records; there had a note be placed at the front desk for the store owner that he might reclaim his possessions tomorrow morning.
The audio play on the phonograph almost ended. Time had been locked on that medium and enabled to time travel. She had just come back from the 40s.
She sat on the floor, leaned against the bed and facing the door. She put her smoke away and out into an empty ice cream cup. She had visited every shop within a one-mile radius and slowly her belly felt full and cold from all the different ice cream kinds.
She took a moment to let her belly rest and think about life. About the things she would take with her. About the things she could take with her, which would be no more than memories. And she thought about how only memories made up the character of people.
On the floor, in a semicircle, around her were several packed sweets spread out. She loved them colorful, artificial fruity ones and she had never bought nor been given so many at once. She closed her eyes and enjoyed not do anything but listen to the cracking noise and the final silence after the needle let go, while she decided which candies she would have next.
She opened them again and went for the Skittles. She picked the package up, while lifting her body to change the record. It was time to go down the authentic Childhood Lane; it was time for Aerosmith. She fumbled out the black vinyl disc and let the door unwatched. When she set the needle she was sent back into the tape era. It took her some while to catch up with the present again so it took her by surprise when she saw him standing there.
“Wad r u doin’?” Green eye, blue eye, probably not older than eight.
“I’m listening to a record.”
“Wads tad? A recort?”
She showed him over to the player and pointed at the turning disc.
“That thingy. It’s like a CD or an mp3. You know what that is, right?”
“Id plais music alrigh’.” He got it now. “So wad r u lisenin’ tu?”
“Well, previously I have been listening to an audio play and now I’m-“
“Wads a autio plai?”
“And now I’m listening to Aerosmith’s Pump. Let people finish their sentences when they’re talking. Haven’t you got any manners? An audio play is like a play only for listening.”
“I god manners alrigh’. Wads a plai den?”
“Oh, boy. It’s like TV only live and full size. Now that I think about it, an Audio Play is pretty much like watching TV without watching. Only listening to the dialogue, you know?”
“Is tad fun?”
“It’s less boring than watching TV. You want me to put the play back on?”
“Maibee lata. I like tad song.”
She simply had to smile. She thought she remembered being like him when she was a kid.
“Can I haf tad skiddles?” She looked at the package in her hand, “Sure.”, and put it into his hand. She went back to her seat on the floor and had some more ice cream with Smarties. That was how her childhood should have been every day.
“Say, what’s your name anyway?”
“Daniel.” He stuffed a whole small hand of sweets into his mouth.
“Daniel, huh? The seer... That’s a nice name.”
It had already turned dark when his mom had come shouting for him. The records went with him, although she had to talk him into taking them. He had kept pointing out that he had no phonograph to play them on, but she simply told him to save some bucks to buy one, it would be worth the memory.
When she was alone again she started tidying herself up for the last time.
When one comes to think about it should there be a final outfit? Should one think about long before the final day? Should one plan for that certain day like others for their wedding? At least there it was assured that the outfit was going to be worn.
She went for black, as always. A dress in an early sixties cut with white outline. It was the last one in the bag. She put her heels on, checked the room. She could leave everything behind. She felt weird at that thought because she had never considered her possessions so unimportant before. She put her jacket on and stuffed the papers in her pocket.
She was off, on her way to the other side.
She left the key at the counter and replied she didn’t think so, when the clerk asked her if she would return tonight.
-
Glatt’s place was deserted.
The chairs were up on the tables, approximately already for years. She wondered if she tapped against the windows outside the dust would fall from it and on the floor inside. But before her knuckles touched the glass, she noticed Mr. Ackred approaching.
His eyes looked tired. He probably felt guilty for letting her give up her life for him. She couldn’t understand why it hit him that hard, why he cared so much, he didn’t even know her.
“So, ready to see the big man in the red spectators?”
“That’s how you call Him?”
“That’s how He looked like.”
Ackred knocked against the pub’s sign, trying to free a spare key.
“What happened?” she gestured inside.
“Glatt died.”
“When?”
“Oh, about three years ago.” He fumbled the key into the lock.
“Gosh...”
“What?”
She followed him into the place. “Could’ve met him...”
Ackred cracked a smirk. “He could’ve liked you.”
She felt like having another cigarette. Every step they took created dust clouds above the floor. Ackred turned the lights on. There was only one naked light bulb left to illuminate the locality.
“Who’s keeping the place up?”
“The electricity and everything? Mostly his kids. His son still hopes to sell the place, but nobody’s willing to buy. That’s why they don’t sweep the place much.”
“Huh...” She took one of the chairs of a table, turned it around and sat down, all while pondering.
“So what is going to happen now? Is there a certain – Is there a point in time we have to wait for?”
“You were going to say deadline, right?” It amused her. “No, He was just clear about the date not the time, so I expect midnight will be the time. And when today passes into tomorrow and nothing happens, I guess I’ve simply sold my soul to some hobo nutcase in a fine suit and surprisingly fine shoes. Now, that doesn’t sound very convincing…”
She didn’t know why it was her to cheer him up. Wasn’t she the one with only a little more than three hours left of life time? But people start trying to work the room on their death bed.
“That would support your theory and give me the assurance of my soul being in good hands for the rest of my tedious long life.”
Little smiles flickered over his face every now and then but he was lost in his thoughts most of the time. She waited for him to break the silence again.
“Are you already allowed to drink?”
“Here I am, with my eighteen years of age. God bless the Queen and Canada.”
“Gosh, forty years younger...Well.” He rose from his chair again and walked over to the bar. There he hit with his foot against the wooden covering. She couldn’t see it but heard something click and swing open. He leaned down under as sigh and pulled a bottle of whiskey up.
“I thought this place was closed.”
“Glatt had his hiding places. We figured his children would find them all but it seems like they didn’t.”
Ackred turned the faucet on, let the rusty water run until it turned clear. He needed to sweep the glasses from dust. The liquor would probably kill the rest of the gems.
“And this stuff just ages and ages.”
“The older, the better. Like most things of substance.”
He got the bottle and the glasses over to the table, which they had cleared from chairs, put them down and poured two drinks.
He smiled. “You know when I was your age I spent a lot of time here. Listening to all the great blues legends, getting drunk- I even got to-“
r /> “Jam with Muddy Waters. I know!” She had interrupted him but her enthusiastic grin told him to go on with his story.
“You want to hear it anyway. Well, S. P. Leary left the drum kit one night, and Muddy asked for a drummer. I just walked on stage and got started. I can’t tell you anymore what it was, but Muddy liked the beat I was playing, that I remember.
I had some great time here. Just over there, that was my table. It might not look like a good place but you have a great view onto the stage and the musicians working their instruments.”
They cracked a smile together.
“Gosh, what time that was. Great music, nice drinks, smokes and pulling jokes with friends. The heating up atmosphere of a Saturday night out...
You could smell the mixture of cigar smoke and booze, could sense how you felt hotter when someone had to squeeze by, since the place was cramped and suddenly cold when they had passed.
The Blues smuggled himself through that environment, through that crowd, secretly searching for you to jump at, just at the right time. Then drawing back again, vanishing and later on to welcoming you like a friend you didn’t expect to show up. The smells and the shifting temperature is his natural habitat, makes him evolve and let himself grow into something new with every beat”
A long silence made the club its home. He looked weary.
“You okay?”
Time travel exhausts.
“Yeah, just not my kind of time.”
She questioned him with her eyes.
“Anymore.”, he added with that little flicker of a smile.
She was all awake. It was an absurd situation, her all being excited and energetic and him nearly doing off over his whiskey. She blamed it on his years. The whiskey tasted good though, definitely better the one she had had at the