Over the Bridge
by Suzanne Halmi
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
Dan watched TV that night. The machine seemed indifferent to its change of locale. It was so inert, so nothing, that Dan burned with humiliation. He drank three beers, way past his usual limit, and gave the thing a small kick as he passed it on his way back to the couch with the fourth. He flopped down, brought the bottle to his mouth, and found he was angry.
He hadn’t been angry in two years, and he felt its surge as if it were a surge of power. Dan stood up and slammed the bottle down on the end table. Anger was bad, he knew, and he’d worked hard to get rid of it. But, now, tonight, it felt good.
He walked over to the machine and leaned in to touch the stupid screen. It lit up at his touch. He smeared his hand over it, and the icons, red, blue, orange, and yellow, fluttered beneath his fingers. He slid into the seat. His heart pounded. He poked at the icons — they were incomprehensible to him without his newly acquired reading glasses — and then he blacked out.
When Dan came to, before he opened his eyes, he thought: Idiot. Three beers. What would Dicey say? Then, he forced open his eyes, because he’d thought her name.
His face was pressed to rough floorboards, and he was confused. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and his head spun with the effort. He couldn’t see very well, the light was so dim and yellow. He sat back on his heels, looking around. He was in a small room filled with dirty sacks and barrels, the only light a single torch on the wall, guttering now. He heard a noise and a boy appeared, his ear tight in the grasp of a man.
“Ye know better than to leave the fire, boy!” the man growled, giving another twist to the benighted ear before he let him go. “Ye do it again, and yer done here.”
The boy nodded and snatched the torch from the wall, its flame flaring higher briefly and illuminating Dan sitting on the floor. They stared at him open-mouthed. The man recovered first, and said, “What the devil do ye think yer doing in here?” He took a step toward Dan, who scrambled to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” he told them. “I don’t know what happened. Where am I?”
“Where are ye?” The man rolled his eyes. “Yer in the storeroom of my public house! Now, what else can I tell ye, thief, before I set the law on ye?” And before Dan could say another word, the man had grabbed him by his shirt, knocked him off his feet, and dragged him out of the room and into another, larger room with a bar. He threw him down in front of the bar and reached behind it, coming up with a machete, which he held close to Dan’s nose, grinning. “Earn yer keep, boy, and run for the law.”
The boy said, rather gleefully, “Yes, sir!” And he was gone.
“I’m not a thief,” Dan said, edging back from the machete, his heart pounding. “I’m lost, that’s all. I must have had too much to drink... Where am I?” He looked around cautiously, past the blade which looked as if it had seen some use.
“Not a thief? Oh, begging yer pardon, my fine sir, begging yer pardon! Then what was ye doing in my storeroom?”
“I just woke up here. I was at home, watching TV and then...” Dan stopped, remembering what he’d been doing before he blacked out. Of course, he couldn’t really have traveled in time, could he? He looked around again and winced. If this was a dream, or time travel, it was certainly as disappointing as the rest of his life.
“This fine shirt, those trousers, and those socks! Silk, are they?” The man bent down again and ran his fingers over Dan’s old Wigwams. “Give me those,” he said.
“Give you my clothes?”
The man merely brandished the machete again, and stepped back so that Dan could take off his shirt, jeans and socks while still down on the floor. He sat then, in only his briefs, with his back to the bar, and watched the man’s awe as he examined the clothes.
The two heard a noise from outside, and Dan wasn’t sure who was more panicked, himself or the man. His guard hurriedly stuffed his clothes behind the bar, leaning over from the front, in the same place the machete had emerged from, nearly falling over the bar in his haste and awkward position. Dan, for his part, started moving as soon as he could, scrabbling for purchase with his hands, to get to his feet, and raced for the door. He emerged into a darkness of night he’d never known before and, hesitating, tried to get his bearings. What is this place? What kind of dream is this? he thought, realizing he heard a river — was it his familiar Sett? — and then something hard hit the back of his head, and he knew no more.
Dan woke up on the floor in his family room next to the time machine. His head hurt. His clothes were gone.
He went to bed without brushing his teeth.
In the morning, he considered the time machine as he drank his coffee, standing near the sliding glass door to the pool area. He wore a robe, and he’d taken a shower as soon as he got up, watching the filth run down the drain from his feet. He’d been somewhere, he thought, but surely not back in time. No, he’d had too many beers and run around the neighborhood. God knew what he might see on the neighborhood chat today. He could only hope they hadn’t recognized him.
It was Sunday, not even nine o’clock, and he stood there, staring at the machine, drinking coffee. He was hungry, he realized, hungrier than he’d been in a long time. He wanted something besides an English muffin and blueberries. Dan got dressed and went out for breakfast.
At the diner, he ate a huge breakfast of eggs and bacon, toast and juice, and drank more coffee. He read the news on his phone, but he didn’t really take anything in. All the angry protests against income inequality, the fears of the moneyed citizens of the protests turning violent, the pre-emptive violence by the law; he hated it all.
He watched through the window from his table as a cop walked down the line of cars, looking for tags and stickers, making sure there was no one here in lovely Milford who should not be. For years, ever since things had gotten so bad out there, Dan had felt a calm relief seeing these daily routine checks by the cops who his taxes and fees paid for here in this lovely, secure town. Now, he felt a little off, watching.
Last night, what had he felt when he heard the man tell the boy to go for the “law?” Panic. Even though he’d done nothing. Even though he didn’t even know where he was or how he’d gotten there.
After breakfast, he went home. He looked everywhere for the clothes he’d been wearing the night before, but they weren’t anywhere, not even in the trash bin. He sat on the edge of the bed, and put his head, still sore where he’d gotten hit, in his hands.
Later on, Dan finally saw Fred emerge from his house alone, and hurried to catch him before he got into his car. “Oh, hey, Dan,” Fred said.
“Yeah, hey, Fred,” Dan said, a little out of breath. “Say, that machine—”
“Oh, yeah? The machine’s top of the line, you know. And I wish I could say that if you regret your decision, I could help you, but there’s nothing I can do. Maria already took the cash and spent it on one of those new security camera things for the condo. Upgrade.” Fred shrugged.
“No,” Dan said. “I was just wondering... Is there a manual?”
“If there was, buddy, I must have lost it.” Fred stared at him. “Checking it out?”
“Sure,” Dan said, and tried to laugh lightly.
“Well, tell me if you get anywhere good.” Fred nodded to him, ready to end the conversation. “I never did.” And he rolled up his window, and drove away.
I can interpret that at least two ways, Dan thought, and went home.
He had Japanese takeout for dinner, and a glass of saki. Just one. He felt nothing, not drunk, not angry, and he intended to keep it that way. He sat down in the machine and started searching online for a manual. But generic “time machine” produced everything but what looked like his machine, and there was no marking on the machine itself.
Timidly, he touched the screen, but there was nothing there either. How can this exist, he wondered, if no one has ever put anything about it on the Internet? He texted Fred, but got an undelivered message. He contemplated trying to call anonymously, but then decided against it. If Fred had blocked him, he wasn’t going to be very forthcoming with info about his machine.
My machine, Dan thought.
He touched the screen again. He didn’t want to go back to where he’d been before. He stared at the icons and then got up and went to get ready. He dressed warmly in sweatpants, a thermal henley, and a hoodie, and put on an old pair of sneakers, just in case he had to give them away. He had to smile at that: give them away. He had been robbed! Him, robbed! In person, robbed!
He didn’t know anyone who’d been robbed in person. A lot of people had had their houses broken into, or their cars jacked while they were out somewhere, but no one was robbed anymore, at least not anyone he knew. But he had had a machete in his face, and his clothes taken right off his body!
Dan went into the kitchen and looked at the knife rack. He knew he wasn’t supposed to carry a weapon if he didn’t know how to use it, but... He chose a paring knife and wrapped it in a kitchen towel so that he wouldn’t cut himself by accident.
Once more seated in his machine, Dan touched the screen and carefully looked at the icons. There were four. They weren’t “icons” in the usual sense. They were colored squares, and each had its own number of dots: red had six, blue, four, yellow, three, and orange, two. He had no idea what he’d touched the night before. What am I thinking? he asked himself, his hand hovering over the screen. What do I want? Do I want to go back to that place? Try to get my clothes back? What would be the point in that?
But, he knew, he wanted to try the machine again. It had been... different. He looked over at his TV, his comfortable furniture, the door to the pool. He’d been looking at all of this for ten years. He wanted to see something different.
He touched the red icon.
And nothing happened.
Blue. Nothing. Yellow. Nothing.
He stared at the orange icon. He ran his hand over the knife wrapped in the towel, huge in his jacket pocket. Would he be able to get the knife out if he were attacked? It was a good question. He pulled it out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and stuck it back in, uncomfortable with how sharp it seemed. He stuffed the towel in on top of it, and touched the orange icon.
He didn’t so much black out this time, as get dizzy. Woozy, really. He had to put his head in his hands and when he raised his head, he had to shield his eyes against the brilliant sunlight. For a minute or two, he could see nothing.
At last, his eyes stopped burning and his head felt clearer, and he looked around.
It was lovely.
It was a Victorian town, complete with green town square, all ice cream shoppe perfection. Dan found himself seated on a park bench. More than a little befuddled, he watched as two children ran past, chasing a hoop. A nanny in uniform pushed a baby carriage, and two women, their arms linked, strolled by, casting him worried glances. He sat up straighter, and then was dismayed by his clothes. He stood out like a sore thumb here in this beautiful little town filled with big houses with porches and porch swings. Dan got up and left the park, sure that the next person to notice him would be a cop.
Copyright © 2021 by Suzanne Halmi
