Otis, Stuck Between Five and Four

“How long has it been?”

There was a rustle, and then the girl’s face and shoulders were briefly illuminated by the glow of a smartphone screen. “Three hours.” In the dark, she continued, “Still no signal.”

“I’ve only ever gotten one bar in this building, and that was in the lobby.” I give up, I can’t remember her name.  “I feel like I know you from somewhere. I mean, besides the elevator.”

“Oh?”

“It’s your voice. There’s something familiar about—”

“You hit on me at the law firm’s Christmas party. The one on twelve? You crashed it with that guy in red glasses—”

“Pierce. Accounting.”

“—yeah, and some of us from the nonprofits on ten got invited.” She snorted. “I guess they were short on women.”

“Aren’t we all. Anyway, sorry about that.”

“Oh, you weren’t an asshole about it. I told you I was gay and you were like, ‘oh, okay, cool’. We talked politics for a minute and then Pierce dragged you off.”

“Do you always say you’re gay when random guys hit on—”

“I’m actually gay.”

“Oh, okay. Cool.”

“See? You said it again.”

“Well, it’s my go-to phrase, I guess.”

“It’s really working for you.”

“Thanks.”

The Honeymoon

“Catch me!” She ran, shoes slapping on the wet pavement, sending up fountains of water from puddles not avoided. I followed, trying to stay dry under an umbrella protesting against the wind, counting in my head my remaining dry pairs of socks, apologizing with my eyes to those sensible commuters our noisy spectacle passed on the sidewalk.

On an emptier street, she paused under an awning, pulled me close, stole a kiss. I would have lectured her, before, about catching cold; but not now, not anymore.

I followed her through the rain towards our waiting hotel and a nervous bed.

Time To Go

He walked out of Headquarters with the Lasso in his pocket; easy to do, since he’d used it to go back to before the detectors had been installed. It’d be half an hour plus ten years before they noticed it was missing.

The Lasso, it grabs hold of a moment in time and pulls that moment towards it. It doesn’t move you, it moves the continuity of the universe around you. If you’re very lucky, and very careful, it doesn’t break that continuity in the process.

He was careful, always. He’d written the rules, and spent a long time enforcing them. Lucky? Who knows. He hadn’t ended the world yet.

“Frank.” A familiar voice, over his shoulder: his own.

“Hey. Someone was looking for you inside, I th—”

“Don’t try my own tricks on me.”

He shrugged. His had was on the Lasso, thumbing the dial. “Don’t need to.”

“When did it happen?” The younger Frank looked at his older self in disgust. “When did you break?”

“That’s just it, kid; you don’t get it. You will, eventually.” The Lasso was already humming, a high-pitched rising whine they both knew well. “There’s no such thing as when. There never was.”

The Last Of The New Amsterdam Vampires

I went on to California, then Seattle and finally Portland. I can blend in among the eccentrics and the hipsters and the nut jobs without a second’s thought. Coral stayed in Nebraska, in that little town, where she stuck out like black tar heroin on a candy tray. She never gave me a straight answer why, past: “I’m tired of moving around.”

That was what, ten years ago?

I’ve put out feelers, from time to time; she’s answered none. I hear from Rocky, often, always when he needs something. I heard from Wen only once, before she faded into the great Chinese interior from whence she’d originally come. Maybe she’ll come back out again, someday. She knows what to say in the Times Personals if she wants to find me. So does Coral. I wonder who they’ll be, who they will have become, when and if they do.

Maybe they’re already dust. I don’t know. I oscillate between caring and not, between wondering if they still exist and forgetting they ever existed, that we were ever a family.

I could make a new one, drain them and feed them and wait for them to violently wake. But there’s still time.

Home For The Holidays

The boarding announcement crackled over the loudspeaker, telling her it was time to get in line, time to go through security, time to take the Xanax.

He'd been more silent than usual, but while staring over her shoulder at something undefined in the middle distance he managed, "So I guess I'll miss you."

"Oh?" She hadn't really heard it, not while concentrating on searching the bottom of her bag for tissues. But then it sunk in, and she looked up, and caught his eye and smiled. "I'll miss you too." She felt as if, suddenly, she didn't need the Xanax.