by Alan Seeger
Lianne pulled up in front of her storefront, looking at the large wooden sign that adorned it. Knitsville, it read. A friend of hers had painted it for her when she first opened the shop. It had been nearly six years, and the paint was faded and some of it was peeling. I need to ask Brent to repaint it for me when he has the time, she thought.
Brent Laramie had been a good friend when she was in high school, and he still remained so today. They’d tried to date, but it seemed as though their relationship was always more like having a best friend she could confide in. She was closer to Brent than she was to any of her female friends.
After Brent went away to art college in Colorado, they kept in touch via email and frequent phone calls and texts. He’d been there only a couple of months when she got an e-mail telling her that he needed to call her that afternoon with some huge news; when he finally called, he was breathless with excitement, explaining to her in disjointed sentences that he had finally found love — with a drafting major named Chuck. He was a senior, and while the “revelation” that Brent was gay didn’t really surprise Annie much, the idea that Chuck would graduate at the end of the school year and be ready to move on concerned her greatly. She was worried about what Brent would do if, as she suspected, Chuck left him behind to take a job in Los Angeles, or Dallas, or somewhere else far away from the area.
Much to Annieleigh’s surprise, Brent was the one who dumped Chuck and left him desolate. Brent came back to Montana during the summer break and they went out drinking to celebrate his newfound sense of self.
Now, ten years later, Brent was still her best friend. He had moved back to Three Forks after graduation, and operated a graphic design company that, if not the largest around, did superb work that adorned billboards and signage all over the Midwest.
He was pretty much the only person she socialized with; after the disappearance of her brother and her mother four years ago, not to mention her father’s all-too-brief reappearance after his fifteen year absence, she really had no one else. She didn’t date; she liked men and occasionally spent weekends in Denver or Seattle to go to clubs and do what Brent jokingly referred to as “satisfying her primal urges,” but she had no interest in a long term relationship of that sort.
She sat for a moment, suddenly moved at the thought of her missing parents and sibling. Tears welled up in her eyes and she struck the steering wheel with her fist in frustration. Damn you, why’d you have to go? She got out of the van and began unloading her merchandise.
Chapter 48
Dakota Denver stood on the shoreline a mile from her two bedroom condo in Steinhatchee, Florida and looked out over Deadman Bay. She often drove out to this place, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, to think about her life and make plans for her future. More often than not, her thoughts turned to her father, evoked by the name of this place. For fifteen years she’d thought he was dead, swallowed up by something she might have invented for her anime-styled cosmic war graphic novel, and then she’d gotten the phone call from her little sister four years ago that changed her life.
Annieleigh had called and explained that Daddy had showed back up after all this time, not having aged a day, but that four days later, not only was he gone again, but he’d taken their brother Sam with him. Then she broke the news that their mother had disappeared without a trace the following day. Dak knew where she’d gone, though. Annie had found Mom’s car out in the hills by the old house, by the same damned green portal into which their father had disappeared fifteen years before.
She had wrestled the situation into something good, though. She found a certain catharsis in incorporating the idea of someone traveling through a rip in the fabric of space-time into a new title that she called Dimejanpā, short for Dimension Jumper in Japanese.
She incorporated many of the events from her experience with her father’s disappearance into the story line — swirling vortexes that led to a strange void (she made her vortexes swirl with all the colors of the rainbow, however; they were more visually interesting that way), the mysterious disappearance of one of the lead characters… her publisher ate it up.
She remained in Steinhatchee, where she had been since finishing school at Florida State. The continued troubles with the economy led to incredibly good deals on real estate in the area, and she had been able to buy her condo at a ridiculously low price. Despite the fact that Dimejanpā had filled her bank account fairly well, she had no real desire to move to a more upscale area. Friends urged her to find a place in Miami or New York, but she was perfectly happy — well, perhaps that wasn’t the right term; she was happy being miserable alone here in Steinhatchee, and that misery, she felt, fed her story line. If I’d have been genuinely happy, she thought to herself, I suppose I’d be drawing Hello Kitty.
She stood in the fading purple light of dusk and threw fist-sized stones out into the bay. She imagined that she was throwing them at her long-gone father, each stone striking him and causing him pain as penance for having abandoned her and her siblings.
Except for Samuel, of course. He’d taken Samuel with him. And Mom. Damn you, she thought, damn you, you stupid, stupid —
Suddenly she flinched, a shudder running through her. She shook her head as if trying to clear it. She had the most amazing feeling that her father was standing beside her, the way he used to do decades ago when he was watching her draw. She could almost hear his voice saying Dakota, my girl, you are one amazing artist. It wasn’t just a memory; it was like a voice, whispering inside her head.
She shivered and got back in her car. Night was falling and it was time to head home, where leftover pizza, late night TV and a fat orange tabby cat were waiting for her.
Chapter 49
Nicolette Denver-LeClerc sat on an examination table in her OB/GYN’s office on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario, wearing a paper exam robe which did little to conceal her swelling belly and breasts. She was waiting for the doctor to come in. As usual, she’d been waiting a while. She didn’t mind, however; Dr. Leora Reuben was the best OB doctor in Ontario and very much in demand. Nikki counted the revolutions of the second hand on the wall clock.
There was a knock and Dr. Reuben came in. A tall, dark haired woman with an easy smile and calm demeanor, Nicolette always felt comforted by her presence.
“Hi, Nikki,” said Dr. Reuben, flipping through the paperwork in Nicolette’s chart. “Everything is looking really good. You’re sixteen weeks along, and your baby is about six inches long. You’ve gained just under five kilos, which is right at your target weight at this point. How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been feeling pretty good,” Nikki replied. “I still have some morning sickness, but it’s getting a little better.”
“That’s very normal. Are you ready to see your ultrasound results?”
Nikki gave a huge smile. “Yes. Gerard wanted to be here, but he had to go to Vancouver for a business meeting.”
“Aww, that’s too bad, but you’ll be able to share the video with him,” said Dr. Reuben. She pulled a DVD out of Nikki’s file. “Here it is,” she smiled. “Are you ready to see your baby?”
Nicolette felt her breath catch as Dr. Reuben popped the DVD into the player and pressed Play. After a moment, a grainy, black-and-white image appeared on the screen, captioned DENVER-LECLERC, N / 13 MAY 2028. DD 14 OCT 2028
The fuzzy, swirly form moved around on the screen as the ultrasound probe technician moved the sensor around. As the video continued, statistics began to fill in at the side of the screen:
BPD: 2.9cm FL: 1.8cm
Dr. Reuben explained that BPD stood for Biparietal Diameter, the diameter between the two sides of the fetus’s head, while FL was the Femur Length, Both were used to determine whether the baby was growing normally. “Everything’s looking great,” she said, “and I believe that you said you wanted to know the sex of the baby, was that correct?” Nikki smiled and nodded. “Well, I believe that coming up here in just a few seconds, you’ll be able to see something that’
s a little clue…” She smiled and pointed with her pen just as the grainy limbs that she’d previously identified as the legs spread apart for a moment and a tiny shape was visible for just a moment.
“Was that what I think it was?” Nikki gasped.
“Only if you think it was a penis,” laughed Dr. Reuben. “It appears that you’re going to have a little boy.”
Nikki stared at the screen. The curve of the skull, the tiny arms and legs, the arch of the spine, everything she saw suddenly felt overwhelming. She suddenly missed her father more than she had in the nineteen years he’d been gone.
“Steven,” she choked out, wiping a tear from her eye. “We’re going to name him Steven.”
Chapter 50
Michael stood near the center of one of the staging areas of the hangar and suddenly found himself unsure why he was there. He looked around, slightly confused, and glanced at his watch. It was a little after three in the afternoon. Time for a cup of syncafé. He headed to the break room, still a bit puzzled as to why he couldn’t recall the reason he had been standing in the empty staging area.
In Michael’s office, a folded yellow piece of legal paper suddenly disappeared from his desk; it had never actually been there in the first place, after all, since the person that placed it there had never been there either.
Chapter 51
Disorientation. Green swirling maelstrom. Confusion. Steven found himself on a ten ticket thrill ride, a metal bat bucking like a fucking bronco, as he held on for dear life. He had no recollection as to how he had come to be here, but he dearly hoped that it was a nightmare. He seemed to be traveling backward through a chaotic emerald whirlpool —
Chapter 52
“Oh, I am way the hell behind,” Steven Denver thought to himself, looking at the calendar. It was the second week of November, and the deadline that had been set by his publisher was just eighty-nine short days away. He’d made a number of false starts, but the insanely busy day he’d had yesterday had completely distracted him from the project at hand. He sat at his desk in the corner of the bedroom, staring out the window at the Bridger Mountains in the distance. He was not quite in full panic mode, however. Not yet. I can do this, he told himself, running his hand through his thick brown hair.
His own personal deadline for having the project at least at the rough draft stage had sneaked up and bitten him squarely on the ass, and now he was a full 24 hours behind schedule. Deadlines were undoubtedly the brainchild of some chemically challenged, emotionally stunted and extremely twisted soul, probably a frustrated English teacher from Poughkeepsie.
His personal goal as a writer was to come up with 50,000 words a month. That’s a full 1,666.666 words a day, Steven grinned to himself. I shouldn’t have issues with that last two-thirds of a word, but the first 1,666 might be a problem. He thought of the twin 666s in that figure and shrugged off the obvious joke as a little too easy.
He often fell somewhat short of his goal, humans becoming easily distracted as they… Hey, look, Spongebob’s on! Oh, wait. Must concentrate on writing.
As I was saying, he thought to himself, it may be true that I often don’t finish my projects, or come up with some pretty crappy writing, but I do have a publisher that seems to think I’m a decent writer, so I guess I better get to it. He generally had to give himself this mental pep talk three or four times a year. Hmmm… Plot. Characters. Motivation. Setting. What would Stephen King do? He tried to remember the tips the famed horror writer (some called him a talentless hack, but Steven strongly disagreed) had shared in On Writing. Start with the character? Start with the situation? He couldn’t recall. Might have to dig in the bookshelf and find it, but there was no time now; November’s a-burnin’.
Felicia Naumova was a spy for the former Soviet Union
No.
No one knew that the man in the bunny costume was actually
No.
As the dramatic theme music of his life began to play, Arthur Ball opened his eyes and groaned. His clock radio was blaring, and it was six a.m.
Maybe.
He sadly filed away the Stephen King analogy and thought to himself, “What would Hemingway do in this situation?” Well, first of all, Hemingway would likely have been rip-roaring drunk, even though it was only 8:32 am. I like a little nip now and then, but I’m not the type to get my wick lit this early in the morning. I’ll settle for a nice root beer over crushed ice. Coffee would be good, too, but I don’t feel like making it.
Okay, he thought, I’m in prime writing mode now. The kids were off to school, his wife Lynne was off to work, and there was nothing to distract him from… oh, damn it, who could be calling at this time of the morning?
“Hello? Yes, this is he… what? Oh, yes, certainly. I am sure that my wife mailed you a check for that several days ago. No, I’m sorry, I don’t have the check number. She’s not here right now, but I… what? No, I’m not going to do an electronic check over the phone, I told you, she’s already mailed it. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Thank you for calling.” Click.
He breathed a heavy sigh and shook his head. Now, where had he left off? Back to work, damn it. He cracked a mental whip at himself — I’m a Gemini, I can do that — and stared at the keyboard.
As the dramatic theme music of his life began to play, Arthur Ball opened his eyes and groaned. His clock radio was blaring, and it was six a.m. His pathetic little life had begun its next chapter, and
Staring at the words on the screen, he discovered that he was extremely unimpressed with what he had written. If I were writing on paper, he thought, I’d crumple it and take a shot at the trash can-slash-basketball goal. As it was, he held down the backspace key and relegated Arthur Ball to the bit bucket.
What the hell am I going to write about?
He picked up his guitar, which was badly in need of restringing, and played a few chords. F, A minor, C, E… it was an odd progression, something that almost sounded prog-rock, but he liked it, and it spelled “face,” which he liked as well. He’d have to come up with a lyric about Lynne’s “beautiful face” or something. That reminded him of his favorite old Beatles song, and he began to slowly strum the chords, transforming it into a ballad.
“I’ve just seen a face, I can’t forget the time or place where we just met,” he sang. He played through the changes a couple more times, wincing at the out-of-tuneness of the instrument. The UPS guy should come any day now with the new strings he’d ordered.
After playing the progression a few more times, he got a sense of timelessness, as if he were floating in some kind of interstellar void. No, not interstellar, that would just be outer space. Interdimensional. He grinned. Maybe there was a story there…
Oh, my god. What was that sound? It sounds like fricking Mecha-Godzilla is outside, he thought, but they lived nowhere near Tokyo, though their two oldest daughters desperately wanted to move there someday. It sounded as if someone was digging up a sewer line. I’ll go peek out the window and see what’s going on, he thought.
Okay, it wasn’t Mecha-Godzilla, but it was some kind of huge monster machine, and it was devouring the ground right down to the bedrock, and was headed right this way.
He ran outside, where a gigantic yellow Caterpillar excavator was ripping up the ground near his driveway as a half dozen men in safety helmets stood around. He approached the earth mover, waving his arms and yelling at the top of his lungs to get the crew’s attention. “What the fuck are you doing? This is my house! Who told you to dig up my yard?”
It took a few minutes to communicate with the workers over the noise of the equipment, but they finally flagged the operator, who idled the machine and opened the door of the cab. “Somethin’ the matter, sir?”
“You’re goddam right there’s something the matter! Why are you tearing my yard all to hell?”
“Uh… we got an order here from the County Commissioner that says you’re spose’ta get a new drainage field. This is County Road 58, right? Williamson?”
“N
o, this is fifty-five, and this is the Denver residence. You guys are supposed to be about two miles east of here.”
The equipment operator looked sheepish and apologized profusely. Steven went back to the porch and stood watching as the Caterpillar was loaded back onto its trailer and driven away.
Steven wandered back into the house and put some coffee on to brew. He realized that he was very hungry, and scrounged up the ingredients for a pretty decent little sandwich. The ham Lynne had bought last payday was long gone, but he made an enormous turkey sandwich with cheese, Miracle Whip and crisp lettuce on wheat toast. He assembled it quickly and it was half gone before he arrived back at the computer. Wow, he realized, I was even hungrier than I realized. Maybe I’ll be able to write now.
He sat for a moment, thinking about the Stephen King question again. He went to his bookshelf and scanned the spines of the hundred or more books stored there. Ah, there it is. He flipped through his copy of On Writing until he found what he was looking for: The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What-if question…
Chapter 53
Lynne Denver sat at her desk, trying without much luck to restrain the pent-up energy of her twenty-three wound-up third graders as the minute hand of the clock crept slowly toward the 12. Nearly three o’clock, and the children knew it. Finally the bell rang and the kids flooded out of the classroom, roaring toward the school bus loading area like water streaming through a raging rapids.
She leaned back and stretched, her back dully aching, and expressed thanks for the fact that it was Friday. She graded an assignment from earlier that day, did some paperwork on one of her students who had been out of class with the flu for a week, and began to gather her things to get ready to go.