Visible Wear

“How do you get in?” Sarah asked her father.

“That’s for everyone to discover on their own,” her father countered with a wink.

It was Sarah’s twelfth birthday and her father had taken her into town for ice-cream and shopping at her favorite bookstore, Thigpens. Outside the bookstore Sarah’s father told her to follow him for a birthday surprise. He went around the corner of the bookstore and stood in front of a brilliantly red wall with a bright white door.

“I’ve never noticed this door before,” Sarah had said. “Come to think of it, I’ve never noticed this alley before. Where does the door go?”

Smiling warmly her father replied “To the final journey of childhood, the last great adventure before we have to grow up.”

A wistful look passed momentarily over Sarah’s father’s eyes and he fiddled with the shopping bags.

—

“Well, how did you get in?” Sarah inquired while peering into the dark window.

She was answered with silence. Sarah turned around to find no one there. She looked down the alley and couldn’t see the end of it. The path seemed hazy and the more she tried to focus the hazier it grew.

“Daddy?” said Sarah timidly.

“Daddy?” Louder this time, but still no answer.

She started to walk back through the alley but something compelled her to stay. She looked once more towards the hazy mosaic of the alleyway then stepped back to face the door.

“Now, how do you open a door without a handle?”

Sarah reached forward, and knocked.

—

The door creaked open.

“Hello?” Sarah inquired. Inside the door was total darkness. The light filling the alley found no welcome there.

“Hello.” A child’s voice replied.

“Could you help me, please? My name is Sarah — I think I’m supposed to be here.”

“Yes, I can help you. But you have to help me first.”

“What can I do?”

Sarah pushed the door completely open. Inside it was still dark.

“It’s too dark, I can’t see anything.”

“Help me, Sarah. Please, help me.”

Sarah felt urgency in the child’s voice and without further hesitation stepped through the door into the dark. The door closed noiselessly behind her and Sarah could see nothing but heard a rhythmic and oddly familiar sound.

“Where are you?” Sarah whispered.

Just then the ground seemed to move under her feet and the world came unbalanced. Sarah stumbled forward and reaching out felt something like a handle. Turning it she was drowned in bright light and after a few blinks discovered what had been making that familiar sound, though it neither explained just where she was or how she’d gotten there.

Sarah had found herself standing on the deck of a large ship with sails. Turning around she saw the ship’s hold from which she had just emerged. The waves rolled against the sides, splashing in a steady beat.

“Captain!” a voice bellowed from above.

Sarah looked up to see a burly man with sandy locks and a rough shaven face sliding down a rope. He dropped the rest of the way to the deck and was joined by a man wearing a dark coat, polished boots, and a cap pulled low on his brow. This second man stepped forward and stared at Sarah.

“Are you the passenger then?”

“Please sir, I’ve just traveled through a strange door to find myself on your ship. I heard a child’s voice, a boy I think, and I believe he may need assistance.”

The captain leaned back and barked out a laugh.

“It’s her alright. She’s the one we’re expectin’.”

—

Sarah lay on a bench in the cabin, trying to sort out everything she had been told. The captain, Jonas as he introduced himself, said that he had received instructions to deliver a passenger to a certain island and that person would inevitably arrive upon his ship. He was skeptical, but the job paid too well to pass up.

Sarah wasn’t particularly happy about being at sea, surrounded by strangers, and bound for an unfamiliar destination. Still, she felt strangely calm. She had asked about the child’s voice and the captain told her there were no other children on his ship and that he was expecting only her.

They would reach their destination in five more hours. The captain had told Sarah to go to the cabin and rest a while. Sarah thought she couldn’t possibly fall asleep but now found herself suddenly very tired.

—

Sarah dreamt she was on a boat. It was pulling into an inlet at an island. Seagulls cawed around the boat and the captain was giving instructions to the crew.

Sarah wondered what would happen next when she was awakened by a jolt. She opened her eyes and found herself in a swaying room. The noises of her dream continued and she realized it wasn’t a dream.

Outside was jungle all around. This was a tropical island and a cacophony of noise could be heard from every direction. Sarah realized that she knew, somehow, that the child she needed to help was also here.

—

“What do you mean you’ll be going now?”

The captain had told Sarah that it was his instruction only to deliver her here and that he had done. He gave her a few provisions and a blanket and set about getting the ship ready to sail again. He suggested she head for the mountain at the center of the island to look for caves for shelter and then he set sail.

Sarah looked towards the center of the island and saw the mountaintop over the trees. She felt an overwhelming certainty that the child was there and began hiking through the thick jungle.

— End Part One of Three, Part Two Next Week

Zaira tentatively stretched out her hand, feeling the sun’s warmth caressing the light fur on her fingers. A soft breeze whispered through the treetops and tickled her body, awakening nerve endings and stirring her further awake. Waking was always a challenge. Maybe just a couple more minutes, wrapped up in warmth, maybe just a couple more minutes, before opening her eyes.

But no, time was limited and Zaira couldn’t let another moment of the day go to waste. She reached further out with her left hand, followed by her right. Stretching her arms out she felt the strength of her taut nimble muscles.

Now she had to open her eyes. Always the hardest part of waking was opening her eyes. This time the sound of gently rustling leaves, the shifting warmth on her body, and the flickers of red seen behind her closed eyelids, told her she was high up in the trees on a bright and pleasant morning. Gradually she cracked open her eyelids, blinked a couple times, and the Amazon came into view.

Looking around, the others were starting to stir but not yet awaken. Zaira carefully stood up, reaching her arms above her head and stretching completely, shoulders and vertebrae popping quietly. Her legs were a little unsteady — she would have to warm up before venturing out. She would have to move quickly though, so the others wouldn’t see her leave.

An hour later Zaira was deep into the jungle. She leapt from limb to limb, tree to tree, with amazing speed and agility. Other animals were all around, some in plain view and others unseen but not unheard. She saw other primates from monkeys to apes, snakes of different size and color, birds of endless variety, large, slow-moving hippos, and the deadly shadow of an alligator swimming just under the surface of the river below.

The rapid movement and dizzying heights caught up with her though and she felt a queasiness she hadn’t experienced in years. It hit her while airborne between two trees and she frantically reached out for the nearest branch, missing it by only a few centimeters.

She hit the trunk and felt vomit rise into her throat. She forced it to stay down and tried desperately to grab hold of the tree as she continued tumbling down. Finally she grabbed hold of a vine that had creeped its way up most of the trunk and she held fast.

Zaira’s breath came in rapid gasps and her heart pounded painfully in her chest. Her vision started to flicker when she heard human voices, one male, one female.

“She’s losing the link, sir, we can’t successfully terminate the session.”

“There’s got to be something? have you tried increasing the signal?”

“No, she’s too disoriented. She needs to calm down or we’ll just risk damaging her.”

Zaira’s eyes twitched rapidly, looking for a way to safety. Her vision was moving between light and dark now and she knew she had to climb to a branch or she would pass out, fall like some overripe fruit, and that would be the end of it.

“Look at her vitals — she can’t take much more of this. It’s a wonder she’s taken as much as she has already. We have to try boosting the signal.”

“But, the last time, I mean with Carter?”

“I know, damn it, I know. But?”

The people hadn’t stopped talking but Zaira stopped hearing them. The world turned black and she felt her grasp on the vine slacken.

She was falling.

“We’ve lost her, sir. The connection has been completely terminated.”

“Try to reestablish — set up the connection again, we can’t give up on her.”

“I’m trying sir but we’re completely cut off. I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing we can do.”

Lieutenant Beckett looked up at his commanding officer. Colonel Waters looked across the roomful of computer equipment and displays at a small glass-enclosed room. Reclining in a large chair in a room sat a very fit looking woman in her early thirties. She had a shaved head and wired patches all around her scalp. Monitoring devices for her vitals and an IV were attached to her. The display next to her showed shallow vital signs but no upper brain activity. At the top of the display read Cpt. Zaira Chakri.

Still falling, Zaira suddenly came to.

No longer as dizzy or disoriented she reached out and grabbed a small low branch, nearly snapping it. She willed herself to climb up the tree trunk and made it up the twenty feet to the first of the topmost branches. Hugging the branch she lay down and caught her breath.

Her mind started clearing and she looked down at her hands — small, fuzzy, with long fingers. She was still the monkey.

“Shit.”

Bruce sighed in the most awful, dreary way.

“What I would give to be able to see the world from a different perspective,” he groaned.

For far too many years it was the same job, the same view, the same endless hours, day in and day out. Bruce had toyed with the idea of doing something drastic, something to turn his entire world upside down, but he knew he was cemented in his current position — this was simply a fixed post and he knew it. But even the most rock steady of figures would get bored doing the same job for so many years, especially when so many others in the same situation never go anywhere and just grow old, worn, and covered in stress-lines.

“What if I really never go anywhere? What if this is where I spend every day until my last. Can I really live with that?”

Bruce was feeling unusually introspective lately. It was probably a product of his age, some sort of a midlife crisis.

“I’ve only ever been good at this one thing, it’s all I’ve ever known. Everyone says it’s what I was made to do.”

The thought struck Bruce as morbid and he heaved out another mournful sigh.

He once again took in his view, seeing the same familiar landscape, the offices in the skyscrapers across from his buzzing with busy people, the roads crawling with cars, busses, and pedestrians, the open sky with birds, planes, and a hazy tint of urban pollution. He was just about to heave yet another sigh when he noticed something different.

“Hey now, where’s Frank?”

Frank, a fellow lifer from the tower across the street was missing. As far back as Bruce could remember Frank had always been there, keeping the same hours, doing the same job, looking every bit as miserable as Bruce himself. But today, Frank was gone. Just like that, Frank had vanished with nary a trace.

“How about that — not even a goodbye from the bastard. I spend more years than I care to remember seeing his ugly mug every single day, never receiving so much as a wave of acknowledgement from him, and now he just disappears on me. I’ll bet he retired — he’s probably enjoying the easy life now. Oh, oh, that’s just lovely.”

Bruce tried his best to sound indignant but he knew he was missing his old friend. Actually, they weren’t friends. They just stared with pity at each other. Bruce didn’t even really know his real name, he just thought this miserable fellow looked like a Frank. And yet, Bruce missed his friend in familiarity.

“Well fine then. If he’s going to call it quits then so am I.”

This was no small decision but Bruce was determined. All those years of longing for something different had finally come to a head. Bruce was driven to shake loose from his foundations, to take flight and not look back. With powerful determination he lifted up his short, stocky figure — and began falling.

“Oh, oh no. This isn’t good. Oh no.”

He spiraled countless flights down, his view fixed on the sidewalk at the base of his building.

“No, no, this isn’t right at all.”

He came to a sudden, crashing stop as he collided with the cement, breaking both it and his body apart, causing people to leap out of the way to avoid the debris.

His mostly intact head flew up high and landed in the street across from his own building. As it stopped rolling Bruce realized he wasn?t dead. Then he noticed something else.

“Hello Frank.”

“Hey Bob, decided you wanted to see things from a different perspective too did you?”