*****
A forest green Coronado fan strenuously spun its heart out to refresh the air of the smoking room. It wafted the tobacco fumes into the ceiling. Tom puffed a pipe as he mentally quarried the reasoning behind the fan’s design; hence a small child, or an ill-informed adult for that matter, could potentially stick his or her hand into its widely divided barriers. It would be easily accomplished.
He analyzed the blade’s vicious turns and appreciated the temptation that existed. The same enticement would subsist, if one stood on the edge of a sixty story building, and the pull that that person would feel. The temptation to allow gravity to grab ahold and pull them down from its ledge. The sick allurement to put one’s hand into the spinning contraption might overtake common sense. The subsequent outcome would be a trip to the emergency room for a minimum of twelve stitches
A young child could just get fixated on the spinning wheel and decide that he could catch it. A better design would probably prevent such mishaps and unneeded trips to the hospital.
Tom shook his head and said, “Snap to it my friend, we’ve work to do.”
He drew from his pipe and sipped brown liquor from a tumbler. After, he sipped some water from a juice glass. He then gripped a bottle of Old Fitzgerald and shed two fingers into his recently emptied drinking glass. One more after this one would be the limit. Always count your drinks. If you don’t, you’ll end up passed out in the garage.
As if no time had passed, the World War II era Royal typewriter had sprung to life. The data obtained from the past week’s experiments had to be recorded. His military training had taught him that.
As he typed he was once again tempted and his mind was diverted. His work stopped. The light had caught the bulbous scars across the backs of his hands. The tissue was so pale and thick and irregular and taut that if he made a tight fist, they’d crack open. If that happened, blood would push through the opened crevice. He squeezed his fist up to the point of a rigid edge. The skin pulled to a strained state. A voice distracted him from his distraction.
“Tom, Dear?” said Kathy.
“Yes.”
“I’m calling it a night.”
“Okay, I’ve got maybe thirty minutes.”
“I’ll see you in my dreams.”
“Goodnight, Love.”
Tom typed:
My theory still holds true. I believe if we can get our particle back to our designated place, the phone will ring. That would be step one. After which we’ll need to alter the entangled-particle to promote a response. If we can do that, then a message could be sent. The ethics of this experiment are pounding on my subconscious.
Tom contemplated the possible outcome of his potentially successful experiment and grew tired and left his Old Fitz placid in its glass and said goodnight to it.
Tom lightly stepped into the bedroom and softly flipped the switch to on and purposely set the volume to low and perfectly settled the needle, all allowing the record to quietly play, The Ink Spots.
He laid himself tenderly into the mattress as the piano spoke from the vinyl helping him to relax.
Bill Kenny sang him to sleep:
Here in the gloom, of my lonely room, we’re dancing like we used to do . . .
As quickly as he had fallen to sleep, the dream of life with Kathy was there. The images started off as a Vista Vision color movie, but they ended in a film-noir black and white. He kicked his legs and then settled. Tom slept still from then on out.
It was early when he came to. The bed was empty. Kathy had gone to work. The flower shop had needed her to pick up the flowers in the morning. One of her employees was unable to do it due to her boyfriend getting too drunk the night before. When the girl called in she’d said she was sick. Kathy had run the shop since its inception, so the job was second nature.
Before Kathy left, she kissed Tom light on the brow. It left her scent. Two hours after, Tom rolled from his prone position to sit up at the bedside. He lingered there for a short bit. He smelled his wife and he smiled. Luck, that’s the only way to explain why she had chosen him. Science would just hit a brick wall if an experiment was executed in the search for, ‘why Kathy picked Tom’.
He made the bed, put on his robe and readied himself for the day. Breakfast was the next priority. As the decanter full of grapefruit juice poured its second round, the phone rang.
“Hello.”
It was quiet.
The muscles in his face let go. Completely, they relinquished his skin to gravity. The tear ducts released in a spasm of anguish.
“Wha?”
It was quiet as Tom held the phone to his ear.
He whispered, “No, that makes no sense. No, I am sorry, no.” He went to hang up but didn’t.
The tears slowly held their place in his eyes. He relinquished to a blink that sent a stream down his check and over his lips and off his chin. He dropped the receiver and left the house with the coffee still brewing and the radio on.
He followed his wife’s path to the point at which he was told she’d been found. It was the highway as it intersected Ontario Street. A spot they had been a thousand times.
The scene was alive with death.
Tom stopped the car. He contemplated the situation as best he could and clumsily left his seat. He didn’t put the car in park. The automobile rolled forward with the door open until the tire hit the curb of which it could not climb.
Kathy’s body lay broken in the middle of a crisscross of black still smoldering deadened tire marks. The smell of gas and rubber permeated the air. Her car was on its side with most of the front window unnervingly missing. There were no remnants of the glass ever existing. A truck was up on the curb with the driver nowhere to be seen.
Blood was streaked along the door of the truck.
At first no one saw Tom enter the area. He slipped under the yellow police barrier. Kathy was covered with a black tarp. He knew it was her by her shoeless feet with teal blue toe polish that extended out from the edge of the blanket of death. Teal blue. Teal blue was Tom’s favorite color. It never looked right to others. It was Tom’s favorite color, and that was reason enough.
Tom pulled back the cover. Knowing what was underneath he still broke down from the sight. It was a quiet release. He wanted that moment to himself. He knew if anyone saw him they would pull him away. He had to be alone with his loss so his cries were held to his being.
She lay there. Her face was intact but collapsed underneath. Blood was caked over her lips, and her hair was stuck to her forehead with more blood. With a stuttered and tender motion he moved her hair out of her eyes.
He spoke directly to her; as if she’d respond. “Baby. What happened?”
It was quiet.
“Baby, what happened?” he whispered.
No response. He stammered with wheezes. He caught his breath for a slight second and then it really hit him. The road spun under his body. His face failed with a suffered crumple.
“Sweetness, no.”
He took her hand. The scene was still as all the police officers finally took notice. They said nothing. Their training said to move Tom from the area but they didn’t. They chose not to. It was a conscious decision to leave the man be. It went quite silent as the ambulance drivers and medical responders turned to the man who kneeled at his wife’s relinquished frame.
“No, Baby, no..... Baby?”
His eyes convulsed. Tom held Kathy’s hand as the tears slid from his chin, over his hands and onto her face.
“No, I don’t think so, no.”
One of the responders stepped up but stopped and held his hand to his mouth. As if hoping Kathy would come back to life, he waited.
Everyone then began to step close but Tom paid them no mind. It was just him and his wife. Forever; that’s how it would be.
“Please, Honey, no. Don’t leave, I don’t . . . I don’t understand. You’ve got to come back.”
He held her hand to his lips. He settled lower. He dropped to l
ie on his side and then he slowly rolled to his back. The husband and wife lay on their backs with faces to the dim stars holding hands.
A medical tech rushed to his side. He held Tom’s wrist and put an ear to his face.
He barked, “His pulse is all over the place.” It was still for a moment. “I’ve got no breath and no pulse.”
Bodies scrambled to Tom’s side. They whisked him off on a stretcher as compressions were pushed into his chest.
From the Pen of Greg Norgaard, Book 1: Change the Past Page 4
