Paradigm Rift: Book One of the Back to Normal Series (2 page)

Sunday, March 17, 1946

I probably need to move to another hotel or motel soon. I've been at this one for 8 days, and I think that the staff is getting suspicious. I have been signing in as John Wilson, instead of Phil Nelson.

I am not sure how much longer my cash will hold out. I guess I was lucky that I had a $20 and a few $10 bills. I put some marks on them using a pen to disguise the dates. To research for a way to get out (if it is even possible) will require a considerable sum of money and equipment. For money, I have some ideas, if I can get out of Normal and head out West.

Facing a difficult task can be terrifying, even with the support of family and friends. But I am in this alone. I am trying to stay positive, I am focusing on Maryanne and Kurtis. I firmly believe I will see them again...the alternative is paralyzing.

Regardless, I need to come to peace with the absurd and horrific reality that I may never leave here. There is a difference between probable and possible. For example, lightning striking the same person twice is possible, but it sure isn't probable. The odds are nearly insurmountable. The solution? Pretty simple: Figure out where the lightning will strike.

And then be there.

Sunday, June 15, 2014 8:07 p.m.

The empty darkness of Denver's studio apartment was interrupted by the erratic flurry of lightning flashes over downtown Manhattan. With a click, twist, and creak, Denver pushed past the front door and tossed his keys across a table in the tiny foyer. He peeled off his drenched shirt, replacing it with a comfortable if not entirely clean gray hoodie, then headed for the kitchen. A magnet-mounted photo of Jasmine greeted him as he snatched two beers out of the fridge.

He sipped as he migrated into the living room and sank into the couch, just as an uncomfortably close bolt of lightning made even this hardened soldier jump. The lights flickered as well, but stayed true as the thunder rolled.

Denver popped on the man-sized flat-screen across the room, creating sights and sounds to reinforce the illusion that he was not alone. The television rarely seemed to do that though...actually, it
never
did.

He reached across the coffee table and retrieved a framed photo of Jasmine riding atop his shoulders at the zoo. Pulling it in close, he studied the picture he had studied a hundred times before. His thumb traced across her ecstatic face as he took a long pull on his first bottle.

More lightning.

A weather alert blared across a red ticker along the bottom of his HD screen, but Denver Collins was far more concerned about the personal storm that raged deep inside of him. He set the picture back down as his eyes landed on a small stack of papers. They were documents he had made a deliberate effort to ignore for well over three weeks.

He stared over at the top page and then took further comfort in his bottle. A few lightning flashes, a few claps of booming thunder, and a few swigs of booze later, his courage and interest seemed to revive. He picked up the document and held it at eye level as he discarded the now empty bottle.

NOTICE OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS

Denver Wayne Collins V. Jennifer Lynn Collins

He flipped dispassionately through the sheets until he arrived at the signatory page. On the right side, in brilliant blue ink, was the signature of his wife (or estranged wife, or former spouse, or whatever fashionable term one uses these days to describe the last stage of formal, emotional disintegration). He looked to the left side, the line was as empty and flat as he was. He rubbed his thumb over the rough texture of the notarized seal below Jennifer's name.

So, that's all it takes. A signature, a witness, and it's over. How convenient. Marriage. A preacher in a black robe makes it; a judge in a black robe breaks it. Nice.

Denver tossed the offensive packet back onto the table, but most of it ended up on the floor.
He pulled the second bottle up to his lips, hitting it hard, but the sight of his wedding ring inches from his nose froze him in mid-drink. He set the bottle down and rotated and removed the golden band.

Denver slid down on the couch and held the ring straight above his head. It was silhouetted against a tiny spotlight overhead, and he began spinning it like a craftsman. He flashed to the day he had proposed to Jen. Denver relived the exact moment she had looked out of the window of his friend's tiny Cessna at just over three hundred feet up. Peering down into the harvested fields right after sunset, she saw Denver's agonizing handiwork. He had spent fourteen hours, two hundred and twenty-seven dollars, and nearly five thousand Christmas lights writing the words "Will U Marry Me?" in letters twenty-five feet wide each, not to mention the eighty-five bucks to rent the gas generator, but at least his military buddy provided the plane ride for free as an early wedding gift.

After the “Yes” and the “I do’s” there were happy days, even happy years, but they felt like someone else’s life right now.

The intensifying electrical storm made the lights protest several more times, as Denver did his best to empty Budweiser number two. A strange blue glow filled the room.

Satellite dish is out, that's great.

He turned off the TV and studied the ring a bit more, before sliding it back onto his finger. He rolled to the side to finish off his beer, and in a matter of moments, Denver Collins was finished as well. Not even the incessant, window-shaking thunderclaps could disturb his fermented-barley-induced slumber now. He drifted off remembering the expression on Jen’s face, but it was like a fading dream.

Nobody gets engaged like Jen and I did.

But that was over eight years ago.

Thursday, March 21, 1946

Had to buy some more clothes. I will be out of money by week’s end. I don’t know of any other way to survive right now. I’m not proud of it, but I will probably have to steal (but I fully intend to make good on it once things improve). But cash isn't the only obstacle.

I have to not only look the part, but my actions, my words, my interactions, all must be authentic. I cannot let people find out who I truly am, and when I am truly from. For example—there's technology. I have been trying to cook my own food to save money and limit my exposure to the public. I went to the appliance store and asked the clerk to direct me to the microwave ovens. I had to quickly cover for my mistake (I am about a decade or so too early). They will be called Radar Ranges at any rate, not microwaves.

It’s so weird to think there is basically only one computer in the world right now, ENIAC—and it’s bigger than a small house! Back at the high school I teach at in Colorado, we had over ten Apple II computers in one building!

I have been immersing myself in newspapers and magazines. I haven’t seen a TV here yet. I picked up a cheap radio. I can get a few local stations, and one out of Chicago. They carry a lot of sports. It's strange listening to games, at least the ones that I already know the outcome. A guy could make some serious cash with my knowledge, at least in the right places.

The ending and effects of World War II are still very fresh (I have found that most people refer to it as the “Second World War.”) Everyone has lost someone, and some have lost everyone it seems. The only joys in this are the babies. So many babies, and expectant mothers (nobody uses the term “pregnant” around here). Many people say "In the family way."

It is so interesting to get to see the rise of the next world war, the Cold War (I need to be careful with that term, as well. If I remember right, Bernie—something, can’t remember, coined it, not sure when). Immersion and education. These may be the keys to keep me from incarceration. I'm sure the Feds would love to get their hands on Phillip Nelson. I aim to make that difficult for them.

But first they have to find that a time traveler is among them.

The images, colors, and sounds pulsed with intensity in Denver’s tortured mind. Scenes and memories, or fragments of memories, blurred and blended. Nothing made sense, yet everything seemed important.
Children, the sounds of children. Are they playing?
The visual confusion and sensory overload escalated. The echoes of voices assaulted him with a haunting quality that made very little distinction between children
playing and children screaming.

A flash. What was that?
Is that blood?
And the pain. Such pain.
Wait...who is he?
A frightened young boy passed before his mind's eye.
He can't be more than five years old!
Another face, an older face.
A new voice. What is he saying?
In low tones, words reverberated through the senseless nightmare.

Denver. Remember.

More pain. A knife flashes.

Rumbling and shaking.

More flashes.

Denver
.

Remember
.

A pale young boy stood before him. He couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. The child screamed in terror, blood on his hands. A flash of hot, white light swelled brighter and brighter, blinding with the force of a hundred suns, followed by an explosive crash so loud it would not only wake the dead, it would surely rend them up out of their graves.

_____________________________________

Denver snapped awake and thrust himself into a seated position, bathed in sweat as his heart pounded within a few beats of complete cardiac arrest. His head frantically spun about in the darkness, as a peal of thunder had just passed its crescendo and was retreating into the distance with all the subtlety of a squadron of low-flying aircraft. The entire building rattled and reeled beneath the onslaught, but soon everything around him returned to a dark, dead calm—with the notable exception of his nerves.

Lightning must've knocked the power out again. Looks like warm beer for breakfast.
Terrific
.

He sat frozen at first, transfixed by a new and unfamiliar sound—the curious sound of silence. Denver made an educated guess about the general location of his large picture window, and stared hard into the black nothingness in that direction.

Whoa. Whole city must be out.
This is bad.

He sat and argued with himself about the merits of simply going back to sleep, but was interrupted by a question that refused to lie down.

Where are all the cars? Where are the lights from the cars?

Once again he studied the best-guess window area.
Still nothing.
Lightning can knock out the city power, but not car headlights.

His inquiry wasn’t even close to being settled when a fresh mystery washed over him—the odor. It was different, heavy, almost oppressive—not entirely unlike an old, wet towel.

Denver ignored the foreign aroma and rubbed his hands on the couch, but something wasn't quite right about that either. He leaned over and groped all around.
Wait, this isn't my couch! It's my bed. When did I move to my frickin’ bed?

He got on his feet, his heart rate and breathing just about back to normal.
Oh,
that's why I can't see the cars, I'm in my bedroom...duh.
He whisked his head around in all directions, and then he spotted it.

A light.

Not a city light, or a car's headlights, or a streetlight, but a weak, warm, incandescent glow. He could make out a straight line, actually two lines, maybe a doorway. He moved along the edge of the bed, disoriented, but now fully awake. Something hit him in the stomach and he stopped cold. He felt of it.
A chair? Feels like a wooden chair.

Of course, there was nothing unusual about a chair, except for the fact he didn’t have a chair in his bedroom.

He navigated around the foreign furnishing and progressed toward the light. It was spilling through a cracked door, and Denver pushed it wide open. The room that he saw both confused him and clarified his misgivings in the same instant. He had walked into a bathroom, but not his bathroom. In fact, not the bathroom of anyone he knew, or had ever known, for that matter.

This bathroom was...
different
. A porcelain toilet, rusty sink, and a plain tub with a hideous shower curtain furnished the tiny area. It may have been practical, but it was not pretty by any standard. He backed out with some effort and located a small light switch on the wall outside the bathroom. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.

He wasn't in his bedroom. He wasn't even in his apartment. And he probably wasn't even in Manhattan. He stared into a long, single room—complete with a bed, a small table and chair, a telephone, a green door, and closed curtains along the far wall.

He was in a motel room.

Wednesday, April 3, 1946

Something simple today triggered something fundamentally… fundamental. I was walking across the grass in the town square and had to cross over a section of soil, and then back to grass. Something grabbed my attention—I think a car backfired–and I stopped and turned. I looked down and saw my footprints clearly in the dirt, but there were no tracks in the grass on either side.

And then it hit me. As a time traveler, as a man walking somewhere he doesn’t really belong, I need to be careful not to leave any tracks, or at least, as few tracks as possible. My interactions in and around Normal, my travels here in 1946, need to be like the vanishing footprints we create in the grass. We push it down temporarily, but moments later, the many blades of green snap back, sweeping our tracks for us, all but forgetting our brief encounter.

If and when I am able to return home, I need to leave Normal, Illinois, and the rest of this world, as if I were never here, no footprints, no changes. My interactions with people, need to be like walking in the grass. A quick, fleeting impression, then moments later—nothing.

Maybe I need to write this mantra on my bathroom mirror, and repeat it to myself several times a day:

Walk without Footprints.

This is my new axiom, my pledge. Walk without footprints.

Just over 20 years from now, another man, out of place, will walk on foreign soil. But unlike me, that man will intend to leave his mark, to make tracks for all to see: footprints that will be as clear and fresh at Judgment Day as they were (or will be) on that early Monday morning in late July of 1969.

Neil Armstrong misspoke on that important day, and no one ever forgot his famous line broadcast from the Moon’s surface. But here in my journeys, also far from home, it would be better if no one ever remembered anything I said. Like an extra piece on a chessboard, I am not supposed to be here. Every move I make, every word I speak, anything I do could alter the game.

One small step I leave behind as a man, could create one giant disastrous leap for mankind.