2560 Days of Sobriety

March 29th marked seven years alcohol free and I wish I could lie and say I spent it in celebration. In truth, when I started writing this post I stopped and spent the rest of my afternoon mired in a bout of guilt and self-flagellation.

Celebrating sobriety considering the clown car of horror shows that’s been the past two years, and on-going Ukrainian conflict felt paltry and—in a way—inappropriate. I mean why should I feel good about the comparatively small accomplishments, achievements, and more good things coming my way when held up against the blinding light of Covid, political strife, and the looming fear of a third world war?

I let myself sink further into this vicious cycle of doubt of shame and I’m so tired of the constantly whispering voice in my head. Why should I feel good about being sober when I know countless others couldn’t? How many people like me didn’t have the support systems I do and let it claim them for the last time? You’ve gotten to seven years, hasn’t that been long enough? I mean if there’s a time to celebrate with a good whiskey, it’s surviving a pandemic amirite? A warning light went off in my head. I was letting guilt for things so far out of my control rob me of my joy. I needed to pull myself out of it, so I went back to rehab. Or at least, the techniques I learned there and more specifically, practicing gratitude. I reflected on what I can and should be grateful for, count the things I could change or manage for the better to turn the tide and it turns out I have a lot that I need to allow myself to feel good about.

I’m in good health, my family is fully vaccinated, my parents, siblings, and grandmother made it out of COVID none the worse for wear, my children are thriving, and so is my marriage. Despite my mania. (I love you, babe). I kept my sobriety throughout the onslaught of shit that flew our collective way the last two years, and that’s something I am…learning to be proud of. Our careers are on the precipice of taking off and we’re actually looking forward to making plans that we never thought we’d be able to. So here’s to flipping a middle finger to all the bad that tried to tear me down, and to looking ahead full of gratitude for the people who helped me along the way. To another seven years, and more.

Salúd.

Commission: The Apple

A frustrated breath escaped my nose, tickling the whiskers of my beard. I set my pencil down, took my glasses off, pinched the bridge of my nose, and groaned. My elbows thumped on the desk as I leaned on it. My wife’s clomping footsteps echoed in my sparse attic office. Beams of sunlight shone through the floating dust and a waft of hibiscus tea preceded her. I sat back in my chair, glancing over my desk at the contraption sitting on the floor in the back of the attic. A mess of cables sprouting from an array of batteries wound up a curved metal spine, then down to three hanging metal arms with pointed ends surrounding two hotplates on the floor, like a toy claw machine waiting to pluck a prize off the plates. That machine would propel my name into the annals of history with the likes of Einstein and Lamar. The final step creaked as my wife stepped through the doorway. Thirty years together and my heart still fluttered at the sight of her. Less so once I noticed the stack of papers in her other hand, topped by an apple and a scone on a small plate. A groan escaped my lips as my wife smiled and sighed. She set the stack of papers down on the edge of the desk, the tea in front of me and rubbed my upper back.

“I’m almost done here. I’ll come down when I’m ready,” I said.

She stood behind me and bent to kiss the top of my head.

 “One day, my dear, the cover of TIME magazine will read, ‘Dr. Emilio Torres: The Man Who Redefined Physics.’ But for today—” She slipped the plate of food over to me. “—your students need their mid-term grades so their anxiety levels can return to normal.” She patted my shoulder.

My stomach grumbled, and I sighed.

“Corazón, I swear, I have just one more—” I was too late; she was already halfway down the steps. I couldn’t blame her. We’d had this argument more than once, especially since my last grant denial. I clenched my jaw, pushed a breath through my nose, and went back to my laptop. A web of cables snaked out the back of my computer and connected to the batteries. Ignoring my duties, I wrote a few more lines of code, adjusted the math to better account for time displacement, and pressed enter. As the code compiled, I took a bite of my scone and frowned at the stack of midterms. A notification beeped, signaling the machine was ready. I finished my scone and brushed the crumbs off my sweater. I needed a new test subject. The apple, yes, that would be a good idea. Not too big, it would fit nicely on the hotplate.

I stood up, chair creaking, to place the apple on one of plates and went back to my desk. I brought up the control program on my computer, strapped a pair of welding goggles on, took a deep breath, and clicked the green TEST button. A chorus of crackling, whirring, and buzzing filled the attic. The temperature spiked and sweat rolled down my brow. The arms spun, slowly at first, but rapidly blurred away to create a vortex of wind in the small attic. The hot plate rattled as the arms spun faster. Lightning flashed. I blinked. The apple vanished, leaving nothing but a plume of smoke and a scorch mark. My shoulders sunk. I took my goggles off and threw them behind me. The stack of papers remained. I should have used those instead, but as much as I wished they were a smoldering pile of burnt carbon, Lena was right. I yanked the first packet off the pile, plopped it in front of me, and started reading. The top margin had a hand-written note: Dr. Torres, we didn’t go over much of this in class. I did the best I could. I checked the name. Isabel Hampton. My best student and I had left even her in the lurch. Guilt tugged at my chest. I needed to be better for my students. Their failure was my failure. Still, the paperwork needed to be done.

Three midterms and an empty teacup later, I stretched and yawned. A small rattle came from the hotplate. I stopped. I checked the laptop; it was off. Then the battery terminals glowed orange hot, and sparks burst from the connections. The arms immediately spooled to full speed. I dove for my goggles and held them up just in time as a series of lightning flashes cracked and bursts of dots flitted against my eyelids. The hot plate exploded, and I ducked under the debris. I cursed. One of the metal circles clanged behind me and rolled down the stairs. Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped. I peeked over my desk. My apple was back. Wait. My apple was back? How?

I scrambled over and snatched it up.  A chunk was missing.

It worked.

It worked!

I screamed, whooped, and called for my wife to come upstairs, but the explosion had already summoned her to the doorway. Horror filled her face as she took in the sight of the destroyed machine. The batteries sparked again, and she flinched. I held up the apple.

“It worked,” I said with a beaming grin. Her jaw dropped and she stammered. I went to her. “It. Worked!”

“Oh my god.” She let the realization linger with wide eyes, and then smiled. “Well, we know what the next step is, right?”

“Reproduce results.”

“Exactly. Let’s get to work.”

“What about the papers?”

She paused and worked her jaw from side to side. “You still have to finish those. So, let’s work on getting these done together.”

It was the closest I had felt to her in a long time. We cut the grading time in half, working in sync. With that tedious task done, we set ourselves to weeks-long project of rebuilding the machine. Instead of using hotplates, we wrapped large ceramic discs with aluminum and built a sturdier base. At every turn, Lena rebuffed my bad ideas, corrected my faulty math, and kept us fed. While I was teaching classes, she kept working. I would come home after lectures to a string of code and math I had started, that she  finished with ground-breaking adjustments. It was her idea to check the data on how the power surge blew apart the batteries—which led me to finagle another array of batteries siphoning power from the main line that would not blow a transformer.  

Then came winter, and the solstice.

“We should go to sleep,” Lena said. She rubbed her eyes. I didn’t register what she said right away.

“I think this setting is right. I’m not sure if we need to—”

“Emilio, we need to sleep. It’s—" she checked the watch on her wrist. “Oh my god, it’s six in the morning. We haven’t slept and I have a headache.”

“Maybe the size discrepancy between the apple and hot plate caused a—”

“Emilio!”

“Huh?”

“Bed. Now.” Lena pointed down the stairs.

“One test,” I said.

I picked up a stapler and set it on the plate. Lena tsked me and set her hands on her hips. I ignored her, set the program up and hit the button. The batteries hummed, the arms spun without drama and instead of random arcs of lighting, the power concentrated at the tips of the arms to create a globe of electricity around the stapler. Seconds later, the stapler blew apart and a shower of flying staples stung my skin.

Lena threw me a flat look. “Honey, we can try again after we get some sleep.”

“No, I know why it failed. I’m going to try something else.”

I set the machine to start, and Lena stood up from her perch on the desk.

“Emilio, what are you doing?”

I ignored her. I had to get the math right. We were so close. The machine started spooling.

“Emilio stop.”

I couldn’t stop. How could I stop when I might have the answer? I dashed across the room and stood on the plate.

“Are you crazy?!” Lena yelled. She went to the computer, but I had locked the controls. The arms spun and the tips glowed bright blue. “How do I shut it down!? Emilio! You can’t—”

Lightning flashed. The world went black.

I wish I could remember what happened between then and when I woke up. It was like a dreamless sleep. I was nothing until light seeped in through my closed eyelids, prompting them to flutter open. Grass prickled my back and arms where I lay. I breathed. I could breathe! My eyes adjusted to the light, which came from...everywhere? I sat up and evaluated my body for injury—it was surprisingly… okay.

That’s when I noticed that the grass wasn’t green. It was an array of different colors and grew taller than my legs were wide. Trees that grew into a curling Fibonacci pattern, like a pig’s tail or curly fries dotted the undulating slopes of squat hills. The leaves seemed normal enough at first, but the base of the stems glimmered with a dewy gem refracting the light into twinkling rainbow stars. The sky wasn’t a sky. It was a blanket of purple and white. The transcendent plain extended into infinity chasing the horizon until the end of time.

I stood. A wisp of something drifted toward me. It collided with my outstretched hand, and then dissipated into a plume of bright green dust. It felt…sad. To test my legs, I picked my steps to the nearest tree and pressed my hand to its bark. A steady pulse and sense of contentment warmed my palm. I dragged my hand across the trunk as I circled it and found a knot. I ran my thumb over it, and its roots erupted from the ground behind me to form a flat circle of light exactly like my machine —except this one was silent. Certain that this was the portal I had made, I took my sweater off and tied it around a branch to mark its location. I expected to be cold given the occasional breeze, but I felt no different in just a t-shirt. I took a deep breath. It smelled like breakfast with Lena. How I wished she could see it.

I spread my arms and laughed. The sky shifted to green and swirls of blue, as though it responded to my happiness. I sprinted down the hill and leaped several feet into the air. I spread my arms and glided back down to the grass all the while laughing, crying, and squealing like a child. For what felt like hours I did what I hadn’t done in over forty years. I frolicked. I danced, spun, rolled, ran, and climbed trees.

I flew.

The sky drifted and morphed into wonderful colors and fractal patterns. I never ran out of breath, nor felt any hunger. On occasion the color of the sky would thin, and I glimpsed the twinkling of distant suns, planets, and galaxies.

Lena would love this, I thought. I needed to go back and bring her with me. I found the tree I had tied my sweater to, brought the portal back up. I braced for whatever pain might befall me, but I passed through as easily as passing through a doorway

My office was as I left it: papers strewn about, the machine in the corner. I took a step and the base of the machine wobbled. I caught my balance and dodged a hanging arm. I didn’t remember it being that low. I went back to my desk and checked my computer. It had been turned off.

“Lena?” I called out,.

Silence answered. Worry wrapped around my rib cage. I picked up the plate on my desk and went to the stairs, but stopped. I didn’t recognize the pattern on that plate. I went back to the machine. It was shorter, had fewer arms, and the platform bent at an awkward angle because a support had bent. I turned on my laptop and entered my login information. Incorrect Password? That can’t be… I looked at the keyboard. Spanish accents? I hadn’t used a Spanish keyboard since…

“Oh no.”

I sprinted down the stairs and checked the portraits on the walls. My graduation, my sister, all my family except one. Lena was gone.

“No, no, no.” Panic rose in my throat. My stomach flipped and tears welled in my eyes.

I sprinted back up the stairs. I had to get to work. I wasn’t going to be stuck there without Lena. I tried my old college password and thanked God that it worked. There were only two explanations that made any sense: a timeline shift or an alternate universe. Given that I hadn’t made changes to anything, the multi-verse theory made the most sense. Still a gamble, but one I had to make. That’s what Lena would say. Pick something you know you can fix and work from there. That’s what I would have to do. I could fix the machine and work backwards from there. Repeat the process from my world. Without Lena.

“We did it before, I can do it again.”

It took weeks. The phone rang. Notices and mail and collectors came. After a few months, the power was shut off, and I rewired the house to siphon power directly from the tower bypassing the city’s safeguards. Finally, I was ready. I went to my bathroom, shaved, put on the same clothes I wore the day I left, and went back in.

This time, I thought, I’m bringing a tether: a length of wire attached to a terminal here in this world to test different portals. I set the program on a timer, grabbed the apple on my desk, and stood on a platform. The countdown finished and the machine spooled up. I bit into the apple and awaited the inevitable lightning crack. That time, I stayed conscious. The world pinched into a pinpoint as darkness surrounded me. A heartbeat later, a pinprick of light widened into a perfect circle. The plains rolled within the portal. I stepped through, and things were different from the first time. The sky didn’t swirl in color as it had before. Instead, I stood in the dead of space on an infinite multi-colored grass plain. Saturn’s rings swirled above me as I paced through grass. If I wanted, I could have jumped up to swim among swirling ice crystals.

I tripped.

My apple fell from my hand, rolled down the hill, and bounced off a tree.

“It can’t be…”

A hole opened in the ground and the apple vanished. I scrambled to my feet and dove into the waiting abyss. I swallowed my nausea as I spun and flipped faster and faster. I closed my eyes and screamed until I ran out of breath.

I gasped.

“Emilio!” Lena screeched.

I lay in her arms on the attic floor. I held her tight and sobbed into her chest as she pulled me close. I pushed away, and as we wiped the tears from each other’s faces, I smiled.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she said. “That was the scariest minute of my life.”

“I guess time works differently than I thought. I should have made that adjustment before I came back,” I said.

She squinted. “What are you talking about? Emilio, you didn’t go anywhere. You collapsed on the plate and your heart stopped. You only came back when I started CPR.”

“What? No, that can’t be right. I—" I looked around. Everything was as I remembered.

She stood and pulled me by my forearm to my feet. My back ached and my head throbbed.

“I’m taking you to get checked out. God knows what that shock did to your body.” Numb, I let her pull me to the stairs. Then I saw it. On the floor beneath my desk.

An apple.

Commission: Ghosts in the Walls

Newly minted keys jangled in Sarge’s hands as he unlocked the front door. Its hinges creaked as he pushed his way inside his childhood home. Dust swirled in the rays of the late afternoon sun, painting his mother’s décor in golden light. He passed his fingers over the small statues of cats on the small entryway table and glanced at the pictures spanning his family’s generations dotting the walls of the stairwell. He set his dark green pack on the floor and slipped another backpack off his shoulder. The ache in his back and neck eased; the pain served as a bitter reminder that his early twenties had passed decades ago, and his body no longer relished the physical punishment of labor.

Retirement would be good. He breathed deep, letting the characteristic woody smell rouse his nostalgia for a moment before heaving his bags off the floor and up the stairs. The second-to-last step creaked as it always did. Such a bittersweet thing to be back home. He crossed the hallway to the master bedroom. By now, his sister had packed away or gotten rid of most of their mother’s belongings. Only the four-post bedframe, a new mattress in its plastic wrapping, and a set of new folded sheets remained. His bag thumped on the hardwood floor and he set to making the bed. Decades of military service shone through in the crisp corners and clean lines of his work. He fluffed a pillow. The second step creaked.

He hadn’t heard the front door open. He peeked around the corner of his room to the steps. He ventured into the hallway on the balls of his feet and searched the house. He was alone. It must have been the wood settling after so much time of not being used. He resumed putting his clothes away and storing his belongings.

After dinner, he set the dirty dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet. Nothing happened. He raised a brow, and his mustache tickled his nose as he scrunched his lips. He shut the water off and tried again. Nothing. He sighed and reached for the spigot. The water sprayed out, ricocheted off the curve of a spoon, and sprayed out of the sink. He sputtered and guarded his face from the onslaught as he fumbled to close the faucet, but it kept spraying water. He ducked under the sink, found the main shut-off valve, twisted it; the water finally stopped. He wiped his face and mustache, used a paper towel to dry his glasses, then tossed the dishes in the machine. He would deal with it later. He went upstairs to change out of his wet clothes and then went outside for some therapeutic gardening.

By the time evening rolled around, the smell of trimmed grass and sweat from weeding and pruning had lifted his mood. He ate a small snack and made another attempt at washing the dishes—this time without any drama. Seemed the pipes might have just needed a bit to unclog. He ambled upstairs and started the shower. Once it had warmed, he stepped into the stream and relished in how it soothed his aching muscles. He lathered himself with soap and moved under it to rinse. The water went cold, and he shrieked as the icy rivulets stung his skin. He hopped out of the shower, slipped, yelped, and barely managed to catch himself on the counter. Fuming, he shut off the water.

Laughter echoed from the hallway.

His stomach lurched and his spine tingled. He whipped a towel around his waist, searched for a weapon, but came up empty. His gun was in the bedroom. What could he use? The toilet tank cover. He lifted the ceramic lid off and raised it to his shoulder. With a deep breath, he leaped into the hallway and yelled, brandishing his new weapon.

Empty.

“I must be more tired than I thought,” he said to himself, shaking his head. He replaced the cover, finished toweling off, and went to bed. In the morning he would call a plumber and that would be the end of his problems.

***

Loud knocking startled Sarge from his sleep the following morning. He grumbled a curse and slid out of his bed. He shuffled to his closet to pick out a robe. Another loud pounding echoed from downstairs.

“I’m coming! Have you no patience?” He thumped down the stairs and ripped the door open. “What—Oh no.”

“Yes, it’s me. Don’t look so upset about it, little brother.” The woman with wild curly black hair streaked with silver, several necklaces with multitudes of stones, earrings of mismatched styles, a balance bracelet, and all manner of bangles made of jade and who knows what else pushed her way past him. He sneezed at the overpowering scent of tea tree oil and peppermint as she passed by him. Her billowing ankle-length skirt swished as she powered into the kitchen and set down a hemp bag full of food—most of it organic, and none of it anything he wanted nor needed in his kitchen.

Sarge rubbed his temples, then closed the door. He went back to the kitchen and knew better than to stop her. It would be easier to just throw it all out or donate it after she left.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “You retire from the military, move into our mother’s home after not seeing me for twenty years, and you expect me not to welcome you home? You really have forgotten your heart, haven’t you?”

Sarge pinched his nose. “No, I haven’t. I only arrived yesterday, and you know I need time to—” The stair creaked again.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Nothing, just the house getting used to having people in it again. How did you even know I was here?”

“Oh, I come by the house regularly to renew its aura. I drove by last night and saw your car.” She slammed and opened cabinets as she talked. The stair creaked again. She stopped and squinted. “You know. The energy here feels strange. I thought it was because you had shown up, but now I’m not so sure.”

Sarge sighed. “No. It’s not strange. Houses don’t have energy; please stop. I don’t want you to—” She shushed him. She closed her eyes, grasped one of the necklaces with a huge crystal and hummed. “You’re being ridiculous. This is completely unnecessary.” She spun in a slow circle as she lifted the gem up, continuing her chant. Sarge threw his hands up. “Why do I even try?”

“I need to do a full examination.” She ran out of the house before Sarge could stop her. He flopped backward on his chair and whispered a prayer begging for strength and fortitude. She bounded back in the room holding a wooden box. She lifted a bundle of sage and a butane lighter, ignited the plant, then blew out the flames.

“Is this really necessary?” Sarge asked.

“Shh. Let me work.”

“This is not work, you’re— oh forget it.” Sarge set to organizing the rest of the groceries. “What is the point of cauliflower rice? Just make rice!”

If all he had to endure to get her out of his house was the stench of sage and her incoherent mumbling, then so be it. He’d suffered worse, though not by much. A shriek broke her chant, followed by rapid thumps as she hurried down the stairs. She ran up to him, pressed her face right to his nose and squinted at him.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” He asked as he pulled away.

“Hm. I was seeing if you brought them. But… no, it seems you are clean.”

“Clean?”

“Yes. You have ghosts.” She licked her fingers, waved her hand in the air, then licked them again. “Yes. Two ghosts.”

Sarge blinked at her. “Okay. You’re done. Goodbye, thank you for the horrendous groceries, and for stopping by.” Sarge dumped the rest of the contents of her bag, handed it to her, then ushered her out the door.

“Mark my words, brother! It’s only going to get worse!” she yelled as he slammed the door.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He grabbed an apple and went to sit down. The leg of the chair snapped. He smacked his arm on the table and landed on his rear with a loud thump. How on Earth… It was an old chair, bound to break, and he had gained weight since his youth. Add it to the list of things to update. The stair creaked again. He picked himself up with a groan and grimace, rubbing his backside as he stood. He kicked the remnants of the chair out of the way, sat in a different one, and sneezed. Did his sister bathe in tea tree oil? He slid his laptop from the backpack next to table and set to work finding a plumber. Midway through his research, the internet cut out.

“Why does nothing work in this ancient house?” he groaned.

He slammed his fist on the table, rose, slipped on a puddle and growled as he stomped up the stairs. He checked the connection on the router and reset it. He went back downstairs and unlocked the laptop. A video blasted lewd sounds from the speakers. He slammed the laptop closed, but the sounds kept playing. He opened the laptop again and tried to close the window, but it didn’t respond. The video kept playing and, desperate, he yanked the battery out of the laptop. Giggles rolled in from all around. Eyes wide, Sarge whipped his head about in search of their origin. Did he bang his head when he fell? Seconds after he heard it, the laughter stopped. A headache crawled out from the back of his skull and crept over his scalp.

“Why did she have to come here,” he moaned. He lifted himself up and decided the best way to spend the rest of the night was by scouting a new running route. He dressed himself and went outside to clear his mind.  

***

Sarge threw the door open and stopped to check his Fitbit. A decent time for a new route. He flicked his shoes off, and his chest heaved as he peeled off his sweaty clothes and threw them in the laundry hamper in the bathroom. His hand stopped on the faucet knob. This was silly. It was just plumbing, there was no such thing as ghosts. He wrenched the shower on and didn’t wait for the water to warm. In less than thirty seconds he was done and out. The rest of the day went by without incident. He managed his finances, checked his stock portfolio, and ate a peaceful dinner. Night came and with heavy eyelids, he set his phone on the bedside table and slid himself between his sheets. Just as he was about to cross the bridge from waking to dreaming, music blared from his phone at full volume.

He screamed, scrambled out of bed, snatched his pistol from the desk, and shot his phone. He panted, stared at the smoking bullet hole in the middle of the shattered screen. Maniacal, cackling laughter bounced off the walls. He aimed his gun at a wall, then the next, trying to pinpoint the source.

“To hell with this.” He ran out of his room.

Something yanked the rug out from under him and he landed on his stomach. Not waiting to catch his breath, he scrambled up, gasping for air, and sprinted down the stairs. Pictures flew off the walls as he passed them. Laughter hounded him as he ran. He opened the front door, slammed it, and dove into his car. The tires screeched and the engine roared as he tore into the street.

Next thing he knew, he was pounding on his sister’s door. She opened it and took in his pajamas, disheveled hair, wild eyes, and heaving breath.

“I told you,” she said, and moved aside to let him in.

“Yes. Okay, maybe you were right. How do I get rid of them?”

“It’s very simple. Tea?” She motioned to the small table in her kitchen. Surrealist paintings, sculptures of genitalia, crystal formations, woven mandalas, books on mysticism, and dream catchers adorned every inch of her living space.

Sarge sneezed. “No. Just, tell me what to do.” He pushed a stack of magazines off a chair and sat down. “My god, have you ever heard of cleaning?”

“These crystals are for cleansing, yes,” she said as she pointed to an array of rocks on the sink.

“Oh for— I don’t have time for this. How do I get rid of it?”

“Them. You have two ghosts, and as I mentioned, the solution is two-fold. First you must force them to show themselves”

“How am I—”

“You’re a smart man. I’m sure you’ll think of something. Once they have been exposed, then you must complete their unfinished business.”

Sarge sighed. He rubbed his eyes. “Do you have a blanket that doesn’t reek of essential oils?”

His sister blinked. “Why wouldn’t I anoint my blankets with soothing scents to help me sleep?”

“Forget it. I’ll just sleep in my car.”

“Such a traditionalist. Fine, but before you go, take this,” she said and handed him a bag with several green crystals. “Peridot. For protection.”

Sarge thought better of rejecting the gift and put the bag in his pocket. It wasn’t worth the fight, and he needed to sleep. He thanked her, went back to his car, grabbed a jacket from his trunk, and spent an uncomfortable night in the front seat.

***

Still in his pajamas, Sarge pushed the door to his house open. He frowned at shattered pieces of glass strewn all over the floor. These ghosts need to be gone.

“How do I get them to show themselves?” he wondered aloud as he closed the door. He scanned the kitchen, the hallway leading to the living room, the stairway, and considered the events. Water splashing him in the face, turning the hot water off in the shower, blasting pornography on his laptop, startling him with loud music…

“They’re teenagers!”

He had an idea. If they really were young, then he needed to do something that youths hate. Easy. He barked a laugh, then took his clothes completely off. He started cleaning the mess completely nude. He cooked in the buff, turned on talk radio with full volume, danced and sang old songs. At one point the radio crackled and shut off, so he started doing Yoga in the living room.

“Ok, old man, we’ve had enough, please put some clothes on!” A wispy figure materialized in front of him. The young, boyish features grimaced and looked away while Sarge bolted upright. A girl the same age as the boy appeared next to him.

“Do you really have to do that naked?” she asked with her face puckered up.

“I can’t believe my sister was right,” Sarge whispered.

“Clothes, please?!” The ghosts pleaded in unison.

Sarge folded his arms. “Not until I get some answers. Why are you still here? Why my house?”

“Ugh, fine,” the girl said.

“We were on our way to pull off our senior prank,” the boy said. “It was going to be one for the history books!”

“Yeah, too bad a drunk driver killed us right outside this house that night,” the girl said. She leaned against the boy and crossed her arms.

“That’s it? You wanted to pull off a prank? If I do it for you, will you leave my house?”

The boy’s eyes widened, and the girl fidgeted with her school uniform.

“You, old man, would go to a high school and set off stink bombs in the ventilation system?”

Sarge sighed and dropped his hands. How simple-minded. A stink bomb would not even be worthy of a footnote, but it made his task simple. “I was a soldier. I did many secret missions, and dropping stink bombs in an air vent would be an easy task.”

The boy leaped for joy, and the girl let out a whoop.

“I’ve seen our payload hidden in your yard,” the girl said. “It must have been thrown from the car when we got hit.”

“Alright, that’s a good place to start.” Sarge headed outside and the youths complained about his clothing once again.

He dressed himself and set about combing through the shrubbery near the street. He found a small box hidden in a bush and went back inside. He held up the box, and the teens leaped for joy. Luckily, their school was a short drive away, and it was the same one he attended as a boy. He parked on the street and watched students come and go at the end of the day. Parents greeted their children, friends laughed together, and he realized that he missed that feeling. A couple walked by hand in hand and a half-smile crept up his face as he remembered his first girlfriend. He wondered where she was now.

Once all the students had and staff had gone, he went to a window with a broken latch that he had often used himself as a teen—counting it a silver lining of poor public education budgets—and snuck into the main building. He set the stink bombs on top of the grate on the floor, grabbed a handful of tissues from the teacher’s desk, and stomped on the glass containers to release their foul smell. The door to the hallway opened and, as he walked down the hall, he noticed a display case with clippings of a news story and wilting flower wreaths. A tribute to the two students that died. An engraved plaque on the bottom of the case read:

Voted Prom King and Queen, we honor the memory of our two seniors.

Attached to the plaque was a photo of the two youths standing side by side wearing crowns, surrounded by paper chains, confetti, and balloons. Their bright smiles and awkward posing sent a lance of sadness through Sarge’s chest. This prank was not their final task.

When he arrived at home, he sat at his table and waited. The second hand on his wristwatch ticked. He made himself a light dinner, then stood at the sink. He turned the faucet on and dodged the stream of water that bounced off his plate.

“I know you’re still here,” he said. The ghosts appeared behind him and he sat back down at his table.      “I completed the prank, but I didn’t think you would really go.” The boy sat down as well and the girl stood behind him resting her hands on his shoulders. “You two were voted Prom King and Queen, weren’t you?”

The girl beamed. “We were. It was such a wonderful night.”

The boy leaned back and rested his head on her forearm. “It really was. We had so much fun. I wish­—” he stopped himself and sat up straight.

“I think I know what’s really happening here,” Sarge said. He stood up and set a kettle to boil. “Tell me, were you more than friends before you died?”

“What?” the boy said. “Oh, no we were always just friends. Ever since we were children. We grew up with each other.” The girl bit her lip.

“Hmm. You know, there is a benefit to being old,” Sarge said. “You learn a lot of things, lose a lot of people.” His voice softened. “Leave many things left unsaid.” The boy cracked his knuckles, and the girl pulled at the ends of her hair, flipping it around and twisting it in her fingers. “My sister told me ages ago that words have energy. And like energy, they cannot be destroyed, only transferred. She also said energy can be both healing and destructive. As such, the words you hold have the potential to be both. Choosing which ones you keep and which ones you share is a very important skill. I didn’t believe her then.” The kettle whistled. He shut off the stove and poured a measure of steaming water into a mug. “Nor did I understand what she was saying. At the time, our mother was sick, and I was still deployed.” He pulled a lemon slice out of the refrigerator, squeezed in the juice, and plopped the fruit into his hot water. He sighed as he eased himself back into his chair.

“What are you getting at?” the boy asked.

“I believe the words you’re keeping within yourselves are keeping you here.”

The girl opened her mouth to speak but halted short of saying anything. The boy’s leg bounced as his jaw worked side to side. Sarge sipped his water. The boy stood up, his body passing through the seat.

“Ever since freshman year, after that summer I came back from camp… I saw you again and I knew that you were special. That I didn’t want to spend another summer without you. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid it would ruin our friendship if you didn’t feel the same way. Now, I’m afraid that if I say something, we won’t go on together to whatever is next. But I can’t hold it in. I have loved you my entire life. I loved you as my best friend when we were children, and I loved you as something more for years. I—”

The girl grasped his hands and rested her forehead on his chest. “I have wanted us to be more than friends for as long as I can remember. You were kind when others chose to be cruel. The summer you left was the summer I realized you were my rock. Even when we grew up, and we ran in different circles, you remained my closest ally. When you asked me to be your Prom date, I thought you were finally going to ask me to be your girlfriend… But even when you didn’t, I was happy to go with you anyway.”

“Well, will you be my girlfriend now?” he asked.

She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “Yes.”

“I love you,” he whispered, and kissed the top of her head.

A pinpoint of light shone over the two, and even as they dissipated into particles of shimmering blue dust, they never let go of their eternal embrace.

Sarge finished his drink. A heavy pull weighed on his chest and labored his breath. He stood, went to the phone hanging on the wall, and dialed his sister.

“Are they gone?” she asked in greeting.

“Yes, they’re gone. Do you remember what you told me about words and energy?”

“Of course, why do you think I always tell you the truth?”

“Well, I realized I have been holding on to words I should share. I’m glad you’re my sister, and I’m grateful you came over yesterday. Not just for the ghosts.”

“I love you too, baby brother.”

Silence hung in the air as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. He cleared his throat. “Also, I think it best to stay on your good side. The last thing I need is for my mystic sister to haunt me.”

His sister cackled.

Commission: Loop

The soft whir of air purifiers lent to the calm droll of Yumi’s office. Suspended in her immersion chair, Yumi’s eyes flit from article to article, post to post of anger, division, vitriol, and disdain. Tears welled as her mind followed the detailed paths winding in and out of the historical event she studied.

“Exit visualization.” The feed died. She wiped moisture from her eyelids, blew a slow breath out from puffed cheeks, and then dictated out loud: “Major navigational point, January Sixth, Twenty Twenty-One. Assault on United States Capitol, exactly one-thousand and forty days before the construction of the New Capitol House and one-thousand, sixty-six days before the demolition of the White House. Define Point on timeline as critical marker.” As she prepared herself to dive back into the violence of the early aughts, the gold bracelet on her wrist buzzed.

“Oh, thank the gods,” she said as she lifted the visor off her head and hung it over a hook on her desk. The room’s AI hummed a soft tone before it addressed her.

“Dr. Aiuchi, your appointment for treatment begins in twenty-nine minutes, thirty-three seconds. We recommend leaving in no less than two-minutes to arrive on time. Will you be returning for work?”

“No, I’m done for the day. Going through ancient Twitter and Facebook posts is exhausting.”

“Understood. I have notified Mr. Garfield of your imminent departure and cessation of work activities.”

“Thank you, Alice.”

“Have a good afternoon, Doctor.”

A green padlock icon blinked, and the door slid open. Yumi left her office and passed a coworker who shuffled up to another door labeled T.M.D.M.E.

“Hey Nathan, what are you guys up to?”

“Like you don’t already know,” he said. “I just got pulled out of lunch because you added a critical marker, so of course I have to recalibrate the damn thing before the lead runs another simulation.”

“Hey, be thankful you don’t have to live vicariously through proto-social media. Anyway, I’m heading out to my appointment. See you tomorrow.”

Nathan nodded his goodbye and passed through the door. Yumi’s finger brushed against the subdermal port as she pulled her red-and-purple-streaked hair behind her ear and her stomach turned at the anticipation of the treatment. Years of feeling the nanowires distribute anti-coagulant never got easier. She swallowed her anxiety, wove through various security checkpoints out of the building and hopped into a waiting travel pod.

***

“All done,” said a woman’s Russian-accented voice said as Yumi exhaled. Nanowires withdrew their metallic appendages from her skull and retreated into a mechanical arm attached to the plush chair she sat in.  

“Thank you, government healthcare.”

“Someday, I’d like to know how someone young like you gets this kind of healthcare,” the nurse said as she slipped her hands into a sanitization receptacle.

“Unfortunately, Auntie Sam would be displeased I shared classified information. Even if it is boring.” Yumi stood and pulled on her sweater. Her bracelet buzzed, confirming it had placed her regular order at the coffee stand in the lobby. “See you in three months.”

“Do vstrechi,” the nurse said, then turned away and tended to the clear panel attached to the armrest.

Yumi made her way past the clear doors, curved architecture, and floating nameplate of the Naveed Rajani Medical Center. She plucked her chilled cup of coffee from automated cart and took a sip. The sweet, fragrant mix of spices danced with the bitter brew on her tongue and she moaned.

Someone bumped into her. She yelped and threw her arm out to catch herself on the shelf of the cart.  The ice from her drink clattered across the floor with a crash echoing around the cavernous lobby.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry.” A man tentatively touched her sweater.

Yumi huffed, shook the drink off her hands and inhaled a deep breath. An ache pressed against her forehead as she turned and regarded the man in front of her. She met his apologetic Guinness brown eyes, and his face was stuck in a wince. His bronze skin contrasted with the white and grey décor walls around them. His eyes widened and his mouth hung ajar. She cocked her head to the side. Why the shocked face?

“I’m okay, thank you. My shoes need a wash, but you’re lucky they’re easy to clean.” The man continued to gawk. Yumi gave him a half smile—it wasn’t every day she left a man speechless. Maybe Pilates wasn’t such a waste of money. “Well? What are you going to do about my spilled coffee?”

The man blinked, straightened his shirt, and cleared his throat. “Can I get you a new one?”

“That’s a halfway decent start. What about my shoes?”

“I’m sure we can find a shoe shiner to take care of that for you,” he said with a playful smirk.

“A shoe shiner?” Yumi furrowed her brow, then she grinned. “Are you a history nerd?”

The man punctuated his nervous laugh with a shrug and scratched his neck. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Me too. Yumi Aiuchi,” she said as she extended her hand.

The man grasped it and returned the firm grip. “Kai Thomas.”

***

Kai set a steaming mug of black coffee down on the table. The sharp, burnt tang wafted its way into Yumi’s nostrils. Sleep pulled at her eyelids, but the enticement of the warm beverage put her arms into motion. Kai dragged his hand across her shoulders as he sat down next to her. She grasped his hand before he pulled it away and kissed his fingers.

“Thank you,” she said with a yawn.

He rubbed her forearm and leaned back into the chair, holding his own cup as he blew on its surface. “You’re welcome.”

A sharp pain pricked at the side of her head, and she grumbled and frowned. Her vision dimmed and lights danced in her peripheral. The moment passed. She sipped her coffee, and its ardent blend of flavors drew a satisfied sigh.

“I’ll never understand how you can drink it black,” Kai said.

She lifted a pointed finger and let out a long, quiet shush while shaking her head. “Let me savor this, please. My head is killing me. Literally.” Kai’s posture stiffened. He drummed his fingernails on his mug. “Relax, babe. It’s just a joke. I have my appointment today, I’ll be fine.” Kai bounced his leg and chewed the inside of his cheek.

“I know, I know. You’re right.”

Yumi slid her hand across his thigh and gave it a light squeeze. “Do you want to come with me?”

Kai stilled his knee. The last time he was that nervous was right before their first kiss. “I’d like that.”

He inhaled to say more, but Yumi shook her head and tapped her finger on her mug. She needed to finish her coffee first.

***

“See? Now I’m good as ever,” Yumi said.

Kai rolled his eyes and slung his arm around her shoulder. “Yes, thank you, you’re the braver of the two of us. We’ve known this since we found the mouse living at your sister’s house.”

Yumi laughed and held onto his hand as she led him to the coffee stand to pick up her celebratory drink.

“I think you hit a pitch only dogs and teenagers can hear with that shriek,” she said, and took a sip of her sweet concoction.

Kai kissed the top of her head. “Thank God for you though. That vermin could have gotten me at any time.”

“Hey now, Charles was a decent family man searching for food for his family. How dare you malign his actions?”

“A man, or mouse, who terrorizes others in search of his own ambitions deserves neither praise nor pity.” Kai took his arm off her shoulder and slipped his fingers between hers.

Yumi was about to return the banter when cries of alarm erupted outside. The high-pitched screech of twisting metal pulled their attention to the entrance. A travel pod crashed through the glass. Kai pushed her out of the way. Yumi hit the floor, watching in slow motion as the pod sailed over her and slammed into Kai.

She screamed.  

The pod crushed Kai against the wall. Paramedic bots flooded the scene and set up an electrified boundary, and doctors within the building sprinted down the stairs. Yumi picked herself up and ran toward Kai. A paramedic wrapped his arms around her midsection and dragged her back as she cried and thrashed. The paramedic pressed a small device to her neck, and a sedative fogged her vision until everything went black.

***

“Welcome back, Dr. Aiuchi.”

Yumi blinked away her groggy, blurred vision. Sensation crept back into her palms as she pressed them into a soft cloth cushion. A woman a few decades her senior sat in an armchair in the middle of the dark room, her legs folded while her fingers flit across a glass tablet. She made a fist and the tablet shrank into a thin strip, which she wrapped around her wrist.

The woman met her eyes. “You gave us quite a scare.”

“Kai…” Yumi whispered. She pressed a hand to her lips to dam her grief, while the other clasped her shoulder. She could still feel Kai’s hand as he’d pushed her out of the way.

“We’re sorry to inform you that he expired at the scene. If it’s of any comfort, his death came without pain or suffering.”

Yumi clenched her jaw. Anger roiled in her belly, burning away the cold tendrils of grief. Of course. Leave it to government healthcare to give her an AI grief counselor. At least they were easy enough to trick.

“It is. Thank you. I would like to return to work as soon as possible,” she said. One-one-thousand. Exhale. Two-one-thousand. Inhale. Her heartrate returned to normal with her practiced breathing.

“Your bio signs show an elevated level of stress. Is that due to the events of this morning?”

“My job is very stressful.”

The projection shimmered briefly.

“Statement reads true. Are you able to return to duty uncompromised by the emotional trauma you’ve witnessed?”

“Yes.”

“One moment.”

The woman stood from the chair and paced around the room. Yumi continued measuring her breath.

“Confirmed. You have been approved to return to work on the condition you receive regular mental health monitoring sessions. Have a lovely afternoon, Dr. Aiuchi.”

Yumi pushed herself up and paced out the door. She shut it behind her, closed her eyes, and let the tears roll down her cheeks. Her breath shuddered. No time to grieve. Focus, Yumi. Get to work. Get the device. You can fix this. She straightened and checked the time. Nathan should be starting his lunch soon. That gave her enough time to get there and catch him. It would be a tight window. Her bracelet notified her that a pod was waiting to take her to work. She sprinted down and stopped. A pod killed Kai. Why did it—

It doesn’t matter, she thought. You can figure it out when you go back.

She eased herself into the cushioned vehicle and went over her plan on the ride there. Luckily, the city has halfway locked down, so the pod traveled faster than usual.

Back in her office, she hurried through security checks and rushed across the lab hallway. Her office waited directly ahead of her and the T.M.D.M.E workshop to her left. As expected, Nathan strolled through the door heading out of T.M.D.M.E. with his face plastered to an open book.

“Hey, Nathan. Weird question,” Yumi said.

Nathan looked over the top of his book. “Okay…”

“Do you mind letting me in to see how it works?”

Nathan dropped his hand and his eyes lit up. “Sure! It’s pretty cool, come on in.”

He approved Yumi as a consulting visitor and led her into the engineering department.

A male AI voice said, “Welcome to the Time Manipulation Device Mechanical Engineering department, Dr. Aiuki. Please follow all safety pro—”

Yumi skipped the tutorial and stood behind a wide glass window. On the other side, a watch with a large, circular face and a thin band rested on a stand. Several standing workstations were positioned around it, and an engineer with his back turned worked at a screen with scrolling code.

“Pretty wild, huh?” Nathan said. His beard crinkled as he smiled. “Centuries of technological advancement all boiled down to a simple wristwatch. A bit on the nose if you ask me, but I think H.G. Wells would approve.”

“Can I get closer?”

“No,” Nathan said. “Wish you could, but we have strict protocols on who can go down there.”

The man working at one of the stations headed up the stairs toward the viewing room. This is it. Yumi tensed her muscles. Nathan prattled about how simple creating a rift in time was, and the relatively small amount of energy it required.

“Mhm.”

The computer scanned the man’s credentials and the door opened. Yumi took her chance.

She sprinted at the man and drove her shoulder into his side. He cursed and tripped. Yumi took the stairs two at a time and rushed to the device. The man tumbled down the stairs. Alarms rang.

Nathan’s shrill voice came over the intercom. “Yumi what are you doing?”

“I have to save him,” she whispered. She made it to the stand, snatched up the watch, and wrapped it around her wrist.

“Yumi! You can’t do this!”

“I have to.”

She set the destination for two days earlier. The man she shoved past recovered and barreled toward her. Yumi backed away and her finger swiped up on the screen. A green button popped up, and she jabbed it with a finger. Nathan’s screams echoed. The man that dove at her froze in place with panicked eyes wide open.

Yumi’s vision swirled. Streaks of light and sound battered her mind. Her entire body compressed, as though a black hole opened in her chest and sucked her through the event horizon.

Then nothing. A void.

A pinprick of light winked in the distance and the world came crashing in on her. She was screaming, then dry heaving on her hands and knees. She vomited and the bile splashed on her hands. Her head spun and stars swam in her vision.  

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fuck.”

Yumi sat up and closed her eyes, waiting for the nausea to pass. She opened them to a gritty cityscape. Steel-colored clouds loomed over haphazard rows of buildings; some had round, sculpted trimming and others sharp, minimal angles. An odd tower jutted out from the rest—the Space Needle? But that was demolished… No. This can’t be happening. She checked the watch. January 15, 2021.

“Two hundred years?!” Her shriek echoed in the alley.

“Shut up!” a disembodied voice yelled. A man huddled in a thick jacket stood up.

“Sorry,” she said. Why did I apologize? I’m the one trapped two hundred years in the past. “Wait, no, you shut up!” A bottle whizzed past her and shattered on the building to her side. She yelped and sprinted in the other direction.

“Take me back to my time now, please,” she said into the watch as she rounded the corner.

It buzzed in response. “Negative.”

“Take me back to January 18, twenty-two-hundred and twenty-one.”

“Unable to complete action. Restriction: Use limit reached.”

“What? No, no, no, no…”

She took it off, put it back on, turned it off, changed its settings; nothing worked. She slumped against a cold steel lamp post. The sun sank behind the city’s jagged silhouette and a chill breeze rolled through the streets. Cars—the kind she had only seen in history books—rolled past her in a loud, stinking, oppressive, and gaudy procession. She huddled into a fetal position and sobs shook her shoulders.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

Yumi lifted her head. Her eyes bulged. Kai stared back at her with the same concerned look she’d seen so many times before. Her lip trembled. He couldn’t be the same one. His hair was a little different and his eyes were a slightly darker shade. But it looked so much like him... but it was two hundred years too soon. She snapped her jaw shut, wiped the tears from her eyes, and stood.

“I’m okay, it’s just—” Her head ached, and she winced. “Sorry. Bad day, and I’m… um…” She looked around at the foreign city. Cracked concrete, somber buses, and tragic building fronts lined the desolate sidewalk. “A little lost.” Her voice bordered on cracking. She was going to die in the past.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he said. “Whatever’s happening, let me help. My name is Kai.” He offered his hand.

Same name, he must have been named after this ancestor. “Yumi.” They shook.

“It’s a little late for coffee, and I don’t want to seem presumptuous… It looks like you might need something stronger, anyway.”

“Desperately,” she said.

Kai’s radiant smile warmed her chest, but a pull of regret and sadness held her back from embracing it.

“There’s a great spot down the street. Bartender’s a friend of mine and pours with a heavy hand.”

Forgetting for a second she had no idea what that meant, his presence—and the memory of her Kai— overcame her hesitation.

“That sounds great.”

Kai tipped his head and led her down to the promised bar. A heavy hand turned out to mean a human—a real live person!—poured the measures of liquor into a drink at their discretion, and hers was indeed heavy. Yumi ordered the same rum and coke as Kai and coughed when she took a sip. Kai’s rumbling laughter lifted her spirits. They fell into a familiar rhythm of laughter, conversation, and flirtatious banter. She poked fun at his ill-fitting jacket; he parried with a quip about her bulky wristwatch.

“I’ll have you know this is the most advanced watch in human history,” she retorted, squinting one eye. She leaned over and almost slipped off her chair. She whooped and laughed, barely catching herself on the bar.

“My God, when was the last time you had a drink? You’ve barely made it into your second one.”

“It’s not just that. I have a condition that—“ Too much info. “You know what? It’s not important. Is there food here? I’m starving.”

Kai lifted a thick eyebrow. He seemed poised to ask about her more, but instead lifted two fingers to call his friend over.

“Nachos, please,” he said. He turned to Yumi. “Do you have objections to meat?”

“None. Give me that dead animal.”

“Add chicken,” Kai said with a chuckle. “Thanks, Jaz.”

“So why is this watch so advanced? Doesn’t look too special.”

“Well, if I told you, I’d have to kill you,” she said, and set her drink aside. She didn’t want the alcohol to dull this memory. If I’m going to die in three months I might as well make the best of it. Twenty-first century Kai nodded slowly.

“Okay, woman of mystery. Keep your secrets.”

Yumi leaned in and kissed him. Kai made a startled sound.

She pulled back. “I’m sorry—”

Kai placed his hand behind her neck and kissed her back. A longing heat rose within her when his lips touched hers and silenced the fear gnawing at her chest—if only for a moment. She pulled away, but only far enough to let her forehead rest against his. She bit her lip.

“Where do you live?” she asked.

Kai made a sheepish chuckle. “Jaz, I’ll take those nachos to-go.”

***

Time, mutable as it is, blended the hours, days, and weeks together. The differences between 2221 and 2021 were stark in some ways and nonexistent in others. Their relationship blossomed quicker than it had in the future. So much time spent with traveling and waiting for things gave Yumi an avenue to ask more questions, answer her own, and to learn how to savor the in-between. She used her knowledge of history to advise Kai on investments—or say things that brought out that look of consternation and confusion she adored.

“Batteries? Seriously?” Kai said. “I mean, every one of my friends is saying crypto currency.”

“Trust me,” she replied, laughing. “You want to bet on energy.”

But time’s steps, however fast or slow they go, plod ever onward. Yumi’s headaches worsened. Panic wound its way into her heart. Whenever Kai asked, she would simply shake her head and say she needed more sleep and some water.

When Kai went to work, she filled the idle time absorbing sunsets, watching the rays of the sun dance across the water of Puget Sound, sparkling off the tips of the ebbing water. She sat near the piers and waterfronts, letting her skin absorb the salt and humidity of the coast that would sink away in just a matter of years. The stench of gasoline, smoke, and mingled spices from mixed cuisines shifted from nauseating to enthralling. Each passing day revealed how sterile the future had become. Yes, she could travel the thirty miles from work to her home in less than ten minutes, but could she appreciate the grandeur of humanity’s accomplishments? When could she drag her fingers down the rough, weathered wood of a hand-carved chair or listen to the soulful melodies of a busker in the market?

The dreaded morning came; she woke with searing pain in her head. She cried out and bolted up in bed. Kai startled and leapt up with her. It was time.

“What is it, what’s going on?”

“Kai, I don’t have a lot of time.” Fire radiated out from the port in her head and slithered across to the other side. “This condition I have requires a treatment every three months.”

“Three months? But…” His eyes widened as he did the math. He threw the covers off and started grabbing clothes off the floor. “Where do we need to go? I’ll take you.”

“Kai. The treatment doesn’t exist yet,” she said.

“What do you mean? How have you been—”

“I’m from the future.”

“This isn’t funny, Yumi.” Kai pulled on a shirt. “Do we need to go Harborview? Where—”

“I’m not lying, Kai. Grab my watch.”

“Your watch? What the f—”

Yumi cried out and gripped the side of her head. “My watch. It’s proof. Ask it a question about the future and if I added it to the database it’ll know the answer.”

“Okay, honestly, Yumi this joke is going too far.” Kai put his hands on his hips.

Yumi stood, laboring to control her legs. She stumbled and Kai caught her.

“I should have told you sooner. I never got to tell you I love you. I’m sorry.” She caressed his face. Her eye twitched, blood flooded her sclera, and she went limp.

“Yumi?” Kai shook her. He yelled her name again. He lifted her up, grabbed his phone, and called for an ambulance.

***

“I understand you brought this woman in?”

“Yes,” he said. He stood and extended his hand. “Kai Thomas.”

“I’m Dr. Rajani. Let’s have a seat.” The doctor’s somber tone and quiet voice spiked Kai’s heartbeat.

He eased himself back down. “She’s…”

“I’m afraid she was dead on arrival.”

Nausea twisted his stomach. He stared at the cup in his hand. A droplet fell on the plastic lid.

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” The doctor hesitated. “Forgive me, as I know you’re still processing this information, but I found a few… abnormalities.”

“Abnormalities?”

“Yes. For example, her X-ray showed some kind of implant in her head. One I’ve never seen nor heard of. We found no medical records—or any other records. I’m hoping you can fill in the blanks for me.”

“No, she—” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “She mentioned she had a condition that needed regular treatment, but that’s it. I… need to go.” Kai stood and ignored the doctor’s objections. He stormed out of the emergency room and drove back to his apartment.

He went to the nightstand and pulled Yumi’s watch out of the drawer. He placed the face on his wrist and the straps adjusted themselves before he could move them. He felt a buzz, and a voice sounded in his head.

“TMD active. New user recognized.”

“She was telling the truth,” he whispered. He cleared his throat. “When was this last used?”

“March twenty-third, Twenty-two hundred and twenty-one.”

“Take me to three months and a day before then.” The day before they met.

“Confirmed.”

Electricity shot its way up Kai’s arm and he fainted.

***

“Travel completed.”

The voice in Kai’s head nudged him to consciousness. He rolled to his side and vomited, then eased himself onto his hands and knees and swallowed the rest of his nausea. He lifted his head and gasped. Circular, smooth white buildings streaked with dark blue glass pierced the sky. The street was lined with tracks; round pods whizzed past him at speeds he’d only seen on racetracks. He walked out of the alley and onto a moving walkway that leading to a short landing of stairs.

“Check the investments of Kai Thomas,” he said to the AI. The watched beeped and his eyes bulged at the number on the watch’s face. “Thank God I trusted her. Where am I?”

“You are at the Naveed Rajani Medical Center.”

“Hot damn.”

Kai hopped up the stairs and passed through the doors into a lobby. A woman appeared and followed him as he walked, asking if he needed assistance. He tried to shake her hand, but his fingers passed right through the projection.

“Unreal…” he gawked at the open space with pristine white marble walls.

As he was backing up, turning and admiring the architecture, he bumped into someone. The crash of ice hitting marble echoed in the cavernous lobby.

1,826 Days of Sobriety and ? Days of Quarantine

Five years (and a day) alcohol-free. It’s odd to say it out loud. Yesterday was supposed to be a celebratory day of laughter, maybe a party, certainly a cake. Or, at least that’s how I envisioned it would go when I first embarked on this odyssey. Instead it sort of…came and went. I was having a conversation with a Twitter friend and I just kind of realized it and said: “Oh hey, today’s five years sober.”

Weird, right? I mean most everyone I’ve known makes a big deal out of hitting that half-decade mark. It’s a long time and quite an accomplishment, right? I think under normal circumstances I would have made a bigger deal about it. But we’re not in normal times.

It’s been a relentless deluge of bad news for months. I’ve been at home since I started feeling symptoms some unknown number of days ago. Nights are wrought with anxiety, insomnia, and weird dreams. The days are full of screeching, sprinting through the apartment, stomping, crying, and I think my children are making a ruckus too. Most of the downtime I spend wracked with guilt and more self-doubt than usual about my parenting skills, but until this virus gets contained I don’t have any other choice but to put my best foot forward, swallow the tears and keep going.

And you know what else I’ve felt lately? Like giving up. Never have I wanted more than to just give in to that voice in the back of my head that says, “You made it five years, man. You can grab a beer. I mean, this virus shares a namesake for a reason. Go ahead. Or, hey, okay I know that makes you anxious, but what about some weed? Right? Nothing bad ever happened to you from smoking a little bit? You could get some sleep, chill out, put those anxieties to rest, and goddamn wouldn’t that be nice?”

If I’m being honest with you and with myself, it takes a lot of effort to shut that up, and my answer is frequently to distract myself with video games. It’s been getting worse as time goes on. The uncertainty, the helplessness, the rage. I haven’t been this angry in a while, and that, dear reader, is what took me the most by surprise.

Because it’s not just the financial terror of not having enough to pay rent, the 24/7 parenting and home-schooling, lack of exercise, or nonexistent alone-time that has been doing me in the most. It’s the fury. The demon that fueled so much of the misery I felt all those years ago is back. I have tools to confront it: years of training and a network of supportive people. I can spread it around to keep from over-burdening any one person with the weight that crushes my chest and takes my breath away. It’s enough, but only barely.

The silver lining is that at least the pandemic happened now that I have the tools to combat my addiction. I’ve been through enough hell in my life to know that there’s an end, even if it means I have to spend some time enduring the immolation first. I know the voice that assures me it’s okay to give in, just a little bit, is full of absolute shit and is never worth trusting again. My children will have a sober father. When it comes to my marriage, I feel like I spend so much time keeping myself together for the kids, I barely have anything left for her and it isn’t fair, but I still know we’ll make it through. We’ll emerge from the depths of our troubles onto that sandy beach at the end of this journey hand in hand, and someday it’ll be my turn to carry the weight.

I guess, for now, I’ll end with this about sobriety and pandemics: It fucking sucks. It’s the hardest I’ve had to fight to stay sober, but writing this blog post has been a much-needed reminder that I. Am. Winning.

To my fellow addicts struggling with their demons during this global crisis: I’m with you. I can’t do much more than offer my solidarity in fighting this ridiculous onslaught of strife, but I hope it’s at least enough to keep that voice from overpowering you. Stay strong, stay home, be safe. Stop touching your face. I saw it. Stop.

Changing Minds

With multiple states trying to pass Beta Gilead, I have been lost for words. Along with scores of women across the country, I'm enraged, disgusted, and despondent, but what can I do to change the tide? I live in a state where a woman's right to choose is well-protected and will stay that way for the foreseeable future.  

Then I remembered a conversation I had about three years ago with an Uber driver. It was the only time I've ever, at the very least, changed one person’s perception of the pro-choice stance.  

He was an older white man and was pleasant enough until we somehow we got to abortion. I don't remember how we got there, but I wound up telling him my story. My wife and I have a… tumultuous history. We met online in 2011, had a fifteen-hour-long first date, and after a whirlwind romance that lasted three months, we found ourselves in limbo and we weren't sure whether we wanted to stay together. Why? Well, along with her realization I had a bad drinking problem, she wasn't sure she wanted kids, and I did. We spent some time apart and both decided, separately, we would move on from each other because we had different life goals. At twenty-six, I wanted to make long-term plans. I didn't want to take a chance that five, or ten years down the line, she would decide not to have children and it would force me to make the impossible decision between someone I loved and the potential family I wanted.  

At some point either during or right before our limbo, I made an offhand comment about her boobs getting bigger, and she freaked out and took a pregnancy test. I went over to her place, ready to cut ties, and she was prepared to do the same. The test came back positive. Cue a shared panic attack. Our relationship was pretty much over, and we were facing a possible pregnancy. In a rare episode of sensibility, we talked it through. I voiced my support for an abortion. As much as I wanted a child, I didn't want one with a mother that would resent it. If she was to choose to be a parent, I wanted that decision to have no pressure coming from me. It had to be 100% her own. I laid out all the logical reasons:

1.      she had a tiny studio apartment

2.       I was living with my mother

3.      we were poor

4.      she had yet to finish college

5.      we had no retirement savings of any kind

6.      it would be catastrophic for us

7.      Oh yea, and we were about to break up

She agreed, and we made the decision to abort if she was actually pregnant. But first we had to make sure, so we made an appointment to see a doctor. 

We get to the clinic and sure enough, when the doctor came back in she says, "Yep you're pregnant. Were you planning on continuing the pregnancy or not?" It was the moment of truth. My then sorta-girlfriend stuttered, hemmed and hawed for a few seconds and I said, "We need to talk about it."  

We went to Taphouse Grill for lunch­ -I still remember what I ate- and we talked. She said that she knew it was smarter for us to abort, but she couldn't go through with it. That when it came down to it, she wanted to be a mother, and even though it wasn't the way she might have wanted it, that was her decision. The subsequent events of our relationship could fill multiple seasons of a telenovela, but we're currently happy, healthy, sober, and have added one more to our family. When I told the Uber driver that story, he paused and said that he had never heard pro-choice from that angle. That most of us choose NOT to abort. I didn't get into the underlying factors that led us to feel comfortable with that decision like Washington State has a lot of programs to help struggling mothers, a strong economy, and we both have stable local familial support structures. He thanked me for sharing my story and dropped me off.  

I don't know why that worked. Maybe it's because instead of the ephemeral idea of saying it's about the right to choose, it was a real, live person telling a story that made it more visceral. Maybe he only listened to me because I'm a man, or we were trapped in a car, so he had no choice. Whatever the reason, it worked. I don't know if, in print, it will have the same impact, but I want to add at least the one thing that worked because we need to change minds. I've had multiple, angry arguments about statistics, facts, emotional appeals, and the things that should convince someone who thinks logically but it never has. This story did. Maybe it can again.  

Why I Read Exclusively Female Authors for the Last Few Years and What I've Learned.

A few years ago, a friend asked me, “Hey Victor, settle a debate for me. What would happen if you put a werewolf on the moon?” That conversation snowballed into five short stories and a novel. Though writing had always been one of my ambitions, I hadn’t thought to pursue it seriously until then and set myself to learning the craft. I discovered the Writing Excuses podcast and devoured as much information as I could from each episode. Then I got to the one about Unconscious Bias. In that episode, Shannon Hale talks about how she asks male students if they can list twenty female authors that they’ve read multiple books from. I got to about six before I had to start googling female authors to find ones I’ve read. This did not sit well with me for multiple reasons.

1.      My main character was a woman.

2.      I know what it’s like to be underrepresented in science fiction and fantasy.

3.      I like to think of myself as a feminist, and realized I was woefully lacking in my experience of female authorship.

I figured, if I was going to be writing from the perspective of a woman, I had damn well better read women writing women. So, I did. What I learned is hard to encapsulate in a blog post, but I’ll try to distill it.

Firstly, I understand now why many women roll their eyes when men like George R.R. Martin answer the question “How do you write women so well?” with “Well I just think of them as people.” That’s a start, but it’s not close to enough.

Yes, women are people. That should be a given. What that answer misses is the entire female experience is drastically different than men’s. Everything from walking to the grocery store, ordering food, talking to a doctor, to riding the bus is done with different considerations. This needs to be coded into our writing, or at bare minimum considered. There’s just a certain level of caution that most, if not all women, live with, and women of color? That’s an entire other post. There’s an argument to be made about having aspirational characters that buck that structural pressure, but I would argue that if you’re going to do that, at least make mention of just how much of an uphill battle that is. At nearly every turn of a woman’s life they’ve been told either with explicit direction, or through socialized pressure not to be certain things. Not to be so outspoken, emotional, contrary. Don’t be so loud and stop roughhousing with boys that’s not lady-like. Here, wear this dress and these heels, aren’t you cute? Black shirt? Don’t you want pink or purple? I think that’d look cuter. What’s worse is when children aren’t even given the choice. They’re handed their gender-based color schemes and interests and that’s it. This kind of pressure isn’t as direct but it’s damaging in that it becomes woven into the tapestry of their identity. How many women have refused to go to the doctor because they’re just “overreacting”? Or they look at a girl wearing torn fishnets, green hair, leather studded black jackets and said something derisive? Then there’s the phrase “real women have curves/treat their man like a prince/insert banal definition of femininity.”

So how can I glean all of that from just reading women? It’s not like fantasy and sci-fi are essays about feminism. You’re right. But not really. You don’t even have to look that hard to see it. In Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons her character, extensively, talks about the struggles of a woman trying not just to be taken seriously, but even getting into natural biology. Current STEM allegory anyone? Charlie N. Holmberg’s Paper Magician sees her main character continuously stifle her reactions and words around the men in the book, and you’ll see it time and time again. If you pay attention.

The other thing I didn’t expect to learn so much about was romance, and only recently figured out why men are typically bad at it. The first time I read a romance scene after having learned about writing characters, I was blown away. The sheer amount of development a writer can cram into a good sex scene was a revelation to me. I thank Elizabeth Bear for breaking my brain with that. In her book Range of Ghosts, the first scene between Edene and Temur spells out, with beautiful prose, the dynamic between them. He respects her enough to let her lead, to trust she knows what she wants and doesn’t question her. She has the agency to take charge, she’s fierce, unafraid of going after what she wants and as we read more that interaction tracks with their character development as the novels go on. Different characters in later chapters have a different love-dynamic and the writing bears that out.

As to why men tend to be worse, I think John Grisham is a perfect example. In an interview, he told the story about how he tried to write a sex scene once. He gave it to his wife, and he heard her laughing from across the house. It’s a funny anecdote, until you unpack it and apply it to more men who either avoid writing romance or do it poorly. I have had my wife roll her eyes at my writing on occasion. It stings. A lot. The difference is that I took the criticism and applied it instead of letting my bruised ego dictate that I remain bad at something. That being said, I don’t write romance often because I still don’t think I’m good at it. Although after spending some time with the WritingCommunity on Twitter and reading the horrors of some of the romance out there, I might be better at it than I thought. I may give writing a short romance story a try and see how it’s received.

Ultimately my immersion into female literature was not so much eye-opening as it was a realignment of my world view. Much of what I talked about is taking the themes I read about and applying it to the world around me. I listened to women talk about their experiences, then read books written by them. I heard their complaints and saw clearly the situations I explained here. I am more cognizant of the way I interact with women, how I am perceived by them, and I try to put that not just into my writing, but into my life. I will never know what it’s like to be a woman, but I can continue to absorb their creative output to better inform mine.

Salud.

1,460 Days of Sobriety

Today is four years. It’s hard to remember my life without sobriety. To think of myself as the guy who would go around a bar at closing time pretending to help clean, when in reality, I was just drinking stranger’s leftovers. Because, hey, free booze right? Jesus. Even after four years I’m still discovering how lost I was.

A lot has happened this past year that tested my resolve. I lost a friend to cancer, I quit my job, I started my own practice. I’ve become a stay at home dad and started potty training my daughter. If that doesn’t make anyone want to drink, then they’re lying to you. I finished my first novel. Reflecting on that, I’m realizing that book has been a work in progress almost as long as I’ve been dry. Crazy.

The amount of things I’ve learned across the time I’ve fought the demons within me is the fuel that powers my writing so it’s impossible to put it all down here. What I can tell you, and as I’ve told many before, is that nobody does it alone. Period. I don’t know a single person who has. I know I didn’t. It took a team of cops, corrections officers, lawyers, judges, and clinic staff to get me there. It took a group of like-afflicted persons made up of any mix of color, gender, creed and social class you can think of to carry me the rest of the way. It took the unwavering love, compassion and support of those closest to me to keep me afloat when I let despair claw its way in.

It also took a lot of forgiveness. I’ve noticed people talk about it a lot in an ephemeral sort of way. That, of course forgiveness is good, we should totally forgive people. What I think most don’t understand is how deep it goes. Can you forgive the drunk driver who killed your son? I don’t know if I could, but I met someone who has. Are you capable of forgiving, and loving the one who took your legs? Shit, I don’t know about that one either but I also met that person. You know what both of those people do? They fight for legislation to make treatment easier to obtain for drunk drivers. To seek a more compassionate legal system. That kind of forgiveness is unimaginable to me and yet here I am alive, well, and thriving in no small part to their efforts. What’s more is that when I had a full, clear vision of the damage I had done to myself and to those around me I had to learn to forgive me enough to allow for a second chance. To truly believe that I deserved it and to accept the forgiveness of those who also thought I should have another shot. It is not easy.

To say I’m grateful to those who’ve stuck by me, supported me and never blinked twice when I had to leave due to my limits on being around alcohol is such a gross understatement that it almost feels offensive. I don’t know how to adequately thank someone for being the reason I’m alive. All the same, thank you. I dedicate this year of sobriety, as I do every year to you all. I love you, and thank you for loving me in return.

Salud