Force

by A.R. Rivera

One + Nine = Confused

  The rainbow wheel that took me from wherever the hell that was has disappeared.

  Dulled green paints the leaves of short, stout trees. It smells of... citrus, I think, judging by the smell and tiny green footballs growing between slender spikes on the branches of the surrounding trees.

  All one pale shade of green over limp, brown dirt.

  My hands follow my eyes to a plump round orange a few trees away. I’m biting into it the moment it’s plucked.

  Real food.

  The rind is thin and delicious and bitter with sweet flesh.

  After the first is gone I pluck another, then another. Soon, my stomach aches with fullness and the extra space in my backpack is filled with the plain, delectable fruit.

  Row after row, each straight as an arrow, stretches as far as the eye can see and I’m so happy I could die right here. I’m in an orchard.

  Orchards mean farms, which need farmers.

  Familiar mountains at my left tell me the way out is to the right. I follow the shallow ditch between rows of trees, spotting a harvester up ahead. The truck is tall and wide, with a mechanical arm that stretches out to shake the orange tree until the fruits fall into the catch-bin.

  Spotting the mechanical harvester makes me smile, my pace quicken.

  That smile grows when my boots hit the plain grey sidewalk. My hiking boots, petals on the flowering weeds, ranch-style houses, and the faded blue sky, every bit of this dull place is tinged with hope.

  My head feels funny. Thoughts fragmented like they don’t want to connect. I can’t think of what to do next so I keep walking, watching the cars barrel past. There are street signs and people, but I can’t find my bearings.

  I’m in some type of suburb, though I’m not sure where. I think I’m in the right plane. I hope.

  Everything feels... too fast.

  My feet ache. The forgotten feeling of fullness energizes me, but I need to lie down. I stop and stretch out on a covered bus bench to rest.

  I haven’t rested on anything above ground in... I don’t know how long because I can’t count the stretched days.

  My eyes take on a will of their own as my body relaxes in the peaceful drone of passing cars. Sounds of the twentieth-first century. I’m so excited, it’s made me sick to my stomach. Either that or the oranges were just sprayed with pesticide.

  Still, my eyes close.

  There’s a dog at my feet. He’s cute, for a mutt. Staring back at his wide brown eyes and caramel fur, I pet his head and wait for the scrambled thoughts swirling in my head to stop. Hoping they’ll stop.

  The dog is mostly still, but when he moves, it’s twitchy. Like the incremental jerks of the automatic doors at the hospital on World Two.

  1996.

  His tail is long, blurring as it wags. He whined when I first saw him. Now, he stares up at me with rapidly blinking eyes, letting off short, abrupt barks. He’s an odd looking guy—I like him. He’s energetic, barrel-chested, and his markings remind me of a dog I used to have. It’s the white diamond on his chest.

  His name was Sonny and I found him in a public bathroom at a rest stop outside LA. He was riddled with parasites and covered in mange. Abi fell in love with him. We took him to the vet, but it was too late. She named him after he died.

  I sit up to stare as the dogs tongue laps my hand. After a moment of impatient wriggling, he calms, resigning himself to wait with his snout resting over my knee.

  Cars pass in sporadic blurs. The choking exhaust is comforting. I close my eyes and rest my head in my hands.

  I never really had pets when I was a kid. My mom was allergic to cats and she didn’t like dogs. She said they were dirty. I probably spent a third of my formative years begging for a dog, bringing home strays she wouldn’t consider. Once Carrie came along, the need for something small to love and care for was sated.

  I pet the dogs’ neck, fiddling with his nylon collar.

  Bear is printed above a street address.

  He jerks away from me, excitedly hopping backward, dipping back legs into the gutter. A passing car honks. When I say his name, his ears shoot up, his tail wags furiously. A street sign down the road reads Azalea, which happens to be same name as on Bears’ tag. It’s one of those bigger signs to foretell the street at the next intersection.

  I grab Bear by the collar and start up the road. His pace pulls at me, his legs blur as he prances. I work on not tripping as cars pass in streaks—blink several times, command my eyes to catch-up, working to get my legs to do the same.

  I don’t understand how people can just let their dogs wander around. Especially near a busy road like this one. Its four lanes across with a concrete divider in the center.

  Bear and I wait for the walk signal, which blinks in dull fluorescent capitals like its yelling at me.

  WALK! WALK! WALK!

  Across the road and down we stroll. I keep my hand on Bear, adjusting my backpack when it falls to one side. As we veer away from the busy road, the residential neighborhood takes on a quieter feel. The yards are all the same size, some with fences and some without. Some have manicured grass and others not so much. Most of them have chain-link fences outside rows of trees and flowering plants bordered by decorative rocks.

  Only some of the houses have numbers on them. The street seems calm enough, so I let Bear loose and follow his lead.

  He crosses the street and shoots into a long, unfenced yard. The house behind it is warm brown stucco with black trim. Three large pine trees trace the fence line of a neighboring yard. Below them is an area of large river rocks.

  Bear sits on the front porch, facing the front door of natural wood color with a large oval of stained glass in the center.

  I guess he’s found his home.

  A large, white paneled van streaks by as I try to catch my breath. It’s only six blocks from the bench, but with this dog pulling me I feel like I ran the whole way.

  I walk up the grey cement path and around the side to the tall wooden gate that leads to an enclosed back yard. It’s locked from the inside. There’s no car in the driveway, either, so I resign myself to waiting and take a spot in the shade of the cool porch.

  Bear’s determined. He whines and scratches at the front door like a boy whose just come off a long road trip and has to piss.

  His wide dog-eyes stare at me, desperate.

  “You haven’t got the key?”

  He whines again, stretching a paw towards the knob like he wishes he had opposable thumbs.

  “You’re smart.” I raise my hand to demonstrate. “But it’s locked,” I explain and turn the handle that gives no resistance.

  Bear jumps at the opportunity, pressing the door open with his weight.

  He disappears.

  “This better be your house,” I warn, turning to work onto my knees.

  The floor of the entry way is glossy, off-white tile with dark grout lines. The floorboards are white and the wall over them is white, mottled over in forest green.

  Nice.

  I’m in need of a phone but have no plans to cross the threshold.

  I thought if I waited for whoever lives here to show up, that they might be nice enough to let me use the phone. But I only expected that, if they were Bears’ owners. And if they were kind enough to let a scraggly stranger use their phone, I assumed they’d bring a Cordless phone out to the porch.

  I certainly wasn’t planning on doing what I find myself doing—stepping onto the shiny tile and into a small house with a two-tone brown and green color scheme.

  I don’t’ know how many steps it takes from the wide door to the wall of a short hall that crosses the entry. But I’m inside, staring. Feeling like it took only one step to get from another plane to this darkened hallway.

  I am constantly puzzled by the things I find myself confronting. Like, inside this strange house, where the front door opens into a small green entry that leads to a long hallway. There hangs a clu
ster of pictures. They are large and small, all in plain black frames that decorate the opposing coffee colored wall. Inside each picture frame is a beautiful blond woman in various locations.

  In the largest one, centered among the cluster of photos, she is the most stunning creature I’ve ever seen her—wrapped in white, gauzy lace. The long blond hair she usually wears straight and ties back for work is down, flowing in waves around her face. Her full red lips are stretched into a brilliant smile. The man beside her is wearing a classic black tux. They’re standing beneath a flowering archway holding hands. And aside from the deliriously happy grin on the groom’s face, he looks almost exactly like me.

  It’s the weirdest, strangest thing that I never could have known—much less believed. I never would, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes—that this small house tucked away in an unnamed town really is Bears house. But what really blows my scattered mind is that, according to the framed photos along the wall, this house belongs to Bear, Abi, and me.