The Pauper and the Power

“Sarah?”

“Sarah?”

The wind weakened, barely enough to rearrange the hairs on my forearm. Cold air plummeted from the air conditioning vent overhead. At the next table, a woman’s demitasse cup clinked into a child-like saucer.

“Jesus, Sarah. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” Todd wiped a hand across his mouth as if he had the power to erase his diatribe. Or maybe the acne scars he hid beneath his Viking-red five o’clock shadow.

Through the elaborate iron gateway separating the dining room from the bar, a waiter carried a canyon-sized slice of something blazing with celebratory sparklers. Other servers gathered around a distant table, their French lyrics lost in the sibilance of water spilling from the Machiavelli-esque fountain at the room’s center.

“I’m sorry, Todd. I—”

“—May I entice you with something sweet tonight?” Tall man. Dark coat. A thousand ways of lost hidden in the subtle comma at his smile’s edge. He’d never flashed me that in the Suburban.

My gaze drifted past his large, tanned fingers stabilizing a luminescent tray. Somehow, holding a wagon-wheel of calories, whipped and tiered to absurd heights, took him firmly out of the “take-my-hand” realm into the “best-not-Miss. Your-ass-is-already-bigger-than-the-mural” reality.

“No. Thank you.” I put what I had into it, but Robert walked away. He’d been of another time. A time when he didn’t have to pander to the rich to fill his pockets and I didn’t blend into the fake greenery behind me. I lifted my unused spoon, lost in the reflection of the focus lighting above.

“As I was saying, the merger was a complete surprise to the shareholders. Acquisitions had a field day with the turnover…”

I glanced at the pauper slathered onto the mural beyond Todd’s reflective forehead. Snowy-white beard. Parchment in hand. Bible verses silenced behind a chipped patina. I wondered if it was the way others saw me. Did the woman with the after-dinner espresso see anything beyond my sensible brown loafers? My pleated slacks? The smudge on my right eyeglass lens? Was I to have the same fate as the old man? Shouting to be heard, but no one turns?

I bolted to my feet. Water crested a crystal goblet and dribbled onto the fine linen covering the table.

“Where are you going?” Todd’s fork clanked down between two vertical bones in his rack of lamb.

I flexed my right foot, the tug of my trouser socks enough for now, and said,"


Last line...chime in to finish this baby off :)

Paris, In the Springtime

A look of relief appeared in Robert's eyes but his body didn't lose the fight-or-flight stance he'd had when I'd first seen him. "That's great. I'll wait for you." He spoke the words precisely as if he didn't speak nice, often.

I dug my fingers into the cold wet metal grating and stared at the man I'd felt such a connection to in the restaurant's bathroom. Could it have been merely hours ago? I began to scoot toward him, pushing down on the soles of my Doc Martens for traction. Cold wet drops of rain pelted my head, shoulders and any and all of my unprotected body parts. The rain was like an incessantly changing curtain where I played peek-a-boo with the man who held out an outstretched hand as if it would encourage me to speed up my journey toward him.

Could I trust this man who told me he knew my brother Joe? I licked at the cut on my bottom lip caused by the grating and tasted the metalic flavor of blood. One way or another I had to get off this bridge. Was he the right choice?

But he'd known the last words I'd spoken to my brother before I'd left him, I reminded myself. A seed of hope began to take root in my gut. If he was telling the truth, would Joe be able to get me off this non-stop merry-go-round, with every seat on the wheel, a new reality?

My hand suddenly slipped. "Damn." I only just managed to catch myself before I fell flat on my face ... again.

"Stay there Sarah." Robert began to move toward me. "I'll come get you."

"No, stay where you are," I commanded. "I'm fine."

"Have it your way." He spoke the words as if it wasn't an option he allowed too many people. But he did step back against the tower's outer railing.

I didn't want him to help me. I needed the next few seconds to get my thoughts together. Was I doing the right thing? This was the rest of my life I had to make a decison about. Could I trust this man? Was he telling me the truth?

I studied the tall man in the dark suit with his outstretched hand seeming to be there only to help me get to my brother. Would Joe be able to help me live a normal life again? I'd almost forgotten what normal was. To have one day dissolve into the next without any changes, except the ones I chose to make.

"Come on Sarah," Robert's voice interrupted my never-going-to-happen musings.

"What the hell." I could see his face much clearer as the rain began to let up and I inched closer toward him. Why had I felt such a strong attaction to the man when I'd looked into his eyes? I so needed to know. But for the present I had no choice but to trust him because I was putting my life in his hands ... literally.

"You've almost made it." Robert leaned out, an excitement in his voice he couldn't hide, one hand holding onto the railing and the other extended toward me. Another few inches and I'd be able to grab his hand.

Warmth suddenly invaded my body and a bright light caused me to glance upward. It was as if Paris was celebrating Bastille Day and a hundred bottle rockets had been set loose into the rain-drenched sky.

"No! No!" I screamed out my protest as Robert faded and disappeared.

Falling Up - Part 10

Rain stung my cheeks as I opened my eyes. Unforgiving cold metal grate bit into my shoulder blades and the back of my head. I blinked but my vision of blanched sky didn't clear. I turned my head to find the towering spire of the Eiffel Tower the only reality I recognized. My fingers dug into the grate as I realized the nightmare of my situation. I'd materialized on a narrow expansion bridge connected to the tower. Judging by the strength of the wind, I was a couple hundred of feet above the ground. Maybe more.

I hated bridges. Something about them triggered the phase-stream's energy. My realities always began and ended with a bridge. The bigger the bridge--the bigger the shift. I repositioned my weight. One wrong move and I'd plummet to my next reality.

"Don't move," a masculine voice cut through my hazy synapses.

I twisted my head ever-so-slowly until I spotted Robert some ten feet away. He leaned against the outer safety railing of the tower, his position somewhat more stable than my own but still precarious. His clothes were soaked, his dark hair matted to his head.

"Surprised?" He blinked away the steady stream of rain. "Don't be. And the answer to your question is no. I'm not a jumper, like you." He wiped his face with his wet sleeve and held out a hand to me. "Let me help you."

Help? He'd hitched a ride on my stream of reality. Which begged the question. "What are you? And how did you follow me through the stream?"

He retracted his hand and pushed the hair out of his face. "Wouldn't it be a better idea to have this conversation on the ground? When we're both safe?"

"I'm safe enough." I'd managed to contort myself into a sitting position. My fingers clenched the grate on either side as the wind buffeted me from side to side. Over my shoulder, I could see the other end of the bridge. It was connected to a scaffold attached to the arm of a crane. A big bucket stretched into the sky like an offering to the gods. My options were down or sideways. It was a long, perilous trip either way. "Your partner, the girl in the hoodie who drives like a Nascar racer. Start with her."

"The girl you followed into the bathroom? She's a tracker."

"Which makes you?" I'd run into a couple of trackers in my day. None of them had been able to follow my jumps.

"A rider." He made a motion with his head I interpreted as concession.

"You mean a stowaway?" Rider implied there was some consent on both sides which there sure as Hell hadn't been.

"To be accurate," he agreed. "I'm here to help you, Sarah." He stretched out his hand for a second time. "Let me help you."

"Why should I trust you?" He'd already helped my too much, in my opinion.

"Because your brother sent me."

Impossible. My brother was safe in another reality--another stream where he'd never met that granite wall. Never spent three years in a rehab where my parents had all but forgotten his name. And he'd never had a sister named Sarah.

"You're a liar."

"Come with me and I'll prove it."

I shook my head, scooted my butt in the other direction. The wind caught my shoulder. My hand slipped on the wet surface. I went down hard on my face, the grate cutting into the soft flesh of my cheek. I grappled with the bridge for safe purchase. The ground below seemed to buck and spin until I righted myself. I took a deep breath. Tasted blood.

"Sarah!" Robert called out. "I know your brother in this reality. I know Joe. He's a scientist. He's found a way to control the jumps. I'll take you to him." He made a noise of frustration. "You can trust me."

Not likely. Control the jumps? I'd heard this before. I'd given myself over to an entire research facility full of doctors. They'd determined the only way to control the jumps was to stop the current running through my system. They hadn't given me a choice before they'd shocked my heart.

I died. Once. Twice. Three times. Each time I'd spontaneously resucitated. The doctors labeled my condition as latent electrical impulses and turned me into an lab rat. After a couple of months, I'd figured out how to override the electric locks and escaped.

One thing I knew for certain, scientist or not, my brother would never put me through that. He loved me. He knew the sacrifice I'd made to change his world.

"Tell whoever you work for I'm not interested." I levered my body a few inches toward the crane.

"London Bridge is falling up."

My fingers halted, twisted in pain with the effort to hold on and pull myself to the other side at the same time. "What did you say?"

"London Bridge is falling up," he offered. "Joe said you'd know what it meant."

I did. They were the last words I'd said to Joe before I'd jumped off the London Bridge and out of his reality.

"Sarah?"

"Stay there. I'm coming to you."

Tick Tock

Christ, I’d never wanted this life. Had tried unbelievably hard to avoid any involvement in seeing the future, altering the future . . . even participating in the future, but our rapid approach to the Paris bridge signaled another end to what I wanted. Like a cat running through its nine lives, I wondered, as the SUV twisted around yet one more curve and I grabbed a bit tighter to my rescuer-slash-kidnapper’s hand, how many more I had stored up.

How had I ended up trapped in a reality not of my making?

I’d grown up a normal kid in an average town. Only wanting to keep up, to pull even, maybe even to race ahead on my fire-engine red rollerblades of my older brother. The slow-winding streets of Charleston had been our muggy summer days’ playground until one too sharp corner and an innocuous curb had catapulted my brother into unforgiving building granite. Then there was only the whish of machines as they breathed for him, the blip of heart monitors, and miles of tubing that kept him tied to this world.

If not for his accident, if not for the long days and even longer nights of waiting and hoping he’d open his eyes, I’d never have been tucked inside that hospital room with more electric circuitry than the Stars War's Death Star. One terrible storm, blown generators, grabbing for machines, and I’d seen light dance before my eyes, felt it course through my body, and reach into my soul – literally in a flash.

Now, ten years later, my life was still captured in a surreal down-draft spiral. I couldn’t change the past, hell, I was barely surviving my present, and was so terrified of the future that it was hard to breathe. But that wasn’t anyone’s fault, least of all this man who had stroked my fingers, warmed my palms and scared the paint of my toenails all in less than thirty minutes. I didn’t let passer-bys, or even government do-gooders get caught in the stream of my reality.

I glanced through the tinted glass. Our speed seemed to be increasing, and from more than the car’s massive engine. Of course, it was. The inescapable draught that always pulled me to the next crossing was accelerating.

“You should pass along the word . . . to your higher whatevers . . . what I do isn’t a gift,” I breathed the harsh warning to my bathroom-kidnapper. The Escalade squeaked past another tight curve, drawing closer to the dull gleam of the bridge’s cross-sections. “More like a curse, and certainly not worth owning.”

“Some say you’re a prophet.” His voice was rough, gravelly, as though he’d not wanted to issue the words.

“Only a fool would believe that.” The sudden whine beneath the SUVs mammoth tires heralded our entrance onto grooved pavement and the last stretch of road before the bridge. I opened my fingers, releasing my involuntary grasp on his hand. Tick-tock . . . time had run out. “You’ll want to let go now.”

“Not this time, Sarah.” His grip tightened, almost as though he were afraid I’d shake free. “This time I go with you.”

The car hit the bridge’s edge, and a rumbling – part earthquake, part heaven parting – rattled through the vehicle’s massive frame. Light splintered and spun, refracting in a million slivers of brilliance. In an instance of sanity and pure-good-old-gal determination, I wrenched free of his tight clasp.

This was my madness and I wouldn’t take anyone along. Not ever again.

The end is only the beginning

I stared hard at his hand, considering if a man with a grip like an unbreakable lifeline could be dangerous. Rephrase. Obviously he was dangerous, he'd whisked me out of a populated restaurant against my will. But, was he dangerous to me?

"You won't believe it. Though you can trust me." His voice cut through the noise of the Escalade's engine revving in reverse, tires squealing with the loss of rubber around a too sharp turn. Paris was like that, full of narrow streets with ridiculous traffic and abrupt intersections. I was surprised the SUV hadn't been snarled in a honking mass of cabbies already.

Keeping an eye on passing landmarks --please, no bridges, I wasn't ready for that future yet-- I played obtuse, buying time, trying to define the situation along with my options. The zealot in the yellow coat had been sent for me, part of a fundamental brigade employed to squash heretic upstarts like myself.

"Trust you with what? Ruining a perfectly good evening?" He didn't need to know how even a bathroom abduction had improved my miserable date, sham that it was. Nobody who knew me, the real me, would ever expect me to date a man like Todd. Not even Todd.

"With the information you're carrying, Sarah." He rolled the vowels in my name with the soft cadence of a Carolina native. It pinged me with a sudden and unexpected homesickness. Huh. Funny that I would run into a fellow Tarheel in a Parisian men's room.

I snorted and Robert frowned, squeezing my hand. "Your ability to predict the future is a valuable asset to particular people in power. People with the resources to own you. Use you."

Tearing my gaze from his, I glimpsed the grand steel arches of a bridge in the distance. Hell. He knew. Too much. Too soon. My mission remained incomplete and here we were speeding toward the end. Of everything.

I guess hand holding time was over.

Artistic License

Pep talk time. I am not neurotic. I am competent and in control. Okay, I’m a non-neurotic mutant artist. Out of my depth. What would my alter ego do? I had paper and pencil in my purse. I weighed scenarios of illustrating my escape. Why had I erased her spike heel boots and sketched Doc Martens? Why hadn’t I drawn stun bullets for the useless gun at my ankle?

I had escaped self-absorbed Todd. Followed a girl into the men’s room where she had disappeared, to where? Why would anyone be waiting for me in there?

If - no when - I got out of this, I’d draw Todd Davis with zits, a pudgy body and bad teeth, the traitorous bastard. The SUV sped past a two story mirrored building. Double damn it. Mirrors.

In the front seat, the still compellingly attractive, Mr. Blue Eyes flipped down the visor. His long fingers pulled open the vanity mirror and the deep ocean colored eyes watched me.

The driver slammed on the brakes, the Suburban fishtailing to a halt. A thin, disheveled man in a yellow trench coat stood in the road. The horn blared a warning but he did not budge.

“Move him,” ordered Blue Eyes.

“Just run him over,” snarled Goon Number Two on my right.

“No. Move him. Now.” He commanded, shooting a volcanic glare at the men.

They jumped out and I dove to my right but the door flew shut and the lock engaged. The driver honked again. I pushed my hair behind my ear. My fingers drifted to the brow stud. I hated piercings.

The goons trotted to the raggedy man. I gritted my teeth and jerked the stud out. Raggedy man's eyes flashed red. One of my captors dropped to the pavement, the other shrieked and convulsed, his body phasing in and out of time.

“What the hell?” The driver pushed his door open and evaporated. In his place sat Ms. Bleached Buzz Cut in a Hoodie. “Ready Robert?” she asked.

Blue Eyes nodded and she shifted into reverse. Using the rearview mirror to navigate we retraced our route. Robert reached back, pried the stud from my fingers and took my hand in his.

The Last Frame

"Where are you taking me?”

The thoroughfare’s neon signs, muted through the Suburban’s darkened windows, slid the length of the interior like the cinematic reel of some clichéd B-movie.

“If this is about that parking ticket on the East end, I really intended to—”

The Suburban knifed a hard left. My shoulder slammed into the guy beside me, a fortress of gabardine wool, stone muscles and an even harder expression that crushed the remainder of my thought.

“This isn’t about my breech of contract, is it?”

The weight of the pretense became too much. I lapsed into the road noise rising from the floorboard to think. Someone had made the connection.

Todd.

Sixteen ways of bastard.

I flexed my right toe. The leather holster strapped around my calf shifted. Tucked a hand’s length down into my knee-high Doc Martens, it had become as requisite in my wardrobe as the 12-gauge stud in my right brow. Thank God I hadn’t yet transferred that detail to paper. Though I may have exaggerated the bust-line when I'd projected a part of myself into my kick ass Goth heroine, self-preservation had become sacred. The frame I'd completed at midnight still held secrets.

Skyscrapers dropped away, replaced by some secondary sense of the familiar I couldn’t pin. If it was happening again, there’d be a bridge tethered to the final station on the trans-city line. A man spouting Bible verses. Mirrors, everywhere.

I pulled in a deep breath, a tug of war between the compulsion to slip into relief that we were traveling out of the city, away from bridges and tracks and the book of Revelations, and hysteria-inducing odds.

Four men.

One slightly neurotic comic book artist who draws the future.

Caged Bird

As we snaked our through the tables I looked for my way out of this mess--Todd Davis. I spied him bent over his plate hacking away at his cooked “so-that-a-good-vet-could-save-it” porterhouse. I opened my mouth to get his attention but before I could formulate sensible words, the goons closed in around me virtually enveloping my five foot four frame.

They ushered me through the door into the back seat of a revved and waiting non-descript black Suburban. Two of the goons squeezed in beside me, Blue Eyes climbed into the passenger seat in the front.

As soon as the doors slammed, Blue eyes spoke into his wrist. “The bird is in the cage. I repeat, the bird is in the cage. Rendez vous at twenty-thirty.

I checked my watch. In two hours, I would be facing a much grimmer fate than dinner with Todd, probably consisting of a few hours of agonizing torture, ending in a unbelievably painful death. 

Fatal Attraction

Sorry, not at liberty to give out that information, Ma’am,” Mr. Blue Eyes informed me. Just believe you’re not in any danger.”

He grabbed my upper arm and a slight electrical charge traveled up my arm causing me to jerk. He tightened his grip probably assuming I was trying to get away. I looked up and stared in blue turbulent pools. I took a short breath of air. Where had he been all my life?

I quickly turned away from the mesmerizing gaze and looked over my shoulder at the goons invading my space. What the hell was I thinking? Attracted to a thug who had me trapped in a men’s room? Obviously dating too many Beta men like Todd Davis had warped my judgment.

I turned back around. “Not in any danger?” I gave him the stare my students had come to dread when they came in with excuses about why they hadn’t turned in their homework. “And you think I’m going to believe you … why?”

“All right then let me put it another way.” His clinched his jaw his hands still holding onto my upper arms. “You either walk out on your own two feet or I’ll sling you over my shoulder. Either way we’re outa here.”

“I can walk.” I turned to look at the exit. How could I have felt any kind of attraction to this Neanderthal? And where were they taking me?

One of the men moved from behind us, walked to the door, peered outside and nodded once. He exited, held the door and Mr. Blue Eyes pulled me toward the hallway. The other two men quickly followed.

Posted by Delores

Another Direction

I reached for the door, my fingers on the cool metal handle when blue eyes spoke.
"Are you following the girl?"

Girl? Oh, yeah. I'd followed the girl in the Abecrombie & Fitch hoodie. I looked around and realized she was nowhere to be seen.

"I guess so. Where'd she disappear to?" And how could I do the same?

"You saw her come in here?"

I nodded. The guys near the urinals had straightened. I noticed one of them touch his ear. The shadow of a curly wire hugged his neck and disappeared into the collar of his dark shirt. He spoke quietly to the guy beside him who nodded. A leather shoulder holster peeked from beneath his jacket. The three sober faced compadres now stood shoulder to shoulder, their attention on Mr. Blue Eyes. A state of waiting descended on the bathroom.

"What's going on here." I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

"You'll have to come with us, miss."

"Go where?" They surrounded me like quarry in the desert.

Caught in a trap

Three of the occupants immediately noticed the blundering intrusion. They greeted me with raised eyebrows and low volume snickers. The fourth, a short man with oily hair and a life beaten glint to his eyes, said: "Lady. You're in the wrong place."

Grimacing and trying to look aywhere but there, I blurted: "Whoops. Sorry," and backpedaled to the door intending to hide in the narrow hall behind the out-of-service payphone, but a word from the gentleman at the last urinal stopped me.

"Wait."

Not really wanting to raise my gaze back to someone who may or may not be conducting business, I did so regardless, compelled by the authority in his voice. And fell into an ocean of electric blue. His eyes paralyzed me, their color beautiful and mesmerizing, but terrifyingly intense. Suddenly, we were the only two people in the world and there was no place for me to hide. Not from Tim, and sure the Hell not from this man.

Short Story, Part I -The Great Escape

I battled a tidal wave urge to ram the steak knife in my ear so I couldn’t hear the tripe spewing from the man across the table. My well-manicured fingernails gouged my palm so I wouldn’t be arrested for sticking a fork in his contact enhanced blue eye. And I suppressed an impulse to dump my salad on his head, croutons decorating salon highlights and balsamic vinaigrette dribbling down his perfect nose.

My purse slung across my shoulder and he still didn’t have a clue. Poised to make a controlled dash away from self-absorbed, boring, self-absorbed, what the heck had I been thinking saying yes? Todd Davis.

Both wood plaques at the Three Pigs Café looked the same. Poised to make my escape, I listened to him drone on and on and on. The plan: to hide in the ladies room until Todd left then take a taxi. I'd send someone to tell him I was in stomach distress, go without me. I wish I had someone to turn to for rescue or help but I was on my own.

I spied a cute girl coifed in a bleached buzz cut, clad in Abercrombie & Fitch jeans and a hoodie with a brown faux fur collar, heading to the restrooms. She turned to her left. Excusing myself (an ingrained habit), I pushed out of the chair. Walking in fast but controlled pace, okay I sprinted, after the girl through the door.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear? Three toilet stalls, six occupants and ... urinals. Ah hell.

Andrea Geist