Midnight Diner 3

by Edoardo Albert

  Ginny paced back and forth several times across the living room rug. "What we have to figure out is what he’s trying to say."

  She sat the watch and the Bible on the end table. Her hands trembled. She rubbed them on her pants, mostly to assure herself she was awake. She felt alert and conscious, yet she waded through a dreamlike fog. Was she seriously entertaining the idea that Stuart wasn’t gone?

  If so, what was he trying to communicate? "Dali watch and the world was prepared by God..."

  Ruth corrected her. "Actually, what it says is the worlds were prepared by God. Not that I

  really think we should be going down this futile road. I have no idea what that could possibly mean."

  "You’re right. It did say worlds."

  "I think Daddy wants you to call his work," Lizzie said.

  Ginny gawked at her daughter, wondering if the hazy aura surrounding her meant she hadn’t woken up. She balanced on a dangerous precipice because going much further down this road could end up with Ginny in the nuthouse and Lizzie without her mother or father.

  Yet Ginny found herself picking up the telephone and dialing. "Yes, this is Ginny Pearson...yes, thank you, we’re adjusting. May I please speak with Steve?"

  Ruth mumbled under her breath as Ginny waited. Lizzie focused intently on the paper in front of her. Ginny felt as though she was seeing Lizzie clearly for the first time. Normally, watching her child deluged her with such utter devotion that she couldn’t separate loving her from acknowledging the oddities that surely had been there all along. But Ginny had to admit the death of Stuart hadn’t been the only time Lizzie seemed unusual. The out of the ordinary instances flooded her mind like a slow playing film projector. Lizzie’s imaginary friends that she held in-depth conversations with, the toys that popped up in their house even though they’d never been purchased and the things Lizzie sometimes knew that were well beyond her years.

  All of a sudden they pointed to something beyond the circumstances of Stuart’s un-death. The worlds of Dali’s watch.

  ~

  "Lizzie," Ginny said as she hung up the phone. "Mr. Steve, from Daddy’s work, didn’t know very much about your Daddy’s work. But he said that Daddy was researching lots of interesting things and that one of the things he was studying was you."

  "Daddy asked me lots of questions. All the time."

  Ginny saw a momentary glimpse of hope in Ruth’s eyes. The look turned to confusion and frustration, but for just a second Ginny thought that maybe, just maybe, Ruth entertained the idea that her son was still alive. "What kinds of questions, sweetie?" Ruth asked.

  "Questions about all my friends and where they live. He asked me lots of questions about the toys my friends give me."

  Ginny couldn’t believe Stuart hadn’t talked to her about this. "Daddy never told me anything about that."

  "Daddy said one day he was going to blow your mind," Lizzie said, adding air quotes with her fingers. "He said he’d win a prize. I never know what Daddy’s talking about."

  "What other things did he say?"

  Lizzie looked up from her paper. "That I have special jeans. Daddy said I was very special but

  I don’t know why he liked my pants so much."

  Ginny smiled and ruffled Lizzie’s hair. "Daddy has thought everything about you was special since you were born, but he wasn’t talking about your jeans. Did he say why he thought your genes are special when he was asking you all the questions?"

  Lizzie held up her drawing. "Because I know about this."

  Ginny took the drawing from her daughter. Ruth looked over her shoulder. The rudimentary drawing clearly showed a little girl in a room. A line split the little girl in half. On one side the room behind the girl was green. On the other, pink.

  "What does this mean, Lizzie?" Ruth asked. "I see the little girl. But why is she cut in half?" "Not cut in half," Lizzie said. She pointed to the room on one side. "Half in, half out." Ginny’s head swam again, a glimmer of recognition played at the corners of her mind. "Half

  in and half out of what?"

  "Her world."

  Ginny’s stomach flipped around and fell toward her feet. Her breakfast was dangerously close to finding its way back up. "You’re half in, half out, Lizzie? And that’s why you can see Daddy?"

  "Yes, Mommy. I’ve been trying to tell you for days. Daddy’s lost. I think I’m going to go find him."

  Panic seized Ginny’s heart. "No! Lizzie. What are you saying? You can’t go where Daddy is." Lizzie looked from Ruth to Ginny. "I think I can."

  And then she disappeared.

  "No!" Ginny screamed as she lunged for her daughter. The air smelled of the shampoo Lizzie used the previous evening. Tears seeped out the edges of her eyes. Now she had lost them both.

  Ruth moved toward the empty chair in a trance. She ran her hands along the fabric of the chair. "She’s just...she’s not there. She’s gone. What happened? My God, where is Lizzie?"

  "Lost," Ginny said. "Lost. Just like Stuart."

  Waiting is such a curious thing, especially when you have no idea what you’re waiting for. Ginny didn’t really think about why she found herself drawn to the sofa. She spent a few minutes (hours?) thinking through what she would say when they came back. Plotting how they’d explain the funeral and the disappearance. She thought these details would be necessary for the home- coming. All the while, it never crossed her mind there might not be a glorious return. Waiting in the midst of crisis inspires hope or despair. Ginny’s mind never journeyed to the darkest places.

  Perhaps it should have.

  Ginny thought Ruth would understand the desire to sit in the room Lizzie had most recently occupied. That they would wait together. But no matter how she reasoned with her, Ruth refused to sit and prepare. Actually wouldn’t acknowledge the reality of any of it. Stuart died, Lizzie slept peacefully in her room and Ginny mourned on the sofa. Denial is a marvelous thing. Ruth stormed out with threats of calling the department of child welfare.

  So Ginny waited in her living room. Alone.

  As the sun set and darkness settled in and made himself comfortable, Ginny’s eyes got heavier. She fought to stay awake even though it was early evening and the longer she hung in the battle the more she realized something was putting her to sleep. The air was different. Thicker. Heavier. She wondered if this should frighten her, this idea that something beyond her understanding was lulling her to sleep, but it didn’t.

  The path to her family required vigilant attentiveness. That this might be the more treacherous course made her uneasy, but she knew it was right.

  No, the more she struggled the more convinced she became that the danger lay in being awake. The living room shadows grew long and crept across the room. Every few minutes she would double take because there was something in the darkness, sneaking ever closer. But when scrutinized, of course the shadows were simply shadows.

  Ginny put on a pot of coffee and then rummaged through the medicine cabinet for caffeine pills, No-Doz left over from long nights of painting because her husband and child had commandeered her daytime hours. Determined that staying awake would lead her to Stuart and Lizzie, she amped up with pharmaceuticals and music she could sing to. She flipped the stereo to an eighties station where the familiarity of Purple Rain and Time After Time compelled belting out lyrics full force.

  Although Ginny didn’t know how much, she knew time marched on because song after song passed. But time felt compressed, falling in on itself. She only vaguely remembered the songs from one minute to the next, as if they never happened. Objects in the room blinked in and out, a cosmic graphics designer was screwing around with the opacity bar, making them see-through and ethereal.

  Something was happening.

  Suddenly, the area surrounding the chair Lizzie had disappeared from began to fade. A large rip in the room materialized. Ginny’s mind struggled to make sense of what appeared in front of her. It wasn’t like any sci-fi movie she’d ever seen, but seemed a lot like so
mething she might see if technology found a way to manage it. As if a three dimensional hole hung on a two dimensional surface. Like a drawing in the air. Only what showed on the surface was a multi-dimensioned area that held every world, from everywhere, all in one place. Simultaneously, every realm opened in one space.

  She stared into the hole. Her mouth went dry, as if she’d wandered a desert for months, but her eyes watered with spontaneous tears. She opened her mouth to scream, certain her vocal chords shook with her yell, but she heard nothing. The noises emanating from the space in her living room swallowed up all other sound. All worlds coexisted in her living room. The cacophony made by creatures from other worlds sucked in every reverberation from her own. Not only did she see very confused humans, but beings never imagined and indescribable filled the spaces and Ginny watched, with horror, their expressions as they realized access to another world might be suddenly available.

  The eyes of the beasts that now clamored toward the opening in her living room frightened her, but not so much as Lizzie and Stuart in the midst of the rip. She could hear them screaming at one another though they seemed hundreds of miles away. Lizzie looked so frightened and Ginny could finally hear herself screaming when she noticed a gruesome, snakelike entity turn its attention toward her family. For one small moment she knew her husband could see her and sadness crept into his eyes as he yelled to Lizzie, "Go back! Quick, close it!"

  There was a thunderous boom and the split in the room disappeared, like it was never there. The last thought Ginny had before the black overtook her was whether she’d hit the floor or make it to the sofa before she passed out.

  ~

  "Mommy, wake up."

  Ginny’s eyes popped open the second she heard her daughter’s voice. "Oh my God! Lizzie."

  Looking into the face of the child she thought she’d never see again, Ginny pulled Lizzie down on top of her with every intention of never letting her go. Then she bolted up to greet her husband with the same enthusiasm. Her mind reeled with glimpses of the future, moments once lost now available again.

  "Stuart," she said, looking around the room. Although no signs of her husband’s return jumped out at her, she couldn’t wait to put her arms around him, touch him again. See him roll his eyes at her again.

  "Daddy’s not here."

  "What do you mean? I saw him with you. In the ..."

  "Daddy thinks he can’t come back to this place because he’s not supposed to be here." "Of course he’s supposed to be here."

  "Daddy said he’s dead here." "But I saw him. With you."

  "I tried really hard, Mommy. But I can’t bring him back here. I can take him lots of places, but not here. I think there are rules." Lizzie’s face darkened and she looked like a scared five year old. "When I broke the rules, it was really scary."

  Ginny stared at her daughter. The evening’s events floated back into her consciousness causing her to confront the truth about her child. Fascinated and frightened, she assimilated the earlier phenomenon and the strange past into her new reality. "Rules?"

  Lizzie exhaled the sigh of a senior citizen longing for days of old. She no longer seemed five. "I just don’t know. I definitely can’t bring him here, but I might be able to take you there."

  "Might be able?" Ginny’s eyes watered as she remembered what she had seen when Lizzie tried to bring Stuart home. What happened when Lizzie tried to experiment with things beyond all their control. She wiped a stray tear and realized her lip was quivering.

  "What’s wrong, Mommy?"

  A desperate laugh tumbled out. "I’m a little scared right now."

  Lizzie giggled. "I was, too. But it will go away if you can see Daddy."

  Ginny didn’t know if that was true. If was a mighty large word. Lizzie, too young to realize how abnormal all their lives had become, probably couldn’t understand the complexity of her fear. "Sweetie, how long have you known about all this stuff?"

  "A long time, I guess. I didn’t know I could go other places, I just tried that to find Daddy. But

  I’ve always known about my friends in other places." "Why didn’t you tell me?"

  "I did. I told you about all my friends and showed you all the presents they gave me."

  Ginny smiled. Lizzie had always insisted the people in her imaginary world existed. They just hadn’t understood. They would have a lot to talk about if they saw each other again.

  Stuart.

  Not dead there. Just here.

  Fear gripped Ginny’s heart because she knew no matter what dangers she had to face, she couldn’t imagine not trying to reach him. She couldn’t stay in a world where they weren’t a family if there was any chance at all of a place where they were.

  She reached for Lizzie’s hand. "Let’s go." Ginny saw no fear in her child’s eyes, she simply grinned.

  "Daddy’s waiting."

  And the last thing Ginny thought as she disappeared from her world was that she hoped

  Stuart really was in a better place.

  Virtuoso

  M.L. Archer

  Benjamin Toll pulled his ball cap down over his eyes and tucked his violin case a little closer. He slouched in a darkened, rear booth in a bar off Paris’ Rue Monge and wrapped himself in its shadowy embrace. Stale Gauloise smoke, decaying leather, and bourbon sat with him.

  Ben’s plan to drink until Madame Gissette’s words no longer rattled his head had failed. He lifted his empty glass and planted it, upside down, on the wooden table top.

  "Benjamin Toll! You ‘ave done zis to me!"

  Check mate.

  "You and no one else."

  Benjamin gave a deep sigh and started to slide out of his seat.

  Movement caught his eye. A woman dressed in black glided through the bar towards his table and the sight of her felt like icicles.

  She approached, a stark figure dressed completely in black from the pumps which she balanced on to the large brimmed hat on her head. Ben couldn’t see her face. Like the rest of the world, he had to view the woman through the heavy, black veil that blocked her visage and he wondered if there was something wrong. Perhaps a disfigurement.

  She moved with unearthly grace. But her steps, and the complete focus of her path, conjured a sense of obsession, as if this woman made the knowledge of his private comings and goings her reason for being alive. As far as Ben could tell, her gaze never left him.

  She halted a few feet from his table and spoke in French.

  Ben couldn’t see her face other than a vague outline of blood red lips. Her eyes were dark hollows.

  "No parlez vous francais." He hoped she would brush him off as an ignorant American and leave him alone.

  "That is not a problem. I speak English very well, no?"

  "Madame, I would rather not have company at the moment."

  "But you are drinking alone. That cannot be good. Do not worry. I am here for you…" She slid into the booth facing him.

  A man’s voice broke in. "Oui, monsieur?"

  Benjamin glanced up to see the bartender addressing him from his post. "Did you call to me?" the bartender said.

  "No, I was speaking to…" Ben halted mid-gesture and gaped at the now empty space the woman had occupied.

  Ben said. "Just thinking out loud. Sorry."

  The bartender chuckled. "Or, perhaps, our French spirits are a bit much, eh? Eet is alright. But go home, sir. You will be well."

  He rose, violin case clamped under his arm, and carefully walked to the bar to pay his bill. He tugged his wallet from his blue jeans.

  Benjamin glanced at the bartender standing against his backdrop of bottles filled with amber liquid and sparkling glasses. "Did a woman in a large black hat come in here?"

  The bartender paid him an easy smile. "Do not worry. There are many willing females, no?" Recognition then flitted across the man’s face. "Mon dieu! Are you Benjamin Toll?"

  "Yes."

  "I must tell you, I am so sorry to hear of what has happened. But you have given so mu
ch pleasure with your music. All of Paris is yours!"

  "Thank you. You’re very kind. Bon soir."

  "Bon soir."

  Ben paid his bill, stepped out the door and into the night.

  The City of Lights carried on as if he were mere vapor. At this hour, the streets belonged to young lovers who strolled hand in hand, ladies and gentlemen dressed in evening finery, and bevies of tourists. Of a darker nature, predators, who only seemed to gaze at the ground, hunted for victims like prowling wolves. The homeless begged for scraps. Benjamin, a tall, sandy-haired man, decked out in a faded shirt and blue jeans, blended with the whole eclectic mix.

  A cool wind whisked down the street and he wished he’d wore something besides his old college jersey. From down an alleyway the rustling of paper caused him to glance in time to see the wind lift bits of old newspaper and other debris and send them swirling into a brief dust devil.

  Ben’s thoughts turned to back home and the summer he and his friends chased one of these tiny tornadoes across the baseball field. A sigh left him.

  His father had called from the midwest that morning.

  "Benjamin, come home for awhile," Dad had said, his voice filled with concern. "I think a couple of weeks back home would do you good right now."

  "I can’t. The competition is over, I have concerts scheduled…"

  But would he keep those dates? Maybe. If he could manage to silence Madame Gissette’s accusations that still throbbed at the back of his skull. Maybe he would be fine.

  He could still see her as he left the conservatory, barging up the steps to pounce on him like a tiny tiger. Grotesque insults, words he would never have imagined spilling from the lips of this woman, flowed like poison. She sneered and spat on the ground before him. Cameras flashed.

  Benjamin caught himself. But the rest of the memory tumbled through making his guts knot. Tight.

  He scoured his memory for anything he had said or did that would have hurt Madame

  Gissette. Nothing.

  A voice spoke at his elbow. "You did not ask for zis."

  He jumped and turned. The woman in black stood by his side. Ben’s heart pounded.