Inertia

                                            Inertia

          When you're a Stranger, People are Strange

       “Miss Holden?” Mr. Crenshaw, a middle aged sharply dressed and well-groomed colleague of mine, leaned near my left ear a little too close to whisper an invite.

         “That’s my name, Henry… “ I firmly retained my professional posture as I slowly turned my head to the left slightly facing my enthusiastically friendly senior colleague with my left eyebrow raised, smirking subtly “…don’t wear it out…”

        “Hahaha…!!!” Mr. Crenshaw’s cartoonish, chillingly polished plastic smile was exaggerated even more as he laughed with his eye lids tightly shut, head bent backward signaling his momentary supposed involuntary lack of balance from the jolt of amusement he received from my response to his frail greeting. He quickly composed himself and snapped his eyes open with a deep breath as if he’d just reemerged from an intense hypnotic episode. Holding his trademark plastic, ear to ear grin in place, unscathed, he remarked to me “You are such a card! I love it!”

        “Oh..” I delicately patronized him  “Mr. Crenshaw… I bet you say that to all the girls in finance…”. My Goddess! His breath smelled of excessively minty gum and scotch piercing through his repellent wall of horrible old man cologne. It’s only 2:34 P.M. Talk about a functioning alcoholic. I’m already breaking in for a late lunch by myself to unwind before I head back to work and surround myself with more plastic smiling clones of old Mr. Crenshaw. I really don’t need this shit right now… or ever. Oh, where and when did my life spread her legs… and is it too late to have an abortion? I smile pleasantly at Mr. Crenshaw’s wide toothed leer adorned with crocodile eyes above thirstily fixating on my cleavage. I picture myself digging in his blood gushing eye socket with my freshly sharpened black no. 1 eyeliner.

       “I love that wit, Summer!” Mr. Crenshaw winked at me “That’s why you’re the top gal in the office. Soon you’ll own this whole building!”

       “I’m the only ‘gal’ in the office, Henry” I raised both my eyebrows at Crenshaw as if I tried to telepathically remind him what planet he was on “… and how do you know I don’t already own the building…?” I twisted my expression to a dark sensual mischievous smirk. Come on, Seven! The elevators in this damn building are probably almost as old ‘Dusty’ Crenshaw.

         “HAHAHA…!” Mr. Crenshaw nearly knocked some seemingly important files out of another gentleman employees hands as he laughed hysterically at my antics. “That’s the stuff, alright! Say, Summer! If you don’t have anything special planned for tonight, why don’t you come on over to Mc Kinnleys’ Pub after work and tie one on with me and the rest of the guys? We’d love to have you…” Crenshaw’s smile became more genuine than plastic and his eyes were as vulnerable as a puppy’s and averted his vision from my busty cleavage, snug in my navy blue blazer to meet my eyes finally.

           Any other would have easily fallen for the wistful father figure plea routine but I’m kind of an odd duck.

          “Oh, Henry…” I gave Crenshaw an obvious heartfelt sympathetic assuring pouty face as I lightly tapped his soft weak wrinkled sagging old cheek with the back of my right hand. “You know I have the same plans every weekend” I began to speak in a soft, cute submissive breathy voice “I usually begin my night alone taking a nice warm bubble bath with nothing but candlelight to add atmosphere to the apartment. I tend to play old jazz from my fathers’ old portable CD Player right by the bathroom window near the bath basin. I try to indulge in all of the subtle pleasures and sounds with all my senses all the while praying that the hard vibration from the express train right by my apartment building doesn’t help my sonic machine to dive into the water with me and shock my delicate young life away from my body and this beautiful world.”

       It became awkwardly, quiet as the limited elevator air grew deathly still. “Awwww, kid…” Mr. Crenshaw kept half a smile as he tried to hide his disappointment of my, humorously but politely, turning down his invite for a date. “You know how easily you break hearts with those precious green eyes of yours?”

       BING! Finally, the elevator door swished open and I’m now free from this embarrassingly senseless elevator talk. I swiftly but gracefully walked out of the elevator, escaping odd overwhelmingly fake character of Henry Crenshaw.

       “Have a good night, Mr. Crenshaw” I said politely as I left the elevator staring forward only to stop shortly before the elevator closed as I turned and stared Mr. Crenshaw in the center of his black lifeless pupils “By the way Henry, my eyes are Hazel.” I winked at old ‘Dusty’ before the door closed on his fake smile. “Hazel! That’s right! Stupid me! Have a great wee-“ BING BONG. Elevator doors are closed and one Mr. Crenshaw is out of my air for the next three days. See you never, Creepo. One idiot down as the he rest of the world follows. I feel nothing from most things and for everything I can’t feel from, I hate that which repels my emotive force. To truly hate something requires the emotion of love to have been felt first or simultaneously. I know I’ve felt love before, I just can’t remember when exactly it was and what happened to turn me into such a withdrawn adult. This initial personal adventure would venture into realms that will change our destinies forever. I didn’t realize this universal transformation would result as a consequence of my curiosity toward my own personal timeline. If this comes across as any condolence, I’d like anyone who would read this to know that I’m truly sorry if your life did not turn out the way you expected it to be, because it is actually my fault, as I’ll explain now.

         My name is Summer Takashi-Holden. I was conceived in Osaka and born in San Francisco, U.S.A. in 1982 A.D. Earth 7.0.  My father is a Japanese Physicist and my mother is an American artist of Brazilian and Irish descent. I am their only child. As you can see, there are so many avenues of my life that direct me to solitude in it’s most raw form. I never had any true friends and I could only wish for imaginary friends but even they would not come to fruition until later in my life.  

Day 001

     

       I left work on time today, thank the Goddess. We never leave work early. Work is never finished, so we’re always leaving late even though we’re technically on time. I suppose we were up to standard for the day. I could really give a shit. I’m the youngest female banker in HP Organ, the most prestigious bank world renown. I basically work beside old rich frustrated white men. My life is my computer screen. My blood and value is measured by digits and projects that are outstanding or successful. If I felt any hormonal drive, I wouldn’t know it consciously. I don’t even have the time to question my sexual preference and I’m not even sure if I care. I like being alone. I’ve grown to embrace solitude. It is my only salvation from the chaos the world constantly plagues me with.

       I hate public transportation. I hate everything that complements it’s shortcomings. The nasty people, the lazy workers, the corrupt system, the wretched stench, the horrible maintenance, the bad financial plans and even the lame politics make me want to skip breakfast every morning, otherwise I’d vomit over everyone involuntarily due to the daily atrocities I’d experience on the New York Metro.

        I do make my own lunch and proudly so. This time, in the food court of our corporate establishment, I experienced something unusual.   I became empathetic towards another individual… of the opposite sex… who wasn’t particularly attractive to me at least. There was something curiously unsettling about this timid, lean, disarming strange, lonely man. I was compelled to sit beside him. Was it the familiar aura of utter solitude that initially drew my attention toward him, believing we could relate on that desolate state of being, somehow? Did people misunderstand him constantly as they do I on a daily basis? Or is he ridiculed harshly for being different or more intelligent than his peers? Perhaps men go through those more directly emotionally compromising challenges if one is different as opposed to being a ‘rare’ woman in the midst of sex driven dumb founded blind stupid men. ‘As long as she has a vagina, who cares how smart she thinks she is’ Men are often always too easy to read, except this unique odd man, who becomes more beautiful the closer I walk toward him. He doesn’t look up from the notebook he’s burying his pencil in with arduous fervor as I pull the metal chair across from him and sit myself down to face him immediately after the scraping of the metal chair against the cafeteria floor has ceased. He doesn’t even glance when I noisily pull my boxed lunch out of my brown crinkly paper bag. He doesn’t budge when I force a fake cough before I open my lunch box to fetch my chicken salad sandwich. I was hungry once upon a time but the unrealistic indifference this man gave off upon the world around him impressed me to the point of jealousy. Did this man actually believe that nothing around him mattered, except for his pathetic scrappy notebook? Is he consciously choosing not to take part in this reality or does he truly not belong here? I couldn’t stand it anymore and I didn’t care about the world around me except for this weak little preoccupied man and his worthless notebook. I could turn indifference inside out into an opposing varied array of levels with one breath and I that’s exactly what I did. Little do any of us truly comprehend how one small breath can alter the direction of not just your reality but change the course of others’ around you.

       “HEY!” I shouted across the table at the skinny little man passionately, relentlessly writing with every pulse of blood, sweat and lead in that shrinking pencil of his “What the hell are you writing in there anyway?!”

        There was a yawning awkward pause until he finally raised his eyes toward me for a moment. He didn’t stop his hurried scribbling. In fact, he began writing faster.

        “You can see me?” he said under his breath.

         For a moment, I was stunned into silence from wondering why one would ask such an asinine question.

         ”Yes, of course I can see you.” I answered him assertively “I’m sure everyone can, the way you’ve cornered yourself in this table raking on that poor notebook like a lunatic… don’t you have a laptop?” I tried to alter the mood of this strange conversation. Without looking up from his notebook he said again under his breath “When people see me they see a figure but they don’t see me as people see you or one another. With me it’s different…”

            I scoffed at his grandiose self-reflection or lack there of “ Oh please, you’re way into your own ‘significance’. People really don’t care enough to notice or not notice someone intentionally. They’re too involved with there own messy lives. Don’t be so self-conscience. I’m certain people don’t acknowledge me… although there are a select few I wish wouldn’t notice me at all. Hey, this could be a great thing! Nobody would bother you and you could pretty much accomplish anything you set your mind to without any obstacles. I’d certainly trade places with you.”

       This time he lifted his entire face toward me and gave me his full unwavering attention in an intense unsettling way. His eyes were blood shot. His skin was abnormally pale with dark circles under his eyes. When he wasn’t writing, both his hands were shaking. He was incredibly thin but since I just met him, I couldn’t tell if he had gone without a meal for days or if his metabolism was on overdrive. One thing I was certain of was that this man’s mental condition was far from sound. Whether it was of genetic origin or exterior conditioning was difficult to determine. I knew I had to get him relaxed, to safety or his own home where he couldn’t cause any immediate harm to himself or anyone else inadvertently. He clearly needed some form of psychiatric attention. I suppose I’m not a complete Ice Queen, since I took time out of my little life to help this poor soul.

       Well, first thing’s first, especially manners “My name is Summer. It’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. What is your name, sir?”

       “You don’t remember my name, Miss Holden?” The thin odd stranger said to me under his breath as he continued to write without easing in speed.

       I was absolutely caught extremely off guard “How… how… do you know my… Do I know you from somewhere?”

      “No you don’t, Miss Holden” The thin haired skinny man completely stopped writing and gave me his full attention, particularly with his left eye that narrowed it’s scope on me. “At least not anymore you don’t. As I said before, I’m surprised you can see me and give me your attention because everyone else who I know and know me, don’t or can’t. I’m even more disconcerted with the fact that you do give me your attention but you don’t remember me at all” he sighed heavily and rubbed his hair vigorously “things are unraveling too fast now… I’m not sure If there’s time to set it right…” He let that last thought trail off as he stared desolately into the distance and then continued to write frantically again.

      This was beyond confounding for me. I normally wouldn’t allow myself to get dragged in to such strange matters but since this was just too intriguing to me and I had three days of nothing to do, I couldn’t help but get involved in such random madness. It was frightening and exciting. I haven’t felt such titillating emotions or many in quite some time. Who knows? I could end up publishing a successful novel out of this odd chance experience. I had to find away to confirm his story besides his simply knowing my name, just so I’m not unwittingly putting myself at the mercy of a psychotic freak. Ah, there’s Mr. Fischer walking into the cafeteria. I’ve never been so delighted to see the droll old pervert in my life.

        “Fischer!” I called out to the old pudgy white haired man waving and smiling “Mr. Fischer! Over here, old sport!”

        ”Old sport?! Of course it has to be Summer. No one talks like that anymore and what’s that ‘old’ business anyway? What can I do for you, doll?” Mr. Fischer called out charismatically as gracefully cruised over to Miss Holden and her odd friend.

        “Hahaha” Summer laughed with amusement at Mr. Fischer’s good humored nature “Oh, Edward dear, ‘old’ is putting it lightly, my dear”

       “Har Har Har” Old Mr. Fischer rolled his eyes playing along with Summers cute wit. “How’s this humble air treating you, angel?”

      “Oh, just delightfully. Fine and fair weathered finally” Summer sighed pleasantly. “Have you met my new friend?”

      “Ha!” Mr. Fischer scoffed “That’s just low of you, Summer! Mocking the janitor is not very lady like. Haha… You’re a cold one, Miss Holden. Have a splendid weekend, love! And Cheers to you Jenkins for putting up with the Ice Queen. Hahaha!”

        “Leaving so soon, Jeffrey?” I called back to Mr. Fischer.

       “Unfortunately, you aren’t the only Ice Queen in my world” Mr. Fischer with a melancholic smile bowed to Summer before he pressed on his way “but you certainly are the sweetest of them all”

      “Awwww, Jeffrey…” I teased “don’t you start to grow a heart now… there’s no room for it!”

     “HAHAHAHA” Mr. Fischer laughed in the distance walking with his head high in the spring air “Too sweet you are…”

       I suppose I was too taken away with the clockwork friendly banter Mr. Fischer and I have every other day to notice my new friend was tearing.

       “Oh… I’m sorry” I immediately realized what Mr. Fischer referred to him as “I had no idea you… please don’t take Mr. Fischer to heart. He’s a fat drunk beside his profession as a broker.”

      “It’s not that at all” Mr. Jenkins replied choking on his own tears “He knows my name but not my profession. People know me here as a Janitor and they refuse to look me in the eyes as they once did when I was working as the company’s Psychiatrist. I know you very well Summer. I know how your terrible your parents’ divorce was for you at the age of fifteen and how devastating of an effect that had in your life’s path. This is why you withdrew from your dream of being a successful and loved musician. This is why you discarded your goddess given silver voice and hid your beauty in the shadows of bankers. This is why you hide your true feelings with sarcasm, cynicism, dry humor and bitter words. I know you and so many others in this company better than you know yourselves because I spent my life putting you all through deep therapeutic hypnosis. I’ve entered your lives, shared your past experiences, joys, nightmares, triumphs, losses and deepest secrets. I’ve spent so much of my life aiding others through their own psychosis, pains and healing that I’d neglected my own for all of that time, until recently. I decided to perform a rare self-hypnosis that would project my astral form, my essence, my soul, through the unconscious dream state to intertwine with our conscious reality. I inadvertently, literally, physically and metaphysically revisited my past, Summer. I wasn’t ready for such a transgression. I changed events in my past without knowing or I’ve chosen other options to guide me into a reality that I did not initially come from. This is most likely a reality that none of us has initially derived from because of my interference with my own significant timeline in my astral state. I don’t know why everyone else at least knows my name. Why for some god forsaken reason did I became a Janitor of H.P. Organ, instead of it’s corporate psychiatrist, like I should be? I don’t know, but through some loop-hole in this universally psychic time stream I’ve tampered with, you out of everyone else who I’ve known doesn’t know me in this reality.  All I have left is this feeling of pure, desperate hope that you confronting me in this state and moment in time could be the salvation of not only my reality but the fabric of the universe as we know it. I don’t know how terribly I changed things but if I was able to change events in the first place, then there is a possibility of repairing the damage I’ve caused our reality through interference through my time stream but I can’t do it alone. Not as I’ve become…not as a lowly penniless janitor, who no one can bare looking in the eye let alone acknowledge. I need your help, Summer…”

     I experienced one of those rare hair raising feelings one can only experience through horror tales, déjà vu or news of ones illness or death of a loved one. What’s the expression my father said to me once before when a stranger cried as he gazed at my parents and I outside of a gas station in the desert on vacation claiming how precious we looked? How we should cherish every moment together? Oh, yes, I remember now. My father whispered to himself “Feels like someone just stepped over my grave”. I know now exactly how he felt when that old man made that kind gesture to us. Two years later, my family divorced. It’s the most unnerving, frustrating thing to either predict, know or even have your future subtly implied and not be able to do anything to alter it if there is something dreadful waiting for you ahead. Every single baby hair on every single goose bump on my flesh rose as Mr. Jenkins described my parents’ divorce by intricate detail. I don’t remember the last time I’ve cried but it couldn’t have been so silently severe. With each mention of my mothers’ cold heart brake discovering my fathers’ hideous adultery with her cousin, a thick stream of tears came flooding across my cheek. This was not the incoherent, ramblings of a crazy hobo or a desperately lonely uneducated janitor. Besides his confident technical terms he swept through with second breath, he looked me deep into my eyes unwavering and described deep secrets I’ve never told anyone outside my family. Something dreadfully wrong has happened in our world and I’ve stumbled across it too casually to ignore it. I had to help this man, or I would never be able to sleep again, let alone live with myself. I had to drive him home as soon as possible after work. I wiped my tears from my face and leaned over to my new strange friend, Mr. Jenkins and whispered with utmost sincerity “Meet me at the parking lot. Level 3. 3H. I’ll be waiting by my red corvette mini coupe. I’ll drive you to my house. You can freshen up and make yourself at home. There we will plan on how to fix this Mr. Jenkins” Mr. Jenkins eyes watered some as he beamed the warmest smile at me, as a child would his mother.

     “Thank you, so much for believing in me Summer…” Mr. Jenkins humbly shook my hand as a tear slid down his tired cheek “You were always my favorite client… I always knew you had the truest heart. My name is Tyler, by the way…”

      “Thank you, Tyler” I smiled as I narrowed my eyes to keep more tears from spilling over my face. “We’re going to fix this. Just be sure to meet me in the parking lot where I said… here…” I pulled out a small pen and pad and wrote detailed directions on when and where for us to meet. I also gave him forty dollars. “Meet me in the parking lot in two hours from now. The mall isn’t far away. There are nice restaurants, theatres and stores to keep you relaxed for now. Don’t worry, we’ll get through this and figure everything out, okay?”

       I genuinely gave the warmest smile I’ve ever remembered in my life since I was a young girl with both my parents on that vacation day memory. I’m not certain if it’s because that memory returned so fresh in my mind, or if I’ve been wanting to smile and cry at once for a long time to let all of these confusing, repressed emotions out or if I was merely attempting to carry a bright, strong, inspiring feeling for the both of us. After what I’ve heard from Tyler, we’re going to need a lot more than mere inspired emotion to bring us out of such daunting chaos that invisibly circles us like venomous air.

       Tyler slowly stood up from the bench and wiped his tears as he put the money and pad I left him with in his trouser pocket. He too forced a positive yet nervous smile. “Thank you again, Summer. I’ll see you in two hours. I think I’ll watch a short movie. It’s been awhile since I’ve let myself escape into another reality…”

      We both chuckled hungrily at the adorably innocent ironic reflection he made while attempting to calm the both of us.

     “Okay, Tyler” I kept a serious but firm brightly positive expression as I nodded him off on or temporarily separate ways “I’ll see you in two in the lot. Don’t lose yourself again, now”

       Tyler smiled back and nodded as he waved to me “You can only lose yourself once, Miss Holden and I’m glad you found me. See you soon, Summer.”

       I blew him a kiss and waved back as we parted ways. I kept smiling to keep my eyes from tearing, to keep my sanity from shredding apart I kept walking and smiling. Within I was a Tsunami of torture and fright.  

                         House of Secrets

       I must admit that I was hesitant to bring Mr. Jenkins to my home despite how well he knew about my past and deepest secrets but I couldn’t ignore how imperative it felt to help this man. I’ve never imagined anything like this to ever happen. There’s no fiction I can recall that comes close to such an oddity of nature. How can the people I spend every work day with know this man who has in depth accurate information of nearly all of our deepest secrets and fears without me knowing him at all. Something is sorely amiss here and in a scale that is larger than just my being alone, it needs to be set right. It appears as well, that I’m the sole individual who is able to take upon such a grievous task. I hope I’m ready for whatever crashes toward us. God help us if we make another mistake. The world as we know it could disappear permanently.

     “You could have a seat on the couch in the living room” I gestured passed the hallway toward the couch in my living room by the fireplace. “I’ll only be a moment, Mr. Jen… I should say Dr. Jenkins, excuse me”.

     “Thank you kindly, Miss Holden” Dr. Jenkins smiled gratefully as he humbly seated himself in my Italian leather sofa by the fireplace in the living room.

     I made my way upstairs to one of my guest rooms, I reserve now for memorabilia and other belongings of sentimental value, such as family heirlooms, jewelry, photo albums, dolls, documents, journals and other trinkets that belonged either to me or my relatives. I collected a few personal effects I thought would be vital in our preparation for the rare work we’d begin shortly to save our realities.

     “You have such a marvelous house, Miss Holden” Dr. Jenkins remarked with childlike awe as he peered around the huge living room, particularly taking notice of my 18^th century antique Grandfather Clock, other furniture and of course my massive fireplace.

     “Why, thank you, Dr. Jenkins” I smiled graciously as I sat in the sofa across from him. “This estate was left in my care after my Grandfather passed away four years ago. I’m just now getting comfortable living here by myself.”

     ”Yes” Dr. Jenkins affirmed with excitement as he continued to observe my home “I recall your description of this house during our sessions over the years but I never imagined it to be so grand, so magnificent and delicately beautiful.”  

      I must be cautious not to disclose more private information for him to claim he was already aware of. Although, he was very accurate regarding the details of my parents divorce, he could still be not what he claims himself to be. He could be a wolf in sheep’s skin, pretending to be an innocent victim of odd events to get close to my family fortune. I always keep a small tin vile of pepper spray and a switchblade in case of emergency. Who wouldn’t these days. It’s the year 2015 and every year that passes seems to carry a decades worth of problems in every direction.

      “Dr. Jenkins” I sat up straight with a firm expression to physically articulate the gravity of the beginning of our project. “ I need you to tell me everything you know about me that no one but myself would know about me. Afterwards, I’ll need you to explain exactly what happened to you during your self-hypnotism and everything that occurred until I came across you in our current reality. While you’re gathering your thoughts, would I’ll set a mild flame in the fireplace for us and serve us some tea and scones. What kind of tea would you prefer, Dr. Jenkins?”

     Taken aback by my sudden assertive posture, Dr. Jenkins paused with a blank star for a moment and smiled politely as he blinked himself to consciousness. “Earl Grey would be lovely, Miss Holden. Thank you, kindly.”

     “Very well, Dr. Jenkins” I immediately perked myself up to set the flame on behind him on my fireplace with a firm, confident smile “Earl Grey it is. I’ll be right back.”

     After I had served us our tea and scones to settle comfortably in my living room by the fireplace, our plans to save our reality began. I carefully placed my selected personal effects from my guest room by my right side on the sofa.

     “So, Dr. Jenkins” I began abruptly as I took my first sip of tea “Please tell me more about who I am”

      Dr. Jenkins slowly took his first sip of earl grey and carefully took a bite of a scone. He wiped his lip free of crumbs patiently and carefully folded his napkin by the left side of his cup by the coffee table. He looked up at my face with weary eyes before he sighed and began to speak.

     “There was one memory you shared with me that you claimed never to have shared with anyone else” Dr. Jenkins began as his eyes began to glimmer from a slight tearing in his eyes “This guarded memory of yours you told me under hypnosis, I could never forget…”

      “It was just after your parents divorce around Christmas Eve. You were living with your mother at the time. She was undergoing a severe depression. Although no one was coming over your house to celebrate the holidays with you due to your mothers’ polite request, she insisted on providing you with the best Holiday Dinner she could concoct. They both loved you very much, Summer…”

      “Please…” I shut my eyes slightly as a tear fell from my left lid “Please continue, Dr. Jenkins…” I quickly composed myself as he went on.

      “Unfortunately, while your mother was heating the marinated chicken roast, she drank the holiday wine much earlier than in previous years. She passed out on the sofa drunk in front of the blaring Television set, while you were in the other room on the phone with your best friend Jessica from school, while working on your holiday project and playing a video game all at once”

       “I was quite proficient at multi-tasking” I laughed as I wiped away my tears.

      “Yes” Dr. Jenkins smiled warmly at me “You are a gifted women, Summer. You always were and it was obvious to everyone.”

      “Thank you, Doctor” I said politely as I shyly averted my eyes from him. “Please continue…”

      “Of course” The Doctor nodded empathetically “Eventually with no one to mind the oven, the smoke detector went off and immediately caught you’re attention. You tried to call for your mother several times but when you heard no response after awhile, you politely ended the call with you’re friend, paused your game, stepped over your school work and ignored your precious cat Lily who was attempting to play hide and seek with you in the empty water cooler by your closet. You smelled smoke and instantly through off your house robe as it became increasingly hot. You didn’t notice where you through your heavy robe as you ran to the kitchen and grabbed the fire extinguisher as you put out the fire in the oven through the smoke. You waited until the smoke cleared died a bit and opened all the windows starting from the far end of the house to let fresh air in while expelling the black smoke from the charred roast. You spent hours that night cleaning up the kitchen so your mother wouldn’t have to go through the agonizing physical labor on top of the excruciating guilt of realizing she had almost set both of you up in flames. It was midnight when you were done cleaning the house including the kitchen to the best of your ability. You were so tired you could barely hear the muffled sound of Lily around the house. Too tired to search for her, you called out to Lily to no avail. “Lily” you called out to the cat “the games over now. It’s been over awhile. Don’t you know we almost died because mommy was so sad??? Lily?” You heard a few more muffled meows from Lily until their was only silence. “Okay, Lily” you called out to the cat again “I’m tired too. I’ll see you tomorrow on our special day. Goodnight, kitty!”

      “The next morning, you awoke to find your mother in the middle of the kitchen floor on her knees weeping uncontrollably. You rushed by your mothers’ side and hugged her tightly. ‘It’s okay, mommy’ you whispered by your mothers’ ear “I was awake. I took care of everything. It’s okay. We’re okay.’ ‘Oh, baby!’ your mother hugged you back tightly. ‘I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ll never let this happen again!’ You’re mother not only lived up to her promise to be diligent regarding your well being from then on but held you in the highest regard because of your actions that day that saved both your lives and awakened her from deep depression. She made certain you were enrolled in the best schools, you received the best education and rewarded you for your outstanding work. She was always by your side but something else happened that same night that would haunt your subconscious for years to come. You kept it buried deep in your psyche so you would never blame your mothers’ carelessness or your limitations that night. It wasn’t until the next day you discovered where Lily was ‘hiding’. That night you cleaned the entire apartment for your mother except for your own room. The very last corner of the room you neatened was where you threw your robe in a hurry to put the fire out in the kitchen in time. It was lying on top of a closed cooler by the bookshelf. An instant before you moved to touch it you felt a sharp chill realizing the last visual you had of Lily. You took a deep breath as you opened the cooler hatch without closing your eyes. Lily had suffocated throughout the night trapped in the empty cooler, where you had randomly tossed your robe over to attend to the kitchen fire. You cried silently as you shut the cooler again. It was unbearable for you to see Lily lying lifelessly still with her tongue stretched out to gasp a final breath before her demise. You never mentioned this to anyone, especially your mother. The next night you took the cooler in secret to the building garbage bin and discarded Lily in the cooler there. It was the second most devastating event that took place in your life besides your parents divorce and you handled them both with such astounding courage, Summer. Neither was any of your fault.”

     “Doctor” I bit my lower lip slightly “that’ll do, thank you. For now, please identify the people in these pictures. Thank you.”

     “Of course, Miss Holden” the doctor obliged with the utmost respect toward me as he looked over the photo albums I handed to him to gaze over.

      He identified nearly every immediate and distant relative in my photo album. It was impressive. He even pointed out people who were not blood related, related through marriage or mere friends. Although as uncomfortable as it was to hear him tell the tale of my late cat Lily, it was all the proof I needed to know that he was telling the truth about him knowing me from a separate timeline. I just wanted to cover all angles and of course move on to subjects that would distract me from the terrible memory he described to me so vividly about Lily and my mother that holiday season. I also gave him other trinkets, jewelry and other personal effects that he also accurately identified, describing in full detail what each one meant to me personally. After an hour of testing his knowledge of me I was satisfied and unnerved enough to move on to him.

     “Okay, Doctor” I smiled as I removed our empty dishes from the table. “I’m going to fetch us a healthy bottle of Shiraz while you prepare to discuss your story, what happened to you, how it’s affecting our reality and what we can do to fix it, or do you prefer white?”

      Confused at first, the humble doctor chuckled and answered “No red wine is perfect. Thank you again, Miss Holden”

      “Alright, then” I kept my smile giving the doctor a quick friendly wink and headed toward the kitchen allowing us both breath to prepare for what I’m sure would be the most unbelievable story anyone has ever heard.

        “Thank you, again, Miss Holden” The good Doctor and I toasted to the salvation of our realities as we took our first sips of the Shiraz. “I can’t remember the last time I had the luxury of enjoying a fine wine in a beautiful house by a magnificent Fireplace hosted by one of the most gorgeous women to walk the earth”

        “I’ll cheers again to that, my good doctor” We laughed together as we tipped our glasses together “but I’m certain that isn’t true. A fine man such as yourself must recall at least a few moments of glamour and indulgence”.

       “I’m sure you’re right, my lady” the doctor held a melancholic expression once more “but since my journey into the splicing the astral psychic time stream, I’ve lived at least two of my lifetimes in alternate worlds, so you could say I’ve developed a sort of temporal Alzheimers disease. I’m aging at a rapid rate, Summer. Although, I don’t look it, I’m several years older than you but if you would measure my lifespan in combination of two successful attempts to physically relive my past through astral projection, I’m well over two centuries old and I’m not certain if the human mind is ready to sustain such information. Of course, it all depends on the psyche of the individual. The limits of the mind are still uncharted. If one truly believes oneself to be omnipotent, then there is a small possibility of that coming into fruition but of course, I’m just too educated and stubborn to grasp on thin possibilities based on faiths so I dare not attempt another self-hypnotic stasis or my mind could very well shut down permanently.”

    “So, you’re mind is aging faster than your physical body because you haven’t yet discovered a way to use more of your mind to store all two centuries worth of information from two separate realities?” I couldn’t believe I was actually having this conversation with someone.

      “Precisely!” he smiled joyously after another heavy gulp of wine “this is rather good! What year is this?”

       Without asking, he grabbed the bottle and sobbed incredibly slowly as he saw the year on the bottle “1998… what a wonderful year. In either reality, I always felt something special about that year…”

       The doctor slowly put the bottle back from where he took it and apologized as he sobbed silently. I felt very much for the good doctor but was beginning to become concerned about his getting too drunk for us to solve the temporal interference he’d created.

      “Doctor” I called politely “Tyler…” I touched his shoulder gently “ we must be strong enough to get through this and resolve this paradox. I can’t help you if you fall to pieces on me, okay?”

      “Yes” the doctor composed himself as he took a deep breath and wiped his tears away “I’m good. No where were we?”

      “You were about to tell me how you interfered with the time stream, why you did it and how we can resolve it.” I made certain I stared directly into the doctors eyes firmly without intimidating him or giving the wrong impression, speaking as slowly and carefully as possible without insulting the man. 

      “Yes, yes, of course… you’re right” the doctor recovered his senses and began to finally tell his story.

      “I remember everything changing in me emotionally after that one last session I had with you in our initial reality, where I hypnotized you in order for you to reveal your most troubling secret, which was of course, the accidental death of your cat Lily, which you subconsciously blame yourself and your mother for.” He paused for a moment as he took a long healthy breath and sipped more wine. “ Now, I’ve had an extensive clientele in my career after college, particularly while working for our company H.P. Organ. Out of so many borderline psychopaths and emotionally disturbed people I’ve come across, you; a completely remarkable woman by all accounts struck me with such empathy as I’d never felt before. The bravery you’ve had to develop from fighting off such an introverted pain was something that was rare to witness. As a teen, because of your parents’ crushing divorce, you as inherently intelligent as you already were, developed a strong moral character and defined sense of responsibility to fill in the lack of structure the divorce left you to deal with, along with your mother. I’ve never known anyone to experience and surpass so much internal devastation as you have on your own. The damage was still there however and I sought out external help to ensure that your case was handled delicately and appropriately. Your experiences also helped me realize that there were repressed emotions of my own I had not yet resolved and in order to truly heal you of your pain stemmed from an innocent age, I would have to psychically cleanse myself first. Instead of going through the arduous, long process of finding the right psychiatrist for me; a psychiatrist, I looked over and read a book written by a psychiatrist who became a pariah in the main stream scientific community because of his research on taboo hypnotic methods relating to healing psychic wounds by time traveling through astral projections. He then concluded that ultimate positive effect it would have on a patient would be giving them the option to erase the traumatic event from even occurring by creating a new event in your own time stream. Of course, I was merely interested in his early work, which he earned his originally profound reputation for self-hypnotic practices. This also caused an up roar in the scientific community, particularly in the area of psychiatrics, since some doctors were afraid patients or potential patients would some how not only get a hold of this book written for doctors only but learn to utilize it as well. Eventually, Milo Kawasaki, the now notorious psychiatrist was praised for his outstanding work in the field of psychiatry, becoming the psychiatrists’ psychiatrist in a sense, since his research was done to improve the abilities of psychiatrists all over the world to thoroughly treat themselves through self-hypnosis. This was my main objective, somewhere through my self-hypnosis, I entered the astral realm with my psyche and traveled back in time, mentally into my own physical body in the past through my initial time line.”

     The Doctor paused for a moment to have another brief sip of wine again.

    “At the beginning everything went as expected according to Dr. Kawasaki’s instructions in his book.” Dr. Jenkins began to explain the rare self-hypnotic process “I remember experiencing R.E.M. while trying to keep part of my conscious active during that state as I drifted into the dream realm. It was in that state of sub-consciousness, where both the conscious and sub-conscious connect, that I was supposed to dissect my own dreams through my astral body in the astral plane, which was what I was doing as I peered through memories, fantasies and factual information gathered in my mind from past experiences. There were even deeper hidden realms in my mind that seemed dormant. Information that was closely related to the primal area or instinctual side of the brain, such as involuntary movements and other fundamental knowledge stored in our minds from the time of our birth to ensure our survival. Of course, this is all common knowledge now but as I delved further into darker chambers of my mind in my dream state, deeper into the primal chambers of my mind I faced a tremendous force of resistance from the astral plane as if I stumbled upon another creatures’ territory. Perhaps this is what eventually caused Dr. Kawasaki’s stroke during his sleep. He must have walked through forbidden territory of a part of our minds we aren’t yet ready to control yet. I believe, I know that I successfully broke this barrier. I felt an overwhelming amount of psyche numbing pain that I’ve never known as I fought against the shadowed barriers of the primal dormant corners of my mind. The pain was so excruciating, I felt my vision turn from black to blinding white light to nothingness until I finally regained complete consciousness. I woke up Summer…”

      “Now mind you, my initial intent in self-hypnosis was to treat myself, not to explore the vastness of the human mind through the astral plane. I admit it was foolish of me to do and dangerous obviously but I’m a scientist… I was curious”. He laughed sadly as he took another slow sip of Shiraz.

      “I understand, Doctor” I assured him as I watched him poor himself another glass of wine. “Please continue…” I politely encouraged him.

      “The other mistake I made besides venturing off my objective” The doctor pressed on as he inhaled half of another glass of wine “… was that my conscious state of my astral body was not focused on a specific memory, emotion or mission as I wandered through that dark uncharted region of the most primal corner of the mind. Since I wasn’t able to heal my psyche first, the unresolved thoughts, memories and feelings of my conscious were vulnerable to the abstract external ancient forces of my primal side of my subconscious entity.”

    “ My subconscious side of my astral body had compromised my astral form in its’ entirety” The good Doctor continued “ since the subconscious aspect of my psyche became dominant by locking on to one unresolved emotion I was facing through a memory that my conscious mind had not yet recognized. With that being the case, my conscious astral properties were not enough to intervene with the psychic downward temporal spiral that was created when I neglected to deal with the unresolved emotions of this deeply repressed memory I was hiding in my primal functions of my subconscious psyche, I foolhardily forced my astral body toward. In essence, I had created an astral or psychic black hole within my own psyche by aggravating an old psychic wound without taking precautionary steps to avoid further psychic trauma and transported my current psyche into the physical body as well as time of when that repressed memory occurred. My present psyche of that moment traveled back in time through the astral plane and inhabited the physical form of my mid teen years, switching my psyche of my past teen years with my current comatose body locked in hypnosis.”

      The doctor paused for what seemed to be a brief forlorn moment of reflection and continued. “ This was the afternoon before I’d finally unite with my wife at the night of my senior prom. I was made anxious by a friend of mine at the time when he assured me I’d definitely lose my virginity that night to my prom date. My nerves were nearly jumping out of my skin at each moment, which seemed to stretch for hours. The fear that stayed with me was knowing that night that whether seemingly deliberate or coincidental, chance incidents usually drastically dictate the direction of your life in some major way.”

      The good Doctor paused again and winced slightly as if a sharp pain suddenly stabbed him from in his chest. He brushed it aside with a strong smile when he saw me reach out to comfort him. I suppose my company and concern was comfort enough for a man to go through nearly two lifetimes of pain, loss aggravated with never ending frustration of failing to find a way to bring about closure to such random devastating mishaps. I allowed him as much time as he needed to collect himself. I could only imagine how agonizing of an existence it must be to keep chasing one reality after the next to no true avail until you can’t recognize your own soul or even physical reflection. The good Doctor continued with the rest of his story once more.

      “I was lucky and passionate that night. I always held a deep fear of what my life could have been like if I had missed such a precious opportunity to unite with my future wife that night. I’ve always been grateful for every sacred moment of my life with her but at the same time I was terribly haunted by the notion that somewhere in the random access realms of time and space in our unseen multiverse of realities, exists a timeline where my wife and I had never shared our sacred union together. This is exactly what I experienced, combined with what turned into our current time stream when I forced my pre-mature astral body into the darkest primal recesses of my untapped psyche. I lost my wife in less than a blink of any eye… and without her the rest of my life followed a multi-abysmal temporal path that has left me a shadow of a shell of a man I thought I once remembered but eviscerated out of existence.”

                          Second Hand News

       “Once the conscious side of my astral body surrendered itself to the overwhelming dominance of my subconscious, the closer I forced my astral body into the darker primal recesses of my psyche, I was swallowed into the psychic black hole that was ignited from that internal psychic warfare. The darkness that enveloped me made the shadows engulfing my primal psyche seem like sharp beams of light. Soon after the all encompassing darkness, there was just nothing. No color, no scent, there was nothing to feel at all. For a millisecond, there was nothing to question because there was the most frightening moment of my life. Although it was a short enough lapse in time to question it’s occurrence at all, it felt like an eternity of dying. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, like a concussive blow across my skull or reemergence from a deep lake after nearly drowning, I was bathed in the most vision piercing bright white wall of light. This occurrence was just as short as the inexplicable well of nothingness that proceeded to the dark abysmal psychic hole but felt like a split second of every painful way to either exit or enter into existence. Luckily, I exited and entered existence at once to jump from our initial times from into my past where I was a teen. My psyche had swapped timelines through astral means between my past and future selves.  My teen body became inhabited by my elder psyche while my elder body held the psyche of my teenage mind in a comatose state during my deep self hypnotic sleep which can only be broken when my correct psyche was reunited with it’s initial physical body.”

        “When my psyche finally rebirthed itself into consciousness the blinding white wall around me dissipated into light reflected off of the environment I awoke into. Instant blurred vision of green blue, red, violet and yellow swarmed around my vision like an encompassing physical kaleidoscope of atmosphere. Once my vision refocused into a sharp HD lens allowing me to see the details of my new environment. I experienced my very first heart attack. As soon as I could see trees, houses and two young familiar men beside me, I felt my heart skip painfully followed by extreme dizziness and blacked out once more. Although it felt longer initially, my subconscious was on it’s own once again disconnected from my conscious as usual so I couldn’t feel or be aware of how long I was passed out. I only felt the slight comfort of my existence assured. When I finally regained consciousness in my new environment naturally, slowly, I’d momentarily wished for non-existence. I learned where and when I was, along with what had changed in my past life.  As a result of my brief nearly fatal heart attack that resulted from my temporal journey into my past through my psychic avatar of the astral world I’d formed my mind into during the dream state of my self-hypnosis in my initial present timeline, I feared for my existence for the first time in my life.

      “I think he’s coming around” I heard a familiar voice as I slowly opened my eyes. I could feel my body in an oddly comfortably horizontal position.

       “Sssshhhh” There was another familiar voice I heard hush the previous voice. “He’s been out for almost twenty hours. Do you want to put him into shock again?”

         There was a light over me. It wasn’t too bright given normal conditions but it wasn’t bright enough for me at my waking state to carefully open my eyes, taking longer time than I’d like to revert my eye sight back to their normal 20/20 vision from blurriness that kept me from knowing if it was day or night.

          “… Sorry” The first voice I heard apologized in whispers to the previous voice that hushed him.

          At last, my vision returned to normal and I could see everything and everyone around me. The shades were drawn slightly open in the white room I was lying in bed in to reveal that it was in fact sometime around the early afternoon. I instantly knew I was in a hospital bed. There were three familiar young men at my bedside staring at me with relieved smiles … but it couldn’t be them. They were so young. These were my friends from high school. I’d just been accepted to one of the most exclusive colleges around that time including them. I knew it was around our senior year because Tom was wearing a class of ’96 T-Shirt. It was brand new. We’d just graduated and the prom was at that very same night. It was at that prom where I would meet my future wife.

     The voice I first heard was Tom’s. He was always overly amorous. He was a hyper-thin, long, haired, computer addict who refused to wear contacts. He constantly wore huge bi-focal glasses that magnified his naturally huge blue eyes. He was highly intelligent yet a walking calamity, sort of an affable asshole if such a thing is possible. With Tom, anything was possible, including becoming one of the leading software engineers of his time as well as marrying a very attractive super-model from Switzerland. We would have never expected him to be so successful, let alone become C.E.O. of a company.

      Jeffrey was the man who hushed Tom in his initial excitement of my revival. Jeffrey was a very serious student, not that Tom wasn’t but Jeffrey had a preternatural sense of professional ambition. He was the student that exceeded all of us at nearly every subject. Jeffrey caught the interest of every prestigious college around the country, even others internationally.

      “How are you feeling, Tyler?” Jeffrey asked me with a firm cool tone that relaxed me enough to think clearly despite the confusion and frustration of coming to terms with the fact that I’ve just awoke into a time long past around friends who are as they were when we were teens all in full view in a hospital bed.

      “… Uuuhhmm…… okay, I guess…” I answered my old friend Jeffrey with a carefully deliberate groggy voice. “What happened…”

       “Man” Another smart, more charismatic, gentle hearted friend of mine named Kyle immediately interjected the conversation to answer me “You had quite a spill. All of a sudden… out of no where while we were walking off campus down the grassy hill, your body jerked violently one moment, went limp the next and flogged your limbs around uncontrollably as you screamed. Then you fell down the hill with such an immense speed, we weren’t able to get a hold of you when your head hit the tree of the bottom of the hill…”

         Jeffrey gave Kyle a sharp look and shake of his head to signal a better topic to discuss.

         Kyle quickly caught Jeffrey’s cue. “We… we’re just glad that you’re going to be okay. The doctor said you could leave the hospital in a couple of days” His smile was a warm glow of reassurance and positivity that could inspire even the most cynical of hearts but my mind was obsessed with one thought.

        “…Caitlyn” I was still so weary from my accident I could barely speak clearly, let alone keep my eyes open for too long at a time. “The… the dance… where is … sh… she… Is the dance… uuhhh…” I closed my eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. When I opened my eyes they all eyed each other nervously as if I had brought up the death of a close relative. It was clear to me even in my weakened state that they were internally struggling to carefully choose a subtle way to answer my innocent concern regarding my true-life mate, Caitlyn.

        “Um…” Kyle nervously but carefully began to answer me “You’ve been unconscious for nearly two days now, Tyler… You missed the dance. In fact, we all practically missed the dance.”

         My mind was a rollercoaster ride full of angry termites. I could feel all the blood rush straight from my heart into my pupils as my jaw involuntarily slacked open and froze along with every inch of my flesh as my soul melted away with cold sweat.

          “Yeah” Tom cut into the conversation “We all basically missed the dance. Even though our parents forced us to go, we just didn’t feel right without you there…. “

          “So” My good friend Jeffrey firmly but cautiously laid his hand on my right shoulder as he smiled warmly at me “We all pretty much spent the past two days here with you by your side, brother.”

           I was humbled by the purity of our friendship. I always knew my friends were loyal to each other regardless of any situation but this was the first time I had experienced such a deep commitment to each other in all the years I’ve known them. I was so touched by the undeniable stamp of true friendship my brothers have confessed to me, I momentarily forgot about…

             “Caitlyn…” I cleared my throat to ensure my words came across accurately “Where’s Caitlyn? Does she know where I am?” 

              The looks on all three of their faces went completely white as if they’d smelled rotten eggs or seen a gruesome accident. I smirked nervously a little.

              “What?” I began to feel more disconcerted by the moment “W… what is it? Is she alright?... What’s going on? What happened? Where is Caitlyn!?”

                Tom was about to speak first to answer my frantic question regarding Caitlyn but was cut short by Kyle, allowing Jeffrey to slowly sit beside my hospital bed and softly relay all he knew regarding Caitlyn. The news regarding what happened to my beloved Caitlyn during and after the dance because of my absence from the sincere empathetic lips of my best friend was both unnervingly, shocking, appalling and excruciatingly horrifying, staining my heart with irreparable blackness.

                Apparently, Caitlyn did pay me a visit at the hospital and grieved deeply with her closest girlfriends at my her side along with my true friends. After nearly 30 minutes of crying at my bedside and holding my hand, Caitlyn’s friends slowly guided my beloved out of my hospital room sobbing in their escort.

               “So they took her home, of course…” I unwittingly interrupted Jeffrey “She was too upset to go to the dance, especially without a date…”

               Jeffrey very patiently laid his hand on my shoulder once more and painfully continued with the story of Caitlyn’s new past.

            “Yes, Tyler…” Jeffrey sighed as he shut his eyes for a moment “that’s what we all reasonably assumed and trusted her friends to do as they led her away from us but as we sometimes tend to forget, nine out of ten times events or people are often inspired by irrational, visceral instincts that govern most of the worlds destiny.”

             Under normal circumstances, I would allow myself to bask under Jeffrey’s rare sharp intellect and poetic manner of speaking. It was never a surprise to any of us when he became a successful novelist. It took him awhile but when his first successful book was published, we all celebrated like Rock Stars at a renaissance birthing a never-ending Christmas on a tropical island getaway. The party was exactly how I just described it… if I’ll be able to attend now that I’ve altered my future timeline intermingled with other peoples lives in now in question.   

                “The opposite of our assumptions were what in fact actually occurred” Jeffrey tried to avoid looking directly into my eyes as he continued with the story. “Since the dance was finished by the time the girls left us at the hospital and were unsuccessful at cheering poor Caitlyn up, they decided to have a daring girls night out at an after party at a college near by. They rushed to Xavier College where the Ravagers Star Football team won their thousandth victory against whomever they were playing. I’m not sure why the girls decided to take Caitlyn, who was obviously vulnerable and distressed from witnessing her date in a coma, to one of the most notorious frat parties in this state. I don’t want to drag this story on any further than needed Tyler because none of the three of us had witnessed the events first hand but according to her friends, who were of course disturbed and guilty regarding the events that surrounded Caitlyn that night, Caitlyn had one drink that was spiked by an unknown source. As she was lethargically wandering around the frat house Leroy Bison, the Ravagers big dumb muscle headed quarter back literally picked Caitlyn up and brought her to one of the master bedrooms in the house with a group of his closest muscle head team mates behind him. I’m sorry Tyler, unfortunately Caitlyn was taken advantage of by Leroy and the other Ravagers that night. Although people claim one of the Ravagers had a digital video recording camera on while they disappeared with Caitlyn into the room and heard sounds of loud drunken moaning, men laughing, cheering no one can prove that Caitlyn was date raped unless she steps forward. So far she’s claimed to be ill and hasn’t left her house. She refuses to speak to anyone. I’m so sorry Tyler. I’m so sorry.”

          I couldn’t move. I was without breath and catatonically bereft of any recognizable heartbeat or pulse for a moment. Jeffrey froze as well as he realized his apology made my body stiffen and tighten even more.

           “Tyler…” Kyle motioned gently to get my attention by reaching out and innocently waving his hand toward me. “Are you…”

             I interrupted him as I saw him stepping closer toward me “I’m sorry brothers. I do appreciate your company and you are indeed the most worthy friends anyone could ever hope for but I need to ask you all to leave me in this room by myself for an hour or so, if you don’t mind…” 

              “Of course…” Jeffrey nodded firmly with respect to my wishes “Let’s leave our brother in peace gentlemen.”

              The others obeyed my request with the same passion as they headed toward the door. Just before Jeffrey closed the door behind them he said to me “We’ll be in the waiting room Tyler… call us if you need anything at all brother.”

               “Of course” I replied with a helplessly sad smile “Thank you Jeffrey. I will. You are the best friend one could ever hope to know.”

                Jeffrey nodded and smiled humbly at my compliment to him as he closed the door behind him.

               The Cracked Hearted Time Bandit

        I was alone. I was more alone than I’d ever known myself to be. As I laid in a cheap hospital bed in a white room trapped in my teenage body in an alternate nightmarish timeline I’ve created because I was inspired to analyze myself through experimental self-hypnosis and inadvertently propel my psyche into the dormant astral realm of my mind temporally mind swapping consciousness with different timelines. My curiosity had gotten the better of me. Before properly analyzing my psyche, I fool hardily ventured into the primal depths of my subconscious and allowed my fundamental fears to direct my astral pathway into the past. In effect, my primal fears took control of my psyche as I forced my way into the uncharted regions of our mind in my subconscious state and became my new reality by taking advantage of my unconditioned mind during time travel. Not being able to physical adapt to the time shock of my psyche swapping bodies through my time stream, I experienced a heart attack at a pivotal moment in my life where I would meet my one true love. My beautiful green eyed, fair peach skinned, red-haired voluptuously fit bodied future wife, Caitlyn who due to my accident by temporal technicalities was raped by a monstrous brutish football jock and his horde of vile goons. Caitlyn was a virgin for Christ’s sake. I used all of the strength I could use to block out images of her clothes being pealed off by those horny meat headed jock assholes. I tried not to envision the heart breaking shrieks from Caitlyn as they forced their slimy, filthy, stinking cocks into her tight pink vagina or any other place like her sweet precious mouth or her anal cavity if they were diabolical enough to engage such a violent act on such an innocent girl. I desperately tried my hardest not to envision how many of those Ogres ejaculated overflowing amounts of jock cum on my beloveds sweet face, lips, mouth, perky firm breasts, pink nipples, ass and back. What if they impregnated her??? !!!  AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

      Don’t worry, I didn’t actually scream aloud, it was in my mind along with my torture and troubles.  I was beyond livid. I tried not to think of the filmed atrocities that most likely happened to my ex-future beloved but I failed again. I let me fears consume my conscious mind as well as my sub-conscious and allowed a dark rage I never new could exist within me to come into fruition. I wanted blood. Vengence. I wanted the most agonizing slow gruesome death to befall upon all those responsible for the sexual ravaging of my beloved Caitlyn and above all I had to go back further into my past through my time stream through astral projection by self-hypnosis to set my time stream back to it’s initial direction. My psyche was aflame with devastation, time lag, hatred, depression and unrelenting fury due to temporal psychic wounds. I was in no condition to make another astral jump. I was aware of the logic of waiting until I collected my rationale and was calm enough to successfully create a temporal push upon my psyche to be exactly where I wanted to be. The pain of knowing I inadvertently created a timeline where my future wife was sexually devoured by cretins before we united in love was too much for me to bear. I succumbed to my deepest animal instincts and let my heated emotions guide me into more time-crossed oblivion. My psyche was already abysmally unsound due to the appalling consequences of my initial astral jump. I just couldn’t remain in this reality any longer. Every second that past terrified me the more I realized that the longer I stayed in this time stream, the more singular it will become. I was desperate to leave. I did the second worst thing to do in an astral jump, unless it’s an emergency. I hypnotized myself once more with a mind full of emotional static, merciless anger, pain, guilt, depression and panic. Worst of all, I under estimated the danger of astral jumping through time as carelessly as I did. I believed that any change in my time stream would be better than inadvertently creating a reality where my future wife would be lost physically, psychically and emotionally to the hands of brainless perverted brutes. As hard as it is for me to believe even now, I was wrong.

                  The Astral Hole has no Exit

       Using all of the knowledge I’ve acquired from Dr. Kawasaki’s hidden journals, I made another temporal jump back further into my timeline. Unfortunately, due to the first astral jump, I created a timeline where not only would I miss the opportunity to blissfully unite with my future wife but she experienced irreparable physical and emotional harm at the hands of cretins I could not protect her from. I could not protect her because I was not prepared for the astral jump into my own timeline that nearly killed me, putting me in the hospital with no one but my oldest, truest friends to watch over me during the most distressful moment of my life, that I inadvertently created for myself. Filled with a dark passionate rage I’ve never known before, I closed my eyes. After hearing about the sexual violation my beloved Caitlyn suffered at the hands of brutish jocks as a result of my absence at the dance due to the near fatal injury I suffered from the temporal jump, I asked my close friends who delivered this horrifying news to me to leave me in my hospital room for a moment. I attempted another dangerous astral jump further back into my timeline to set my future in the direction it was initially meant to follow. The same sensations of the temporal jump I’d first experienced fell upon me once again but this time with more intensity and agonizing pain. I used my anger to fight through these metaphysical obstacles. The more I pushed myself, the longer I seemed to exist in the astral realm but I was beyond persistent. My true love was violently taken away from me and it was my fault. I had to set things right and not even the very fabric of time and space could keep me from correcting the mistake I’ve made. Little did I know that the universe itself was only trying to warn me, to guide me in the correct path in accomplishing what I had set my mind to do. My anger had blinded me so that I was unable to notice this warning or if I did for a brief moment, I had bitterly ignored it to my own dismay.

       When I finally awoke again, I felt such incredible physical energy and awareness as though every cell in my body was notably younger than before. I was younger. In fact, I skipped years I had not intended to. My psychic drive must have pushed my mind like a slingshot into the past once the astral realm allowed me to enter the temporal hole. I was in a large auditorium, with other students my age. I psychically travelled back to my last year of Junior High. This was another pivotal moment of my life. We were all taking an extremely important and difficult exam that would determine our scholastic as well as professional future. This was the most nerve wracking experience my mind has ever had to endure. I remember my nose bleeding during the exam due to the immense pressure of succeeding. I couldn’t let my father down. My mother had such faith and was so proud of me that she made me a big special healthy breakfast that I barely managed to hold down during the exam. Unfortunately, my psyche wasn’t the same juvenile mind that inhabited my body at that moment in time. My thirteen year old psyche temporally transferred into my late teenage body I departed from asleep in the hospital during my aggressive self- hypnosis, so any pressure I had already accumulated due to my extreme nervousness regarding the exam as a pre-teen resonated in my physical body. Combined with the insurmountable fury that had escalated from my previous experience in my late teen years from the initial time jump, where my timeline was damaged severely, I was unfortunately unable to hold down the pre-celebratory breakfast my mother made for me. The poor girl sitting in front of me suffered the aftermath of my regurgitation of sustenance. I threw up all over the back of her long blonde hair and then once again, I fainted.

     At least, I didn’t speed fall down a grassy hill and get my head slammed into the base of a thick tree trunk. Instead of waking up at another hospital, I awoke in the nurses office with my parents by my side. They were both deeply concerned about my welfare but I couldn’t help but notice my fathers’ disappointment with me by missing this important exam due to a nervous involuntary reaction. He tried to hide his expression but it was painfully obvious that he was embarrassed by me from what happened. I’d never known him to be disappointed with me in anything I’ve ever done, until now. I’ve never felt so ashamed in my life, especially under my fathers’ eyes. All I wanted to do was repair the temporal damage I’ve done to my previous time stream I interrupted but I seem to have merely created an abysmal astral hole I’m unable to escape from or repair.

       There was still hope for me to set my time line to its initial state again or so I thought. Of course, I was allowed to retake the exam due to the extreme nature of my condition during the original exam time. If my pre adolescent mind was capable of acing this entrance exam, then my adult mind was most certainly capable of achieving the same results if not surpassing them. What I was unprepared for was what I mentioned to you earlier regarding my current condition and the temporal side effects the astral plane had on my physical mind and body due to the extreme transfer of psychic entities during the dream state of my self-hypnosis. The immense strain on my mind through each astral jump caused parts of my mind to deteriorate slowly but drastically. I contracted a form of temporal Alzheimer’s disease. I was not only losing my intellectual instincts but memories in each timeline I was apart of including this one. I failed the exam on my second attempt. It was the first time I’d ever failed anything in my life. I was ashamed and utterly disappointed in myself to the point of deep depression. My parents’ reaction to my failure didn’t help either. I was treated with borderline neglect. It was as if the only way for my father to cope with such a complete failure after such a long history of success was to pretend I didn’t exist. My mother treated me with another extreme, which was spoiling me to the point of disabling my self-esteem, confidence and ability to adapt to stressful situations due some sort of misplaced empathy or guilt regarding what happened to me. I wish I could have been able to tell them who I really was and what had actually occurred but I was afraid the consequences of such a hasty action would result in dredging my life into further ruin. At this point, I was afraid they’d commit me to a psychiatric hospital if I made any remotely strange actions.  The condition of my mind was also a serious concern to me. Even though I was decades away from the proper technology as well as too physically young to be allowed to operate a neuro-scanner of that time to properly determine the state of my psyche. With all of these obstacles against me due to my own recklessness, I decided to lay low, keep my head down and somberly accept my new fate as a mediocre individual with an empty future. I was already physically, psychically and emotionally fatigued after all of the astral jumps I put my psyche and body through. I was too vulnerable to attempt another temporal mind swap, afraid my mind would destroy itself in the process of another forceful transfer. 

      So I kept a private journal, a sort of time traveling book of memoirs, basically a back-up data base for any memories I had at the time of each timeline I traveled through. I was correct regarding the permanent vulnerable state of my psyche. There are very few memories I have now that are vividly accurate in my mind when compared to certain chapters in one of my books you saw me writing in earlier today in the food court sector of H.P. Organ. The rest of my memories are a blur. If I never kept a journal at all I wouldn’t be able to describe my own twisted meta-physical journey through my own timeline. For a long while, I began to question my sanity, especially when I desperately took up work as a custodian for H.P. Organ. Of course, I knew why I began working a there as a lowly Janitor instead of the corporate Psychiatrist. The last daunting incident of my last time jump, closed many options anyone could hope for to successfully achieve a comfortable future. The company name was also written in capital letters, instructing me to find work there as if it were detrimental toward my destiny. After years of quietly working as a Custodian at H.Q. Organ, I kept my suspicion of being a delusional psychopath to myself but continued to write about every second of my life because of the condition of my deteriorating mind. It was only a matter of time before it would be gone completely. Fortunately, you engaged me and I recognized you to my surprised disbelief. Thanks to you, Miss Holden, I know now that I’m not insane. I’m certain there is hope for us to set our time stream on it’s correct path despite the innocent meddling of my astral projections back through time. Your pain, your strength inspired me to face my fears and analyze myself. In spite of the damage I’ve done to our time stream because of the inspiration I received from your past stories, perhaps there was something completely wrong with our initial timeline to begin with. Perhaps, you were meant to work here as a result of your past oppression and eventually meet me to become inspired by your courageous spirit to self- diagnose myself by analyzing my psyche through Dr. Kawasaki’s forbidden journals to break the time line in order to truly set it right in the first place. It’s too late for me, Miss Holden. I’ve done my part already. In fact, I feel as though I’m merely a pawn to be sacrificed in this temporal war that has begun. Everything now points to you, Summer. The future of our world, our destiny lies in your hands. Your decision will permanently affect the souls of every corner of the universe in whichever reality you create. I’m sorry emphasize so much pressure upon such a delicate and beautiful soul but you are the catalyst for the redemption of our reality. I believe your, mind , body and soul are all powerful enough to withstand the dark unknown forces of the astral place within the dream state of our subconscious world. I will remain here to guide you through your journey. This is what I’ve finally accepted as my sole purpose in this time line. It’s now up to you to make a decision, Summer. Will you save us, with my guidance?

                     Strangers in Paradise

              I couldn’t help but feel immense sympathy for this poor sad broken man who, I, like a whirlwind rushed into my life. I’m still a bit shaken and disturbed by his incredible story but I can’t deny the insurmountable evidence regarding his knowledge of my deepest, most intimate details, I’ve never told a soul plainly written in one of his cheap composition notebooks, dating back to his teens, while he was still picking up the pieces of his vanishing memories. I’ve never met him in this timeline. In fact, we have never met each other in this time line earlier than yesterday afternoon but we have in another reality. Apparently, both those realities are troubled and according to this unsung time martyr, I’m the true messiah of our multi-verse and it’s my time to unite all realities into one perfect singular time stream. I was terribly frightened by every factor of these, turn of events, conceptually and literally but I was passionately curious and excited as well. How could I possibly turn down the opportunity to become a New Goddess among the old? 

                “Of Course, I’ll help you, Tyler” I smiled softly to my old new friend as I moved closer to him and grasped his hand firmly by the fireplace. I looked carefully into his ice blue eyes and saw beyond his sadness into purity, truth and love. I took another sip of wine with him as we stared at each other almost longingly. Both of us have been abused, tortured and gone through a rare violating pain few would understand.

                  “Thank you so much, my dear Summer” Tyler said with an underlying confidence and joy rising from his weary voice as he stared deeper into my eyes by the heat of the fire light.

                  I blushed and felt warmer inside than the fire beside us as he stared into my eyes and thanked me. Although, he was man of sorrow, his virtue, intellect, courage and honesty made him wondrously attractive to me. I could only guess what he thought of me as we held hands tighter by my fireplace. I became increasingly shy and a little insecure as the moments of silence filled the room along with the warmth of the fire competing with the fierce beating of our hearts longing to reach one another through the passion of flesh. I couldn’t look away from him. I was too stubborn to even admit to my own bashfulness or modesty. Perhaps it was a survival instinct of mine but I could not abide the long silence for too long and finally answered him as I carefully cleared my throat.

           “You don’t have to thank me at all, Tyler” I said to him softly without taking my eyes of his “I should be thanking you for waking me out of everyone you might have known to help you in your quest to fulfill our universes natural course of action by dispelling it’s true oppressors. I only hope my mind is strong enough to handle the astral realm.”

          “Of course it is, Summer” I couldn’t have shared my experiences through the multi-verse with anyone else but you. You were the reason why, I felt obligated to face the unknown regions of my mind. Your courage and strength throughout all the atrocities you’ve been through gave me hope that we are much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. First the divorce of your parents, your mothers’ spiritual breakdown and finally that moment at H.P. Organ where the head banker of your team at the time threatened to put your name at the head of the termination list if you didn’t surrender your body for his unseemly, despicable appetites. After all of these atrocities, you still held your self-esteem together. You kept your confidence high and your spirit strong but somewhere along the way your heart closed tightly like a cold vice, closing yourself off to any pure genuine friendship. You became ashamed of allowing anyone to know the severity of what you’ve truly been through, even yourself. This is why you felt more at ease through my hypnosis treatments and you became happier, more confident and joyous. I, however was left incredibly disturbed by your suffering. I was infuriated that someone as truly courageous, kind hearted and pure would be subjected to such oppression by the petty monsters that live beside us. I felt that our reality was diseased and I decided that Dr. Kawasaki’s self-hypnosis was an ideal step in healing us of our own oppression. Who better to liberate us from our own darkness but ourselves? I knew I had to cleanse my psyche of my own fears and shadows before I introduce my findings to other scientists and patients but I was distracted by the vast unknown wells of power within our minds through our dream state of our astral world. Due to my recklessness of focusing on the first step, I passionately plunged my psyche into the dangers of the unknown fueled by an insatiable curiosity and thirst for power. Why do we continue to use only 8% of our brain power? Why can’t we access the rest of our natural psychic abilities? What happens if we can actually activate those dormant realms in our minds? Imagine the possibilities, Summer! Would our desires be as limitless as our powers? Would we be unstoppable?”    

          At last, I could see a glow about his face. I smiled at him with more warmth as I refreshed our glasses with more wine.

         “You’ll have to teach me how to astral jump if we’re to do this together” I winked at him as I sipped my third glass of wine. He looked down slightly after I said this to him with a melancholic expression but quickly found his lovely smile again that I grew to love with each moment.

         “Unfortunately, I can’t be able to astral jump with you, my dear Summer” he said warmly as he delicately caressed my left cheek with his right hand. I closed my eyes as I surrendered my face to every subtle movement of his fingers. “but I can show you what needs to be done for you to travel back into your own time stream, of course. When should we begin?”

          I slowly put my wine glass down on the table as I pulled his hand gently from my chin down above my breasts as I looked thoughtfully into his blue eyes once more “It’s getting rather late, Tyler… I think we should have ourselves a good rest before we change the fate of the universe. Let’s leave that for the morning, can’t we ?” 

          We both giggled as we stood up closer together nose to nose and lip to lip. He told me he doesn’t remember his first kiss. I simply put my finger against his lips and said “Sssshhh… let this be your very first…” I kissed Tyler softly at first guiding his lips on how to dominate mine. I moved his right hand around my waist as he gripped my rear firmly. He was now in control as I felt his left hand artfully guide the back of my head to direct my lips in sync with is kiss. I licked the side of his left cheek and whispered breathily in his ear “Let’s go to bed… upstairs in my room, Tyler… Come with me…”

           In seconds, we hurried up the stairs together as I led him to my master bedroom. Before we reached the balcony floor, Tyler surprisingly and literally swept me off my feet into his arms as I giggled like a college brat. I laughed even harder when he stopped as he reached the end of the stairs and asked cutely “Um… which room are we?”

          “Hahaha!” I pointed to the chamber door on the left of us “That way my fearless knight!” I kissed him fiercely on the neck as he firmly pushed my bedroom door open while holding me in his arms with my legs scissor crossing with sexual anticipation.

          “What a luxurious room you have, my love” He kissed me as he through me in mid laugh into my huge fluffy silk covered King Sized Chamber Bed. I immediately yelped with sexual frenzy as he peeled my stockings off from underneath my uni dark blue dress skirt with his leathery hands. I moaned deeply as my eyes rolled to the back of my skull as I felt his tongue follow his hands up my legs toward my thong. I pushed my head back deeper into my silk linen pillows as I felt his teeth against the edge of my vagina and pull my thong off with one tug of his mouth. I felt the cool sense of liberation as a cool night breeze entered my opened bedroom window caressing our increasingly unclothed flesh. Tyler’s tongue slid roughly against my other soft naked leg until finally… yessss… I bit my tongue sharply enough to nearly draw blood. If he lost all memory of any sexual activity, I’d imagine it has somehow been repressed in is subconscious. I caressed the back of his head with my fingers as his tongue teased my labia like two gloves to a punching bag. I yelped again, this time with piercing pitch as I came in Tyler’s mouth.

        “I’m sorry, baby” I lifted my head up to see his blue eyes from peeking at me from above my skirt.

       “Don’t be sorry at all, my love” I knew he was smiling by the glow of his eyes from my waist in the dim light of my bedroom.  I guided his face up to meet mine with my hands tugging his shirt off as I threw it casually over the head side of my bed.

       “Fuck me, Tyler” I clutched the left side of his head as I slid my left hand down his dirty jeans and felt his hot concrete hard thick pulsating dick ready to plunge itself into my wet tight pink throbbing vagina. “Fuck me like there will never be another tomorrow…”

         Tyler immediately peeled off my uni-work dress revealing every naked inch of my body to him under the dim light. I helped him throw my work dress randomly on the floor as we locked in passionate wet tonging kisses. I caressed his back as he licked my neck.

        “Bite me, baby” I breathed heavily in his ear.

       “Are you sure?” He whispered innocently.

       “YESSS!” I dug my nails in his back as he sunk his teeth deep into my flesh just enough not to draw blood. Tyler continued to bite and nibble several parts of my neck as well as just above my perky full breasts until his lips touched upon my nipples. He instantly suckled on each of my breasts like an insatiably thirsty newborn calf. When he allowed his tongue to fall into propeller motion across my nipples, I moaned as he held my back up tighter, covering my breasts with his saliva. I caressed his head firmly once again as I moaned loader. I used my other hand to help him remove his jeans as he flicked them off up in the air with his left foot. I felt and heard the hot meaty slap of his cock against my thigh and soon after he licked my nipples up to my lips, I felt his thick long hot stone hard cock phish it’s way, deep into my tight wet pink vagina. A thick gushing stream of tears poured out of my eyes as I clenched my hands on his rear and screeched as if I was being stabbed viciously. My blissful screaming continued as he pounded his manhood into my gushing wet pussy.

       Tyler stopped for a moment. “Are you okay?” he asked me again innocently by the pale moonlight.

      “Yes…” I laughed while trying to catch my breath “oh, God yes baby… This time grab my neck while you fuck me…”

        Tyler gave me a concerned look and it took me a second to realize exactly what he was thinking of. I rose up to meet him eye to eye surrounded by the dim lights of my candles and the moon.

      “I know that it’s what that horrible man did to me those years ago” I softly assured him as I whispered against his ear “but if I am to guide our universe toward it’s natural evolutionary path, I must meet my fears in the same confident breath as I would my most cherished fantasy… Our pain defines us as mush as any of our desires or fantasies. Some nightmares never disappear but just as a dream can be distorted by pain, the very same can be done to a nightmare through pleasure. So please, Tyler, be my savior and in one fell swipe smite my demons with their own venom while fulfilling my deepest fantasies…”

      Tyler was speechless after my words for a moment and finally he humbly smiled at me again with a gentle bow. “You truly are the one, my dear Summer.”

     “So are you…” I pulled his body closer to mine so are hearts could beat against both of our flesh. “Let’s just be one together…” We kissed with savory fire and with sweat and love juices flooding over bare flesh tempering explosive heart beats, we made hot loud passionate love until the break of dawn when we laid asleep in each others’ arms as the sunlight crept up on our naked bodies. 

    

                    One is the Loneliest Number

      It had to be at least one in the afternoon, when I finally awake naked next to my new equally nude unexpected lover with his eyes closed and arm around my waist on my left side. I was still so exhausted but pleasantly so with an unimaginable sense of intense sexual release. I’ve never had made amazing love like that since college. Everything seemed to move so beautifully slow, as if I we were held captive in a three-dimensional painting in lazy momentum. I smiled briefly at my unconscious lover as I made my way toward my bedroom water closet. I splashed warm water on my face from the sink as I saw my dopey smile frozen on my wet face. I jumped happily into the shower and turned the water to warm temperature slowly as I slithered my body into a joyous after-sex shower dance under the running water. I haven’t been this happy in as long as I could remember. I just wanted to hold every moment from last night to now deep into my heart forever and only know these precious moments to be my only reality. I must believe this to be sooth, otherwise this life would fall into the dream state forever and I’d never know love this way ever again. I had better start doing all of my favorite things today. I’m off to a great start already because showers are my most favorite morning past time, just before a full healthy breakfast, so I’d better wash myself three times. That’ll give thunder cock enough time to fire up again. I smiled to myself. Mmmmmmm. Let’s not get off track and focus on breakfast for my sexy stranger and I. What do I usually have for breakfast; that I enjoy which is healthy of course?

      ‘Let’s see now…’ I thought to myself as I delicately washed my naked body with natural aloe scented body wash with my soft white washcloth. ‘ We must have blueberries, Scrambled eggs with baby spinach, mushrooms, a pinch of Swiss cheese, Ketchup, Black Pepper, Sausages… tee hee… and Freshly squeezed Orange Juice of course.’

       I also love to go running in the park after shopping on a nice day. It seems nice enough despite the fact that the meteorologist reported overcast with slight showers today. I’m so happy I’ll chance a bit of rain with Tyler. I’m planning on a shower with him one way or another. What better foreplay too foreshadow with than kissing in the rain? What should we do tonight? I’m always ready to go out dancing or watch a play or film after a nice dinner in a five star restaurant. I love it when men surprise me though. I’ll take the reigns from here and let him take the lead tonight turning flesh into magic once again. 

        After my triple marathon shower over indulgent shower, I toweled off every naked inch of my body and stepped towards the sink to gaze at my glowing smile in my bathroom mirror again. I can’t remember when it was that I was this happy. It’s best not to question it and just, as John Lennon once said ‘Let it be… Let it be… Let it be…’

         ‘Ooops’ I covered my mouth animatedly with my left hand ‘I nearly forgot to wash my mouth and teeth. I don’t want Tyler to catch a gust of my morning breath. My goodness, I really haven’t dated since college, haven’t I? Tyler does know a lot about me. Not a bad actor for a janitor pretending to be a psychiatrist from the future just to sleep with me. I wonder who told him all about my past? If it’s that fat balding old hairy perverted son of a bitch from accounting, I’ll scalp his fat pimply ass with a paper clip. I must be insane or lonely, falling for a delusional guy who had been cleverly stalking me for all this time. Perhaps, it’s the insane dangerously creepy attention that turns me on? He’s not my usual type… if I’d been dating that much at all. He has to be at least five years older than me. He was super skinny with barely any muscular tone. He had a great frame as far as bone structure. He seems so malnourished. He has perfectly neat white teeth with baby blue eyes, a slightly receding hairline. He had an oddness about him that was tempered by his calm, kind innocence that held such a heart breaking honest purity I’d never known to exist in anyone before. I know it’s a profound thing to say but so much insanity has saturated the past few days, I just need to vent out all of these thoughts before they eat me alive. 

       ‘Eat… Malnourished… Breakfast…’ Oh my goodness, I can’t even think clearly enough to focus on one thing’ My new creepy boyfriend must be starving! Did I like, brush my teeth six times already?!!!’ 

        O.C.D. is the last thing I need. There is this poor guy at work who is frightened of going to the bathroom because it takes him a half hour to three to use it because he’s afraid to touch anything. Thank goodness he has a doctors’ note, otherwise he’d be a homeless guy in that bathroom. He’s always the last one to leave work. He’d be very cute, if he wasn’t such a freak. He should get laid real good. Some hot horny girl should just fuck the O.C.D. right out of him. Anyway, washing time is done, It’s time for momma to cook up some brunch for creepy bear.

       I stepped out of my water closet still in the nude but quite refreshed. Tyler was lying in bed out cold, not that I don’t understand. I’ve never experienced such sexual stamina and drive in a man since my early college years and my goodness, what a thick hard sausage on him. Speaking of which, I’d better get cracking in the kitchen before brunch turns to dinner. I actually skipped happily humming my favorite Beatles tune as I made my way downstairs toward the kitchen. I know what you’re going to say ‘With a house that big, why don’t you hire servants?’

        Your answer : I’m not rich, I just inherited this house from a beloved deceased relative of mine and I work as a banker not a C.E.O. 

       I don’t believe I’ve ever cooked in the nude before. I might as well blast some sweet tunes while I toss some eggs under the fire, hmmm , kind of symbolic of what happened in my bedroom last night.

       After I prepared everything regarding brunch to be utilized once I’m in cooking mode, I dashed into my living room and put on my favorite electro synth band. I smiled again as I dashed back into the kitchen to make late brunch for my lover and I. If the quirky grooves of Darth Mars won’t wake him up, the aroma of this delicious food I’m whipping up for us will. 

                                Dead Past Noon

        I must have allowed my blissful state of euphoria to completely wipe my sense clean off of my entire nervous system for nearly three hours before my senses crashed back into my spinal cord with a static vengeance. Add in another half hour of my entranced state dissolving slowly, thanks to the hypnotic electro synth sonic drug rhythms of my favorite electro post punk dance band Darth Mars. It was 1:03 p.m. when I awoke from my bed naked next to Tyler’s nude body. I took one of my happy showers in the water closet, which lasted a good half an hour. I was out of my bedroom and skipping down my stairway by 1:33 p.m. After I finished cooking breakfast, it must have been about 2:05 p.m. I was sooo happy and I took care to make a very special breakfast for both sweet Tyler and I. I was hoping the music or at least the savory aroma of the sausages I was cooking with our scrambled eggs would wake Tyler up and have him wandering around downstairs to find me naked in the kitchen waiting for him with breakfast steaming hot for him. I took my time eating my brunch until his dish was cold. I didn’t even notice it was cold until after I realized how odd it was that there was no sign of Tyler coming down from my bedroom. It was time for us to change reality and save the universe today. Of course, he had to come down. It was part of his destiny to teach me how to hypnotize myself and connect my conscious along with my subconscious as one with my dream state to create an astral portal within my mind to time swap my mind with that of my past physical body. It sounds like something out of the Twilight Zone or Twin Peaks, I know. I’m still confused as to whether believe him or not but what I do believe is that he came into my life for a reason because I allowed him to and I intend to find out that reason no matter what. No one has ever made love to me as passionately as Tyler has last night and I never want that feeling to go away.

      At exactly 2:45 p.m., I walked slowly back up the stairs to my master bedroom after I tasted how cold Tyler’s full dish of brunch was. I left my music playing at a decently loud level but the closer I came to my bed room the more foreign my favorite songs sounded to me. This was the moment where my senses came crashing down on me like a hurricane of lava hot needles on my pores, leaving me with only a sole cold chill sixth sense racing straight up my spine to the back of my eyes. I almost knew what was wrong before I reached the foot of my bed.

        Tyler was dead. As soon as I touched his body, my hand trembled instantly. His flesh was colder than the food I made for him on his dish downstairs in my kitchen. Tears streamed down my face instantly as I pulled my hands from his naked body and clasped my hands against my face tightly. More tears began to gush out of my eyes as this reality spun around and swallowed my joys away from me. Although, I had a feeling everything was too odd to flow so smoothly, I couldn’t bring myself to realize the fact that Tyler was not delusional. He was someone who did know me from a different time line, a different reality. I had no proof of this beyond his own words and his one cheap notepad on the desk by my hallway. I suppose I’d have to call the pol- Hold that thought, now. There, lying on the floor before the window with the shades drawn open I caught a sharp glimmer from Tyler’s jeans as I turned to look for my phone. The afternoon sunlight had touched upon Tyler’s keys and the reflection cut deep into my vision. Tyler’s janitor keys, house keys and keys to who else knows what to. One of those keys led to more of my sweet Tyler’s notebooks that described when he knew of me in the past and how I inspired him on his quest to heal our universe of self-oppression.  

Story and Characters created by Jesse S. Montalto 

All Rights Reserved, Copyright © 2014 by Jesse S. Montalto and Ikuko Hotta