Emit

by Jack Beal

  After paying for my breakfast, I set off to wander the foliage-bordered streets of northern Alabama. When I catch a glimpse of the three-story brick building sprawling up like a fortress, I know this is where I’m supposed to be. Alone, waiting to cross the threshold, I can’t help but feel like one of Grandmom’s heroes. With a deep breath, I push the heavy glass door creakily open and slip through.

  The walls are clothed with legends, unknown. Tracing the closest row of books with my fingertips, I amble to the front desk.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Yes. Can you please show me to the card catalogue?”

  The young librarian vainly attempts to mask his grin. “We’ve removed the card catalogue some years ago, sir. I can show you to the OPAC? Or maybe I can help you find what you’re looking for?”

  I opt for the last choice. The librarian leads me through the maze of shelves, plucking a book here or there as he passes. “Anything else I can help you with?” he finally says.

  When I shake my head, the librarian abandons me between two musty rows of books. It takes three trips for me to lug the pile he’s selected over to a cubbyhole. I set up camp, gazing up at the tottering stack and reading the titles written down their spines. Natural Disasters. The Toxins We Emit. Contemporary Days of Ruin. Tragedy in the Twentieth Century. Worse than Wars.

  Why else would I be thrust backwards from the future, unless it’s to warn people from the past?

  Knocking an encyclopedia from the top of the pile, I catch it and begin skimming. Hours wind by as I pour over the tower of tomes. By the time a closing announcement rings over the loudspeaker, I’ve concocted a sloppy mound of shorthand notes detailing the biggest tragedies taking place between 1947 and 1989.

  Slipping the bundle under my arm, I proceed toward the front door when the line of enormous dictionaries catches my eye. I almost forgot!

  Sizzle. One of the halogen lights shuts down.

  Sliding my finger across the shining tabs, I stop at PQR. The book lets out a long sigh before falling open with a heavy thump.

  Sizzle. Sizzle. Two more lights sputter off.

  Heart racing, I flip through the pages, Pl-, Pn-, Po-, Pr-, until I find it. Providence. Squinting through the darkness, I can just make it out:

  Providence

  1. (noun) A shield or protection of a higher power (spiritual, natural or religious)

  Synonyms: fate, chance, luck, destiny, predestination

  2. (noun) planning for impending events

  Synonym: foresight, wisdom, judgment

  The definition unnervingly reminds me of everything I’ve witnessed today. From the wisdom bestowed by that invisible voice, to the chance of winding up at that specific diner. It evokes the tale of the Plumed Viper, whose feathers protected the people, and the realization that my mission is likely the same.

  And yet, that’s not where I’ve already heard this word. The year was 1947, and I was aboard a flying saucer. Siri was watching me from behind those big, black shades when she said it. “Providence. It’s been preordained, Robbie.”

  I don’t understand. That invisible voice said nothing was fated. That I’m the one who can choose how this all plays out.

  Unless…

  It’s the two sides of the equation that need to be balanced.

  A booming thud reverberates through the empty library. They’ve closed the front door!

  Clinging to my notes, I feel my way through the darkness. Turning my back on the books that line the walls like guardians of truth, I attain the checkout desk.

  The streetlights’ orange rays penetrate the glass door, bending before they land in puddles on the floor. As the light slicks grow, they bounce back up, encompassing everything in their carroty glow. Mindful that this chapter of my journey is coming to an end, I close my eyes and let go. As the papers tumble like feathers, this world unleashes me. As the papers tumble like feathers, a new world takes hold.

  “I dreamed a thousand new paths. I woke and walked my old one.”

  ~Chinese Proverb

  ELEVEN

  MISSING PIECES

  1989, 48 YEARS OLD

  As the static dissipates, a gentle humming moves in. It seeps into the emptied frequencies, engaging them with long, airy strokes. In and out. In and out. As my lungs fill and empty, I become aware that the soft, steady breaths are my own.

  A similar swaying joins in from outside. Back and forth. Back and forth. In ebbs and flows, it rocks me toward lucidity.

  As I gradually realize it’s time to leave the nothing inclined to hold me for six years at a time, that same acrid smell of gunpowder washes over me. But this time, it doesn’t last. Rather it, too, is caught within the easy rocking. Hoisted up, as if aback a mighty whale, it’s carried out past the place where dreams may wake.

  Before leaving, I take note of my surroundings. The signs are everywhere, even here.

  The air is hot and so salty I can practically taste it. Tossing off my shoes, I rove on, mesmerized by the scene sprawling before me. Sunrays dart out like children playing hide-and-seek only to disappear behind the palmy branches. I dodge those overlapping my path, determined to stay bathed in the sun’s embrace. In the sky, gulls drift silently like clouds. Down here, it’s just as quiet.

  I meander along until the white-washed pavilions give way to sapphire-domed towers blending into the heavens. My heart is pommeling inside of me like it did the first time I laid eyes on that big, silver cake dish smashed into Alder’s ranch. I’ve been here before. And not lying in bed, ferried across the great Sea of Aegean by those epic verses. I’ve walked this path long after the day Grandmom’s stories ran dry.

  As a final palmy image drops me back into this new day, I bat my eyes open. A shard of blue not dissimilar from those sapphire domes slides into view. Beneath my body, it’s soft and gritty. In the distance, a palm tree sways in the salty breeze.

  The time has come to tread the tree-lined path from my dreams.

  But on what feet do I tread today? Who am I now?

  Under the golden sunlight, my body beams back: strong, sturdy and robust. Propping myself up, I spy a row of palm trees whose enormous leaves rustle in the salty breeze. But not a single white-washed house is in view. This isn’t the place from my dreams.

  When the sand digs into my elbows like needles, I shift my weight. Spinning back to the ocean, I lose myself in the place the sky melts into the sea. The water grows suddenly murky. Puffs of black smoke drape a dark veil across the blue. Hemmed in flames, the ship burns a line across the horizon. It chokes out everything around it: the sun, the sea, even the falling feather.

  Swinging around, I scan the towels and blankets lining the beach. Families gather under parasols, teens crack open tin beers, warm from sitting out in the sun, and kids build crooked castles in the sand. Some people are inflating big ring floats while others are trying to catch waves, but none of them seems concerned with the fire or the dark oily puddle growing bigger by the second.

  Until somebody screams.

  Finally. But it’s only some kids howling along to the newest hit music. Slouching around the silver boom box with big hair and oversized clothes, there’s no denying it. I just woke up in the 1980’s.

  Still, that doesn’t explain why nobody’s paying attention to what’s happening at sea!

  Unless this task, like the others, is mine and mine alone. Drawing in a deep breath, I turn toward the burning transporter.

  But it’s gone. The blue sky and the glistening ocean mingle neatly. Not a wisp of smoke troubles the perfect vista.

  I need to get a closer look. But as I hurdle to my fee
t, the towel hanging around my waist comes undone, falling to the sand.

  Glancing down, I flinch. I’m squeezed into a tiny hot pink and apple green spandex bathing suit. How in the…?

  My comprehension comes in the form of a silhouette. Despite the large-brimmed straw hat with its lavish red ribbon, I recognize the face easily. Only, instead of the elegantly carved cheekbones, it’s round and almost childish.

  “Gnarly! You’re awake!” Her thick Russian accent rolls over me like a wave. Handing me a cola, she lays the cupholder on the blanket before taking one for herself.

  “Thank you,” I say between slurps.

  “Eez not problem,” Belinda grins. “No lines tan. Eez like a farmer,” she adds, stripping off the shawl and revealing a skimpy red bikini. As my eyes travel down the long lines of her body, her face draws nearer. I can smell the sugar on her breath.

  “Hey! Catch a load of this!”

  I don’t want to look away. I don’t want to lose this moment.

  But the shouting persists. Cries rise in unison. The commotion swells.

  Unless…it’s because of the fire. The busted oil rig. Reluctantly, I abandon the inviting scene sprawled across my beach towel. Out by the shore, the ruckus seems to be growing greater by the second.

  The sand burns my feet as I race to the shoreline. But I can’t see anything. A large throng of people has already created something of a sweaty human wall. On my toes, I watch the backs of men and women approaching the water’s edge. Then, as if being pulled by an invisible magnet, I shove my way through the clammy throng.

  “Quick! Let’s get behind it,” I exclaim, taking charge. “Now! Push!”

  Together, we rip the object free from the sea’s pulsing grasp and thrust it ashore. Some of us pushing, others dragging, we transport the hunk of metal up to higher ground. Before we’ve made it to the top, the rising tide has already begun washing away our traces across the sand.

  The massive plank is several feet wide and twice as long. Its original surface has been compromised, roughened from years of salt and sea. Upon the corrosion, barnacles grow. It makes me think of something rescued from that ancient underworld city of Atlantis.

  “It’s one of the missing pieces!”

  One of the missing pieces. But what kind? A piece of the mission? The puzzle? The equation?

  “A piece of what,” a voice asks.

  “Another piece of the Challenger!” another answers.

  The Challenger?

  When a dainty hand squeezes mine, I jump. With all the commotion, I forgot Belinda was even here. Her eyes are wide and watery, like she’s been crying. I offer her a quick squeeze before approaching the front of the throng.

  “What did you say this thing is?”

  A forty-something like me steps forward. He’s got a voice like a foghorn. “We’ll have to call into Kennedy to be sure, but I’m willing to bet this here is another piece of the Space Shuttle Challenger.”

  “But didn’t that happen…?” I get lost in the jumble of information sloshing around in my brain.

  “In 86. But they never recovered a few hefty portions of the spacecraft.”

  “Even after…” I begin.

  “Three years,” he finishes, verifying my calculations were right. “Rumor has it, it could take decades before the last of it washes up.”

  Paralyzed, I stand gaping at the rusted heap. If that’s what happens after three years, what could happen after six? The question eats away at me like corrosion. Why don’t I come out of the void looking like this?

  I’m not sure what I think I’m going to find, but I can’t seem to rip my eyes from the panel. Investigating its surface for clues, I turn up empty handed. I examine behind every corner, analyzing its every detail. Still nothing.

  The others slip away, but that doesn’t change a thing. Ever since I laid eyes on the missing piece, it’s been just the two of us. It’s as if this scrap of a space shuttle has taken me far, far away with it.

  A small hand tugs at my elbow. “Come on!”

  A kid with black, spiral curls is standing beside me in the sand.

  “Huh?”

  “Come on! Play with me!” he insists, holding up a pail of sand toys.

  “Sorry.” My response is wistful, vague. “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean you can’t? You can, but you don’t want to!”

  “Look, son, I can’t. I’ve got things to do.”

  Tears form in the boy’s almond-shaped eyes. I place a hand on his shoulder, but he tears himself away belligerently. “Don’t call me son! Don’t you ever call me son! Don’t pretend to care!”

  I want to console him. I know what it feels like to be a kid and be alone. But I can’t find the words. Instead, I decide to show him. “Do you know what this is, Chief?”

  After a long hesitation, he slinks over to the metal pane. The springy curls continue bouncing even after he’s stopped shaking no.

  “It’s a little piece of history. This chunk of metal was part of a space shuttle destined to explore outer space. Inside, there were seven people…”

  “You just don’t get it! You think you can teach me something about life when all you do is look out there?” He screams up at the sky, which is verging on indigo.

  “Calm down, son!”

  The boy’s temper only worsens. “Never call me that!” Hurling the plastic bucket at the chunk of the crashed space shuttle, he darts across the beach.

  When the bucket hits the ground, two T-shaped plastic shovels fall out. On impact, the tiny white grains of sand soar into the air. But instead of settling, they continue moving. The tiny particles sway in one direction, and then another, until they’ve created a picture. It’s a boy. And he’s holding a shovel.

  The evening is warm and breezeless. And yet the shiny granules continue swirling, like dancers on a stage.

  When they finally stop, a new image is drawn out. It’s a spaceship.

  The picture only lasts a second before the grains begin whirling again. Faster and faster, they rise like stars against the deep blue sky.

  I want them to stop. But I know they won’t. They can’t.

  As the horizon tilts up to kiss the night, the dusk dips down into the crashing waves. The two blues blur together until they’re only one. The pair of shovels follow suit.

  “Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

  War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

  Making it momentary as a sound,

  Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

  Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

  That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,

  And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!”

  The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

  So quick bright things come to confusion.”

  ~William Shakespeare

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.

  TWELVE

  THE TUNNEL’S CENTER

  1983, 42 YEARS OLD

  A whisper rises from outside the boundless calm. It leaks into the fissure by my feet, murmuring the lost mantras of generations long gone. Hissing like a snake, it chants the words I shouldn’t understand. Asssato ma sssad gamaya.

  Only I do. Guide me from what is unreal to what is so.

  The calling becomes hurried. Tamassso ma jyotir gamaya.

  From darkness to light.

  When the recitations ebb, a flood of pounding feet pours in. The earth throbs beneath their force. I want to join those blurri
ng shapes loping to higher ground. But something holds me down below. As the sky blazes with molten earth, I choke. It’s dusty and bitter, like gunpowder.

  The incantations ignite. Agitated, gushing, choppy, they engulf me. Mrtyor ma amrutam gamaya.

  From death to immortality.

  Beneath my feet, the fissure grows, splitting with perfect symmetry. Two halves of a perfect whole. Between them lies the great divide. Into which I plunge.

  At the bottom rests an earthen chamber extending endlessly in either direction. I am at its center.

  My eyes dart open.

  The year is 1983.

  I am at the midpoint of my journey. This is the unchanging moment. Had I gone forward in time or backward, this is exactly where I’d be. Right here, right now. This moment marks the very axis on which my destiny spins.

  Chills are running down my spine so sluggishly I’m not sure they’re running at all. It’s more like they’re suspended, immobile, like I am on this axis.

  The axis. I shiver despite the blankets pulled up over my head. The equation. Closing my eyes, I count the numbers strung along an invisible line.

  It’s a long streak of sixes.

  I’ve zapped six times before this. Each time, leaving for six years. Six times six is thirty-six. That makes thirty-six years shooting by in only six days.

  All of this started thirty-six years ago. Thirty-six divided by six is six. Six more flights remain. A mirror image. A perfect half.

  But why six? Why not five, or seven for that matter?

  A doubt skirts my mind. Could it be because this all started when I was six?

  I shake off the idea. After all, I wasn’t six. I was six and a day. The same number of Earth rotations it took to end that war that shook the world. It was a war that took the lives of so many people. Some of them who were forced to keep existing, shadows of what they once were.