A Glitch in Time

by April Hill

  Before I could recover my wits and counsel caution, my husband reacted (perhaps unfortunately) as most proper Victorian husbands might have done in a similar situation. Edward grabbed the small blue intruder up by the scruff of the neck, turned him across his thigh and began to administer a very sound spanking to the little beast's chubby blue buttocks.

  "That was neither polite, nor hospitable," Edward lectured. Even though the culprit did not understand the words, it was obvious from his high-pitched squeals, his frantic squirming and kicking, and his contorted facial expressions that a vigorous spanking in the year 3599 felt very much as it might at any other place in time. Edward was not particularly harsh, in view of the child's size, and the spanking was really quite brief, but the little fiend's cries were obviously upsetting to the crowd, which had immediately begun to mill about and chirp more loudly. When he had finished the spanking, Edward deposited the screeching child back on his feet and delivered one last sharp smack to his bottom. Curiously, the freshly spanked area was not red, or even lavender, as one with knowledge of the color spectrum might expect, but simply a much darker shade of blue. It had gone from its normal, unspanked pale blue to a deeper shade, something approximating royal blue.

  "Do something like that again, young man, and I promise you that you will rue the day," Edward said sternly, in his very most convincing schoolmaster's voice.

  I wish I could outline to you in complete detail what happened next, but a great deal of it remains a blur until this day. Let me only say that chaos is too mild a word to describe the reaction of the gathered citizens to the simple spanking administered by Edward to that extremely deserving child. We were immediately put upon by a horde of shrieking blue Lilliputians, who began to pound us with their small fists, obviously intent on pummeling us into the ground.

  Still being thumped, we were swept along in the center of the chattering throng, pushed and shoved toward the largest, most impressive termite hill in the exact center of the village. Once there, we were forced onto our hands and knees and held immobile by hundreds of tiny blue hands, just as Gulliver had been. Neither Edward or I had been injured, for their blows were more annoying than painful, but as we waited for what was to happen, the possibility was occurring to both of us that this might be our very last stop on the time continuum. While we watched, the small, recently chastised child was taken inside, still screeching and clutching his azure buttocks.

  "I hope you're happy, Edward," I grumbled. "Your impatience may well result in our being buried alive or burned at the stake or something equally hideous, and it will be entirely your fault! Please do not ever ask me to accompany you on another trip… anywhere!"

  A few minutes later, the arched door opened and the child reappeared, still sniffling, alongside a somewhat taller person of the same hue. This one appeared to be important or of superior rank, because every one of the other blue creatures made a quick little bobbing bow in his direction. The important personage wore a headdress of some sort, that looked very much like a school beanie with a large rotating ball attached. The ball reflected wondrous prisms of light, as though the fellow were a very small blue lighthouse, warning ships at sea. Under his amazing hat, though, he was as bald and hairless as his countrymen with somewhat elongated arms and feet that turned outward. Interestingly, none of these small blue people had proper toes. Their feet appeared to be webbed.

  The important personage came closer, and I, not wishing to seem disrespectful, executed a polite, reverential little bow of my own. Edward stood his ground and adamantly refused to offer any sign of respect at all. Of course, Edward had not had the pleasure of being painfully spanked, flogged, and caned on his own bare buttocks by our last host, as I had been. I, for one, did not wish to risk annoying another king–even one as diminutive and apparently harmless as this one. I have found it quite disagreeable enough to be regularly upended and spanked by my own husband, without offering my bottom to unknown potentates.

  And then, an astonishing thing happened. The important person began to speak, in that same chirping manner–and yet Edward and I understood EVERY word! I cannot explain precisely how this came about, because we heard, quite clearly, the bird-like twitters, but in our heads or in our minds, perhaps, his chirping was in some way reconstructed into almost flawless English!

  We had landed, we learned later, in the land, or kingdom, of a race called the Drollums in the year 3599. And my idiot husband, in defending my honor, had evidently just done violence to the pale blue buttocks of this peculiar kingdom's crown prince.

  Within the space of ten minutes, we were forcibly removed across the village to a massive structure at the edge of town, and thrust inside. There, we were bound hand and foot to two long metal tables, and our eyes covered with masks. I felt several of the creatures hovering near us and a sudden sense of warmth in my lower limbs, and then, mercifully, I passed out.

  * * * *

  When I awoke, I sat up in bed, and realized that that was precisely where I was–in bed, in our bed, in our own room, in Uncle Herbert's house in London! I flung back the covers, and shook Edward awake.

  "Edward, darling! Wake up!" I cried. "It's over, we're home. Oh, thank Heaven! Edward! Wake up!" In my excitement, I'm afraid that I whacked poor, sleeping Edward over the head with my pillow, which was something of a mistake, because the pillow was a very odd sort of a pillow, indeed. Of some sort of plaster of Paris, as my luck would have it, that instantly shattered into hundreds of shards–littering the bed, the floor, and Edward himself.

  And so it was that I received my very first spanking in the year 3599. Edward roared in pain, grabbed his head, and before I could explain to him what had happened (I could not have explained, actually), Edward had tossed me across his lap, thrown up my nightie, tore open the back of my drawers and begun smacking my absolutely innocent bottom very, very hard!

  "Ow," I yelped, struggling to escape the torrent of blows. "Please, Edward, will you just stop and listen? I… owww!"

  Edward would neither listen nor stop, and proceeded, instead, to spank harder and then push my drawers further down, in order to assault my thighs with equal vigor. Each time I opened my mouth to elucidate, Edward smacked somewhere else, so that I could barely catch my breath. I believe Edward was beginning to succumb to stress, and what better cure than to blister the first available behind? And mine, as always, was right there at hand.

  "Are you out of your mind?" he shouted, finally shoving me very rudely off his lap and getting out of bed. "What?"

  "I don't know!" I shrieked. I bent and snatched up several pieces of the broken material from the carpet, then shoved them under his nose. "A moment ago, this was a pillow."

  "A pillow, my ass," Edward raged, quite unwilling to listen to reason, and now rubbing a rather large egg-shaped bump on his head. "This is not the time for pranks, Abby. I ought to take my damned belt to you, damn it!" He dumped me face-down on the bed, removed his belt, and was about to do just that, when fortunately, he put his hand down at that exact moment on his own pillow. Curious, he dropped the belt, and thumped the remaining pillow with his fist. While Edward's scientific curiosity diverted his attention from my reddened bottom, I made my escape, crawling quickly to the other side of the bed.

  "What the blazes," he exclaimed, turning the rock-hard pillow in his hands. "I think the damned thing is made of plaster," he observed, putting to excellent use all those advanced degrees in physics, chemistry and whatever.

  "Of course, it is," I pouted indignantly, rubbing my stinging bottom. "That's what I just told you. It's a plaster pillow. And it fits quite nicely on that dreadful plaster mattress. My back and neck were already in agony, and now, my behind doesn't feel all that well, either, thank you." I pulled my drawers back up and gave him a very cranky look, which he ignored, his attentions still focused on the pillow.

  "Were you able to sleep?" he asked curiously. "On this thing?"

  I had to think for a moment. "I believe so, but now that I think of
it, how could we have?"

  "We must have been drugged," Edward intoned ominously. "Some sort of powerful narcotic. Forgive me, Abby. I was simply..." He didn't finish the apology, but picked up several of the smaller broken pieces and rubbed them between his fingers. "It isn't plaster, though. It's too smooth. More like glass."

  "I hardly see that as an improvement," I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "What sort of host would treat his guests so abominably?"

  Edward sighed. "I don't think we should regard ourselves as guests, Abigail. Unless I'm mistaken, we are prisoners."

  "But this room," I exclaimed. "Look around! This is our bedroom, Edward."

  He shook his head, puzzled. "An excellent likeness of our bedroom, perhaps?"

  "Edward?" I asked irritably. "How could these… these people… these creatures, possibly know the exact appearance of our bedroom?"

  "I have no idea," he admitted. "But we certainly need to explore, further."

  "What I need," I said sullenly, "is to get dressed. Hosts as inconsiderate as these are likely to show up unannounced. I certainly hope these people have supplied us fresh clothing, since they appear to be so good at improvising." I pulled at the top drawer of what seemed to be my dresser, where I customarily kept my underthings, but found the drawer stubbornly stuck.

  When I explained my difficulty with the drawer, Edward had no more luck opening it than I and leaned down to inspect the entire dresser more carefully.

  "It isn't real," he said. "The drawer is merely glued on to the front in some way."

  For some reason I could not have explained, this knowledge terrified me. "Let's try the door," he said grimly. Clutching his hand tightly, I followed closely behind as Edward reached for the handle of the door to the hallway. It was locked.

  "We're locked in?" I asked, horrified.

  Edward tapped on the door, and peered more closely at it. "Not precisely, darling. More like walled in, I should think. This door has no hinges, and there appears to be something quite solid beyond it. Concrete, perhaps."

  At that very moment, there was the distinct hum of a motorized device behind where we stood, and when we turned to look, the entire opposite wall, complete with furniture, pictures and bric-a-brac, was in the process of sliding back from either side, as a curtain at the theatre might, when the performance commences. Our "bedroom" wall simply disappeared, and in its place there was another wall–of bars, thin bars, from ceiling to floor, made of some very shiny silver metal. I looked beyond the bars, gasped with shock and shrunk back in alarm. Edward and I stood transfixed by the sea of pale blue faces beyond the bars, each small face staring with awe and fascination–at us.

  "What are they doing?" I gasped.

  "They appear to be watching us, Abby."

  I tried to contain my trembling. "Watching us? For what purpose?" I whispered.

  "Do you remember the dioramas we saw last month at the British Museum? Of Ancient Man?"

  I nodded, dumbstruck with the realization of what he meant.

  "We're in a museum?" I croaked, my throat suddenly very dry.

  "Unless I'm mistaken, more like a zoological garden, I should think, darling. I'm afraid that we are on display, in our natural habitat."

  From somewhere, a high-pitched voice began to speak, in that same bird-like manner we had heard upon our arrival. The museum guide was lecturing the viewing audience.

  * * * * *

  While Edward and I stood together in the farthest corner of the room, holding one another and attempting to avoid the curious gaze of the diminutive blue onlookers, the voice chirped on for what seemed a very long time. (Edward told me later that by his watch, it had been only fifteen minutes.) And then, with the same soft whir, the bedroom walls slid slowly back into place, enclosing us once again in the privacy of our counterfeit bedroom–until feeding time, presumably.

  We made a careful tour of our habitat, and discovered that, like a theatrical stage set, the room bore only a surface resemblance to the original. Nothing that should move, moved, and nothing that should open, opened. The two balcony windows "looked out" upon a painted landscape of our own garden, and the bowl of fruit and a plate of pastries on the small marble-topped table were artificial. I came close to losing a tooth in discovering this, by the way. It was at that moment, as I studied with unhappiness a beautiful apple and an inviting frosted cake made of the same material as our pillows, that I became aware for the first time that I was ravenously hungry.

  "Are we simply to starve to death, then?" I wailed. Edward shook his head and peered into a white pitcher on the dresser. "Even the water is manufactured," he said, tapping the hard surface of the clear "liquid." "I believe we will die of thirst some time before we starve, darling."

  "Well," I said testily. "I hate to be vulgar, but I could also use a W.C."

  Suddenly, without a sound, a panel in the wall opened. Edward and I exchanged glances and waited. When nothing further happened and when no one appeared at the threshold, we moved cautiously toward the small doorway and looked through.

  The door opened onto what was quite obviously, a holding cell–quite large, and well-lit, but with no windows. There were two narrow, padded platforms–beds, presumably–a wide table and several benches, and a large glass enclosed area, which turned out to be, upon closer inspection, a fully equipped "bathroom" of highly curious design. When we were both inside the cell, the door closed silently behind us. Although we had been out of our bed for little more than an hour, by Edward's watch, we were, apparently, being "put away" for the night, as animals are at the zoological gardens.

  On a circular table on the right of the cell, on several oddly shaped metal platters, we found a variety of genuine, tasteless but edible fruits, a loaf of a dense kind of bread, and a pitcher of what tasted like cold, sweetened tea. We hesitated only briefly before falling upon the almost flavorless food, reasoning that had our hosts wished to poison us, they could have already done so, without these elaborate preparations. All of the fruit was virtually without detectable flavor or aroma, but the bread had the distinct taste, from what I remembered from my childhood of library paste, yet I cannot remember when I have savored a meal so.

  We had barely finished our supper before we were startled by yet another panel sliding open on the wall of our cell. This one was quite high up and had the look of a frosted window, which suddenly lit up and upon which appeared an image of the important personage. To our astonishment, the image then moved.

  "Moving pictures!" Edward exclaimed. "I have seen mention of this technology in my journals, but I had never expected..."

  "Welcome," the image said in the same high-pitched tone as every other Drollum we had heard. "I am the Director, and you are our guests."

  "Guests," I cried. "We are prisoners!"

  The Director looked around, apparently confused. "Are your quarters not correctly assembled?"

  "Not precisely," Edward said, rubbing his head.

  "Ah, yes. The headrest. I shall notify our curators of that error. They had only the images retrieved from your brain activity to instruct them as to the properties of your surroundings. You will find the accommodation–the one your mate referred to earlier as a W.C. just beyond the door to your left. We had no image with which to work, but assumed that the W.C. is a place to attend to certain bodily ablutions?"

  Edward nodded, and I blushed. I would never stare at the polar bear or chimpanzee exhibit again without wishing them more privacy and dignity.

  After a few minutes of study, we found the accommodation to be perfectly functional and very welcome. There was a round, domed enclosure of what appeared to be clear glass. One had only to step into it before steaming clouds of perfumed mist appeared from hundreds of invisible sprays inside the wall. When one had finished bathing, one had only to lift one's arms to bring a rinse of fine, scented rain from somewhere within the overhead dome. There was no soap, but none seemed necessary. There were also no towels for when the bath was ended, but the glas
s enclosure filled with warm swirls of air. (The W.C., I should add, worked on much the same principle of the similar convenience at home.)

  When we had bathed, we pushed a button and returned through the sliding door to our bedroom. Almost immediately, the Director appeared again on the large overhead screen.

  "You will be free, after a short time, to move freely about in our little kingdom, but first, there are a number of questions I would like to ask of you."

  We prepared to answer questions about our era, about the Time Machine, about our habits, etc. but the Director's questions were rather more specific.

  "Earlier, I witnessed on the monitor a second instance of curious behavior in your habitat–similar to the assault you made on my son when you first arrived. You inflicted this brutality upon your mate this time."

  I hardly knew whether to blush or applaud the Director's words. My morning spanking had been witnessed possibly by thousands, but the Director, at least, recognized it as brutal. How gentlemanly of him!

  "In our country, sir," Edward explained, sounding a bit defensive. "We do not consider this behavior brutal, but necessary and even instructive."

  "My husband… or my mate, speaks only for himself, Your Excellency," I said pointedly.

  "Yes," he said. "My son informs me that this activity is quite… painful," the Director observed.