Dark Day Dreams, page 12
“Audrey tried to power the teleportation equipment down but for some reason nothing seemed to respond. It was almost as if it was drawing power from the atmosphere outside. I ran over next to her and tried to help. The floor began shaking and then there was an incredibly loud bang. We held on to each other, sure something terrible was about to happen.”
“I don’t know how much time passed but the next thing we knew we were lying next to each other on grass in what appeared to be a park. It was a warm summer night but the sky was clear. We were still wearing our clothes and as far as I could tell, our bodies were unchanged.”
Gayle giggled and thought about how in Terminator movies you always had to time travel in the nude. Jenny and Audrey got a nice break there.
“The next day we walked to a grocery store and I saw a newspaper that practically made me faint. It was the day after a president named Nixon was forced out of office. The month was still August but instead of it being twenty eighty-two it was nineteen seventy-four. We were still in the Pittsburgh area, roughly three miles from where the lab would be located in the future.”
“We sat down on a bench outside the store and looked at each other, trying to figure out if this was real, a dream or a remarkably elaborate joke somebody had played on us. The cars looked like they were from nineteen seventy-four and so did the clothes the people were wearing. There was a service station nearby advertising gasoline for fifty-five cents a gallon. It became clearer and clearer to us the teleportation system had moved us not only to a different spot but also backwards in time. And much more the latter than the former.”
“This wasn’t something Audrey and her colleagues had anticipated happening. We figured it must have had something to do with the power surge caused by the lightning hitting the building. We both freaked out for a few minutes and then decided we needed to find a place where we could get food and water. We walked to a homeless shelter we knew had been around since the Fifties.”
“The first couple years were really tough. We had to come up with new identities and learn to fit into a society that seemed pretty backwards not only technologically but also socially. But on the plus side, when we finally were able to put aside some money we knew what companies to invest in. We gradually built up a strong portfolio but never lived too auspiciously…we didn’t want people getting curious about our backgrounds.”
“It was tough. We knew there was a good chance our arrival in the last part of the twentieth century might alter humanity’s timeline in some way, possibly even in a very bad way. So we did our best not to make too much of a splash. It’s kind of weird wondering if the mere fact you’ve been
moved to a different era would shake up the events in other people’s lives…would someone die or not be born or win the lottery simply because we’d been thrown back to the Seventies?”
“As the years went on, there were more and more news stories about climate change. We began giving large sums of money to environmental groups that were trying to make the public aware of the coming catastrophe. Over time Audrey lost interest in the concept of teleportation, knowing it would be decades before the necessary power technology would be created.”
“Eventually we moved to the Bay area and bought our dream house. It looked out over the ocean.”
“Audrey started showing signs of Parkinson’s disease in two thousand two. It broke my heart because it was something they had more or less cured in the era we had travelled back from. I spent most of my time taking care of her until she passed away in twenty ten. And then I moved into the assisted living facility a few months before you and I met.”
“Gayle, I know what I’ve told you seems insane. But I just really needed to share it with somebody…I’ve just been through so much over the years and few people have treated me with more kindness than you have. Please take care, I hope you have a great life.”
The video ended and the nurse clicked the DVD player off. A tear slid down her cheek as she thought about what a sweet old woman Jenny had been. Sweet and so imaginative.
************
When Gayle was given the key to Jenny’s house, she went to take a look around. It had a truly breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean.
There wasn’t a lot left in the house. The furniture and most of the kitchen stuff had been sold off while Jenny was still alive. But the nurse did find three large boxes filled with scrapbooks and souvenirs.
She held up a framed picture of Jenny and Audrey that was taken in London. They looked so happy being together.
There was also a journal Jenny had kept starting in nineteen eighty. There were notes about events in that time period but also lots of references about the far future.
***********
Two years later, Gayle had just stepped out of the shower and was getting ready for work. She had the bedroom television on and was listening to the local morning news.
Suddenly, the broadcast was interrupted by a breaking news report from the network. Roughly a thousand people in strange clothing had suddenly appeared in a Pittsburgh area park, apparently materializing out of thin air.
When the leader of the group was asked what their mission was, he responded that they were escaping from a time when the Earth could no longer support human life. And they also wanted to find their friends Jenny and Audrey.
Harrison Examines the Great Machine
Harrison opened his eyes. He was sure he’d had some dreams during the past eight hours or so but nothing really stood out. Not like some mornings when it almost felt like the inhabitants of those other worlds were hesitant to let him return home.
He got up and let the dogs out. It was really cold outside this morning but there still hadn’t been any snow other than that one day when a few flakes fell down from the sky and melted as soon as they hit the ground. He found it amazing he could live this far north and almost never have to deal with the white stuff.
He made a cup of coffee and went to check his e-mails, Facebook and various other Internet points of interest.
It seemed funny now how much he liked the e-mail concept back in the early days. Now (for the most part) it just seemed like the electronic equivalent of the mailbox that sat in front of his house…a dump site for everybody out there who wanted access to his wallet. And that was the situation even with a reasonably good spam filter.
He went to Facebook and suddenly felt like somebody had punched him in the gut. David Bowie was dead.
There were many links to articles and also a wide array of friends posting comments about how much the artist had meant to them. For some it was just about the music and for others it was much more. Bowie was a visionary. Bowie was bigger than life. Bowie made it okay to be different.
People posted pictures of the man in all his different personas and pictures of the album covers. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Bowie was just reflecting the era he was living in or helping to create it.
Harrison was surprised how shook up he felt. David Bowie wasn’t even his favorite artist (though it seemed like he had become more and more of a fan recently). He’d discovered a lot of non-singles like “Life On Mars?” and “Win” he absolutely loved.
Of course, he’d known the rocker was getting up there in years and there was no doubt all those years of smoking, drinking, drugging and God-knows-what-else had taken their toll. But on some level, it still hurt. Harrison felt like he’d woken up to find somebody had used a scalpel to remove a small but very important piece of his being.
When his wife got up, he told her the news. It was strange how often he seemed to be delivering death news to people. Usually it was a celebrity, but sometimes the deceased was an old friend or acquaintance.
He sometimes thought about how death and age were the great equalizers. No matter how many billions you had, the skin would eventually wrinkle and the organs would grow less and less efficient. He wondered if that was the one thing that held the masses back from scuttling the capitalist system. What kind of angry, bloody violence would the world see if the super-rich ever found a way to get around that particular problem?
Harrison had always been a fairly philosophical guy. Actually, he wasn’t sure that was the right word but at any rate he liked to think about the way things were connected in life. Humans are connected with Nature, the seasons, each other. And the way he felt that morning made him wonder if some kind of evolutionary change had occurred in the past hundred years or so.
He used to think he was overly sensitive. But there were so many people on the Internet today expressing the same pain he was feeling. People who’d listened to David Bowie’s music on countless occasions. People who had gone through a process over the years, at first finding him to be a cultural curiosity and then accepting him and finally loving him in their own remote, personal ways. And this morning a billion Band-Aids had simultaneously been ripped off, a billion toes had been stubbed, a billion hearts ached because someone they’d never actually met was gone.
Humans used to live in a much smaller world…people didn’t get to enjoy much in the way of art or comedy but on the other hand they only had to worry about people they actually knew passing on to the next world or the great big nothing known as oblivion.
Harrison decided to take their beagle Brutus out for a walk. He was still pretty young and full of canine energy. Their other dog (a female cocker named Sweetie) didn’t get too excited about leaving the house these days. Her arthritis was acting up and really all she wanted was food and a soft little bed all her own to sleep in.
He kissed his wife goodbye and headed out to meet the day. Brutus was multi-tasking, busily sniffing everything in sight while trying to keep up with his master.
While they were walking through the neighborhood, an ambulance drove past with its siren on and lights flashing. Brutus began baying like it was some kind of sad singalong.
Seeing the vehicle reminded Harrison of the trips his father had made to the emergency room during the last two years of his life. That had ended up seeming like a torturous process…each time the valiant doctors saved the old man and sent him home, the family’s emotional reserves grew more and more depleted. It was as if the man they were all worried about was starting to fade in and out of existence like a faulty hologram.
Harrison missed his father badly sometimes. He was a sweet natured man who always taught his kids how important it was to appreciate the good things life dropped in your lap. And not take yourself too seriously.
They walked on. The sky was slowly beginning to brighten and the city was coming to life.
He began thinking about how a person’s perspective could change over the years. When he was a young man he never thought that much about loss. He certainly never felt any kind of pain when news broke that a star from his parents’ generation had taken their final bow. As a matter of fact, he remembered making fun of Elvis Presley the day he passed away and of course that event devastated countless numbers of people around the world.
The big wheel slowly turns. The great machine never stops and you’re delusional if you ever think for a second you’re exempt.
They walked past a woman who was busy making sure the baby in her stroller was well protected against the cold. Harrison looked at the little boy and wondered what the world would be like when he was sixty. Would it be an amazing place filled with wonders or an increasingly desperate arena where people fought for ever diminishing scraps?
Fortunately, there was a coffee place in the neighborhood that allowed dogs. He purchased an Americano and a chocolate muffin and the barista fed Brutus one of the doggie treats they kept by the cash register.
There were already several young people there working away on their laptops. He thought about the first time he encountered a computer. He was in a college journalism class in the late seventies. The machine was so simple and crude it would probably seem like Alexander Graham Bell era technology to these kids.
He sat down in a chair and Brutus lay down on the floor next to him. Harrison gave his little frienda scratch behind the ears.
He was still having a hard time believing Bowie was gone. At least it hadn’t been a suicide. He remembered all the arguing on Facebook after Robin Williams died. He was surprised how many people said the comedian/actor was a coward for doing what he did, how he shouldn’t be honored or celebrated.
Harrison found that truly amazing. While he certainly didn’t advocate anyone end their own life, he also wasn’t going to come down hard on someone who did. We can’t even begin to understand what goes on in other people’s heads, what kind of storms and pain they might be making their way through each and every day.
He thought about how special Robin had been. His stand-up routines were pure electricity and at least as far as Harrison was concerned, few actors could convey emotional pain on such a deep level. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when he took his own life.
An attractive young Asian woman sat down in the chair across from him. Brutus walked over and she petted his head. Harrison had a few completely reflexive lustful thoughts about her and then reminded himself that when she looked at him she just saw a friendly, grandfatherly guy. He might as well be wearing a sweater vest and a bow tie, having coffee before heading off to practice with the other members of his barbershop quartet.
Harrison hoped their son Travis was doing okay. He and his wife Shelley had recently moved to the Boston area. It was going to be tough not seeing them nearly as often but that was the way it was these days, especially if you worked in tech. There were great opportunities but you had to be very flexible if you wanted to take advantage of them.
He and Travis got along well for the most part. Sure, sometimes the older man found millennial thinking to be a bit silly but it certainly wasn’t worse than when he himself had gotten a perm or changed jobs because of promised stock options that never panned out. Every generation is like every human…there will be moments when you look like the smartest person in the world and there will be moments when you have egg on your face and are two inches away from slipping on that banana peel.
Harrison finished his breakfast and started home. He had retired a couple years earlier and his wife Jean would do the same in a year or so. Even though there was an old cliché about retired couples driving each other crazy, he was actually looking forward to her not having to work anymore.
He thought he might send an e-mail to his friend Larry, see if he wanted to get together for lunch. They’d known each other going on forty years now. It was funny, when they first started hanging out they spent the majority of their time talking about different women they knew and how much they wanted to get them into bed. These days it was politics, what was going on with their kids and what new ailment had popped up since the last time they met.
It was a cold but sunny day. Harrison always found those to be kind of a treat.
He thought again about David Bowie and promised himself he would try to be less serious about this death business in the future. Everyone who has lived will eventually die. Maybe they’ll go on to some other realm of existence or maybe our final resting place will simply be the peace of oblivion. Nobody on the planet knows what will happen and those who’ve made their exit aren’t talking.
The Summer of Our Discontent
I could tell Russ was going to be in a bad mood that day. The high temperature turned him cranky quicker than anybody I’d ever known.
It was only ten in the morning and it appeared the mercury on our thermometer was just going to keep pushing upward like a red balloon recently freed from the hand of a crying child. We had a running joke about how each day we gradually changed from regular guys into listless heat zombies.
He took his shirt off and threw it at the large fan sitting on the floor in the living room. Then he growled, “All that fucker does is move a lot of hot air around.”
I chuckled and replied, “You better get your blood pressure down. It isn’t even really that warm yet and you’re already attacking the appliances.”
It was nineteen seventy. We were living in New York City, working on what a lot of people liked to call “underground” comic books. They weren’t really over the line in terms of sex or violence (okay, there was an occasional naked ass and one issue with a pretty bloody Old West shootout). But we didn’t see ourselves as ink stained rebels on the frontline of the censorship wars…rather just a couple of goofy free spirits desperate not to settle for any job where you had to wear a tie every day.
We were putting out three titles on a fairly regular basis…Gilbert Gets It On, Cowboys and Cosmonauts and Sunny’s Road Trip. That last one was sort of a Candide affair where a naïve, curvy blonde chick hitchhikes around the world and is constantly on the verge of losing her virginity. It was a fun, sexy comic book.
Hell, sweet Sunny even ended up in my masturbation fantasies once in a while…Russ is one hell of an artist.
Our characters didn’t come right out and do drugs in the stories. But the stories generally had sort of a skewed, psychedelic perspective. My mother back in Wisconsin said she always liked the art but often didn’t understand why the people did what they did.
I had a nice childhood. I remember birthday parties and baseball games and working up the nerve to ask somebody out to the prom. My parents never seemed particularly stressed out about money or whatever.
But the Ozzie and Harriett era couldn’t last forever. No matter how easy their lives are, young people will search out new experiences and philosophies they can claim as their own.
There were influential voices calling to us from across the Atlantic…we heard records made in England and Europe. The Beatles, the Who, Pink Floyd and dozens of other groups encouraged us to look at the world differently. And then American groups started appearing and the volume just got that much louder.
