Moonliner: No Stone Unturned

by Hanzel, Donald

  “We could just tell them the truth if they ask,” Kendra mentions, still pondering the scenario.

  “They’re not gonna ask,” Beau reiterates; “and no we shouldn’t tell them the truth. Do you really want to explain all this to them? They’d think we’re nuts.”

  “We should have just had the plate made in Vancouver while we’re up here to eliminate the chance of having to explain it at the border.”

  “That’s clever,” Beau replies; “a little late but clever.”

  Before they know it, they’re rolling past the town of Blaine and up to the border. They have to slow way down while passing Peace Arch Park and proceeding to the crossing gates, even with the lanes as wide open as they are. They’ve picked a nice time to cross. Six lanes are open with only four or five cars in each of them. They pull into the shortest line, put their car in park, and fish around for their passports.

  “Now you’ve got me worried with all your talk about them finding the plate,” Beau says light heartedly but with some truth in his voice as they pull into the spot one car away from the booth.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kendra says, handing him his passport.

  “True,” Beau replies; “it’s not like we’re here to violate any laws. Besides, if they knew the potential impact this could have on human history, they’d be offering us five-star hotel rooms and a parade. This plate could easily end up in a museum one day.”

  The BMW directly in front of them is cleared. It pulls away as a signal at the booth turns green. Beau and Kendra pull up to the side of the booth, stop the car, and hand their passports to a friendly, young woman.

  “What brings you to Canada?” she asks with a smile, thumbing through their passports.

  “We thought we’d come up for a weekend getaway,” Beau answers.

  “How long are you planning to stay?” the guard then asks.

  “Just two nights,” Beau answers.

  “Enjoy your trip,” the officer tells them as she hands their passports back.

  Relieved at the ease of their crossing, Beau and Kendra pull forward into Canada. There’s no stopping them now.

  “Let history be made,” Beau says excitedly as they get back into the flow of traffic onto what is now named highway 99.

  “That was painless,” Kendra says laughing lightly.

  They drive on through Surrey and Richmond, over the Fraser River, and into Vancouver. A light rain returns. Kendra’s eyes light up looking at the countless skyscrapers as they cross the Granville Bridge into the bustling downtown. She hasn’t been here in years. Beau’s light up too but he hides them well, now playing the role of host after having just been to this city. He has to stay cool.

  They find their way to Robson Street and check into their hotel; the same hotel where Beau stayed for NeoTech. They’re given a room on the 11th floor with a partial but stunning view of Coal Harbour and Stanley Park. They step out onto their balcony before unpacking to take a closer look. Beau points the park out to Kendra and where he thinks Lost Lagoon is.

  They unpack their bags, then Kendra draws a hot bath while Beau sprawls out on the bed with the remote, thumbing through TV channels with what little energy he has left over from the drive. He leaves news running but mutes it, not in the mood to hear it, just to watch it. Kendra climbs into her hot bubble bath and closes her tired eyes to relax.

  After a few hours of rest, Beau and Kendra take a stroll down Robson Street. The rain has stopped and the skies are clearing in spots. It’s a cool night. They take a right and walk down Granville Street, then into Yaletown. They’re having a nice time, laughing as they go. They step into an Italian cafe for coffee and gelato, then find a nice place to for dinner on Hamilton Street. Having somewhat spoiled appetites from the gelato, they keep dinner light with a few grilled-chicken Caesar salads. They order a bottle of Riesling with the salads. They finish their salads and the wine in little time. Too exhausted for anything else, they walk back to their hotel to relax.

  Once back, Beau takes a shower while Kendra scrolls through TV channels. When he returns from the bathroom she has fallen asleep with the remote in her hand. He turns the volume down on the TV, clicks the bed light off next to Kendra’s head, then pulls a blanket over her. She smiles a little in her sleep. Beau takes the remote and lies on the bed next to her, quietly changing channels on the TV, eventually settling on an old Fraser rerun.

  Moonliner 4:10

  Kendra wakes early the next morning, still on her work schedule. She slides into the bathroom and changes into her bathing suit, careful not to wake Beau. She wraps a towel around her waist, grabs her key-card, and exits the room, quietly closing the door behind her.

  There’s a small lap pool, a Jacuzzi, and dry sauna on the third floor of their hotel, overlooking the street. Kendra has it all to herself, which isn’t a big surprise this early on a Saturday morning. She enters the pool slowly from the steps to avoid any shock. It’s not very cold at all. She immediately starts into a breaststroke and doesn’t stop until she’s swum a full kilometer, her goal. She goes from the pool to the Jacuzzi, where she almost falls asleep in the jet flow. When she’s had enough, she moves to the sauna for a few minutes of dry heat. Drops of water evaporate in split seconds on the hot, dry stones. Kendra is dry within a few minutes, then soon wet again with sweat. When she’s has all she can endure, she towels herself dry and heads back to the room for a shower.

  Back to the room, Beau is awake on the bed reading news on his phone.

  “Good morning,” Kendra tells him as she enters.

  “Morning,” Beau answers. “What are we going to do today?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” Kendra answers.

  “There are suspension bridges just across the water in North Vancouver where we could go hiking,” Beau suggests.

  “I like that idea,” Kendra slightly yells from inside the bathroom as she changes out of her bathing suit and into a bathrobe.

  “They have two,” Beau informs her; “a small, scenic shorter one connected to a series of hiking trails in a deeply forested valley, and another in similar scene only with a longer bridge and better system of walkways overlooking cliffs and connecting treetops. The only problem is, the second one I mentioned is more famous and slightly better than the first one, it’s also ridiculously overpriced, whereas the first one I mentioned is free.”

  “How much is the first one?” Kendra asks.

  “I think, it’s twenty-five or thirty dollars,” Beau says; “just to walk around in the trees.”

  “British Columbia is full of trees,” Kendra says. “Let’s go to the free one. It sounds nice. We have to watch the wallet.”

  Kendra climbs into the shower as Beau steps onto their hotel room’s balcony with the engraved plate in his hand. It’s a much nicer day out, but cool. Clouds dominate the sky, but little cotton candy clouds that beautify the sky and threaten nothing. It’s a dreamlike day and still hard for Beau to believe that he’s back in this city, returning to the stone to deliver another message to Time Bender. Looking at the plate, he shakes his head again. How could this really be?

  Below, Robson Street is gaining energy as better weather draws more people from their dwellings. Beau can only see a sliver of it from his balcony. He spots a charming waffle house, a block off of Robson in a quiet, less travelled area. The air is fresh and he can smell the ocean in it. A seagull lets out a loud call from a balcony across from the hotel.

  Kendra soon emerges fresh from the bathroom, not wanting to spend long in the shower after all that swimming and bathing. She’s full of energy and ready to take on the city.

  “So what do you wanna do for breakfast?” she asks.

  “There’s a little waffle house near hear I saw from the balcony,” Beau answers; “Would you like to check it out?”

  “Sure,” she replies; “that sounds good. Are you going to shower first?”

  “I already took one this morning while you swam,” he tells her.

  The
two find the waffle house, where they grab breakfast bagels and coffee. Over brunch, they formulate their plan to return to the stone in the park.

  “Are we going to Stanley Park this afternoon?” Kendra asks.

  “I think Lynn Canyon will take too long,” Beau answers, referring to their plan to visit a suspension bridge; “let’s go tomorrow morning before we drive back.”

  “Are you sure that’s better?” Kendra asks.

  “I don’t think one more day with the plate will matter,” Beau answers.

  “When I think about this Time Bender stuff,” Kendra says; “I sometimes get it and sometimes don’t. It’s weird.”

  “I know what you mean,” Beau says empathetically.

  “Like this trip,” she says; “I know why we had to come soon, then I don’t when I think about it from another angle. I mean to think that we’re getting up here as quickly as we can to leave a message for some guy who probably isn’t even born yet baffles me. Why the urgency?”

  “It’s a forward and back issue,” Beau answers; “It doesn’t matter from his perspective, or his respective place in time. It does matter from ours, especially for any chance of back and forth communication.”

  “It means that the future has already happened somewhere,” Kendra says.

  “It would appear so,” Beau says in agreement; “in some other quantum reality.”

  They return to their hotel room just long enough to brush their teeth and grab their jackets. From the hotel, they drive to Georgia Street, through Stanley Park, across the Lions Gate Bridge, and east on Highway 1 to Lynn Canyon. The sun is breaking through and the drive is filled with Sakura trees in full bloom. The storm has passed and spring now feels as though it’s really arriving.

  At Lynn Canyon Park, they park their car and walk high above a beautiful canyon across the suspension bridge. They take the twin falls hiking trail down deeper into the canyon, where they spend an hour or so hanging out at the bottom of the trail, enjoying themselves and the brilliantly vivid day. Beau snaps a series of photos of Kendra in front of the falls, again seeing something new in her, falling even deeper than before, way down here in this canyon.

  They really feel their legs burn climbing up the canyon’s other wall. The trail loops back to a lodge, to the bridge and the trail’s point of origin. Once back to the parking lot, they jump into their car and drive away, retracing their path back to the hotel.

  Back at the hotel, they rest. Kendra takes a short nap, exhausted from her swim and climb. Beau rests, but doesn’t sleep. He lies on the bed deep in thought, once again clutching the metal plate. He reads the laser cut lettering; your friends from the past. It’s true, he thinks to himself; we’re friends separated only by time.

  Kendra wakes in the early evening, starving. Beau is hungry too. They decide to leave the car parked and look for dinner on foot. Without a plan, they walk down Robson Street looking for an inviting place to eat. The sun is setting, giving the sky a pinkish hue. They drift aimlessly into Gastown, where they find a quaint pizzeria in a former jailhouse and horse stable on Cordova Street. It serves authentic brick-oven, Napoli style pizza. The hostess seats them at a table close enough to the oven to feel its heat and smell the pizza.

  “This is nice,” Kendra tells Beau, looking more relaxed than she has in a while.

  The waitress comes to take their order; two side salads and a basil-topped, large, Margherita pizza, and a bottle of Chianti. The waitress lights the candle at their table, then dims the houselights a touch. Traditional Italian music begins to play. The scene is romantic.

  “Maybe he already has the plate,” Beau suggests aloud, taking the conversation back to the messages and the underlying purpose of their visit.

  “You’re obsessing over this again,” Kendra says, then gives in to the topic herself; “What do you mean by that anyway? How could he already have the plate? We haven’t even left it for the first time,” she points out.

  “I’m just speculating,” Beau says; “but assuming we successfully place the plate under the stone tomorrow, why would the fate of the future have to wait until the moment we put it there for the future to change? Why wouldn’t the future simply change when we decide to go through with it, rather than when we actually go through with it? At which point would reality really change?”

  “I have no idea,” Kendra says; “I don’t know anything about quantum mechanics.”

  “I don’t either,” Beau replies; “but I’d say we’re getting a good crash course.”

  Their waitress returns with a tray full of scrumptious food, then again moments later with the wine. They dine in candlelight, enjoying each bite of their pie, happy with their choice of food and with their eatery.

  “Maybe Time Bender is somehow sitting at this very table as we speak, but in a moment in 2069,” Kendra playfully suggests.

  “Or maybe he was to be conceived tonight as a result of his parents’ romantic night out, but it was somehow botched by our presence here,” Beau adds; “maybe we took the romance out of their night by taking this table.”

  “That would be a good movie,” Kendra says; “we come here because of his message, but our trip prevents his conception. That would be some heavy irony.”

  As the evening rolls on, they look deeper into each other’s eyes, talking, drinking wine. Maybe it’s the flickering candlelight, or the Chianti, or the excitement of their adventure, but there’s been an unmistakably renewing, mutual allure between them, and tonight, their rekindling grows deeper than ever. They laugh beside the fire.

  After finally having their fill, they flag the waitress down and get the check. Beau helps Kendra with her jacket and they leave the restaurant happy. A waning slice of a crescent moon partially lights the night as they walk arm and arm back to their hotel, looking in shop windows along the way.

  Back in their room, Beau lies on the bed scanning the TV menu for something to watch as Kendra prepares for bed in the bathroom. She soon steps out wearing a burgundy corset with garters. Beau is most pleasantly surprised. She walks across the floor in the moonlight, modelling her new lingerie for him, summoning his deeper, primordial nature. She crawls onto the bed with feline grace and slides beneath the duvet. She nestles next to Beau, who feels like the luckiest man on the planet. He puts his arm around her and runs his hand down her back, softly caressing her warm, smooth skin. She gently whispers, “I love you.” He can feel her lips pressed against his ear, her warm breath, her wet tongue. She slides down to his neck.

  Sounds of nightlife carry up to the room from the street so far below, while inside Beau and Kendra slip into a state of bliss, taking their union to greater, toe-curling depths.

  Moonliner 4:11

  Another loud seagull wakes Beau, this one from their very own balcony. He rolls out of bed and into the bathroom for a shower, quietly trying not to wake Kendra. Taking advantage of the hotel’s endless hot water and higher water pressure, he stays in the shower a little longer than he usually would. He smiles as he silently recalls his evening, the dinner and the evening’s amorous close. This whole interlude has recharged their relationship, and in a healthy way.

  Once out of the shower, Beau dries himself off and gets dressed. He steps out of the bathroom to cool down but sees that Kendra’s still sleeping, so he slowly slides the balcony door open, grabs the metal plate again, and steps outside to cool down. He closes the door behind him, leaving it open just a crack for fresh air. Outside, he again stares at the metal plate. Beau thinks about the debt of gratitude he owes Time Bender for fine tuning, or harmonizing his marriage. Here they are in the middle of an unemployment stint, on vacation, having the time of their lives.

  The morning’s a bit frigid and it doesn’t take Beau long to go from too hot to cold. The day, however, looks nice and at least partially sunny. Again, Beau slides the glass door open and re-enters the room.

  “I’m cold,” he hears Kendra say.

  “I’ll close the door,” he tells her; “I was just
letting a little fresh air in here after I took a long, steamy shower.”

  “What do you want to do for breakfast?” Kendra asks.

  “I kind of liked that waffle house,” Beau answers; “or we could go someplace else. I don’t care.”

  “The waffle house sounds fine,” Kendra says, clearly seeing that Beau wants to go back there. She really just wants some coffee and toast anyway.

  Kendra gets out of bed with puffy eyes and her hair wildly out of control, still in her skimpy lingerie. She heads for the bathroom.

  “You look so beautiful,” Beau tells her, meaning it.

  Forty-five minutes later they’re back in the waffle house, discussing the menu over a cup of coffee.

  “We’ve been lucky with the weather,” Kendra notes.

  “Yeah, it should be a nice drive back,” Beau adds.

  “Well this is it,” Kendra says excitedly; “the day we leave a message for Time Bender.”

  “I have an idea,” Beau says; “let’s rent bicycles and ride around the seawall. It’s a popular thing to do here and the weather looks nice.”

  “Can we ride to Lost Lagoon?” Kendra asks.

  “Sure,” Beau answers; “it’s right along the way. The bike path around the seawall only allows for one-way traffic, which puts Lost Lagoon at the end of our ride.”

  “Can we rent bikes at the park?” Kendra asks.

  “There are a few rental shops right by the entrance, on Denman Street. Right here,” he says pointing to a map on his phone.