by Jack Beal
“Where?”
“In the ocean.” Obviously, Brainiac. Did I actually just say that?
“Yes, sir. But which ocean?”
I bite my lip, “The Pacific…I think.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No!” I exclaim, furious. “Who would joke about something like this?”
“Calm down. Where are you now?”
This is going to be more difficult than I’d imagined. “I’m not there…because it hasn’t happened yet.”
A long sigh hisses from the other side of the line.
“Please. You have to listen! I have reason to believe a transporter is going to explode. It’s going to be one of the worst oil spills in history!”
“What’s the vessel name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exact date of explosion?”
I can’t answer.
“Sir, do you realize how many transporters sail through the Pacific every day? Even if I did believe you, how can I help you if you can’t give me any information?”
I hurl the phone at the wall, but before it can hit, its spiral cord springs it back. How am I supposed to warn people if nobody believes me?
Hanging my head in disappointment, an even more troublesome thought creeps in. What if I’m wrong? What if warning others has nothing to do with my mission?
As the front door whooshes open, a beanstalk of a blonde saunters in. “Hey, babe. What’s a-matter?” Her voice is even sultrier than over the phone. Drawing her into my arms, I let my lips graze the nape of her neck.
“Robbie,” she gushes, pushing me away just to draw me back in. “Didn’t you get enough last night?”
Guiding me back to the bedroom, she lays me down. As I push those unending strands of blonde out of the way, my caresses do the talking. Tracing her shoulders with my fingers, I paint her with kisses. Then, getting lost into her green-specked eyes, I pull her closer. Our bodies rise and tangle, pulsing as one.
“Hazel,” I pant, closing my eyes.
The jab in my ribs comes as a shock.
“Get off of me!” she shrieks. With a churlish shove, she frees herself and grabs her clothes.
“Wait!”
But she’s not listening. “Take a walk off the short pier, jerk!” she hisses.
Questions rip through my brain. Was it something I did? Was it something I said?
Freeing myself from the tangle of covers, I dive out of bed. But she’s too fast. By the time I slide back into my robe and spurt to the door, she’s already dashing into the parking lot.
I rip the front door wide open.
“Wait!” I wail. “Please! Hazel!”
When she looks up, I smile. She’s changed her mind. I knew this had to be a mistake. She’s supposed to be my ally.
But I’m wrong. Instead, she flips me the bird, slams the car door and flies from the lot at supersonic speed.
I’m frozen stiff, and I’m not sure if it’s owing to the cold, my disbelief over what just happened, or the astonishing scene sprawling before my eyes. A long line of trees is coated in sparkling snow. It’s not abnormal for January. Except, of course, they’re palm trees.
When I finally sever myself from the spine-chilling view, I’m in need of thawing. I search for something cozy to wear, but it’s a no-go. While the closets are overflowing, it’s all summer clothes.
The only pair of full-length slacks has bells out at the bottoms. Guess it’s better than shorts. I pilfer a pair of Hazel’s thermal underwear, hoping nobody will notice the pink stitching, grab the manliest T-shirt I can find, and head to the bathroom.
I stay under the jets until the hot water runs out, and my skin is splotched with red. Then I get dressed and look in the mirror. Even though I’m garbed like a sack of potatoes, I find myself admiring what I see. The wrinkles and splotches from a few days back have transformed into a smooth, youthful complexion. I’m good-looking, and not just a little bit.
The only coat in the hallway closet is a black Alpha Bomber which I zip to my chin before grabbing the keys and locking the door behind me.
Outside, a few lingering snowflakes shoot around like overcharged atoms before joining their friends down below. The panorama is magical, surreal: a sparkling string of palms extending like white stains across a whiter sky. At their roots, a seemingly never-ending pathway extends. No, I tell myself. The path isn’t sandy. The air isn’t warm. The sky isn’t blue. Instead, it’s icy, cold and interminably white. This isn’t the place.
Despite my allegations, the vision from my dreams and the one before me converge. Warm sand and blue skies penetrate the scene, flooding over it like a camera filter. Bathed in sunlight, I tread the palm-lined path. When the pavilion rises to greet me, I enter the maze of corridors, stopping only when I reach the backlit door.
Standing on my toes, I peer in. When the faceless form spins around, I let my focus graze past its glowering eyes. Beneath the blinding lights, behind the shadowy figures, and onto a cushioned table. There, a man lies unmoving. It’s the same man who came knocking at the door at number 61 dressed like a Christmas tree: my dad.
Mouth dry, I reach for the handle.
The next thing I know, I’m back at the beginning. Only this time, I don’t try to retrace my way back to the room at the hall’s end. This time, I turn and run.
Outside, the world is doused in white. Sprinting down the ashen path, I disappear into the blizzardy backdrop. When I finally stop and turn around, I’m far from the building with its ice-capped dome. For a moment, the forms linger at its foot like tall, dark shadows. Then, without a sound, they’re gone.
Despite my athletic physique, I feel weak. My adrenaline is tuckering out.
“Hey! Like, is everything cool?” A guy wearing the same ridiculous pants as I am is bending over me. He’s in dire need of a haircut, especially in the back.
“I’m fine,” I assure the human mullet, who insists on helping me to my feet, anyway. “Thanks…uh…”
“Stone. What’re you doing? Trying to catch your death?”
I shrug, wondering what kind of name Stone is, anyway. “I’m not sure. One minute I was fine, and the next…”
“Psychedelic, man! You were having a flashback.”
My eyes bulge with surprise. If he knows about the flashbacks, maybe he can help me. “Yeah,” I confess. “What do you know about the blue-domed building?”
“Wow, trippy.” Wrestling a hand rolled cigarette from an overly snug pocket, he lights it up and takes in along drag. The smoke smells funny, like a mix of tea and burnt hemp. “Doobie?” he asks, holding out the joint.
Oh. I realize my error. We’re not talking about the same kind of flashback. “No thanks.” I push the doobie away. “I’ve got to go. I’m looking for my wife who…left in a hurry.”
“Lady problems, eh?” Stroking his lopsided ‘do, he adds, “Know it well. One minute, things are great and the next…” He crushes the joint under his boot.
I nod.
“What’d you do to get blown off?”
“Nothing! Hazel just got up and left for no reason. Drove off in the station wagon like a bat out of hell.”
“A Woodie?”
“How did you know?”
“Because your old lady nearly ran me over on my way to catch a slab. Seems like she was on her way to do the same, if you catch my drift.”
I don’t. I’m not even sure he’s still speaking English. “Huh?”
“This Hazel of yours? She wouldn’t happen to be a bodacious blonde with hair all the way down to her hot pants?”
/> Unappreciative of the way he’s referring to my wife, I offer a reluctant nod.
“Hubba, hubba, dude!”
Stone is getting on my nerves, but I keep my cool. He may be my ticket to finding Hazel.
“Did you see where she went?”
“Ding! Ding! Ding! I sure did.”
“Really? Where is she?”
“No can say, amigo. That information has a price.”
Letting out an aggravated breath, I plunge my hands into my pockets. “How much?”
“Say, fifty bucks?”
But the wallet isn’t there. Of course not. I came out of the void naked; I left everything behind. I try the bomber, but no luck. All I have is the house keys and…
“Is that a pocket watch?”
The etching badly worn, the silver tarnished, it looks older than the hills. When I pop it open, the hands are stuck at two before twelve. “Deal.” I got off easy, I smirk inwardly, dropping the broken watch into his outstretched hand.
“Groovy.” Stone leads me over to an off-white bicycle with a matching surfboard fastened to its side. “Hop on.”
Balancing on the handlebars seemed so much easier back on Willy’s bike. That, along with the snow on the ground, makes for an uncomfortable ride. When we finally come to a halt at the edge of a wooden staircase, it’s not a moment too soon.
Stone quickly unlatches the board, throws it over his shoulder, and makes for the mounds of sparkling white. I follow eagerly at his heels. “What is this place?”
“You don’t know Space Coast? Do you live under a rock?”
Shadowing him across the blend of snow and sand mingling flawlessly at our feet, I finally blurt, “I’m not from around here.”
“Sorry, dude. Space Coast’s, like, the surf capital of the planet. At least that’s what we say here in Florida.” As Stone leads me down to a group of surfers waxing their boards near the water, I make a mental note. After Alabama and California, Florida. Watching the waves crashing restlessly on the shore, I wonder if the white stuff is foam or snow. Since when does it snow in the sunshine state, anyway?
After slapping some hi-fives to the various other colored mullets, Stone shuffles over to me with a frown. “Tough break, dude. Your babe’s already gone.”
“Then I want my watch back.”
Stone shakes his head. “A deal is a deal. Plus, Brodi over there says your chick left for town. You can still catch her if you hurry.”
Unwilling to waste another moment, I turn and hustle back up the dune. Stone’s bicycle is propped up against a wooden railing. I glance nervously back at the group of surfers, but they’re already plunging into the rolling waves.
Impulsively, I thrust back the kickstand and pedal away as fast as I can. When the town center springs up around me, I stow the bike in an alleyway and continue on foot.
The storefronts beam with everything 1977 has to offer. Calculators so small you can keep them in your pocket, Atari consoles with knobby joysticks, and personal computers big as dinosaurs crowd the first shop’s window. In the second store, below a handmade sign reading “Top Bottoms,” hang bell-shaped trousers in various prints and colors. Feeling like less of a sore-thumb, I continue down the lane, peeping into the storefronts I pass. Nine-dollar bikinis showcased on scraggy-looking supermodels. Vibrant issues of the newest comic books for a dollar thirty-two. Wristwatches with digital screens for seventy dollars a pop.
But no Hazel Flynn. Not sipping a Blue Hawaiian with a group of women at the bar, nor trying on a swimsuit at the Bikini Hut. Not flipping through the latest issue of Vogue or fastening a silver chain around her neck and admiring herself in the glass.
As the string of shops tapers off into a line of two-story houses, I nervously eye the building across the street. It’s the last shop left. Crossing my fingers, I dart between the honking cars, down the sidewalk and in through the heavy glass door. My eyes widen with hope. A woman with blonde locks down to her waist is standing an aisle away. “Hazel!”
The woman snaps around, eyeing me dirtily. “Shhh!” she snips, finger raised to her pug-like snout. It isn’t Hazel.
What was that all about? I shirk back. I’m almost at the door when the man being projected from over a dozen TV screens captures my attention. Standing behind a blue podium, he proclaims, “In this outward and physical ceremony, we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength.”
I swallow hard. The opposites. It’s a sign.
Glued to the display, I listen to him explain the importance in our adapting to the changing times without letting go of the values we hold. He solicits us to find the innate balance within us to succeed, not without reminding us that sometimes we need to work together.
My eyes round in wonder.
“Did you need help?” the saleswoman’s shrill voice rings out. But it’s drowned out by the bells jingling from the shop’s entranceway door. I’m already long gone.
My feet slosh around in the melting snow as I race back to the bike. This can’t be a coincidence! The changing times? Or the time that changes in the blink of an eye? The innate balance? Or the balancing of the equation to fulfil the mission. I don’t know who the guy on the screen was, but one thing’s for sure: that message was broadcast for me.
As I’m rounding the corner leading down the alleyway, a disembodied voice floats in. “Robert Flynn!”
Whirling around, I find myself facing a stranger wearing a jacket not unlike my own. I’ve never seen him before in my life, but he seems to feel he has the liberty of grabbing me by both shoulders and shaking me half-silly.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
My stark response leaves the man stuttering painfully. When the words finally blurt, their wounded and quavering. “It’s your wife. She’s in the hospital.”
My panic clouds the events that follow, leaving them choppy and surreal. A cab slides up. The man pushes me onto the back bench-seat before hopping in beside me. We hurtle down a road edging up to the sea. The landscape whizzes by, and yet time stands still.
When the taxi finally screeches to a halt, my legs can barely keep up with my determination. Abandoning the stranger with the tab, I race up the stairs and in through the swinging doors. What if I don’t make it in time?
“Hazel Flynn!” I scream out before even reaching the reception desk. “I’m her husband!”
“Room 747.”
My heart lurches sideways as I zoom to the elevator and hammer the button that ultimately rockets me to the seventh floor. The metal doors have hardly slid open, and I’m already racing down the door-lined hall.
When I burst through the opening of room 747, my panting is drowned out by uncontrollable bouts of sobbing. Offering me a rueful smile, a nurse steers me around the bed’s foot and toward a woman crumpled into fetal position. “Do you want me to leave you two alone?”
I’m muted from the inside. I don’t understand! The woman lying weeping on the bed isn’t Hazel! Glossy ebony corkscrews cascade over the pillowcase instead of long, blonde strands. “Robbie!” Tears paint ebony paths down her silky, almond cheeks. Her voice is brittle as she takes my hand in hers. “It’s too late.”
My mind races as the doctor enters the room, as if in slow motion. “Mr. Flynn.” His words are lengthy and drawn-out. “We did everything we could, but your daughter just wasn’t strong enough. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
The confusion engulfing me gives way to anger. “You’re lying! I don’t believe you!”
The uproar leaves the woman in the bed wailing more desperately than before. “She’s suffocating!”
The doctor shouts an order to one of t
he nurses who promptly ushers me out of the room. I break into a sprint. “Hey, stop!” the nurse cries, but I’m too fast. Ripping open the stairwell door, I vault downstairs half a flight at a time, only stopping when I reach the basement.
Puffing, I push open the double doors. On the other side, stands the same nurse, head cocked. She must have taken the elevator. “You thought I wouldn’t know where you were rushing off to?”
“I need to see her. I need to know!”
“You can’t come in. It’s against policy,” she confides. “Wait here.”
The air is raw and cold. I shiver, counting the moments dragging interminably on until the mechanical doors slide open and the nurse reappears. Her step is slow and calculated, and yet before I realize what’s happening, she’s placing the bundle of cloths into my arms.
A tiny fist extends from the bundle. The bracelet on its wrist reads Flynn, L.
Pushing the blanket away, I gasp. The baby’s face is the spitting image of her mother’s. Except for the eyes staring blankly past me. Eyes of an unparalleled blue.
A myriad of symbols spin around me in pairs. I try to look away, but they won’t let me. Now and then. Truth and lies.
I falter. The nurse reaches out to steady my swaying body. Her words arrive muddled as if traveling through a tempest. “Please, sir, try to hold on.” Holding on and letting go.
The woman in the hospital bed is Hazel. The baby nestled in the blanket is my daughter. Black and white. Life and death.
The nurse bellows on, “Try to be strong.” But I’m consumed by the pairs. Feverishly, I try to fit the pieces into the puzzle. Strong and weak.
“Be strong for your wife! Be strong for your…”
Her words crumble, scattering to pieces upon the floor before I can make sense of them. The room follows suit. Churning violently, it flings my world into a living contradiction. Hot, earsplitting noise parallels the cold silence. Deep within the light, striving to deflect the darkness, a shadow is born.
As a feather lifts to the sky like a crescent moon, a single word tumbles down: sun.