Emit

by Jack Beal

  “What if you’re here with me when I zap away?”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not mathematically possible. Even if what you’re saying is true, which it’s not, it’ll take six years before we meet again…in the past. The person I was six years ago won’t have seen whatever it is you show me now.”

  My heart collapses into my stomach. She’s right. I’m the only one backtracking through life, here. All my efforts have been in vain. Unless…

  I jump to my feet, race over to where Hazel’s standing over the sink, and take her by both hands. “You’re right!”

  She furrows her brows into a curving v. “You’re strangely ecstatic to learn your plan won’t work.”

  “That’s only because it will!” I can’t believe I’d nearly forgotten! “Everything I have on me when I get zapped comes along for the ride! You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Hazel’s expression is reserved. I don’t wait for an answer.

  “All I need is for you to give me something now so that I can give it back to you the next time we meet…six years ago. Something that’ll prove this is all happening!”

  Hazel studies me for a long moment before disappearing into the adjoining room. As I wait, I trace the idea a million times, looking for a flaw. But there isn’t any. This is going to work! Hazel’s gone so long I’m almost sure time stands still. When she finally comes bursting back into the room, I jump.

  Here.” She drops something small and cold into my outstretched hand.

  I look down. In the hollow of my palm sits an old silver pocket watch.

  “Don’t lose it,” she whispers. “If what you say is true, it’s the only way.”

  The rest of the evening lingers by in silence. Neither one of us can find the words to say. After the dinner dishes have been scoured and piled in the drying rack, we crawl reluctantly upstairs. Yawning, I slip into a change of clothes, and take Hazel into my arms. “Thank you for believing me.”

  She looks at me with sad eyes. When she finally speaks, it’s only to pronounce two words that pierce me like bullets. “It’s time.”

  “No…” I cry. But before I can finish my sentence, the room begins oscillating. It’s like somehow, she knew. As if she’s witnessed this occurrence countless times before.

  I fight to stay awake, but that wave of endless sleep is too strong. Eyes fixed on the woman I love, I draw her body closer to mine, relishing in her fire for one final moment before it’s snuffed out by an icy shade.

  “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

  ~Albert Einstein

  FIFTEEN

  THE ADDED DIMENSION

  1965, 24 YEARS OLD

  Everything changes. Nothing remains static. Look at our world. Even the icicle grasp of winter succumbs to the tenderness of a newborn bud. Dandelion wishes pepper blue summer skies before amber-hued leaves shiver and fall. When the last honking geese disappear below the horizon, a coverlet of sparkling white hugs the world like a fairytale. Again and again, year after year, yesterdays blur into todays, and todays, tomorrows. Only, that’s not how it works.

  At times, tomorrows smear back into todays, and todays, yesterdays. In these moments, what has not yet happened might change the course of events more than what’s already done. And, while a few days ago I might have denied it, it’s not that strange. Regardless of whether I’m moving backward or forward, I only ever stop at one place: the present.

  The present is a tricky place. As soon as it exists, it already doesn’t. Whether that makes it unending or infinitely small, I’m not sure. Either way, it’s always changing. Just like everything else. Including the nothing that holds me for six years at a time.

  Every void I cross through is an altered version of the last. This time, the tight black sphere has swelled into a sprawling expanse that radiates out in all directions. Clinging onto me, it draws me in deeper into itself. Something inside of me tells me to hold back. I shouldn’t be going deeper. I should be getting out.

  “Ssstay,” it rustles, as if flipping through my thoughts. “Thisss isss your placcce.”

  My fists clench in rebellion. I want to yell it’s lying, but I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. The nothing tightens around me in rigid coils, like a snake twisting around its prey. All at once, I let go.

  As my reservations fall away, my mind becomes light and carefree. Even my body grows weightless as if floating in water. In the distance, a ring of light appears, not unlike the kind you might see when staring up from the bottom of a deep well. As I allow my body to be guided toward the hollow glow, another one ignites. And another. One by one, the lights turn on, until a path of identical silver discs lines the void.

  I knew they’d come back for me.

  An invisible force tugs at my body, steering me toward the glistening circles. My pulse quickens as it draws me nearer. When I’m finally close enough to get a clear view, my eyes round with surprise. The illuminated rings aren’t UFOs. They’re windows to the outside.

  Still trembling, I peer through to the other side of the void. Two men are chattering behind an enormous foam-headed microphone. While I can’t hear what they’re saying, I can’t help but chuckle. They look like a couple of hamsters, cheeks hoarded with seeds. The man on the left has a blonde cowlick that sticks up straight in the middle. The man on the right’s hair is pasted down as if to avoid the same problem. Despite the plastered mop and the puffy face, he reminds me of myself. But it can’t be me, I shove the idea away. I’m in here and he’s out there.

  The tide pulls me gingerly away, directing me further down the line of illuminated windows. The sky is sooty and marbled with debris. As the air grows thick and agitated, a tall, wavering column forms. A tornado. As a crisscross of serrated flashes illuminate the scene, a second twister emerges from the shadows. Beneath a cacophony of howls, they slash through the land, hand in hand like a couple of schoolgirls. Torrents of rain bucket down without ever touching the ground; the twisters catch and spew them out yet again. Pulse racing, I turn away.

  After the spectacular show of lights, the void appears smudgy and dim. Still, I have no problem recognizing the face I set above the rest. “Hazel!” The beating of my heart quickens as I call out her name, but my voice only totters, collapsing into the emptiness. I have to reach her! But as I turn to run, my chest tightens with panic. I can’t feel my limbs! Peering down, I emit a feeble sigh of relief. My legs are scrawny, but at least they’re still here. I can see the muscles in my quadriceps tensing as my knees bend and pulse, but I haven’t advanced an inch. It’s like that nightmare where no matter how fast you run, you never get any closer. The only difference is that here, I’m not sure I’m dreaming.

  Heart throbbing, I force harder, but my efforts are in vain. As the flux draws away, it embarks me along with it.

  My arms snap into an aggravated X. How am I supposed to convince Hazel I’m telling the truth if I can’t even talk to her? Sick of this stupid game of cat and mouse, I throw in my hand and clamp my eyes shut. I’m not sure how long I float along this passageway of lights glowing a sinister red from behind my clenched lids. It seems like forever and an instant all at once. When it stops, I’m half-expecting six more years to have passed. Only they haven’t.

  I’m still inside of the void, hovering by one of the illuminated discs. It’s burning brighter than the others, making the image inside appear hazy and indistinct. I don’t want to look, but something pushes me closer. Suddenly, my face slits through the surface.

  When the colors race by, I understand I’m falling. It’s
odd because my guts aren’t dancing up in my chest like they should be. Instead, my body feels heavy and awkward. The same goes for my heart, which is caught up in a tight, nostalgic beating.

  When I emerge on the other side, lungs heaving, I gasp for air in greedy gulps. As the oxygen races up to my brain, I begin processing my surroundings. The landscape is higgledy-piggledy, dangling on its head. It’s as if I fell up rather than down. I watch, eyes wide, as the scene capsizes before me. With a mighty rumble, the world inverts back to right-side-up.

  The colors exchange, the blue settling below me as the brown soars above. A thick ring of basaltic rock encircles the cyan pool extending around me. The scene is placid, almost imaginary. Crystal water greets the crag without so much as a ripple. Splotches of white are glued to the sky like cotton balls on an art project.

  Nobody’s around except me and the land. Wading to the water’s edge, I grab hold of the craggy stone. The water remains as still as before, as if part of a painting.

  Uneasily, I push the thought from my mind. Turning my attention to the jagged incline, I begin climbing. But my weedy legs can hardly support my weight. After a few leaden steps, I seize to a wheezing stop. Mustering up what little strength I’ve got left, I hang onto a bit of rock, the only thing preventing me from tumbling back down the hill. As my other muscles give out, my head slumps feebly forward. I can’t help but peer down.

  The rock surrounding the pool glimmers like the ring of light at the end of a well. Just like the windows inside of the void. But I’m not in the void. Am I?

  From the center of the glowing ring, someone looks out at me. It’s the same hamster-man with the gelled-down hair. The one that made me think of myself. Only, this time, his face is mottled with ugly red hives. Before I can stop myself, I reach up to touch my face. It, too, is bump-ridden. Then it is me. But how?

  When I realize my error, it’s already too late. I plummet down the rocky incline and into the motionless water.

  The oscillation of rotor blades greets me on the other side. Did I just fall through another window?

  Up in the sky, a helicopter disappears somewhere between the rust-colored canyons and the white-tipped slopes. Despite the snow caps in the distance, the sun is beating down on me asphyxiatingly. Stripping off my turtleneck, I use it to fan my sweaty chest.

  “What the hell are you doing?” The voice makes me jump. I thought I was alone.

  “Who…where…what year is it?” I stutter, yanking my clammy shirt back on.

  Running his hand through his blonde hair, he replies tersely, “I’m still Alby Baker. We’re still somewhere in the last frontier. And it’s still 1965.” Judging from his response, this isn’t the first time I’ve asked him.

  A million other questions are scuttling through my brain but the look on Alby’s face warns me to keep my mouth pinned.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me now,” Alby mutters, irritated. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us if we want to make it out of here. Can I count on you to keep it together?”

  Eyes hinged to my boots, I nod in assent, as if humiliation was weighted.

  “Fine,” he sighs. “Here.”

  I glance up in time to dodge the bulbous helmet speeding my way.

  Alby is already sliding an identical dome over his cowlick. In his gray zip-up suit and his fish-bowl of a helmet, he looks like a giant kid dressed up for a game of make-believe.

  My guffaws are met with another sigh. “You know the rules,” he mutters, unamused.

  Cheeks burning, I’m suddenly thankful for the colossal helmet I wrench quickly over my ears. I don’t know the rules, as it were. But I’m not about to get into it with Mr. Cranky Pants on his playdate into outer space.

  To be quite honest, I have no idea what’s going on. But it seems like there’s only one way to find out. I follow Alby to where he’s standing next to the supply box. After cramming a bunch of tools into my backpack and sliding a hefty water bottle into its side pocket, I pitch the bag over my shoulder. Finally, I pick up a long, wooden rod and, using it like a cane, set off toward the chiseled hills.

  Only, it’s not that easy. The helmet turns out to be a real pain in the ass. Beside it weighing a ton, the visor is way too narrow. My peripheral vision is limited so I have to wobble my neck exaggeratedly if I want to see anything aside from what’s right in front of me. When the ground shifts oddly under my boots, I envisage another problem: looking down. A series of botched attempts have me twisting and twirling like a spinner top before I finally figure it out. Hinging at the hips, I tilt forward to espy the thick layer of powder puffing around my ankles. It looks like ash, only it’s coarse and abrasive.

  When I unhinge and straighten back up, it’s only to discover I’ve fallen behind. Schlepping across the terrain, I watch Alby springing around in the distance like a mountain goat. When he disappears behind a hazy peak, I seize the moment. Tearing the helmet off, I breathe in greedy gulps of air. Then, yanking my bottle from its elastic strap, I chug until the water washes the disgusting plastic helmet flavor from my tongue.

  Returning the bottle, I look around. This would be the perfect setting for a game of astronaut, I’m forced to admit. The dust at my feet is so abundant that as soon as I step away, my footprints evaporate into thin air. In the distance, mysterious swirls of smoke snuff out the razor-edged landscape. All in all, this place seems completely uncharted.

  A twinge of excitement stirs up my insides. Plunking the helmet back on, I turn for the rising hills. “I wonder what’s hidden on the other side.”

  A dodgy voice tears through the silence. “A secret. A grave, somber secret.”

  I jump a mile high. “What…what kind of secret?” I stammer.

  The crackling voice continues. “The kind you came out here to discover, Robert Flynn.”

  My heart collides with my Adam’s apple. “Tell me what I have to do,” I breathe timorously. The letters stick to my tongue like a freshly opened can of tinned meat.

  “Forge a path through the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. Then await my instructions.”

  The slope is breakneck, rising balefully before me. I sway uneasily, shoving one foot forward before jerking it back again.

  “Hurry! Before it’s too late!”

  My hesitation breaks, jostling me forward as if my legs are independent from the rest of my body. Propelled by fear, I totter dangerously up the slope. What have I gotten myself into? What could this possibly have to do with finding Hazel, or my mission?

  Like the rising mantle of haze, my thoughts wind around me, murkily. Why didn’t I stay inside the void? Why did I have to look into those rings of light, like mirrors to the outside. The higher I climb, the denser the gray coils grow: a steely veil bending the view.

  Smoke and mirrors.

  A slight crackling catapults my heart into my ribcage. “You have arrived,” the voice croaks. “Now come to me. I’m right in front of you.”

  I seesaw my eyes in a circle around me. But I can’t see a thing. The sunlight dancing across the mist is playing tricks on me.

  “Let me guide you,” the voice grinds. “Take two steps forward and turn to the left.”

  I do as it says, blindly trekking into the fog.

  “Take two more steps…and…” Alby leaps out of nowhere. As he knocks me down into a heap of dust, bursts of laughter issue brassily into my ears. From the headphones inside my helmet. The popping voice was Alby, all along.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I wail, picking myself shakily back up. “Trying to give me a heart attack?”

  Alby shrugs jovially. “Guess that’d be one way to change partners.”

  “What do you have against
me?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know,” he harrumphs. Turning away, his words dangle in the smoke. “One more mishap like last time and we’ll never be chosen for the mission.”

  My ears perk up. The mission. “Alby, I…”

  “Save it. If you want to make it up to me, it’s going to take more than an apology.”

  If Alby’s akin to the mission, that makes him an ally. An ally I can’t afford to lose. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,’” I urge.

  Something indescribable passes across his eyes. “Anything?”

  “Yeah, anything.”

  His face lightens. “Fine. For starters, give me your samples,” he announces, reaching for my bag.

  As Alby rifles through my backpack, I shrug at the empty test tubes.

  “You didn’t collect anything?”

  I bite my lip.

  “Of course, you didn’t. Robbie Flynn, Mr. I-don’t-know-how-to-follow-rules,” he says, turning away.

  I chase after Alby before he has the time to disappear into the smoke. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. You know, some of us are busting our asses out here while others don’t seem to give a hoot. Do you want to be on the mission or not?”

  “I already am.”

  “That explains everything,” he puffs, eyeing me irately. “Why would they pick a bonehead like you over me?” His voice is wounded.

  “I ask myself the same thing every day.” My words come out more matter-of-factly than I’d planned. I guess it’s a good thing because Alby’s face relaxes into a half-smile. “Look. If I can do anything to help, tell me.”

  “Fine.” It doesn’t take him long to accept my offer. “I want to be on the mission, which means we’ve got to hustle. If you can get a few silica-rich samples, I’ll take notes on grainsize and erosion. Let’s meet up back at the bottom in fifteen.”