by Aaron Pery
"Son of a bitch. Anyway, let's go home."
"Drive, actually, because you're too week."
"Whatever, just get me out of here."
During the next week Marty seemed almost morose in her behavior, both with Nick and all her friends who came to visit one by one to congratulate her on her personal accomplishment in defeating the enemy. No one spoke of the tragedy of loosing the baby until Victor came to check her condition, who seemed quite upset with her spirits.
"I can understand your mental state, Marty, after you aborted since it's quite normal for any woman to feel this way after loosing a baby. But I doubt it'll last too long because you seem to have healed quite well and very quickly by now, so don't despair."
"Thanks, Vic, for being supportive."
"Well, we all have to be considering your courage, tenacity, and the plans you'd put together to defeat the Gogian bastards once and for all."
Marty smiled at him. "Aren't you exaggerating my part a bit? Our great victory was more the result of Herb's and Ben's conduct in leading their brave troops that any of my contribution to the fight."
"Nonsense. You coordinated everything between them and put your life on the line by leading the advance forces to victory, which everyone realizes and appreciates it to the utmost, especially your great sacrifice on their behalf. In fact, the Board had voted you a hero and are going to pin a medal on your chest when we all meet tomorrow in the morning, which I heartily approve of. And let's not forget what you and Nick did for all the castrated horses, and finally giving Stan, now Harry, the opportunity to become a physical equal of everyone in Minos."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"That's good, Marty. So get yourself in mental shape and since you've healed quite nicely by now, start working with Nick on getting pregnant again, which I'm quite sure will help chase the gloom away."
"I'll try, Vic, I promise."
"And succeed quite soon, I'm sure."
"Thanks for being so kind to me."
"Kind my ass. We need to take good care of the Grand Hero of Minos, Marty."
Marty did not respond as he got up and left.
That night they made passionate love for the first time since her injury, after which Marty suggested that they sit on the veranda and have a smoke.
Nick gave her a surprised look since they had never done such a thing before and always fell asleep in each other's arms. "Are you okay, Marty?"
"Yes, Nikki. Actually never better but I must talk to you about some very important things that have nothing to do with my injuries."
"Okay, then let's go outside."
Once seated comfortably on the beanbags, Marty inspected her aromatic cigar seemingly deep in thought before finally speaking. "This is something that I wanted to talk to you about for a while but it went by the wayside when I found out that I was in a family way."
"I think I know what it was, Marty. You wanted to go back to our old world but once you found out about being pregnant the door was kind of slammed shut on the idea. Am I right?"
"On the nose, Nikki. But how did you figure that out when I'd never given you even a hint about my feelings about it?"
Nick chuckled. "Because, my dear, we'd been together by now for almost a century and we both think pretty much alike. So by the time we found out about your pregnancy I was about to talk to you about my wish to rejoin our kind at around our old timeline but was a bit reluctant to do so, and then we were going to have a son and the idea was moot because we had a responsibility to take care of him."
"Which was about the same as my line of thinking because we had a responsibility to provide him and any other children we were going to have later. It actually was a very pleasing idea becoming a mother and parent, but fate dictated that it wasn't to be. Now tell me about why you were reluctant to bring the returning idea up."
"Because of these marvelous bodies that we'd taken over and then destroyed their minds in order to be able to exist within them."
"Which, you'd thought, would be the ultimate cruelty to literally kill them?"
"That's right, because I considered it the utmost cruelty to do so."
"I understand your reluctance because that was exactly how I felt. So I dug into the deepest recesses of my mind and found out that our mind had never actually killed the kids' minds when we took over their bodies."
"What did they do instead?"
"Kind of surgically removed them into a cocoon-like area within them, where they still exist in a dormant state."
"Jesus, Marty. Are you saying that we can restore them to life without harm and simply leave their bodies?"
"Exactly, Nikki, without causing them any harm other than a bit of confusion at first about who they are."
"That's really marvelous, for us to be free to go on elsewhere without recriminations about doing so. Okay, so where and when would you like us to go and meet up with our replicas?"
"Miami Beach in August 1952 is the most appropriate time and place to do it, just before we’d gotten married."
"That’s kind of crazy. You want us to get married again?"
"It’ll be weird, but I wouldn’t mind us doing it."
"Same here. Okay, so we'll do more long distance traveling. At no cost at all, I might add, to Miami Beach, where I’m hoping we’ll be able to find our other selves quickly."
"But where exactly should we go?"
"To a well established place."
"How about by the jetty at the bottom of South Beach, where we used to love going in the old days, which I’m sure must still exist."
"I agree, so let’s not do any more talking for now and go to sleep. Then, tomorrow morning we'll meet with the board and tell them about our decision to leave."
Everyone at the board meeting was shocked when Marty informed them about their decision to leave Minos except for David, who chuckled. "I knew that you were going to leave us soon enough, and now that you'd lost the baby I kind of assumed that you'd feel free to do so."
"True, but why did you even consider that we would?"
"Because of who you are. I knew that you'd stay here until we were totally freed of our oppressors and help us build our nation. And then, last week when we had our final battle with the Gogians in which you lost your baby, I and Sue were certain that you'd be leaving us soon."
"Why did you think that?"
"Because of who you are and the fact that our little country is much too confining for the likes of you."
"Thanks for thinking about us this way. And you're right about us needing to have a larger space to be fully happy with our lives."
"What will happen to your present bodies, though, if you leave them?" Will they die the moment your minds depart?"
"No, Dave, not at all." Nick responded, explaining the pair's positioning. "But the two kids will need a lot of nurturing once they're left alone to fend for themselves."
"I'm not surprised that you'd do that for them considering the kind of people that you are." Sue said. "I'd like to suggest, though, that you make your departure from our home so we'll be able to take care of them properly."
"Excellent idea, Sue, so I'd like us to go home with you once the meeting is over and take our leave from you all."
Everyone stood up and hugged Marty and Nick tightly with tears in their eyes before they left.
Once in the farmhouse their mind left their bodies and hovered over them as they released the young centaurs' minds and made sure that they were in suitable condition. They then held imaginary hands as both wished themselves to reach their old hangout, and let out a sigh of relief seconds later when they found themselves on top of the jetty.
"Okay, Nikki," Marty said a moment later. "It’s time for us to find our duplicates and enter them as quickly as we can. One thing, though, I don’t think that we should look for them physically because we haven’t got the time for it."
"I feel the same way. But how do we find them?"
"By tuning our minds to their mental emanatio
ns."
"Not the physical ones? Oh, I see. Because who knows what we might look like in this reality and we could completely overshoot them. But not so mentally since no matter what, their brain waves must be the same as ours."
"That’s right. Then how about us meeting in the flesh right here at noon a week from now?"
"Perfect. But why wait before we get together?"
"Because we may need the time to get acclimated to our position in this reality. And, besides, we should consider that we may not end up together here as before. But in any case, if we don’t meet up the first time we should continue coming here daily because maybe the other had had a problem getting here."
"Makes sense. Okay, let’s do it." Nick extended a pseudo hand to Marty, who pulled him to her forcefully and hugged him tightly. A moment later, after commanding their minds to tune in to their duplicate’s brain waves, they vanished simultaneously.
The End
Dear reader. If you enjoyed this book I'm sure you'll be pleased with my next parallel worlds' installment, Royal House, on Amazon.Com.
Aaron