Back Again (The Short Story)

  Walking down the aisles gathering sauce, pasta, and cheese, a memory erupted. The next thing that would happen would be a conversation with Marcus. He lived on their street and worked here at the store’s delicatessen counter.

  That’s right! He was going to ask her about Tommy, how he was doing at school. When he asked this time, she would attempt to tell him, “Dead—he’s dead. Help me.”

  Standing there at the counter with Marcus smiling at her, she willed the words into her mouth until it felt as if her head would explode. They wouldn’t come out, though. Then she tried to drop the cheese as he handed it to her, attract attention to herself. But her hands wouldn’t respond.

  “Yes, Tommy is good,” she answered, when Marcus asked after him. “At a guitar lesson right now.”

  He was at the lesson the time when I was here before, too, she thought. Even if she’d managed to voice the thought, Marcus wouldn’t have understood.

  A cough. Perhaps if she could cough or sneeze, one single change might cause him to ask her what was wrong. That action would then change all the other actions. Surely she could cough or clear her throat.

  Then the moment was gone. Nothing. No change.

  “Catch you next time,” he said.

  “Yes, for sure,” she replied, knowing she would never come back here. In the ten days that had followed, she couldn’t bear to drive past where it happened and be reminded.

  Dawn stopped at the checkout, juggling the groceries. She’d picked up milk, as well, and grabbed a magazine from the stand next to the checkout. Angelina Jolie was championing another cause, and she always enjoyed reading about her. She balanced the magazine on the edge of the counter and was flipping through it with one hand until she could place her things on the belt.

  When she heard the voice, she recognized it instantly; it was embedded in her memory, wedged in like a splinter. A chill ran through her, as if a hand had wrapped around her neck and choked off her air.

  Even before she looked up, she knew who it was she would see.

  “How’s your day been?” said the girl with pink and purple strands entwined in her long shaggy hair. Threaded through both nostrils was a silver ring just as if she were a cow. Pierced through each of her eyebrows were five rings, each ring standing to attention. A tattoo of a vine ran up her forearm. Her lipstick, a dark plum, was made even darker by her pale white skin; it made her mouth appear bruised. Dawn remembered how the lipstick looked smeared across her face, the black mascara smudged and wet around her eyes.

  When she opened her mouth to talk, Dawn heard only the echo of the words this girl had spoken to her ten days ago or, in this new reality, would speak in less than fifteen minutes in the future.

  Is he all right? the girl had asked, squatting behind Dawn on the street.

  Dawn’s heart began to beat savagely. Inside, her stomach felt as if it were twisting and turning, attempting to escape her body.

  This couldn’t be.

  Yet, of course it was. For it had already happened.

  She’d paid so little attention at the checkout, that Dawn hadn’t realized that she’d come face to face with this girl who would change her life. All she’d been thinking about was dinner, the magazine, and getting back to the car. With the shock of the accident, this entire seemingly irrelevant visit to the supermarket had been wiped from her memory.

  Dawn threw the magazine onto the belt—last time it’d seemed so important that she finish the article on Angelina, an article that in the end she never did read.

  “Good,” Dawn said, looking down. She hadn’t wanted to talk to the girl at the time. She never really wanted to talk to these checkout people; the conversation always so forced. Now though, she desperately wanted to talk to her.

  Dawn wanted to scream at her, “Don’t get in your car. Don’t drive into the street in ten minutes. If you do, your life will change, my life will change, and my son’s life will end.” Of course, Dawn couldn’t speak any of the words. They were just empty echoes in her head.

  The pulse in her temple was now so loud it felt as it were vibrating her whole head.

  The girl, Kylie—she’d learn her name from the news—dropped her groceries into a plastic bag. This reminded her, too, how surly she’d thought the girl was at the time, how little care she’d taken with the groceries. Dawn remembered thinking at the time, what a dead end job it must be, but if not for these jobs where would girls like this work? Then she was reminded of her sister’s Goth stage as a teenager and how this was probably just a stage for this girl.

  “Have a good day,” Kylie said as she handed Dawn her change.

  “Thank you,” Dawn muttered, thinking, you wish me a good day and then you kill my son.

  Picking up the grocery bags, the plastic grips bit into her hand with their weight, just like the guilt that now bit into her soul. She had come that close to Tommy’s killer; she’d actually spoken to her, stared into her eyes. If only she’d known, she could have done something. But what?

  Now maybe she could. Dawn threw everything she had at turning around and speaking to Kylie, telling her she was about to become a killer; that in the next ten minutes her phone, combined with her attitude and her old car, would add up to death. She pushed at the muscles in her shoulders and down her back. If she could just twist slightly, even half rotate herself, the rest of her body might follow.

  Already, though, she was walking away, pausing at the sliding doors to allow an elderly woman pushing a cart to exit before her. The woman looked up and thanked her. Dawn nodded and smiled.

  Again, Dawn attempted to open her mouth, to do more than just nod. If she could just tell the woman to go across the road and meet her son, or go back into the shop, talk to Kylie and tell her to wait. Just another few seconds was all that was needed to save Tommy. Her muscles ached from the exertion that her mind had placed on them. Was the ache real or imagined?

  Again, she failed. The moment lost.

  In less than a minute, she was back at her car placing the groceries in the trunk. Walking to the driver’s door, she clicked the remote unlock. As she reached for the door, she mentally attempted to pull back her hand. This time she worked at her elbow. It was like attempting mental telepathy. Every ounce of will she possessed was now focused on her hand.

  Tommy’s appearance at the door of the studio was so close she felt it bear down on her like an oncoming train. She couldn’t let him die again.

  It was such a simple action, the flexing of her hand and applying the small pressure to spring the door’s catch. An action, to which she’d never given a second thought, now required everything she had in her to halt. As her fingertips curled under the metal handle, she suddenly felt an unusual sensation. She’d done something. It was like discovering you could reach something that had been impossibly high.

  Her fingers paused in mid-movement.

  She felt a release, as if something inside her had skipped free. In that split second, the world stopped, and then as if the direction of the wind had changed, something pushed back at her. Everything about her began to swirl, and she became the center of a universe that stretched off in a blur in all directions to infinity.

  Something ethereal had changed. In her surprise that she’d actually affected her environment, she lost concentration, and lessened the mental pressure she was applying to her hand. The moment in time that she’d managed to suspend, simply broke away from her like crumbling ancient paper and, before she could recover her focus, her hand had pulled upward and the door swung open.

  She’d lost the fleeting control she’d gained, but it had been there. For one moment she’d paused the present, or the future, or whatever this thing was that she was caught up in. Once again, though, she was merely a passenger inside her body, sliding inside the car, and throwing her bag onto the seat behind.

  She glanced down at the dashboard clock, grateful that she had done that the first time around. Keeping a check of the time now seemed the mo
st important thing in the world.

  4:30

  … And twenty seconds. In less than two minutes, her son would pass through the door, wave to her, walk to the car, and then… die.

  Dawn reached across and pulled her phone from her bag. What came next would be insanely pointless. She would check her Facebook account and create a status update. That’s what you do on a normal day. You fill it with unimportant details.

  Today was meant to be normal.

  She posted:

  Doing the after-school run. Tuesday is guitar lesson. Home soon. Anyone else feeling like a taxi?

  About now Kylie would be getting into her car. That’s what a witness had told the police. He’d noticed her because she’d seemed very agitated. Kylie’s phone records were checked; she’d received a text thirty seconds before the accident, a half-written reply was still waiting to be sent.

  Finishing her status update, Dawn looked up at the clock, the same action as the first day down to the smallest flicker of her eyes. Except this time she knew what was coming—his last moments, her last sane moments. Her stomach was on fire. If she could die at this moment and not live through this again, she would. If she could give her life for him, she would.

  He would be packing up his guitar now.

  4:31

  Her hand moved across to grasp the water bottle. Here was another moment to try to alter. She mentally tugged at her own hand, pushing and pulling as if it were a puppet attached to her arm. Even though she used the same amount of pressure as before, she could not assume control.

  She swung the bottle upward, gulping down the water. It didn’t quench her thirst. Had it on that day? She couldn’t remember.

  4:32

  Any second now she would turn her gaze to the rear-vision mirror. A window into horror, the mirror grew in size as she watched. Her pulse throbbed in her ears; the beat was the countdown of the seconds. She didn’t want to look, but she knew she had no choice.

  Coming back, being trapped in a body locked into a timeline, seemed now like a punishment instead of a gift. Watching your son killed once was hell enough. So what was her sin?

  Every nerve in her body burned with anticipation.

  4:32

  … and thirty seconds.

  The second hand ticked off the last moments. She heard them in her mind.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Her head turned toward the door. There was Tommy, pushing it open with the guitar case, struggling through. There was the wave, the I see you mom wave. She gave hers back as she reached down to pop the trunk.

  Her fingers found the switch. Don’t pull the lever, she screamed at her body. Every muscle, every wish, every ounce of energy inside her now focused on those fingers, willing them to not lift the latch.

  If she could stop her hand from reaching down, he might not go to the back of the car. He might move back around to her window and ask her what was up.

  Just fourteen seconds was all she needed of him not standing at the back of the car. Fourteen seconds was enough time for that girl to keep driving past them. Then she would never learn her name and never meet her again.

  Every muscle in her body felt pulsed with the energy of her will.

  Please, let this work. Stop this. Please.

  But she failed. Another moment, lost.

  No, she screamed inside, as she felt the lever begin to move.

  Then it happened, just like before, as if a trickle of power had seeped through. Her fingers paused, the world spun. Her hand stopped before completing the upward pull.

  A tremble began in her fingers, growing into tremors so violent she felt her wrist might break. Her fingers retreated, actually moved away from the lever.

  Now she just had to hang on to the moment as if she were holding in a breath. She couldn’t look up, because she’d never looked up on that day when she’d pulled at the latch, so she didn’t know how close Tommy was to the car.

  The time must be close. That was all she knew. At least 4:33. Only seconds must remain, before it was over. Then she could release her fingers

  She strained to look in the mirror even though it was an awkward angle. Her fingers were still at the lever, still holding off pulling it.

  It was too much, the drag from the original timeline too strong. Her fingers pulled upward, and she heard the trunk pop. Her body stretched up, and she immediately looked in the mirror.

  He was there at the rear of the car, waiting for her to open the trunk.

  Nooo. Tommy move!

  One second he was looking at her. Smiling. The next, there was just an empty space and the sound of squealing brakes. Gone, just like before.

  Her hand flew from the latch to cover her mouth.

  This time the shock came from knowing she’d been so close. Would it happen all over again? Nothing had changed.

  Oh my God! Oh my God!

  She was out of the car and running to him, grabbing at his body. As before, she was holding and hugging him, but this time she had the insight to tell him how much she loved him and would miss him. Not with words, but with her heart.

  Later at the hospital, instead of waiting for the terrible news she knew was coming, she used the time to think back over the moment she’d changed when she’d paused her body mid-action. That was twice today that she’d taken back control. It hadn’t worked, but it could work.

  Ten days lay ahead. Ten days of waiting for the jumping back moment. Ten days of another kind of hell, not grief and mourning, but of praying and hoping she would be given the chance to come back again.

  Movement 7

  The bedside clock, time’s servant, and now Dawn’s master, stared back at her. Time, once so certain, was now a circular path looping in on itself, with Dawn, trapped in two worlds, uncertain of anything and everything.

  One world, the world that she inhabited before this, travelled into the future and away from her son and the day that stole him; the other, a Twilight Zone world where she could again have her son alive, but only for a short grief-filled period.

  If she could choose, she’d live forever in the second world, even if for the rest of her life she would return to that day. No matter how painful or tedious it would become, she would accept that because she would at least have Tommy back. Spending those precious few hours with him, even if they were the same few hours—she would take them. This was akin to Tommy’s life support. Her life support. Like any parent faced with turning off their child’s life support, the idea of losing the chance to save his life was unbearable.

  She could still enjoy the smooth, warm feel of his skin beneath her fingertips as she cupped his face to kiss him goodbye before school. She could still watch him smile, hear his voice, and smell his sweet breath; still feel his hand on her arm as he ran past her to the door.

  She’d been back again so many times she’d lost count. The more she returned, the more she’d settled in to the routine. It was no longer like the first dozen times, when she’d spent every waking moment focused on whether or not she’d be given the chance again to come back; those times she’d anxiously waited through the days, counting down the time. She hadn’t known the exact time then. All she’d known was that it happened at some point while she stared at the clock. Then, just before she fell asleep on the tenth night after the accident, she would return.

  In the first few returns, Dawn had made her best attempt to align her thoughts to match those she remembered from the first night. Silently, she would repeat them to herself as best as she could. Her theory had been that it could have been those exact words that were the spark, the abracadabra magic.

  I want to go back. If only I could go back.

  Even as she focused on the words, she’d question herself. It was craziness. Was this reality or was she in the middle of a nervous breakdown? One day would she awaken in a small room wearing a tight, white jacket?

  The second time she travelled back, there was no warning, no flash of light or sensation to
be felt. She was there one moment, repeating the words I must go back and staring at the clock. In the next, she was in the kitchen, Tommy at the bench, the smell of the freshly toasted bread filling her nostrils.

  Even though she didn’t care to eat, didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry, she picked up the toast and began to bite into it. Of course that was her action previously, so it would be her action every time.

  Dawn put down her toast. Now she would say—had said—something about bringing Nan along to the school music recital. Tommy would then excitedly bounce in his chair. He loved his Nan and wanted her to come along to everything. If her memory was correct, this was a good opportunity. She was about to tell Tommy to calm down in case Nan couldn’t come.

  She brought every ounce of energy to the moment as if speaking were a new skill requiring everything of her to enunciate a few simple words.

  “Tommy, now I don’t want you to g—”

  There. She had it. She’d captured the word as if she’d seized hold of a dangling rope. Her surprise and excitement was multiplied by the fact that she’d only been back this time for just a few minutes.

  Tommy appeared unaware that anything had changed. He just kept eating, digging into the cereal bowl with his spoon as if he were looking for a surprise at the bottom.

  The next words after “don’t” should have been “get your hopes up.” She’d stopped them from being spoken. Now she forced the next word into her mind, thrust it into the synapses of her brain, and down into the muscles of her jaw to her mouth.

  A pressure built inside her. Her lips quivered as she took control of her body or at least of her mouth. She was doing it. She felt an overwhelming sense of power.

  Okay. Now all she needed to do was say “don’t go to school.” He’d jump on that—wouldn’t even question it. If she could change even one word, then that might change everything.

  Go. That was all she had to say.

  With go out there, then he might say something else, change the script.

  Oh, but it was so hard. She couldn’t get her lips to move. The best she could do was hold in the word get. Tommy had looked at her quizzically for a few seconds, but she could see he simply presumed she’d changed her mind. With barely a second look, he turned back to his bowl.