Emit

by Jack Beal

  After tossing the threadbare linens into a ragged heap, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and hop to my feet with surprising ease. The stiffness in my legs and back has completely vanished. At present, my only discomfort is owing to a stiff polyester band cutting hard into my waist. It’s as if the suit pants shrunk several sizes overnight.

  The closet door slides creakily open and I peer in. Inside, it’s about as jam-packed as the rest of the room. Skidding the empty wire hangers noisily out of the way, I spy a shelf with a few badly folded garments strewn across it. Grabbing a pair of pants in desperate need of pressing and a blue checkered shirt, I follow the dingy hallway to the bathroom. A hot shower is just what I need.

  After tossing my new outfit over a towel hook, I undress and turn on the water. But as I step into the shower, I stop short, doing a double-take at the mirror. Sure, the man peering back at me is no spring chicken. But he’s not the geezer from the hospital, either. Drawing my fingertips upwards, I pat my face skeptically. But my senses aren’t playing tricks on me. My skin is a little tauter. My cheeks, a little fuller. My eyes, a little brighter.

  My mind races as I step beneath the streaming jets. Then it is true. My life is moving backward. As the water pours over me in scalding streams, I try making sense of what’s happening. Or happened. Or will happen. But it’s complicated. My memories are all muddled and fleeting, probably because they technically haven’t happened yet. The thought gives me a headache.

  I press on even if each moment brings more questions than answers. Back in Corona, how did everybody else get older while I stayed the same? How did I fall asleep a little boy and wake up an old man? And now why am I going backward while everybody else is moving in the right direction?

  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve come to the realization that each time the nausea begins, I get flung back. But where do I go, each time? And how long am I gone? A final question burns inside of me: why? Why is this happening to me? And what am I supposed to be doing about it?

  If I hope to make any sense of things, I’m going to have to put the facts in order, I decide. Drawing in a deep breath, I try to concoct a timeline. But as I’ve already mentioned, my memories are all jumbled. The first one comes ephemerally. It’s the image of an incubator with flashing lights. Next a hospital drifts into view. Before I can get a clearer view, it’s replaced by a long line of palm trees which, in its turn, disappears.

  The next string of memories tumbles hazily in. A carousel. A pirate ship. A pocketbook to the head. The recollection grows clearer. The police station. The apologies. The year: 2013. A stretch limousine. A woman named Belinda. A shining disc. The Cloud Gate. The palm trees. The Dwelling of the Two Gates. Gunshots.

  My recollections are returning faster and stronger. I see the subway filled with sleepwalkers. I remember leaving the tunnel, expecting to find that palm-lined path. Instead, finding the sprawling towers of New York. And Fanny. I remember tracing my way to that enigmatic cathedral. Getting flattened by that skateboarder and watching him get away. There was that old woman telling stories from her wheelchair. And the tablet. I remember finding the tablet.

  But the ultimate question remains. Why?

  The moment I rip open the shower door, the air dances with dense whorls of steam. Stepping into the mist, I leave a puddled path to the foggy mirror. Through the condensation, I appear vague and indistinct, like a mere shadow.

  As the unnerving sensation of déjà-vu washes over me, I shudder. Is that a moment I’ve already lived, or one that’s yet to come?

  By the time I’ve replaced the sopping towel on its hook, I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. Isn’t a premonition a memory heading in the opposite direction? Then for me, all memories are premonitions, and premonitions, memories.

  If I can’t be sure which way is which, I finally deduce, then only one place is certain. And that’s the present.

  I woke up here for a reason. If I want to know why, I’m going to have to connect the dots around me. Which happens to be something I’d rather not do in my birthday suit.

  Slipping into my clothes, I set off to explore the rest of the place. But the other rooms are spitting images of what I’ve already seen. The entire place is wiped out. Whoever lives here must be moving.

  The living room is empty except for a dilapidated two-cushion sofa, an old rotary phone, and a TV hinged to the wall. The kitchen is equally inadequate, but I manage to find some instant coffee which I heat up in the microwave. A few blue smears on the old, chipped mug suggest a picture long since worn away.

  When I stir the grinds into the hot water, a sickeningly musty smell leaks out. Dipping my lips into the scalding liquid, I shudder. The flavor’s even worse than the smell. I scrounge through the cabinets, hoping to find some sweetener or powdered milk. But when my pursuit of cream and sugar ultimately proves futile, I realize I’m going to have to drink the stuff black.

  Pinching my nose, I swig a bitter mouthful. Then, scooping up the block of notepaper and a pen that I’ve unearthed in one hand, I carry my cup of Joe to the couch in the sitting room.

  Placing my mug on the armrest, I begin feverishly scribbling the map I’ve traveled thus far. Logically, it’ll never work. If the present becomes the past, but the past becomes my future, any note I write now won’t exist the next time I wake up. This is because, in the future, which will be the past, it naturally won’t have been written yet.

  Then again, a lot of things that are happening don’t make any sense. I guess it’s worth giving it a shot, right? I’ll never know unless I try.

  First time—Mayo Clinic

  Second time—Chicago, 2013

  Third time—New York City

  Fourth time—Empty Condo

  My list is lacking in the detail compartment, but it’s the best I can do. If I manage to bring it with me, it should at least help to jog my memory. Shoving the note in my pocket, I flick on the TV and take another bitter swig.

  As the TV lights up, a voice falls upon me like an A-bomb. “The sky is filled with smoke and paper…like molten rain…Oh my God! Oh my God! There’s been another impact!”

  The mug falls from my hand as the video shows a plane entering the second tower. Bits of ceramic float in a russet pool at my feet, but my eyes are glued to the screen in disbelief. The reporter’s voice falls in and out as if riding upon the shockwaves. “I believe we can no longer consider this event to be an accident.”

  I recognize the flames secreting like magma and the coils of steely smoke. They parallel the vision I saw when I was leaving the void. The realization is staggering. It’s not only what happens out here, but what I see in there that matters. I still don’t know how to fulfill my mission, but I’m willing to bet this is important.

  Racing to the window, I rip the drapes apart and peer out. I’m no longer in Empire City. Instead, I’m looking out onto a neat row of red brick buildings, each possessing a perfectly pruned garden and surrounded by an intricate iron fence.

  “The first plane struck the North Twin Tower at approximately 8:46 a.m. The second hit the South Tower at 9:03,” the newswoman shrieks.

  I glance at the dusty old dinosaur of a wall clock. 8:04. My first impression is that it’s running slow. I mean, look at the thing. I’m surprised it’s still ticking, at all.

  Recalling the alarm clock, I race to the bedroom. It, too, reads 8:04.

  Is this because I’m going backward? But I quickly discount the idea. Things only go backward if I fall asleep or zap away. Otherwise, time progresses naturally. This leaves only one explanation. If it’s an hour later in New York than it is here, then we’re not in the same time zone! So, since The City that Never Sleeps is Eastern Standard Time, I must be somewhere in the Central Time
Zone. But where?

  I race around the condo searching for a clue. But there’s none to be found. No electricity bills. No state ID card. Not a single piece of mail stamped with an address.

  Maybe there’s a local TV station, I decide, picking up the remote control. But channel surfing is useless: the explosion grumbles across all of them.

  Eyes wide, I watch the impacts repeat like a smoky echo. My eyes grow wider yet. The echo!

  Never underestimate the power of an echo. As my grandmother’s words shatter over me, I’m carried far from this hollow place with its bare walls and into a memory. I’m strolling down that peaceful palm-lined road. The sun is blinding, sending rays filtering through the branches. I can smell the fresh, salt air, but something has changed. The whitewashed buildings are dwarfed by the two, soaring towers.

  My mind is a sickly hand, groping. Probing for a truth buried beneath the lies. It feels around the secrets, those things unknown, forgotten and distorted upon which new truths are built. And when it finally touches something, it hesitates, afraid of what it might discover.

  As the memory comes to light, shadows come plummeting out. I approach the white wall, examining blotches left like stains upon its surface. Only, they haven’t been cast by the sun and leaves. The silhouettes marking these walls belong to men.

  Frantic, I spin around, looking for the people whose shadows line the walls. But I am alone.

  My throat tightens. Through the chaos, a deafening hum unfurls. The North Tower crumbles beneath a veil of dirt and smoke.

  As the sun dips down behind the row of tidy brick buildings outside, I observe the winding down of a day. But something tells me today, the 11th of September 2001, marks the end of much more.

  The news stations have played and replayed the footage: towers crumbling in New York, the Pentagon being hit in Virginia. In the background, harried voices say airports have been shut down across the country. The planes responsible for the destruction had been hijacked. The US is under attack.

  Terrorists, they call them. “They’ve struck America because we’re free, and they hate that freedom,” one reporter explains. “A freedom first bestowed on us by our Forefathers and ameliorated by the men and woman who have given their lives to make ours better.” The images of flaming buildings are replaced with pictures of people. There are presidents and scientists, writers and artists, politicians and inventors. One of the pictures strikes a chord. A black man wearing a white flower necklace peers out at me from the screen. Around him, feathers fall like raindrops. A caption reads Martin Luther King, Jr. but I’m so focused on his necklace that I don’t even notice his name.

  I’ve seen that chain of plumeria before. I remember it. I remember her. Or do I? As her voice drips over me, it’s thick and sweet like honey. “It’s the moment when you’re the biggest you’ve ever been and realize you’re smaller than you ever thought you were,” the voice says, but I can’t see her. “What does that mean?” I cry.

  When no answer comes, I turn back to the TV. Looking at the wreckage that once was the World Trade Center, the hairs on my arms poke up. It’s difficult to believe something so strong and so present could be gone in the matter of seconds. Rummaging through the debris scattered inside myself, I swallow hard. Just like what’s happening to me.

  But as my thoughts drift down the ramshackle path of my understanding, something tells me this isn’t about me. This is a whole lot bigger than I am. Bigger than I ever was.

  As the TV casts a sinister glow over the otherwise unlit room, I watch those burning towers succumb for the thousandth time. And yet I can’t bring myself to switch it off. Drenched in despair, they emerge. The people of the city. Caked with dust. Broken and battered. Men and women. Old and young. All searching. All hoping.

  The camera slides to a newswoman whose warm, mahogany locks are dusted with gray. She tilts the microphone to a bystander. “My name is Steph Lynn,” the young woman stammers shakily, “and I’m looking for my husband, Kai. If you see him, please help him find his way back home.” The tears stream from her butterfly eyes down to her smoky red pout. I know her!

  The newswoman’s eyes are also glassy with tears. “This is Jennifer Todd with CBNYC, bringing you breaking news here in Manhattan.” As the camera zooms out, the picture is replaced by a large 9-11, where the ones are made up of the World Trade Center Towers. Beneath it in big, bold letters: NEVER FORGET.

  But I haven’t forgotten. I can hear the woman with the butterfly eyes as she slips the card into my suitcoat pocket. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  I speed to the bathroom. Adrenaline surging, my hands move shakily through the pile of dirty laundry. I let out a sigh of relief when the card turns up right where I left it.

  Call me is scribbled in blue ink. Beneath it, a telephone number.

  I dash back down the stairs and into the living room. Poking my finger into the number one, I swing the plastic dial around until it stops. Then the two. One. Two. When I’ve finished dialing, a mechanical voice sifts in from the other side of the line. “All lines are busy. Please try again later.”

  I tap the top of the receiver a few times before trying again. Same busy signal.

  Exasperated, I glance up. The TV’s still frozen with the image of the towers, the way they looked before they fell.

  As a familiar surge of nausea crashes over me, I’m the one to crumble.

  “Think of tomorrow, the past can’t be mended.”

  ~Confucius

  TEN

  WHAT COMES OF BROKEN PASTS

  The world keeps spinning, but I remain still. Crouched in this cold, dank cavity, the metallic stink of gunpowder shoots a bitter taste along my tongue. It feels like waking up in the trenches. Pulse racing, I leap from the chasm protecting me and back into the ruins that, surely, I’ve created.

  Under the deafening blitz of plummeting bullets, I wrench one eye open. But not a single round of ammunition shells across the sky. Instead, heavy torrents of raindrops slap against the skylight, leaking down onto the dingy wall. Beside me, a three-legged nightstand leans against the bed. A plastic alarm clock sitting atop it reads 7:46 a.m.

  No! It can’t be! I clamp my eyes closed hard. But when I peel them apprehensively back open, nothing’s changed. I long to protest, but the proof is unequivocal. I haven’t left the shabby condo.

  My palms grow sweaty. My mouth, dry. Heart racing, I sit up starkly. The questions pour in faster than the murky streams of rainwater. Why am I still here? Did I do something wrong last time? I summon up the events of that fateful September day, the day the whole world stood still. I can still see those planes striking, the towers falling, the smoke unfurling. I’ll never forget the…

  I hesitate, the image of that final TV screen stamped into my mind. I recall racing through the condo, returning with the card, and dialing the number. Is that where I went wrong? Did my attempt of mixing time periods breech some sort of contract? Did I break some unknown rule? If I did, what’s going to happen to me?

  Hopping to my feet, I storm into the hallway and down the staircase. The old rotary phone is still hooked to the wall near the sofa, but the little white card has vanished.

  Ruffling through my pockets, I empty the contents onto the couch. The card is there. So is the note. Maybe I haven’t zapped yet because it wasn’t the right time! Maybe the zap is still to come!

  But as I peep down, my face pales. The pants hanging loosely below my waist are in dire need of ironing. The blue checkered shirt drapes over me like a muumuu.

  I quiver my way back upstairs and into the bathroom. The face staring back at me is almost spot-free. The hair on his head is almost dark.

  Then I did zap. The questions mushroom. But if
the change took place, why am I still here? What if I’m stuck here? What if I can never leave? What will it mean for me? What’ll it mean for my mission?

  “This isn’t fair!” I scream.

  “Nobody ever said it would be,” a voice hums, steady as a river.

  I jolt, my eyes groping about wildly. “Who’s there?”

  “A friend. I’ve been sent to shine some light on your path.” As it speaks, crackling softly like fire on a hearth, the room brightens.

  I swivel, ogling my surroundings. But the only person around is the crazed-looking fifty-something gawking at me from the other side of the mirror. “Show yourself!”

  “I can’t make you see,” it lets out, free as air. The voice is so frail and flimsy I can’t tell if it belongs to a man or a woman. “Some people observe me everywhere. For others, I go unnoticed. The choice is ultimately yours.”

  My fists clench irately. “What choice? I never asked for your help!”

  “And yet, it appears you require it.”

  Hot spurts lick heedlessly at my temples. I don’t need anybody’s help! Especially not from someone I can’t see!

  As if capable of reading my mind, it speaks again. “There’s no reason to get upset, even if I’d be lying to say I wasn’t expecting it. While some are quick to get lost in my embrace, others embrace more so the thought of losing me.”

  None of this is happening. It’s impossible, I reassure myself. But my words of encouragement prove to have the opposite effect. If none of this is possible, then there’s only one explanation: I’m losing my mind. Unless I already did.

  “This isn’t real,” I manage to whisper.

  “What is real?” It responds as if from far away.