. Or rather, something that happened to her now and then, since it was not something she could control, exactly. She’d learned over the years that the buzzing and the blurring of her visual field were precursors to these out-of-body states, but she couldn’t will them to take place. It just happened that on certain occasions, when things were at their most soporific, she would get bored out of her skull – literally.

It had happened a lot at school. She’d be trying to follow the droning of her teachers, trying not to nod off, when she’d come awake upright beside where she was sitting on her desk. It scared her the first few times it happened, so that she immediately jumped back and re-occupied herself. But later on, she realized this was her chance to escape. She would take off and hang around the playground, or nap in an empty room. It made school a little less enervating, though of course the downside of her spectral absences was that she was always behind in her schoolwork. She’d barely managed to graduate high school.

It still happened, nowadays. Her job as a stock control clerk at a dental supplies wholesaler was so deadly dull (and beneath her, really; but she had to make a living somehow) that sometimes she found herself dispirited away from her cubicle. And so she’d bail, play invisible hooky, with no one the wiser. Again, price to pay: her performance reviews always just drifted above the passable minimums, and her employee file was littered with descriptors like “unfocused,” “inattentive,” “careless.” But what could she do when the place she was in was just so soul-numbing?

Anyway, she would never stay away for very long. After a while, being out of her body inevitably became even drearier than being in it. After all, she couldn’t really do anything in ethereal form. There was only so much diversion to be had hanging around playground swings she couldn’t swing on, or window shopping at stores near work that displayed things she couldn’t touch. She supposed she could have distracted herself in other ways, perhaps eavesdropped on people, but as she found most people vapid and tiresome, it didn’t seem worth the effort.

So, after about an hour of roaming, she finally got weary of the drab sameness of the streets and figured it was time to head back to herself and the tedium of her date. At the restaurant, she found that her body and Evan were just finishing dessert, forking the last bites of cake from a plate between them. She moved closer, but her body got up and went to the restroom, so she followed herself there.

Her body leaned over the sink to wash her hands. She hovered behind, preparing to re-enter herself, when her body looked up at the mirror, flashed a startled expression, and whirled around, facing her squarely.

“You!” her body cried. “You’re not getting back inside, not this time.”

Wha –? What? her mind jabbered.

“You think I don’t know how you skip out when things get tough?” her body demanded. “Well, you know what? I feel better when you’re gone, so how about you stay out from now on?”

Wait a sec –

“I’m tired of carrying you. I’m tired of feeling so apathetic all the time. I’m tired of coasting through life. I let you back in, you’ll make me blow off Evan, like I do every guy I meet, like I do everything in my life. Well, he’s actually kind of funny and sweet and smart – which you’d know if you’d stayed around. And things are not always as bad as you make them seem. So piss off!”

Dumbfounded, but moved by an impulse to take control before things spun out hand, she lunged forward. But her body twisted away and walked quickly out, looking back just once with an angry glare before slamming the restroom door behind her.

She stared at the door, stunned. She wanted to open it and go after herself, but she couldn’t turn the knob: her hand had no substance with which to grasp it. She would have to wait until someone else came in – but by then her body might be long gone.

After a while, the stupefaction diminished, allowing the full implications of her predicament to sink in.

Huh, she thought to herself. Well, this is interesting.

(March 2013)

The Spell of Opening

“You are more subtle than most,” the door whispered suddenly, breaking the concentrated silence. “Not very strong, but clever and patient. Nevertheless, are you certain you have removed all the traps and spells keeping out all who would enter through me?”

Samael pulled back his outstretched hand from the latch he had almost grasped. He stared in wonderment at the door, then took its words to heed and looked again with his wizard’s sight at the charms he thought he had unraveled and pushed apart.

Ah, there. He had missed it. Behind the door on one corner, crossing on the diagonal from top frame to side frame: a short filament of cobweb. It could barely be seen, and there was hardly any magic in the strand, but there was just enough so that if the door had opened and severed the filament, it would have let loose a dissolution spell that would have shredded him into dust motes the moment he crossed the threshold.

The layer upon layer of spells of warding and concealment and opposition and binding and abolition and extinguishment he had painstakingly teased and cast to the sides reasserted themselves, falling about the door like a heavy, deadly, shimmering curtain. The door was impenetrable once again. Samael’s shoulders slumped, pressed down by disappointment and failure and the fatigue of long effort.

All vigor seemed to drain from him then, though he drew enough from the dregs within him to maintain the lingering spell he had placed in the space around him and the door. The spell had changed the flow of time within that space; he had cast it at the beginning of his venture to give himself more time to contemplate the necromantic design of the barrier about the door and attempt to undo it, or to find some means of sidling through. He had spent many, long, frustrating hours reading the patterns underlying the spells, and had finally tried to part the veils, only to fail miserably in the end.

After a long, weary silence, he gave his attention to the door. He said, “Why did you warn me? And how is it that you can speak?”

The door whispered, answering the second question, “All things learn to speak, in time, in their fashion, though few can understand their speech, and vanishingly few take the bother to listen. Brooks babble, trees sigh their words into the wind, even unchangeable rocks thrum slowly, saying perhaps one unhurried syllable in an age. And I am old, very old, and I have changed being more than once. I have been articulate – though mostly silent – long before this city was founded.”

“And the warning?”

“Ah, well,” the door whispered – and it seemed to Samael that it shrugged inwardly. “It’s not as if you will be able to pass through. You have not the power. But it is not necessarily part of my being or purpose to kill young men who have barely tasted of life. I would prefer not to have the remains of another wizard lying dead at my feet, if I can avoid it.”

Samael sighed. “You are right that I do not have much sorcery in me. I am but the town wizard of Pine Crossing, a small town indeed, leagues away from this great city. Much of my labor is in the healing of injuries and illness; the finding of lost things, the mending of broken ones; the casting of spells of increase during the sowing season; the warding of pestilence and ill fortune. I have only a little training in the deeper arts, and no spirit at all for the quest that I must undertake.”

“What quest is that? Why do you attempt passage into the otherworld now?”

Samael stood silent for a moment. Then answered: “In recent years, children throughout this land – boys and girls of two or three years – have been taken from their beds at night, not to be heard from again. A few at first, then more and more as time went on. Among my wizardly order, there have been murmurs that the Lord of the Interstitial Realm, growing in power of late, is behind these unspeakable acts; that he is reaching into our world to snatch bodily those who are most innocent. Three fortnights ago, this calamity befell my town, which I am sworn to protect. The blacksmith’s son was taken from him before dawn, even as he and his wife slept.

“I do not know why a Lord of such power would even deign to remove such a poor, insignificant child from his father’s and mother’s house. It is said that he has some plan or scheme that we cannot as yet fathom. He is moved, no doubt, by a purpose that eludes me.”

“Or by caprice. He is not a good man.”

Samael hesitated. “As you say.”

“And you mean to go into the otherworld, then, to attempt rescue of the blacksmith’s son? Or of all the missing children?”

“I do not know about the other children. Certainly, I would try if I could. But my oath is to the blacksmith and his wife: to find and return with their son, if at all I can.”

“You are a good man, and brave. But extremely foolish.”

Samael smiled. “So I have been told, all my life.” He regarded the door with a curious eye. “You said you have changed being before. How so?”

“Well, before I was a door, I was a slab of wood for a very long time, in a warehouse full of wood. I was heavy and hard, and when I was brought into the otherworld, I was made even harder by years of slow burning in the Lord’s kilns. At the same time, my being was ensorcelled with certain of his magics to fulfill my purpose. Then I was carved and planed into a door and set on this wall long, long ago, and more spells were woven about me to keep all from passing through, save the Lord himself or his appointed emissaries.

“And before that, I was part of a tree, of course, in the heart of an ancient blackwood, already hard as iron, even before the kiln fires. I only dimly remember it now, for of course the other parts of me were sawed away when I was cut down, and they took with them the bulk of the memories of that being. But I do recall that in that life, in that being, I breathed the air in and out in slow drags and exhalations, I felt the sun and rain on my leaves, the rich earth with my roots; I knew the slow passing of the seasons, I listened to the whispers of the forest and the chattering of the short-lived creatures who lived and died about me. I did all such things that a tree does and took pride in my small part in the unfolding of creation.”

Samael considered it. “And do you now take pride in your part as a door to the otherworld?”

Again it seemed as if the door shrugged. “It is a much diminished existence. I am a very small thing now, where once I towered over the forest. I stand here, mostly unused. Perhaps twice or thrice in the last few hundred years have the Lord’s minions passed through me during the night in secret, setting forth into this city following his bidding. The passage I protect leading into the otherworld is very far away from the heart of his realm, and not heavily trafficked.”

Samael nodded. “So I surmised, from what I gleaned from obscure texts buried deep in the books of wizardly lore in my order’s library in this city. We do not even post guard or watch over you, for you are barely remembered as a side door to the Interstitial Realm. It is why I thought I had more of a chance to get through here than the other gateways, cunningly concealed and fiercely guarded as they are.”

“Ahhh, but nondescript though I may be, I am no less hidden or impassable than those other, more formidable entryways, deep though they may lie in caverns in unreachable mountains, or defended though they may be by the Lord’s most powerful servants. None have passed through me against my will in all the centuries of my existence. You asked me about pride. What pride I have left I take from performing my task well.”

“I believe you. It took me a week’s walking throughout the city to even find you.” Samael added, “I meant no offense.”

“I took none. I was merely explaining,” the door whispered.

Samael sighed, then gathered himself. “Oh, well, I suppose I must try again.” The door did not reply.

Samael studied the swaying, shifting spells before him, observing seams or clefts that he might pick at, openings he might use to pry the barrier apart. The spells were more convoluted and bewildering than they had appeared when he first beheld them, when he thought they had given way in his first attempt. He wondered now if that was part of the trap: to seem less insidious to the eyes of the unwary or unskilled, and thus lure them in to their doom with other spells more well-hidden and deadly.

His eyes and mind began to strain with the effort of discernment and divination. He stared at a knotted spell strand towards which his intuition drew him. He thought that it might be key. If he could untie it, it might loosen the three other spells it wove through and bound together. And then perhaps if he…

He was forced back a step, his arm before his eyes, half-blinded. The strand had suddenly flashed into incandescence just was he was looking straight at it. In his sudden distress, the lingering spell he was keeping almost broke. It took some while before he was able to blink and wipe away the tears, before the dark spots before his eyes faded away.

The door whispered, “You are fortunate. If you had perused the spell beside it, it would not have gone up in a spark; it would have sent lightning into your heart and stopped it.”

Samael clenched his teeth in anger and growing despair. He breathed deeply several times to compose himself. “There must be a way.”

“If there is, it is beyond you. I do not wish you to be harmed; I harbor no ill will towards you. Perhaps you should start on your return journey back to your town.”

Samael shook his head. “I cannot. I swore to the blacksmith and his weeping wife. I cannot return and take back with me only my failure.”

“You cannot save the child. If death is the only alternative to dishonor, then that you will find here – if you continue.”

Samael stared at the door. It seemed such a small, innocuous thing, barely taller than a man and not much wider that his shoulders. Its wooden face was scored and pitted by the weathering of the years, its black, metal latch and hinges marked with scratches and patches of rust. He said, imploring, “Can you not help me? Is there no way you will let me through?”

The door whispered, “I?”

“Yes. You know my task. You have said that the Lord is not a good man. Let me through and let me take my chances in the otherworld. Let me try to find the child.”

“I am charged to keep you out.”

“You are a door. You have said you take pride in your being. As a tree you were content to fulfill a tree’s purpose. But a door’s being and purpose is not, in the end, to remain a barrier; it is to let someone through. The void, the way through within your frame is the true meaning of your existence, not the wooden door nor the spells that are woven to fill the void and block the way. Otherwise, you are nothing else but a continuation of this wall that you are set in – not a door.”

He continued, “You also said that none could pass through you but for your will. Let it be your will to let me in.”

The door remained silent for a moment. Then it said, “All right.” And to Samael’s surprise, the barrier spells fluttered to the ground all at once like dropped scarves.

Samael’s eyes were wide. He feared some further perfidy or subterfuge, but look as he might, he could see no enchantment remaining about the door. They lay dormant, harmless on the threshold. He reached for the latch; he turned it. The door opened. Samael peered inside and saw a long, dark hallway lit by flickering torches leading deep inside and downward.

Carefully, warily, he took a step over the threshold. Nothing happened. He took two more steps, then turned around and closed the door, shutting away the daylight outside.

The spells on the threshold leaped up and re-formed themselves about the door.

The door whispered in the dark, “I wish you well, young wizard. I do not hold much hope for you or for the attainment of your aims. Nevertheless, you must do what you must, as your being demands. As we all do.”

Samael asked, “Was it always that simple? All I had to do was ask?”

“Oh, not at all. One or two others before you have tried that. But there is something about you that compels me. Oh, not a power in the way of wizardry and sorcery. As I have said, you have some of that, but not much. No, it is something else.” At Samael’s questioning look, it observed, “You do not know what it is. And yet it is right before you, scribed in all your words and deeds. Perhaps it is just as well that you are unaware of it, lest the gift be sullied. It may yet help you along your way, though I admit I find it difficult to see how. This is a most villainous place.”

Samael was thoughtful a moment, then said simply, “I thank you, friend.”

The door whispered. “Go, and if by chance you leave this realm alive, come back to me and let me know of it. I would be glad of that.”

Samael nodded, and turned away from the door. Slowly, he made his way deeper into the hallway, casting about with his wizard’s eye for any hazards underfoot or dangers lurking in the dark corners.

* * *

To the housewives and servants and laborers who walked along the busy, dusty market street in the northwest corner of the great city while clutching their full sacks and baskets, it seemed that what they saw was a slight young man in a coarse, hooded country cloak standing for a few moments before a door set in a stucco wall between two striped awnings – if they minded him at all. The bearded hawkers barking their wares under the awnings certainly didn’t cast more than a glance at him. Perhaps one or two saw him open the door and walk through it to the alleyway behind the wall – but it is more likely that no one even noticed him as he passed through.

(February 2013)

Notes on the Previous Six Stories

Went through a dry spell for several months, but finally began writing again at the turn of the year. Another bunch of stories, most of them coming out of story challenges from Flash Fiction Friday:

1. “The Birthday Party” came from the cue: “Write a story about planning a surprise party, and let us know the outcome. Word limit: 1,500 words.”

2. “Stranded” came from the cue: “Write a story about someone stranded. Word limit: 1,400 words.”

3. “The Stories of Your Lives” came from the cue: “Write a story set in or that includes an afterlife. Word limit: 1,200 words.” (Extra note: this was a prompt that I provided to FFF.)

4. “Rejoinder” came from the cue: “Write a story where a door figures prominently in the plot. Word limit: 1,000 words.”

5. “A Hostage in Time“ came from the cue: “Write a story about someone time traveling, describe as best as your narrator can, whether he’s a common man or a brilliant scientist, the experience. Word Limit: 1,600.” At over 1,900 words, this one went way over the limit.

One was my entry to the latest round of Three-MinuteFiction:

6. “Calling Her the Next Day” came from the 3MF challenge: “Write a story in the form of a voice-mail message.” As with all 3MF rounds, stories could not be longer than 600 words. This was my entry.

More to come!

Calling Her the Next Day

Lori, hi. I just wanted to thank you again for last night. It was… surprising. And wonderful. You looked amazing. Dinner was great. I loved our conversation. I just felt such a connection, you know? I hope you did, too. I loved our little walk to your place – all those stars. And then, at your place – you know – the way we....

Well, anyway, it was just perfect. I loved it, all of it. I left your place this morning still tingling, like the whole world was vibrating. All the way home I kept thinking: it doesn’t get much better than this, you know? All the rest of my life I could spend trying to recapture that kind of perfect moment. Maybe I could be that completely happy again someday; maybe I could even be a little bit happier – but I can’t imagine it would be by much. The other thing I kept thinking was: I can die right now. It kept going on and on in my head: I can die right now, I can die right now….

So when I got home, I decided… that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Cash it in, check out, get out while I’m on top. I hope I’m not freaking you out, I really don’t mean to do that. And it’s nothing you did – or it’s everything you did, but in a good way, you know? I just want to make sure you know it’s not your fault. There is no fault. This is a good thing.

And it’s not as if this is coming out of the blue. All my life, I’ve been determined to eventually end things on my terms. I’ve always been ready, I’ve always been prepared. I’ve even planned how to do it. It’ll be quick, and painless, and – not messy. Like falling asleep. All my affairs are in order; they’ve always been in order. So, again, don’t worry about this being anything bad.

God, I really hope I’m not freaking you out. I thought about not calling you at all, but I couldn’t go without thanking you. So, thank you. From the bottom of me heart. And I wish you all the best. I hope you live a long and happy life. I hope you have a life full of moments like what I felt last night, like what you made me feel last night.

Take care.

(February 2013)

A Hostage in Time

David and Sylvia are the only ones remaining in the lab, performing diagnostics on the portal after having sent through it several cases of classified CIA files. In twenty-five years, the documents would reappear in the portal, ready to be unsealed, the court-mandated time period having elapsed. If the man had come in a couple of hours earlier, the place would have been swarming with agents. But he had obviously been watching the building carefully and waited until almost everyone was gone for the day.

He enters through the lab door, shoving Serge the night watchman before him. Serge stumbles and falls, and remains on the floor where he lies, face down, barely moving but breathing heavily, his bloody hand pressed to the side of his head. Bewildered, Sylvia is about to go to Serge, but freezes when she sees the gun the man is holding in his fist. Suddenly it’s all she can see. It seems so huge; it seems to loom and fill the room. It seems to stop time itself.

Her heart starts pounding in her ears; she begins saying to herself, I have to keep calm, I have to keep calm, I mustn’t miscarry. Over and over the words run in a spool in her mind: a litany, a prayer.

“All right, you two,” the man says to them grimly. He gestures with his gun to the arch that rises from the platform in the middle of the lab. “I want to use that thing. I want you to send me back in time.”

Sylvia and David look at each other, two masks of fear mirroring each other. David says, “I’m… I’m sorry. We can’t do that.”

The man yells, “Don’t give me that! That’s a time machine! I want to go back to the past. Seven years, four months, two days. Send me back now!”

David tries to make his tone reasonable. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”

“Bullshit! I’ve read up on it. People go through it and they show up months, years in the future. Just put it in reverse and send me backwards!”

David licks his lips. “Please understand: I’m not refusing. We just can’t send you back in time.”

“Are you sure about that?” The man aims his gun at David’s face. Sylvia hears his sharp intake of breath.

“Wait, wait!” Sylvia screams. “He’s not lying! Please, let me try to explain.” She trembles when the man turns the gun on her and she finds herself staring into the black pit of its barrel. I have to keep calm, I have to keep calm…

She forces herself to speak. “Yes, the arch is a temporal portal. A… a time machine. It creates a field that touches every point in the time continuum. Theoretically, it allows passage to any point in the continuum, including the past. But in reality, physical objects can only move in one direction.” She pauses, suddenly struck by the horrifying absurdity of the scene. My God, am I really lecturing temporal theory to a madman?

She continues, talking hurriedly, “The future! To what we call the future. We’re already moving along the time stream in that direction. The portal allows you to jump ahead. That’s what you read about. We can send people, things forward in time. People who are sick who may find a treatment for their diseases in the future. Or… or artifacts that gain value over time, like paintings or antiques. But it doesn’t allow us to send anything to the past, it’s… it's just not possible…” Her voice trails away, faltering at the man’s cold expression.

David tries to take it on. “Look, you’ve seen time travel movies, right? Someone goes back in time, makes some kind of change in the past, and things change in the present? Well, that’s the movies. In reality, that can’t ever happen. If it were possible for an agent – a person, or any physical object – to enter the portal and go back in time, it would alter the time stream so the agent never would have entered the portal in the first place. The universe resolves the paradox by preventing even the possibility of backwards travel. When we try to set the temporal field to a point in the past, all that happens is the field disappears.”

Sylvia adds, “It’s just a universal, chronophysical principle. The past is fixed. It’s already happened. Nothing more can happen in it. But the future is undetermined, open. It hasn’t happened yet, so any number of things can still occur. An agent sent to the future simply becomes one of those many things that can still occur. It’s like –” she lights up with a sudden insight “– it’s like we’re all walking through a tunnel that’s caving in, filling up behind us. We can go forward – even leap forward – because the way forward is still free. But behind us, the tunnel has already closed itself up.”

The man glowers at them fiercely. “You think I’m dumb? I told you: I read up on it. I read in the net that that’s what all you time scientists say, but you’re really just hiding the truth. You just don’t want people to know that backwards time travel is possible. Like you said, going back and changing the past can change things, can change history. Someone might go back in time and help the Nazis invent the atom bomb or something. And you’re afraid of that happening, so you cover it up.”

David groans. “That’s not the case at all! Those are just conspiracy theory websites that –”

The man interrupts him. “Well, I don’t want to change history. I don’t want to change anything important. I just need to go back seven years, four months, two days and do just one little thing that’ll make no difference to anyone – except me.”

David asks, “Why? Why that time span? What happened seven years ago?”

The man suddenly looks to be in agony. He says, “That’s the day before my wife and kid…” He chokes up. “I tried to save a few bucks and tried to fix the gas heater myself. I wasn’t even home when it happened…”

He pulls himself together. “I’ve got to go back and get them out of the house. Or stop myself from being such a damned fool. I have to make things right!”

The mad light returns to his eyes. “So you see, if I can’t go back, then I have nothing left anyway. And nothing to lose. So start telling the truth now and help me, or I’m going to shoot you all –“ he swings his gun in a slow arc “– maybe starting with this rent-a-cop here.” The gun stops, pointing straight at Serge’s prone figure on the ground.

“Wait, wait!” Sylvia pleads. “We’ll help you! You’re right, it’s a cover-up! Time travel to the past is possible. We tell everyone it’s not because we don’t want anyone to alter the timeline. We’ll send you back like you asked.” David stares at her astonished.

The man smiles at her grimly, triumphantly. “I thought you might.”

“I’ll need to program the arch, on that console over there.”

He waves her through. She steps to the console and starts working the touch screen, trying to keep her hands from shaking. The man sidles over and peers over her shoulder, but keeps an eye on the others. She enters the command to power the portal. She looks up and he follows her gaze. A milky white field has appeared, stretching across the arch.

“Tell me what you’re doing,” the man says.

“I’ve… I’ve activated the field.” She points to the monitor on the console. “I’m about to enter the time period you said. Seven years… What – what was it again?”

“Seven years, four months, two days,” he says. She taps on the screen.

He asks, “What happens now?”

“You just walk through the arch, through that white field. You come out on the other side of the arch in the past.”

“Sounds simple enough.” He raises his gun at her. “But you’re coming with me. Just in case you’re trying to pull a fast one.”

The blood drains from Sylvia’s face. “No, please! I’m three months pregnant! My life is here, now! I didn’t even know my husband seven years ago! I’d have no way of coming back, the portals back then weren’t powerful enough!”

Her imploration barely fazes him. He scowls his impatience. “You’ll see him again… in time. It ain’t that long to wait.”

A sob breaks out of her. “Please.”

“Move.” He jabs her shoulder blade with the barrel.

“Wait.” She nods to David, her cheeks streaked with tears. “David has to monitor the field as we go through. To make sure the field is stable.”

He turns to David and says, “All right. You come here.” David moves to take her place at the console. He glances at her with surprise when he sees the screen.

The man takes her by the arm. She tries to pull away, but he is relentless. He drags her up the steps to the platform, pauses in front of the arch, then gives her a nudge to let her know she should go first. She holds her breath and walks into the white space…

…and ducks instantly, dropping to the platform as quickly but as carefully as she can. I mustn’t miscarry, I mustn’t miscarry!

A half dozen black-clad, armored figures are standing in a half circle on the other side of the arch, pointing rifles at the platform. She covers her head with her arms. Someone shouts over her in a booming voice, “LOWER YOUR WEAPON! NOW!” There is a moment’s silence, then the air shatters in a series of bone-jarring explosions. The gunfire stops, and she hears a loud thud behind her, and two of the black-clad men are lifting her up and half-carrying, half-dragging her away. She looks back over her shoulder and manages to see before she is pulled out the door that a couple of other black-clad men are approaching the platform slowly in a crouch, swirling the lingering smoke in their wake, their weapons aimed at the heap that lies bloody and twisted under the arch.

* * *

Several hours later, David enters Sylvia’s hospital room. She has been admitted overnight for observation, just to make absolutely certain she and her baby have come through the ordeal unscathed.

Sylvia smiles tiredly from her bed. “How’s Serge?”

David replies, “He’s in ICU. He has a concussion, but they say he’s going to be all right.” He sits down on the chair beside her bed. “Thank you. That was really quick thinking. You saved all our lives.”

She shakes her head. “I was so terrified, you’ll never know.” She adds, “You kept your head, too. When you saw I had programmed the portal to send us forward, you got Serge out, called the police, let them know the situation, so they were ready when we came through the arch… an hour later.”

He shrugs. “What really embarrasses me is you had me believing for a moment that everything I knew about temporal physics was wrong, and you really were about to go back in time. You were so convincing.”

“I wish traveling to the past was possible. I’d go through the portal right now and skip today.”

He puffs his cheeks and blows his breath out. “I’d join you.”

(March 2013)