One Minute to Midnight (41 page)

The next morning was Saturday, and he was off
from work, so bleary-eyed and miserable, George walked into the
bathroom to brush his teeth. As he spit white globs of fluoride
into the sink, he looked in the mirror and saw a deeply depressed
man staring back, with sunken eyes and a full beard forming. Had he
forgotten to shave for a week? He rubbed his chin and wiped the
residual toothpaste from his mouth. He showered and shaved in the
hope that he would feel more human afterward, but insomnia had been
draining him like the rechargeable batteries in a child's toy.
George dressed and decided to walk down to the fresh market at the
end of his block for a coffee and bagel to quell the grumbling in
his stomach. As his hand touched the doorknob, he remembered the
sight of the man standing in his hallway last night. Would he still
be there? Was he some kind of thug sent to hurt George? Sweat broke
out on George's forehead as unsure fingers turned the
knob.

"Open the door." He said to himself. George
did, and as it swung open a large snarling dog ran past him in the
hallway. He looked down the passage to see where it went or whose
dog it was, but it had disappeared around a corner.

George kept a revolver on a shelf beside his
door, so he put it in his pocket and walked with fleeting steps
down the hallway to the elevator. The doors slid open with a
whoosh
and he walked into the empty
metal box. The dog suddenly reappeared down the hallway, growling
at George, and charged toward him as the doors began to close. The
doors were almost shut. The dog jumped. They shut.
Boom!
The dog slammed into them with
a loud
thud
.

"Oh my god! What is going on? Was that real?"
He asked himself.

The doors opened on level one, and he got out.
There were no dogs on the bottom floor, or men in black jackets
waiting shake him down either, so he assumed the morning drama was
over. George walked out into a new spring day where the rest of the
world was just waking up and took a deep breath of fresh air. He
envied the other people and their abilities to shut down when the
lights went out at night.
"I just want some sleep." George said to himself. For a moment, out
of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a figure composed of
pure light watching him, but when he turned, there was nothing
unusual. "I'm losing my mind." George ran his hands through his
hair, grabbing the tufts in frustration.
He walked down the street, passing by some children who were
playing hopscotch on the sidewalk and chanting. Cars passed by him
as he walked and he began to notice that all of the cars he saw
were not modern day fuel efficient vehicles, but gas guzzlers built
in the nineteen fifties. A woman in a Chrysler New Yorker drove by
him heading the opposite direction. The further he walked the more
scenery changed, including the buildings. By the time he got to the
fresh market, he was back in the middle of the last century. The
man in the black leather jacket was there, sitting at a table
outside the small market café, drinking coffee and eating a scone.
George could not help but think that the man had something to do
with the sudden chaos he was experiencing. George passed by,
glancing to his right as the man opened a newspaper and without
looking at him said, "Good morning, George."

George stopped in his tracks. "Who are you?
Why were you at my door last night?"

"Have a seat. Order some food from the waiter
and then we can talk." The stranger said. He had a gruff southern
accent.

George slid out a chair and sat down across
from the man in the black leather jacket. A moment later, a waiter
stepped up to their table.

"Would you like a raspberry scone and tall
coffee? They are the best selections on the menu, sir." The waiter
said. He was a tall man, perhaps thirty, with a tiny moustache that
looked like something fashionable in the nineteen twenties, and he
smelled like vanilla.

George opened a small menu on the table and
saw that the
only
menu item
was raspberry scones, and coffee. Those two items were listed fifty
times down both sides of the double page folder.

"A scone sounds great." George answered.
"Very well, sir. Back in a moment or two." The waiter
said.

"Who are you, and what do you want with me?"
George asked. The waiter returned with his scone and a hot cup of
chicory coffee. "Thank you." George said, as the waiter bowed his
head and returned to the kitchen. He ate while the stranger
spoke.

"I'm a sort of broker, of adventures, the road
less taken, you might say. I'm here to help you. As for my name,
well, that's not important." The man said.
"Where am I and what do I call you if you won’t tell me your name?"
George asked.

"Some call me Jinks. You may do the same." He
said. Jinks sipped his coffee and gazed out at the traffic. "Look
at them out there. These people, they wake up in the morning, get
dressed, go to a job, and for what? At the end of two weeks they
get some money for running on the hamster wheel. You’re going to
transcend that reality, George, and I do not do this for many of
your species, but I see something in you that’s not in all
of
them
."

"They run on the hamster wheel because they
need that money to pay their bills. Try living in this world
without paying somebody something and you'll find out how
not-free
we all really
are."

Jinks slammed his hand on the table and looked
at George with the wild eyes of a maniac. "That's just it! You're
about to see what it’s like to be free like you never have! And you
leave today."

"Uh, I can't go anywhere. I have a job to go
to back to on Monday." George protested.

"Look around you, and tell me if you think you
still have that job. You’re in between the fabric of time and space
right now, and you have been since you took those pills last
night." Jinks said. He raised the newspaper he had been reading to
display the date.
George looked around and time had changed again. Now George and
Jinks were sitting beside cobblestone streets where people passed
by in horse drawn carriages. George looked back and the date on the
newspaper read
July 1st
1874
.

"Those pills did this?" George asked.
"Not necessarily. All they did was open your mind so that I could
communicate with you. We’re shifting through time as we speak, you
and me. You know that girl, the one from your dream? Well, she
needs your help right now."

"What the hell is going on? How do you know
about that? Am I insane? Or dreaming?" George held his head and
began rock back and forth.
Jinks flashed a wicked smile and leaned in.
"You’re being melodramatic, and you worry too much. Just go with
it. Now tell me, what's your stance on the afterlife and
existential reality?"
"What?" George asked.

George saw a gigantic swirling vortex open
beneath his feet as Jinks stared at him with wild eyes. A large
blue-green planet appeared in the darkness, and he could see stars
swirling around them. A beam of light rose toward George as he
began to scream in panic.
"I told you, I'm an adventure broker, and you
my friend
, are about to take the ride of your
life."
"Am I awake or asleep?!" George yelled as he began to float down
into the vortex.

"Yes! Don’t you see?" Jinks said and then
George fell through the wormhole. "Be seeing you soon! Ha ha!" His
voice echoed from the ground above him.
Carried on a solid beam of light, George Shopton vanished from
Earth forever.

As George floated along an intergalactic
highway, he was surrounded by bright multicolored lights and soft
classical music. The illumination enveloped him like a gentle hand
holding a dove, and was not scary at all. After a few minutes, his
panic receded and he felt a sense of calm wash over him as the
planet he had seen before his ride began grew larger. George
rocketed toward the blue-green orb at lightning speed and he
shielded his eyes in a defensive posture before entering the
atmosphere. Clouds raced past him through the darkness of night
while music played on and George soared like a bird. Before he
could blink, his feet were planted on the ground and everything
stopped. The light beam retracted while George watched it disappear
in slow motion, standing alone in a grove of trees atop a hill
overlooking a strange, small town.

George looked up in the sky and saw two moons
glowing back at him. It was an awe-inspiring visual experience, and
the moons looked like two giant grayish eyes peering down on him
from heaven. "Wow! That’s beautiful." He whispered to
himself.
The air around him smelled clean and pure, and he noticed that, at
least where he stood, there were none of the choking odors of
landfills, or smog from earth. George could see that there were
many lights on in the houses below, and he thought it would be wise
to explore the town. Perhaps someone could tell him where he was
while he figured out why he had been sent here. Something moved in
the bushes behind him and George froze. A metallic clicking sound,
reminding George of tongs used for a grill, came from the cover of
darkness. He turned slowly.
Standing before him was a six-foot tall green praying mantis with
his wings spread. George knew from science class that it was a
posture the praying mantis assumed when threatened, and his mind
went blank with fear.

"Easy now, big guy. I’m not here to hurt you
or anything like that." George said. The mantis took a step
forward, cocking its head and raising its left front arm.
George had been standing on the edge of a steep slope, and as he
took a step backward he fell downward. The mantis lunged forward,
swiping at George’s head just as he tumbled out of the way. George
found himself rolling out of control as he bumped and spun through
the woods of the strange planet. He hit a rock with his back but it
did not slow his descent, and he plummeted head over heels in
agony. Eventually he stopped at the bottom of the hill. His left
kidney had taken a bad blow when he had hit the rock and he had
scratches all over his face, but he was otherwise unharmed. The
mantis was on his heels and he began to run toward the town and
toward him. Lighted windows could be seen through the trees as he
drew closer, and from behind he could hear the sound of big wings
fluttering and branches breaking. There was more than one chasing
him now as he burst through the tree line and into the backyard of
one of the villager’s dwelling. George ran around to knock on the
front door and he could hear the buzzing of a thousand wings in the
forest behind him. They were coming.

"Help. Please help me!" George screamed. He
looked back toward the dark woods in fear.
The door opened and a tall man with almond-shaped eyes fixed him
with a look of urgency and concern.
"Get in here, Earth man. Are you a fool?!" The tall man grabbed him
by the shoulders and pulled George into the house. Moments later a
legion of winged mantises moved through the village, their wings
scraping the windows, as the tall min dimmed his lights while they
searched for George. The noise continued for another ten minutes
and then all was quiet again.

"Thank you for saving me." George said.
The tall man looked him up and down as he turned the lights back on
again.

"Why have you come here? We’re under siege by
the mantises. Don't you know that? Now they've seen you and they’ll
continue to search until they find you and then they'll kill you."
The man put his head in his hands. "They took my daughter a day
ago.” He said.
“My name is George, and I don’t know why I’m here, but I was sent
by a man named Jinks on a highway of light. If that makes any
sense." George explained.
The tall man regarded him for a moment, holding his chin. He wore
jeans and a flannel shirt with brown farm boots, and his house
smelled like fresh cinnamon. It reminded George of homes back on
earth during Christmas time.

"My name is Gali. Forgive me, but the past few
weeks have been difficult. Ever since the reaping began, the human
population of this village has been on the decline. I don’t know
whether it’s happening elsewhere because our communication systems
have been disabled by those damned insects." Gali said.
"You’re humans?"

"Yes, of course we are. Can you help us defend
against them?" Gali asked.

"How can I help? I’m just one man. Why haven’t
you and your people fought back against them? Do you have any
weapons?" George asked. He was confused.
"We’re pacifists and abhor violence of any kind." Gali
said.

"Not even to save your own daughter?"
"It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see her again, but we believe
that violence starts the wheel of karma spinning, halting the
individual from their path to enlightenment. It is our faith that
sustains us." Gali explained.
"Is it worse to fight and kill, or stay neutral and allow innocent
people to be killed?" George asked. Gali shrugged his shoulders,
looking uncomfortable with the question. Faith was a funny thing to
George. Those who had blind faith could use it to justify the most
horrific atrocities, or stand by while those in power slaughter
their people in droves, and still sleep at night.

"We can get you weapons and a guide that can
lead you to their temple. Daytime is best, because they mostly come
out at night."