E M E R G E

E M E R G E

(Play Thunderstorm at Sea from youtube)

The sun winked at me just before it snuck away below the horizon. It was tired of the show and decided to go to sleep and left a beautiful red/orange/yellow reminder of its time above the ocean waves.

Amidst the lazy fans and open air palapa, contrary waves and thunder and rain crashed around inside my perceptions.

I was staying too long.

I knew what was happening.

It was just like I had been instructed not to do.

My back was to the event, the Sun that is.

I saw it in the reflection of every bottle on the shelf. Looking down at my hands, entwined politely on the pock-marked wood of the bar, I laughed.

The simple beauty of it. Was I even here? And rain crashed.

Well not loudly, I’m not a psychopath.

I don’t like math.

And I chuckled again.

I realized to my chagrin, that Mr. Worgen was right. “Math isn’t necessary, it’s inevitable.”

I tightened my hands, my knuckles replied. They are fifty years old but no more valuable.

My birthday is next week on the 16th. I only have twenty left.

Broken out of my reverie, “Sir, I said, could you move one seat over for us?”

Also, fifty-year-old ears. Math. Bah.

I did move.

Exactly one seat.

Still in the earshot of them discussing how they merged money with money.

I tapped the rocks glass on the wood bar and said something under my breath that I don’t think I even understood.

The waves, the rain, the crunching and cracking was not here…not now. I’m losing, too much, too long.

Then it hit me, saltwater splashing my face as we are barreling through another wave. The thunderstorm stretched a long fingers of light that scathed the black ocean. The boat creaked and groaned complaining at her age and state of wear, wood twisting as another dark, black wall hit us. The mast screamed the loudest in response.

The Decay, our third ship. And bent to the will of the dark water and with horrible twisting screams the mast snapped.

“Hold fast!” The scream hung weakly in the air amidst the baritone of destruction.

Within a hollow moment, it all slowed.

The wind, the waves cresting the bow of the ship, the lashing sideways rain.

Suddenly, within the Eye, all quiet.

Dimmer.

Calmer.

We had momentary salvation, but it was a lie, and all stopped their fervor on deck to enjoy it. We all dripped with the ocean’s wrath but here within the calm every man took a moment to watch the fantastic lights just out of reach.

The snap of waves and thunder and lightning only a few hundred meters away.

Breathtaking. Majestic. Terrifying.

The Ocean, calm enough to reflect the moon for a few moments suddenly reared her head high and screamed aloud as we left the liar’s safety of the Eye.

A wall of water, three times the length of our forty-foot ship, stretched its arms to the sky and rejoiced for it was about to consume our folly.

(Bandcamp.com Solid State Memories – Rupert Lally: Waking Up Without You)

There is that moment, when your belly leaves you: rollercoasters.

Swings when the chain slacks but you are at the top.

Maybe pushed off a cliff.

Watching your parents breathe the last air in their lives…

You bend a little bit, uncomfortably within that time.

“Here you go Mr. Worgen,” the bartender slid the card back to me. A single bead of saltwater ran from my brow and dripped off my nose. I reached and slapped my hand over the card, steadying myself. I pulled it back and water ran freely from my sleeve onto the bar.

A small puddle formed.

I’m staying too long. What the Hell am I even doing? I thought to myself as I signed it Evan Billings. Scratched that out and signed as David Worgen.

Dammit.

That’s when the world slowed to just a moment at a time.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The unnerving sound of an Emergence broke the metronome. Someone, besides me, was arriving and not meant to be here.

Mr. Worgen looked around at the other patrons as he waited for the completion of the arrival.

They were stuck in between. Their mouths hung open with words slowly dripping out. Laughs not fulfilled though eyes twinkled with humor and the requisite flies hung in mid-air.

“Mr. Worgen” sipped the last of his bourbon as the world around him continued to blur as this timeline was giving birth to another Traveler.

He set his empty glass down and his shoulders slumped forward under invisible weight.

Time is a funny thing. The further you can jump back, the less actual time you can spend there. The law of conservation of energy or was it entropy? From his experience, both were wrong.

That damn jump to the Decay, too far. Too hard. Yet it created exactly the stir that was intended.

It was either Seven One or Six Three, but his money was on Seven One.

She slid into existence fourteen feet away from him. He knew exactly because he measured earlier and anticipated that to be the most optimal entry point.

She was on this plane moving in time with him as the collateral mouthed long words to each other around them.

She was dressed in a compression suit, dark black and skintight.

Like an angry, black spider she began to cross the floor toward him.

“You know, David Worgen has been dead for fourteen years”, her voice was neither accusatory nor remorseful. In fact, he caught notes of glee in her timbre.

(Stop Bandcamp)

https://open.spotify.com/track/0qbggNSaJqs6EjFjPuCw4a?si=b62c081d99464993

(Play just the opening to 0:04 and reset)

“Mr. Worgen” looked intently into his empty glass and threw a sidelong look over his shoulder.

(Play just the opening to 0:04 and reset)

“Seven One, fancy seeing you here.”

(Play again from 0:00 to 0:04 and pause DON’T reset)

“Six.”

She almost purred.

“What a shame.”

Seven One unwrapped two long barrels of white-hot fire as the scenery moved in slow motion with the exception of Six who strobed in place between moments as he sought an entry for his Merge.

He bounced across the room and back again, where light caught him, but no shadow remained. A table and chairs were flying in mid-air during each Merge. Seven One danced around them easily in the footsteps of an elderly woman coming back from the bathroom.

Unexpectedly, she jumped into the steps of the money makers next to the former seat of “Mr. Worgen”.

He just dodged the beams; she was predicting ahead of him. He was getting closer and closer as they played this deadly chess. Firing overhead and behind her back predicting his next position. Six barely escaped each volley but never fired back.

The circle got tighter and tighter, a concentric web with no escape. Until finally, he appeared right in front of Seven One.

“Run out of steps?” She sneered and pressed her ion barrels into his chest.

He sighed and without a blink, he was gone.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6qN2wrLIOHgNrYwoef8KVi?si=6f93452bb8744571

Just as quickly as it began, it was no more.

Six was gone. Seven One was alone in this swath of time.

She holstered her weapons and walked over to the bar where he had sat. She touched the puddle of water left behind and licked her finger. Salt and ocean and the sounds of a storm assaulted her senses.

Jumping too far.

She sneered at the gift; a crumpled napkin that Six left behind like it was a mistake.

Unfolding it and in neatly penned Latin it read:

“Nemo me custodit quod volo.”

She tilted her head back. Eyes closed and with a smirk she was also no more.

The napkin remained.

It read, “No one is keeping me from what I want.”

The bar on the edge of the beach was undisturbed.

Nothing; chairs, tables. Not a thing was out of place and all of us never noticed we were being manipulated.